This document provides an overview of racism as a literary theory known as critical race theory (CRT). It discusses CRT as an approach for examining how race and racism are portrayed in cultural works and why this approach is useful. The key tenets of CRT are also summarized, including that racism is difficult to address, often advances the interests of white elites, race is a social construct, different groups face changing racialization over time, and minority experiences provide unique perspectives. Examples are given throughout to illustrate these concepts.

1. RACISM AS A
LITERARY THEORY
Quarter 2: Lesson 2

2. MELC 1: Writing a close analysis and critical
interpretation of literary texts, applying a reading
approach, and doing an adaptation of these, require
from the learner the ability to:
a) Identify representative from Asia, North America,
Europe, Latin America, and Africa.

3. OBJECTIVES:
1. Familiarize with racism as a specific
reading approach;
2. Use racism as a literary criticism theory
to closely analysis and critically interpret a
reading selection; and
3. Write a critical reading paper of the
story using racism as a literary theory

4. TRY-
OUT

7. Activity 1. True or False
1.T
2.F (STRUCTURE)
3.F (CHARACTERIZATION)
4.T
5.F (CLIMAX)

10. The photo you have just seen
shows a relevant issue in the
society—racism. This time, try to
learn more about racism as seen in
literature.

11. LITERARY
THEORY:
RACISM

12. RACE
THEORY
(CRT)

13. - A theoretical and informational
mode that examines the appearance of
race and racism across central cultural
modes of expression.

14. Why Use
This
Approach?

15. CRT's approach to literature or
other modes of cultural expression
includes much more than simply
identifying race, racism, and
racialized characters in fictional.

16. 1. works. Rather, it (broadly) stresses the
importance of examining and attempting
to understand the socio-cultural forces
that shape how we and others perceive,
experience, and respond to racism.

17. 2. It attempts to demonstrate not only how
racism continues to be a persistent component
throughout the dominant society, but also
why this insistent racism problematically
denies individuals many of the constitutional
freedoms they are otherwise promised in the
United States’ governing documents.

18. 3. Advocates attend to the various
components that shape individual identity, it
offers a way for scholars to understand how
race interacts with other identities like
gender and class. Hence, CRT has evolved
over the last decades to address the various
concerns facing individuals affected by
racism.

19. 4. CRT scholarship does not only
draw attention to and address the
concerns of individual affected by
racism, but also those who perpetrate
and are seemingly unaffected by
racial prejudice.

20. BASIC TENETS OF CRITICAL
RACE THEORY

21. 1. Ordinariness means that racism is difficult
to address or cure because it is not
acknowledged. Color-blind, or “formal,”
conceptions of equality, expressed in rules that
insist only on treatment that is the same across
the board, can thus remedy only the most
blatant forms of discrimination.

22. 2. Interest convergence (material
determinism). Racism advances the
interests of both white elites
(materially) and working-class
whites (psychically), large segments
of society have little encouragement
to eliminate it.

23. 3. Social construction thesis holds that
race and races are products of social
thought and relations. Not objective,
inherent, or fixed, they correspond to no
biological or genetic reality; rather, races
are categories that society invents,
manipulates, or retires when convenient.

24. 4. Differential racialization and its
consequences. Critical writers in law, as
well as in social science, have drawn
attention to the ways the dominant
society racializes different minority
groups at different times, in response to
shifting needs such as the labor market.

25. •At one period, for example, society may have
had little use for blacks but much need for
Mexican or Japanese agricultural workers. In one
era, Muslims are somewhat exotic neighbors who
go to mosques and pray several times of day—
harmless but odd. A few years later, they emerge
as security threats.

26. 5. Intersectionality and Antiessentialism. No person has
a single, easily stated, unitary identity. A white feminist
may also be Jewish or a working-class or a single
mother. An African American activist may be male or
female, gay or straight. A Latino may be a Democrat, a
Republican, or even black—perhaps because that
person’s family hails from the Caribbean. Everyone has
potentially conflicting overlapping identities, loyalties,
and allegiances.

27. 6. The unique voice of color holds that because of their
different histories and experiences with oppression,
black, American Indian, Asian, and Latino writers and
thinkers may be able to communicate to their white
counterparts matters that the whites are unlikely to
know. Minority status, in other words, brings with it a
presumed competence to speak about race and racism.
The “legal storytelling” movement urges black and
brown writers to recount their experiences with racism
and the legal system and to apply their unique
perspectives to assess the law’s master narratives.

28. T A K E N O T E !!!
As a twenty-first learner, you must train yourself in critical analysis
and interpretation since it will help you give justice to the literary
piece that you're trying to analyze. As well, when we see the text
under the right lens, we get to have better understanding of people,
culture, the society and the many other facets of the world we live in.

29. Activity 2. Picture Analysis
Analyze the picture below and provide a brief
interpretation based on the discussion of
Racism as a criticism theory.
Use the common questions in the discussion
as your guide. Good luck and enjoy your task.
Use a separate sheet of paper for your answer.

31. Activity 1. Key Information
•Below is an article by US Inquirer about
a Tech CEO that unprovoked racist tirade
at the Fil-Am family last July 08, 2020.
Read and understand the article and
identify information that leads to a
discussion on Critical Race Theory.

37. After reading the article, how will you
defend or react about the baseless
accusation that had been thrown at
your family and you? How will
Racism as a literary theory be used in
this situation?

38. Are you done with your
tasks? Which task is easy
for you? Which one is
difficult for you to answer?

39. Do you find the topic relevant
to understanding the issues
that our society is currently
facing right now? Why? Why
not?

40. How did you use CRT to answer
each of the tasks in the
Enrichment Activities? Did it
make your skills in analysis and
interpretation improved?

41. If your answers to all these
questions is a big YES,
congratulations! You’ve learned a
lot of things using this module and
acquired other skills that will help
you become a twenty-first-century
learner.

42. Activity 4. What I Remember
1. What is being
tackled in the Critical
Race Theory?

43. Activity 4. What I Remember
2. Why do scholars use
the Racism ideology in
different texts, not just
in literature?

44. Activity 4. What I Remember
3. How do we
distinguish the
different tenets of
CRT?