ABSTRACT
This chapter considers critical race theory which refers to a historical and contemporary body of scholarship which aims to interrogate the discourses, ideologies and social structures which have produced and maintained conditions of racial injustice. It is grounded in the lived experiences, unique experiential knowledge and narrative voice of racialized and subordinated communities. A core theoretical framework embraced is that of racial formation – an explicitly historical and political approach to analysing race as an organizing system of knowledge and power. It is argued that we can build on the use of language critique to develop a significant critical race criminology. The origin and evolution of critical race theory parallel many of the paths traversed by the cultural movement of hip-hop in its origin, development and calculated bottom-up assault on white privilege and black oppression. The striking similarities between the two begin with the intellectual underpinnings of both movements. Thus, both serve the dual purpose of providing a race-based interdisciplinary theoretical framework for analysing laws, policies and administrative procedures which have a negative impact on racial minorities.
