‘Do Latin@ interests always have to “converge” with White interests?’: (Re)claiming racial realism and interest‐convergence in critical race theory praxis

Abstract

The interest‐convergence principle proposes that change benefitting people and communities of color only occurs when those interests also benefit Whites. As newly transplanted Chicano/a residents of a state facing exponential growth of its Latino immigrant population, we have attempted to counter the efforts criminalizing members of our Latino/a community, and have witnessed attempts to do so through an alignment of interests between Latinos/as and Whites. In this article, we examine the current scholarship regarding interest‐convergence and present a counterstory of educational leadership and politics affecting our own community. We use the counterstory to particularize and problematize how critical race theory concepts operate in real‐world situations. Ultimately, the counterstory reveals that using interest‐convergences as a political strategy divorces activism from the foundational tenets of critical race theory, preventing discussions that center race and racism and distorting Bell's original notion of this principle. We argue that claiming this approach as the primary strategy for social change, negatively affects social justice goals. Our discussion section highlights three tensions that result from this misuse, and pushes critical race scholars to better understand that the concept of interest‐convergence carries its greatest impact towards social transformation when it remains directly linked to the foregrounding of race and racism.