Have you noticed that "critical race theory" gets used as a derogatory label (not exactly "slur" since it's not targeted at people but at a group of ideas) attached to all kinds of ideas that have basically nothing to do with the original approach within legal studies?

A bit ironic to use it this way in a post calling out new slurs, no?

I mean, I don't see a lot of people going, "I absolutely abhor the idea of using narrative in addition to evidence as a way to understand reality with an eye towards improving people's conditions." That's...not even new. It's called a "case study". Handy for knowing what's out there, not for knowing how widespread or how bad. Used responsibly, it's awesome. Used irresponsibly, it's catastrophic--imagine if we based national health policy on a case study of one woman who lived well over 100 and smoked and drank frequently. But it's not new. It is part of CRT.

Now, the attitude of "nothing makes sense except in light of white power suppressing and exploiting minorities" does tend to get called CRT these days (I guess because it is very loosely motivated by CRT's focus on how the structure of institutions can perpetuate racial inequity), even sometimes by people who take that view. But it's mostly the same kind of labeling that you're complaining about--"oh, that's critical race theory" is a way to label and dismiss rather than listen and think.

I'm fine with language changing, narrow terms becoming broad, or vice versa, and so on, as long as it doesn't lead to too much confusion. But this was a strange place to choose the broad, less-flattering definition.