Angela P. Harris

Race and Essentialism in Feminist Legal Theory

knew by heart the forms of the southern clouds at dawn on the 30th of April, 1882, and could compare them in his memory with the mottled streaks on a book in Spanish binding he had only seen once and with the outlines of the foam raised by an oar in the Rio Negro the night before the Quebracho uprising. These memories were not simple ones; each visual image was linked to muscular sensations, thermal sensations, etc. He could reconstruct all his dreams, all his half-dreams. Two or three times he had reconstructed a whole day; he never hesitated, but each reconstruction had required a whole day.3

Equality Trouble: Sameness and Difference in Twentieth-Century Race Law

TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ............................................................................................. 1925 I. The First Reconstruction: Prelude to the Twentieth Century ......... 1930 A. The Legal Structure of the First Reconstruction ....................... 1931 B. Dismantling Reconstruction: The Southern Redemption ......... 1936 II. Race Law in the Age Of Difference ................................................. 1937 A. Civilization and Self-Determination: The Increasing Importance of Race .................................................................... 1938 B. Race Law and Nonwhite Subjects in the Age of D ifference .................................................................................. 1943 1. Plenary Power and Nonwhite Citizens: Beyond the Scope of Equality ................................................................ 1943 2. Equality in an Age of Difference: Nonwhite Citizens and the End of Emancipation .............................................. 1957 a. Turning Domination into Difference ............................ 1962 b. Nonstate Action as Race Law ....................................... 1966 C. Race Law and White Subjects in the Age of Difference: Maintaining the Quality of Whiteness ................... 1974 1. Whiteness and Nationalism: Americanizing Non-Anglo-Saxons ............................................................. 1974

Beyond the First Decade: A Forward-Looking History of LatCrit Theory, Community and Praxis

Part I of this Afterword sketches an overview of the jurisprudential and intellectual precursors that have influenced the emergence and development of LatCrit theory during this past decade. Part II turns squarely to the origins and the efforts of this enterprise, as we have endeavored to articulate the LatCrit subject position in socially relevant ways. Part III explains the special emphasis on internationalism manifest both in our symposia and more broadly in our portfolio of projects. Part IV then concludes with an outline of some key points that might help to inform our second-decade agenda. In presenting our account of this collective endeavor, we hope both to explain the vision that has guided our work thus far, as well as to welcome critical and self-critical rejoinders that might help present a more complete picture of this complex undertaking.

Living with racism in education and society: Derrick Bell’s ethical idealism and political pragmatism

Derrick Bell’s pronouncement and challenge that racism is likely permanent has captured the imagination of Critical Race Theorists in education. Equally important are his ideas about living with the concrete conditions of racism. This article focuses on a tension within Bell’s work. On the one hand, his writings are characterized by a certain ‘racial realism.’ In this perspective, Bell encourages race scholars and activists to abandon notions of one day ending racism. On the other hand, Bell also retains a certain idealism, most evident in his appeal to the ethical dimensions of critical race work. He invites intellectuals to join him in fighting racism even if the prospects for change are sometimes bleak. In his life as well as his work, Bell willingly sacrificed prestige and financial security for his ideals, and seemed puzzled when his friends and colleagues were reluctant to do the same. Bell’s racial realism and ethical idealism comprise two – sometimes warring – moments that permeate his work.

From 'The Art of War' to 'Being Peace': Mindfulness and Community Lawyering in a Neoliberal Age

Through a case study and lawyer narrative describing the role of the East Bay Community Law Center (EBCLC) in a housing development struggle in West Oakland, California, this Article explores the intersection of the practice of community lawyering with the practice of mindfulness. Mindfulness is a practice that cultivates the conscious interplay between the interior world of self and the outer world of relationships. A small literature on law and mindfulness has emerged, in which mindfulness is prescribed both as a palliative for an ailing profession and a model for increased attentiveness to the needs of clients. This Article suggests that mindfulness is also relevant to the practice of advocating for community economic justice. Part I describes the implications for Oakland of the shift in the U.S. political economy to a post-industrial, neoliberal regime. Part II describes EBCLCs Community Economic Justice practice. Part III provides a case study of a struggle in which private developers, local residents and city officials squared off over the nature and implications of the largest market-rate housing development so far in the history of West Oakland. Through a first-person narrative, lead attorney Margaretta Lin reflects on the lessons of this struggle through the lens of mindfulness. Part IV offers a tentative theory on the practice of mindful lawyering. We suggest that mindfulness can be more than a self-help practice for the legal profession. Mindfulness can help community lawyers balance a central tension in their work: how best to advocate on behalf of subordinated and disenfranchised communities within the existing political economy while holding fast to a vision of civic life that is more diverse, transparent and participatory.

Intersectionality, Race-Gender Subordination, and Education.

In this chapter, we unpack intersectionality as an analytical framework. First, we cite Black Lives Matter as an impetus for discussing intersectionality’s current traction. Second, we review the genealogy of “intersectionality” beginning with Kimberlé Crenshaw’s formulation, which brought a Black Studies provocation into legal discourse in order to challenge existing antidiscrimination doctrine and single-axis theorizing. The third, and most central, task of the chapter is our account of intersectionality’s utility for social analysis. We examine some of the issues raised by the metaphor of the intersection and some of the debates surrounding the concept, such as the tension between fragmenting and universalizing perspectives mediated by the notion of “strategic essentialism.” Fourth, we review how education researchers have explained race and gender subordination in education since Ladson-Billings and Tate’s Teachers College Record article. We conclude with some remarks concerning future research on intersectionality.

Compassion and Critique

Perhaps with the experience of caring. Caring happens in the body and in the moment: a quick squirt of oxytocin, a firing of mirror neurons, the sudden perception of a link between the socalled self and the so-called other. Caring is unpredictable and unwilled, a reaction, an eruption along the shifting surfaces between you and not-you, suddenly experienced in the “flinching of an eye.” Kathleen Stewart describes an observer’s emotional reaction to the pain of another: