ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how critics can use the theory to explore the meaning behind the images, messages, signs, and symbols that reflect racist beliefs and practices in contemporary culture. In Twenty Years of Critical Race Theory (CRT): Looking Back to Move Forward, Kimberle Williams Crenshaw notes a major flaw in mainstream media coverage in the post-Civil Rights era. The roots of CRT extend back to the 1970s when a group of legal scholars and activists realized that the waves of change following the Civil Rights era of the 1960s were not having much impact in society. In some ways the initial response of society and media coverage of life in the early years after the Civil Rights Movement gave the false impression that racism was over. During Obama’s presidential campaign, the media focused on the narrative that many in this country were excited because the readers were on the verge of “change” and had “hope” in a post-racial America.
