Politics is at the centre of feminist discourse. When we analyze feminism under the democratic framework,
“theories of equal rights or class are employed to demand/explain inclusion/exclusion; possibly at unnoticed costs related to a subscription to masculinist methodologies and explanations which are modified to apply to women. By contrast, an autonomist critique questions traditional and leftist knowledges as phallocentric or representative of male perspectives, and seeks to challenge models of knowledge as often inappropriate to women and female thinking…These critiques suggest that a re-evaluation of the feminine by female definition is a necessary step towards female autonomy; feminists must define their thinking, exposing lacks in existent theory in order to create new theory.” (Sky, 1994, p.88)
Race is a basic feature of individual identity. But as much as it has created a sense of communal identification it has also produced grave oppression across ages. Critical race theory holds that race and racism were products of European modernity. This modernity was articulated through “a homogenization of the social, legal, political and medical systems of non-Europeans”. (Sanbonmatsu, 2007, p.218) The European modernist discourse, which can be said to have commenced with the Italian Renaissance ushered an understanding that “racism interlocks with sexism and classism to form an overarching system of oppression that thrice threatens modern movements for multicultural (and/or radical) democracy”. (Rabaka, 2006, p.22) W.E.B. Du Bois’s philosophy of race is of salience here as it foreshadows contemporary critical race theory and, hence offers new paradigms and theoretic points of departure. Richard Delgado has also made important contributions to critical race theory. In his 1995 work of the same name, he states that critical race theory’s “intellectual origins embrace Critical Legal Studies, feminism, and Continental social and political philosophy. It [also] derives its inspiration from the American civil rights tradition, including Martin Luther King, W.E.B. Du Bois, Rosa Parks, and Cesar Chavez, and from nationalist movements, including Malcolm X and the Panthers”. (Rabaka, 2006, p.23)
As critical race theorists constantly remind readers, racism’s roots run profound in many societies. Though it is outwardly invisible, it does permeate the life-experience of every member of a particular society. At this post-modern moment in history, even if utter abandonment of race concepts and race-consciousness were possible,
“the material and morphological, religious and rancorous, public and private consequences of the last five hundred years of extremely racialized human existence – that is, rote racialization and racial injustice and the socio-cultural memories associated with these phenomenon – would remain.” (Rabaka, 2006, p.22)
Often racism is intertwined with imperialism to take shape as a powerful oppressive force. In the neo-colonial context, the Manichean duel of the colonist and colonized worlds is problematized. It is internalized at the heart of the neocolonial and racist structures of oppression. In many ways,