Derrick Bell

October 28, 2021

Derrick Bell has been in the news as one of the founders of Critical Race Theory

The Man Behind Critical Race TheoryAs an attorney, Derrick Bell worked on many civil-rights cases, but his doubts about their impact launched a groundbreaking school of thought.

Jelani Cobb's New Yorker essay provides an excellent overview of Derrick Bell's life and work.

Access directly by clicking on the graphic (left) or read the PDF below.

The Man Behind Critical Race Theory _ The New Yorker.pdf

Because Critical Race Theory is not well understood, it is easily misrepresented and distorted.

Below is a brief "Lesson on Critical Race Theory" from the American Bar Association (January 11, 2o21) and a recent Boston Globe article (October 20, 2021) describing just one example of how it is being weaponized, an example close to home.

A Lesson on Critical Race TheoryCoined by legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw, Critical Race Theory is the practice of interrogating race and racism in society that emerged in the legal academy and spread to other fields of scholarship.

Concord’s Middlesex School invited Nikole Hannah-Jones to speak during Black History Month. Then canceled it - The Boston GlobeNikole Hannah-Jones, the Pulitzer-Prize winning New York Times journalist who conceived The 1619 Project, said Tuesday that she was disinvited from speaking at Middlesex School, a private boarding school in Concord, during Black History Month.

To view this Boston Globe article as a PDF, click HERE.

"Fox News gave only passing thought to critical race theory until last year. The first mention on the network occurred after Bell died, in 2012. A video of President Barack Obama praising him 21 years earlier began circulating online. “Open up your minds and your hearts to the words of Mr. Derrick Bell,” Obama said. That introduction was followed by a hug between the two men, which Fox cited as further evidence of Obama’s tendency to consort with radicals." (01:17)

Atlantic The GOP’s ‘Critical Race Theory’ Obsession May 7, 2021

Many years later, Derrick Bell speaks in 2010 on racism in the era of Obama

(04:22)

One of Bell's best known books - Faces at the Bottom of the Well; the Permanence of Racism - was published in 1992.

"Bell's book, 'Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism,' ... approaches his theme indirectly, through allegory, fables and dialogues with a fictional "lawyer-prophet," a mordantly wise black woman named Geneva Crenshaw, whose role is to goad and inspire the professor-narrator to confront the truth without the sugarcoating."

... from the New York Times Archive

Read the complete review HERE

Below is his best known story from the book, "The Space Traders."

"Black people are the magical faces at the bottom of society's well. Even the poorest whites, those who must live their lives only a few levels above, gain their self-esteem by gazing down on us. Surely, they must know that their deliverance depends on letting down their ropes. Only by working together is escape possible. Over time, many reach out, but most simply watch, mesmerized into maintaining their unspoken commitment to keeping us where we are, at whatever cost to them or to us ." D.B.

Microsoft Word - Space Traders.doc.pdf

"The Space Traders uses science fiction to capture the audience’s attention. Derrick Bell is able to relate serious implications about racism in America through exaggeration by fictional characters in a dystopian America. Science fiction is a widely popular genre, entertaining people with creatively impossible themes like the aliens in this story. Because aliens coming to America to make a deal in which resources are traded for the lives of black Americans is theoretically impossible, it adds a distance between the story and reality. This distance allows the reader to enjoy the narrative without feeling attacked or even guilty of the ideals shared through the actions of the characters, but allows those ideas to be inferred with additional thought."

Derrick Bell - Charlie RoseDerrick Bell of New York University asserts that, despite the Civil Rights movement, racism is a permanent aspect of our society.

Viewed during our session on October 28