Critical Race Theory (CRT) seeks to apply the negative dialectics of critical theory to the intersection of race, law, and power in the pursuit of racial and ethnic equality in Western society. That is to say, critical race theorists seek to convict Western society for not identifying with their values due to the prevalence of racial and ethnic oppression and subordination in the society. I argue here that this pursuit of racial emancipation and anti-subordination through the negative dialectics of critical theory by critical race theorists offers a false sense of racial difference which is convicting the values of the West for an alternative ontology and epistemology upon which to re-constitute its ideals in particular and society in general. I conclude that the postmodern/poststructural emphasis on the politics of the racial and ethnic physical bodies as offering an ontological and epistemological difference from the episteme of the West is baseless. The tenets of critical race theory are a reflection or inversion of the values and ideals of the West against themselves for their non-identification, and do not offer an oppositional alternative discourse from which to replace Western ontology and epistemology for its oppression and subordination against humanity and the earth. As such, I conclude that critical race theory is a conservative discourse that offers no real substantive solution to the crisis facing humanity and the earth in the face of the Protestant Ethic and spirit of capitalism's exploitation and oppression. In fact, I want to go so far as to suggest that CRT prevents social change amidst the social and ecological devastation Western episteme has unleashed unto the world.

Ideas of race, racial identity, and racial categorization, reflect the inconsistent, context-specific and fluctuating nature of racial meaning (Nagel, 1986; Forbes, 1990; Davis, 1991; Nagel, 1994; Haney-Lopez, 1995; Ignatiev, 1995; Kibria, 1996,1998; Niven & Zilber, 2000; Morning, 2001; Lacy, 2004). Studies of racial hierarchy, specifically, enable an understanding of not only the social construction of race, but also the manner in which ideas of race operate to influence human reality.” Within the United States, race “permeates the lives of the native-born and immigrants alike” (Bashi & McDaniel, 1997, p. 686, see also Bashi, 1998). More specifically, a continuum between white and black persists and is a critical conceptual schema grounding the many manifestations of racism in the United States. This white-to-black continuum is hierarchical as well with whites at the top and blacks at the bottom (Feagin, 2000, p. 220). While the specific history of the United States facilitates this hierarchy, it has also been found beyond the borders of the United States (Small, 1994, Twine, 1998).

These reflections are based on a long history of study and involvement in the Black movement in the United States, on friendships with militants in the Brazilian Black movement, and on study of that movement. They arise directly from musings occasioned by comments made by an undergraduate white student in my course, Politics of the African Diaspora, and by my observation of a couple on the Avenida Sete de Setembro in Salvador, Bahia.

The islands of Hawaii are well-known for their unique level of racial heterogeneity and admixture, overt norms of racial tolerance and harmony, and temperate climate. Of central interest to the social scientist is the manner in which racial and cultural blending take place in such a complex society, particularly among those of mixed racial origin; Hawaii provides a social laboratory in which to study such processes in depth. This paper, viewing racial identity as an important index of intergroup relations, examines the racial identities and related reasons of forty high school adolescents in Hawaii in order to highlight controlling factors of the social environment.