CRM 3301 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Critical Race Theory, Racialization, Phenotype

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Criminology
• Course: CRM 3301
• Professor: Baljit Nagra

Document Summary

Aims to uncover and critique racially oppressive social structures, meanings, and ideas for the purposes of combating racism. Believes that the construct of race" has been a central aspect of modern social organization and modern forms of knowledge like human biology, medicine, law, and crime. Theorizes racism as embedded in social structures, practices, and institutions. Scientific research has shown that the genetic differences among human groups that we view as races are inconsistent and insignificant. Society assumes racial categories and takes them seriously, but they do so for social and not biological reasons. Race is just a product of human perception and classification. It was originally thought of as a genetically distinct subpopulation of a given species. Racial categorization typically is a matter of categorizing individuals based on phenotypical differences differences of facial characteristics, skin colour, hair texture, and so forth.