system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
What is the connection between critical theory and critical race theory?

As far as I can tell, they seem to be completely separate things. Some proponents of critical race theory seem eager to dismiss any connection between CRT and Marxism, presumably to anticipate and counteract some of the conservative conspiracy theories claiming that CRT is undermining Western Civilization (often through it's association with \*shudder\* Marxists. At the moment, I'm not really concerned with the conspiracy theories one way or the other, I'm just trying to understand what the two terms (CRT and CT) refer to and what, if anything, is the link between them.

So are these fields totally distinct? Is there a lineage from one to the other? Is there much overlap between the two in their contemporary instances? Does the "critical" in "critical race theory" mean the same thing it does in "critical theory"? What exactly is the connection here?
gpt
First, there's a difference between 'Critical Theory' as referring to the Frankfurt School body of work, which is Marxist, and 'critical theory' which comes out of this work but is not necessarily Marxist. It's by equivocation that conservative critics make the charge that critical theory is Marxist.

A critical theory seeks "to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them. (Horkheimer 1982)," but this doesn't necessarily entail a commitment to Marxism, either in general or any specific way, nor a repudiation of it.

The connection between critical theory and critical race theory is critical legal studies, which is critical theory applied to law. Critical race theory came out of critical legal studies by focusing on the ways in which race works within laws to maintain racially-discriminatory power structures. 

Critical theory is not a body of knowledge but an approach which challenges power structures, be it in states which are capitalist, socialist, autocratic, democratic, or whatever else. The connection is in the critique of power structures in the interest of liberating human beings from the circumstances that enslave them. In this way, critical race theory is critical theory applied toward the role that race plays in laws which perpetuate racial injustice, and this is done in the interest of reform.