Understanding Critical Consciousness

 In beginning of this chapter I read, “a multiperspective positioning is not synonymous with CT or critical theories (lowercase to reflect expanded notions of criticality that directly and expressly address race, class, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and their intersectionality)” (3). This statement made me wonder what the authors meant by multiperspective and how so many researchers could not incorporate these different diversities. With further reading and explanation Willis et al. describes “critical consciousness” as “multiple and shifting definitions of critical theory and expanding applications” (3). With this response I was hopeful that the writers were not above diversity. Through Kant, Hegel, and Marx, the authors looked at their ideas in response to their CT of critical consciousness. 

In the different views of Kant, Hegel, and Marx, we as researchers, should recognize that historical context and the philosophical understanding of identity within ones social group. However, the identities with in the social groups the philosophers speak of generally involve this aristocracy and higher class of white people. Now, I am aware that Kant’s, Hegel’s, and Marx’s ideas are in relation to society and western culture during the time they wrote about consciousness, but I question their philosophical ideas in relation to incorporating a multiperspective to CT. With further reading, Willis et al. explained the association in simple terms as “a connection among consciousness, race/ethnicity, and gender that perpetuated the idea of an inferior status of people of Color and women, and thereby supported colonialism and imperialism” (12). The authors go on to say that, “current critical theorizing seeks to more openly address race/ethnicity and gender, moving oppression and its intersection with class from the margins to the center or criticality” (12).  I found that the authors’ responses to the three philosophers were insightful; in that, I could recognize why the ‘individual’ responses of Kant, Hegel, and Marx are reflections of society and incorporate gender, race, and ethnicity.

This understanding continued as I read chapter three. I could relate back to the three philosophers in comparison to the different sections. Especially with the Critical Race Theory, which “sought to ‘reexamine the terms by which race and racism have been negotiated in American consciousness, and to recover and revitalize the radical tradition of race-consciousness among African Americans and other peoples of Color’” (34). With this theory, I was extremely moved when I read the Critical Indigenous Theory. Being part Cherokee and an active researcher on Native American culture, this section further intrigued my interest because it incorporated value and understanding of a people and their culture. With this section and first chapter in mind, I understand the difficulty of being critically conscious within critical theory. As much as I disagree with what the three philosophers ideas were, there were more people who ignored the fact that Native Americans were even citizens. With that, I am curious about what the rest of this book entails.