Blocking CRT: How the Emotionality of Whiteness Blocks CRT in Urban Teacher Education

Although Critical Race Theory (CRT) has been applied to teacher education, it has yet to be meaningfully integrated into the core of urban teacher education programs. The reticence to embrace CRT is largely due to the overwhelming presence of Whiteness, despite Sleeter's (2001) demand for diversification. This theoretically interpretative article employs CRT's methodology of counterstorytelling to interrogate how Whiteness manifests itself in emotional ways, like fetishism and sentimentalization, and how such emotions are the root of resistance toward CRT in teacher education. Drawing from Black feminism and Critical Whiteness Studies, we utilize emotionally-based theories to illustrate the importance of CRT in teacher education, to identify barriers to CRT, and to recommend how teacher education can more genuinely reinvest in antiracism.