BOYCOTTS AFF/NEG
BOYCOTT AFF/NEG
1AC/1NC
SEGREGATION HARMS
SEGREGATION AND THE HIGHWAY SYSTEM
STATUS QUO BUS TRANSIT FAILS
SEGREGATION AND WEALTH HARMS
SEGREGATION AND ENVIRONMENTAL HARMS
RACISM AND GLOBAL WARMING
STATE BAD
RACE IS CENTRAL
AT: OBAMA PROVES POST-RACIALITY
WHITE PRIVILEGE = UNFAIR BENEFITS FOR WHITE PEOPLE
BOYCOTT SOLVENCY
AT: WAR CLAIMS
AFF PERM CARD
AT: DESTROY COALITIONS
AT: CAP K/ FEM K: INTERSECTIONALITY TURN
AT: DISCOURSE IS IRRELEVANT
AT: INTEREST CONVERGENCE
FRAMEWORK
FRAMEWORK = MAINTAIN RACISM
AT: FRAMEWORK – IDEAL THEORY K
AT: FRAMEWORK: FAIRNESS
AT FRAMEWORK: EDUCATION K SPACE
AT: K OF PRIVILEGE THEORY
RADICAL POETRY SOLVES
SOCIAL LOCATION KEY
WHITE STUDENT ACTIVISM
A2 BOYCOTT NEG/AFF
NEG: FRAMEWORK – IDEAL THEORY
NEG: AT: WHITENESS
NEG: CAP K LINK
NEG: IDENTITY POLITICS
NEG: K OF PRIVILEGE DISCUSSIONS
NEG: A2: CRITICAL RACE THEORY
NEG: CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVISM FAILS
2
3
14
18
20
21
22
23
26
33
34
38
40
42
47
49
52
55
57
64
65
68
72
74
76
79
82
83
85
86
89
90
91
100
105
117
Boycott AFF/Neg
1AC/1NC
Federal transportation policy has been designed to produce and maintain racial
segregation - demonizing the urban, largely minority poor, the transportation highway
machine fundamentally restructured the American city leaving the poor to waste
away in environments with limited resources while facilitating the white middle class
exodus to the suburbs - in the status quo the state has funded urban renewal projects
that are more about negro removal and have decimated inner-city minority
communities in the name of progress. Kevin Kuswa, former professor at the University
of Richmond writes in 2002:
Kuswa, Director of Debating at the University of Richmond, 2 (Winter 2002, Kevin Douglas,
The Journal of Law in Society, “Suburbification, Segregation, and the Consolidation of the
Highway Machine,” vol. 31, no. 3, LexisNexis, JS)
Significant to enabling this coalition was the postwar subsidization of the suburban white
life-style, including the construction of interstate freeways. The other side of white suburban
security was the entrenchment of poor people of colour in central cities, and....the role
freeway construction played in this entrenchment. Freeway and suburban segregation also
creates the distancing which allows the distorted narrative of the inner city described in the
first section to become widely accepted. n46 Fotsch initially contends "the freeway is part of
dominant narratives which view African-American and Latino residents of the central city as
largely responsible for the conditions of poverty and violence amidst which they live." n47
The pincer movement occurs when the urban highway materializes the stratification of
groups based on race and class. The rhetoric of blame-creating a status of victim by
arguing that certain people deserve their immobility-is Page 7 3 J.L. Soc'y 31, *47
complemented by a highway machine that allows an extreme differentiation between
living conditions within a limited region. It becomes natural to blame people for
inadequate living conditions in order to justify inaction. Fotsch concentrates on Los
Angeles and urban California, but the same process marks the history of Houston,
Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit and many other east coast cities. Charting the way
interstate throughways divided Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore,
Washington, D.C., Richmond, and Atlanta is but one string of examples. During the
1950s the "auto freeway transportation system...helped to create the ghettos," n48
[*50] and now those same highways have joined a technological narrative that helps to
legitimate the ghettos. The state continues to invade the formation of the suburb and
the urban fringe by allocating resources in selective ways. State policies attempt to
capture transportation and residential planning, simultaneously entrenching certain
racist practices. Urban highways after 1956, in particular, were constructed according to
fairly uniform standards set up by the Bureau of Public Roads in the Yellow Book. The
urban highway is, simply, a wide path of limited access roadway, usually raised with at least
two lanes available in each direction. The effects of these highways are severe and
physical, especially their "connection to the suburban goal of escaping urban
populations." n49 More pernicious than the urge to escape, the connection to suburbia
made it easy to label urban populations as "poor" and "radical" and constitutive of a culture
of new immigrants. n50 The logic of the suburbs implied that the run-down areas of a city
were regions occupied by minorities. In instances where the actual suburb was not
predominantly inhabited by whites, those places still tended to be racially homogenous and
the suburb was always a means of separating economic classes. The city polarized into a
few high rent districts and a number of highly populated low rent districts. The highway
generated an explicitly racist boundary by isolating large numbers of people from
one another. Certainly buses and consumer spots at highway exits offered locations for
human contact, but not the same type of human interchange that previously occurred on
trains. The place of the highway displaced residents through isolation, while simultaneously
displacing urban communities by racing and subordinating certain populations. All this was
done in addition to the highway's absorption of a vast amount of already limited land. Thus,
the suburb carries along with it a distancing of its occupants-a distancing generated by the
individualized nature of urban freeways. The distance between people justified itself by
demonizing the congestion of the city, associating that congestion with poverty and
[*51] violence and essentializing minority populations as dangerous. The suburbs
constructed the city as inherently violent, an unpredictable instability that could not
"be contained on public transit." n51 The urban freeway permitted selective access to
city resources for suburbanites, but also put up an arbitrary shield between the
productive output of the highway and the violent residents of surrounding
neighborhoods. Compared to subways, trains, buses, and other mass transit, the
freeway shaped "a particular distracted experience of everyday life" and became "a
symbol of isolation and isolatability." n52 Car-jackings, drive-by shootings, and highspeed chases all add risks to the highway cocoon, but urban freeways still stretch endlessly
into the suburbs, promising the security and luxury of home (for some) at a comfortable
distance from the city. Demonizing minority communities as poor and violent
simultaneously charts the suburb as white and wealthy. The highway machine has
directly assisted in, and perhaps even been constitutive of, a segregated metropolis.
Fotsch argues that from the beginning of the 1900s, the suburb has drained the city of its
life and marginalized the city's radiant diversity. Suburban residents continued to enter the
central city even though they no longer paid taxes to urban governments, draining it of its
resources and contributing less and less to its maintenance. The highway facilitated this
siphoning, placing a suction cup over the vitality of the city's core. Fotsch also points out
that these effects of the suburb were based on race as well as income: "As southern
blacks began to migrate to northern and western cities during and after the First
World War," isolationist whites diverted their capital to nearby suburbs. n53 Race
intensified as a factor when the economy expanded after World War II and large
numbers of white Americans were able to take advantage of a conjunction between
suburban highways and the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). Catapulted by
two decades of restrictive [*52] covenants that prohibited renting or selling property
to blacks in certain neighborhoods, the FHA was able to continue practices of overt
discrimination. A disciplinary array of containment mechanisms collected
themselves within housing, transportation, and public expenditures. Less than equal
provisions were allocated to low-income and minority zones, districts, quadrants, or
any other complex descriptor for the various "wrong" sides of the track. The racial
grids for dwelling acted to capture human territories and integrate multiple forms of
exclusion into an apparatus of geographic privilege. Since its inception in 1934, the
Federal Housing Administration began granting long-term amortized mortgages for the
purchasing of homes. These loans were federally insured and were generally granted "for
home purchases in the suburbs" which were already being subsidized by federal spending
on urban highways. n54 The FHA also rejected loans in minority areas Page 8 3 J.L. Soc'y
31, *49 even though the Supreme Court struck down racial covenants in 1948. n55 Well into
the 60s, "FHA policy and overt discrimination on the part of banks and real estate agents
helped keep suburbs exclusively white." n56 Citing a comprehensive study of the making of
the underclass in the United States, Fotsch reports that the Fair Housing Act of 1968 n57
prohibited housing discrimination. Massey and Denton are quick to note that the de jure
prohibition of discrimination did not translate into de facto equality. Making discrimination
illegal, as in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, n58 did not reverse institutional and
structural racism. If anything, the Department of Housing and Urban Development
was simply a mask on top of pernicious racism. n59 Indeed, the FHA was never given
the [*53] legal authority to prosecute (or even investigate) discrimination. Massey and
Denton assert that because of the weak detection powers of the Department of Housing
and Urban Development, realtors and banks continued to block attempts by minorities to
buy property in white suburbs. n60 It is here where Fotsch's historical narrative of housing
discrimination crosses paths with the highway machine and the Interstate Highway Act of
1956. This juxtaposition marks a racist consolidation of interests and arrangements. If
nothing else, the energy and social mobilization of the 1960s was a cumulative reaction to
forms of segregation approaching pre-Civil War extremes. Geographic constrictions on
property ownership and residency, not to mention the limited access of highways, played
(and play) immense roles in physical banishment and racial oppression in America. Most
discussions of the Federal-Aid Highway Act omit a direct consideration of racism and
possible racist deployments of highways and suburbs. Gleaning perspective from
these varied histories, it is important to add considerations of race to any map of the
suburbs. The middle-class whites of the suburbs were able to increase their living
standards by enjoying consumer spending fueled by equity in their homes and the
deduction of property taxes from their income taxes. Housing and highways
intertwined to perpetuate white privilege. When urban renewal projects did take place,
they encouraged gentrification and high-rent commercial development. In some instances,
the city was re-colonized when the highway tore apart minority communities and city
planners re-built infrastructure that did not benefit the shattered neighborhoods. Fotsch
claims "'urban renewal' came to be understood as a euphemism for 'negro removal.'"
n61 In sum, a governing apparatus operating through housing and the highway
machine implemented policies to segregate and maintain the isolation of poor,
minority, and otherwise outcast populations. The accounts of segregation and
isolation continue to this day. Some suburbs have diversified from some angles (multicultural [*54] communities), but maintained their stratifying function from other angles (gated
fortresses protecting pockets of elitist wealth). Working through discourses of containment
and the perspectives of critical whiteness can offer a challenge to such arrangements,
however, if only by adding to our understandings of the highway machine, suburbia, and the
urban environment.
Federal commitment to the highway system has not only economically disadvantaged
poor, Black and Brown communities in the inner city, it has produced an environment
with hazardous air pollution and rising rates of vehicular homicide. Mary Springs in
2007 argues that the death rates are real and yet we continue on a transportation
trajectory that makes poor people of color just collateral damage in the march toward
greater consumption of resources
Springs 2007(Mary Alice, “Inequity in Transport: The Problem with Auto Hegemony.” Chrestomathy:
Annual Review of Undergraduate Researcher, Annual Review of Undergraduate Research, School of
Humanities and Social Sciences, School of Languages, Cultures, and World Affairs Volume 6, 2007:
198-209; http://chrestomathy.cofc.edu/archives/volume6.php). SJ
Economically disadvantaged communities not only suffer from limited access to transportation, but they
also suffer another terrible side effect of our “love affair with the automobile.” Because highways are
more likely to be built through these communities, these residents are more likely to suffer physical
ailments and higher rates of mortality associated with vehicular air pollution and pedestrian-auto
collisions. According to Douglas Houston et al., “Vehicle traffic remains a major and often dominant
source of air pollution” (566). The authors further argue recent scientific research shows a positive
correlation between vehicular air pollution and a variety of adverse medical conditions (566). Such
medical conditions include eye irritation, lung cancer, asthma, upper respiratory tract irritation and
infection, exacerbation of and increased mortality from cardio-respiratory diseases, low birth weight,
and cancer. Studies have shown the prevalence of health disparities between different demographic
groups as they relate to their neighborhood proximity to high volume traffic roadways. William Shutkin
writes, “People of color, who live in cities to a far greater extent than whites, are disproportionately
exposed to urban air pollution” (75). It has been stated that low-income minority groups tend to suffer
more frequently from asthma and, as a result, are hospitalized and have a higher mortality rate than
other demographic groups (Houston et al. 568). Houston et al. add to this discussion by noting that
environmental justice research has confirmed a relationship “ between a neighborhood’s racial and
socioeconomic composition and proximity to hazardous air pollution” in Los Angeles (568). A study
done by Michelle Wilhelm and Beate Ritz shows that air pollution from vehicles not only affects the
living but unborn children as well. Wilhelm and Ritz found a ten to twenty percent increase in the
occurrence of low birth weight and pre-term births of infants of mothers “living close to heavily traveled
roadways” (211). In a study of 5,000 people, “those who lived near a major road or highway were twice
as likely to die from cardiovascular or respiratory disease as those who did not” (Hoek et al.
1203). There has also been evidence that suggests that children who live in close proximity to heavy
traffic roads face a higher risk of childhood cancer, particularly leukemia (Pearson et al. 179). Hence,
there is a growing amount of empirical evidence suggesting that people who live in close proximity to
high volume traffic roads are at a higher risk for a number of health complications and lower life
expectancy. As property values of these typically undesirable home sites are lower, low-income minority
residents are more likely to live in these areas and thus suffer the most from the traffic related air
pollution to which they do not contribute.
This is not just an economic issue - Race plays a central role in determining what
populations are most likely to experience the environmental harms of ecological
catastrophe - As our environment begins to change, it is people of color that receive
the disporportional burden of resource depletion, toxic dumping and climate change
- Racialized environmental degradation are a legacy of racialization and colonialism
Feldman and Hsu, scholar of American culture and a lecturer
And Associate professor of English, 07 (2007, Mark B. and Hsuan “Introduction: Race,
Environment, and reproduction,” Volume 29 Numbers 2 & 3 pp. 199-214)
Climate change, deforestation, food and water shortages, and the steady increase in
nuclear and chemical pollutants are just some of the risk factors that might affect the
viability of “planetary life.” Still, as Buell points out, the increasing prominence of ecological
catastrophe does not signal a shift away from the problem of the color line. Race continues
to play an active role in distinguishing between those who are relatively protected
from (or compensated for) environmental harm and “most of the earth’s inhabitants,”
who are left with the disproportionate burdens and not the material benefits of
resource depletion, toxic dumping, and climate change. The distribution of
environmental burdens and risks reflects the legacies of racialization and colonialism,
and cannot be analyzed or remedied without attending to problems of racial
inequality and geographically uneven development. If environmental criticism endorses
an egocentric outlook or land ethic that includes the earth itself in our sense of Discourse,
community, it must also come to terms with Du Bois’s observation that “whiteness is the
ownership of the earth forever and ever, Amen!”
As the last vestiges of Jim Crow racism were outlawed through federal legislation,
overt practices of racial segregation could no longer be maintained through
direct legal means, control over space and the bodies that occupy them became
the new means of instituting Jim Crow style segregation with all of the attendant
consequences to poor communities of color. The architectural design of cities,
highway systems and the suburbs were designed to use spatial dynamics to
reproduce white supremacy
Edwards & Bennett, 10 - *Associate Professor at the School of Accountancy and Legal
Studies at Clemson University, AND **Principal at AAG Associates at Beaufort (Principal at
AAG Associates, “The Legal Creation of Raced Space: The Subtle and Ongoing
Discrimination Created Through Jim Crow Laws,” LexisNexis, JS)
Space is a fundamental element of both legal studies and architecture. In both fields,
boundaries define and codify space. The physical built environment mediates the
relationships between the boundaries imposed by law and the experience of space by
individuals. Defining space in the legal sense is, for the most part, an exercise of the mind.
A parcel of property is a space which has legally significant geometric limits and dimensions
that may follow some physical feature of the land. Usually there are no physical
manifestations of actual lines that separate different properties. However, these boundaries
have great legal significance because they afford rights and privileges. Jim Crow Laws were
unique, in that the enactments limited African Americans' access to space. During the Jim
Crow Era, legally imposed geopolitical boundaries translated into physical conditions. In
Race, Place and the Law, David Delaney comments, "segregation, integration, and
separation are spatial processes ... ghettos and exclusionary suburbs are spatial
entities ... access, [*149] exclusion, confinement, sanctuary, forced or forcibly limited
mobility are spatial experiences." n7 Spatial definition in a segregated environment is
linked to power. The effect of discriminatory ordinances of the Jim Crow Era is that
"architecture evokes and enables certain forms of life while constraining others with
both walls and sanctions." n8 In this context, the built environment embodies and
exemplifies the power structure that either produced it or allowed for its production. Race
and racism heavily influenced space in the South. French theorist, Henri Lefebvre states,
"the preconditions of social space have their own particular way of enduring and remaining
actual within space." n9 The purpose of the Jim Crow Laws was to define, control, and
enforce social practices in the early 1900s. These laws, through the manipulation of
both property tenure and property rights, created de facto power for the White
majority by classifying space by race. The racially motivated power structure in the
South persists to this day. Many of the small towns throughout the South continue to
reflect segregation laws and practices. Many areas that were once segregated areas of
towns still form central areas of the populations they serve. Commercial areas, religious
centers, and neighborhoods created during the Segregation Era often persist along racial
lines. This power structure and its spatial ramifications are understood not only through
social analysis, but also and more significantly, through the examination of the territorial
boundaries that first created racial confrontations in the communities throughout the United
States. Page 3 12 Berkeley J. Afr.-Am. L. & Pol'y 145, *147 Segregation laws resulted in
space that was treated to emphasize the race that inhabited it. Space continued to change
in these instances to reflect the culture and unique social needs of African Americans.
During slavery "[the] planters' landscapes were laid out with straight lines, right-angle
corners, and axes of symmetry, their mathematical precision being considered as a proof of
individual superiority." n10 The physical layout of the plantation system emphasized White
dominance through "centrality" of the White plantation owners, while also providing physical
boundaries that acted as social buffers between the races. n11 Segregation on the other
hand, moved beyond the mere concept of centrality of Whites to a more extreme exclusion
of African Americans based on territorial boundaries. Segregation laws effectively reduced
meaningful space to mere forms of occupation. It was no longer important what the
meaning of the space was, only who occupied it and the rights the occupants had within
that space. Space in this sense is abstracted to the fullest, losing any need to follow
symbolic formal expressions. [*150] The physical manifestations of segregation are
enormous. Segregation created an actual "experience" within space that was far
more important than the physicality of the space itself. Kim Dovey states, "place
experience and the spatial strategies that sustain it are not mutually exclusive
positions but each contains the necessity of the other." n12 Jim Crow Laws not only
impacted defined space, but more importantly, dramatically altered the social
experience of individuals interacting within that space. During the Jim Crow Era,
space did not exist without preconditions of race. Therefore, access to space was
assigned meaning. The translation of Jim Crow Laws into the built environment was
intended to maintain an existing social construct of White supremacy. However,
some African Americans confronted the prevailing social construct in physical ways
through the manipulation of the built environment through access and boundary
manipulation.
It is the commitment to maintaining white supremacy through the logic of capitalism
that results in the disposability of black and brown bodies. A tragic end to American
society is inevitable - white supremacy creates a discursive blindfold over the eyes of
the people allowing the government to maim and murder in their name - This society
will perish unless we confront and dismantle white supremacy
BALDWIN
noted author and Civil Rights Activist 1970
James-; HISTORY IS A WEAPON; An Open Letter to My Sister, Angela Davis; November 19; taken from If
They come in the Morning: Voices of Resistance (1971) Angela Y. Davis, Ruchell Magee, the Soledad
Brothers, and Other Political Prisoners; http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/itcitmbaldwin.html
The American triumph—in which the American tragedy has always been implicit—was to make
Black people despise themselves. When I was little I despised myself; I did not know any better. And
this meant, albeit unconsciously, or against my will, or in great pain, that I also despised my father.
And my mother. And my brothers. And my sisters. Black people were killing each other every
Saturday night out on Lenox Avenue, when I was growing up; and no one explained to them, or to
me, that it was intended that they should; that they were penned where they were, like animals, in
order that they should consider themselves no better than animals. Everything supported this sense
of reality, nothing denied it: and so one was ready, when it came time to go to work, to be treated
as a slave. So one was ready, when human terrors came, to bow before a white God and beg Jesus
for salvation—this same white God who was unable to raise a finger to do so little as to help you
pay your rent, unable to be awakened in time to help you save your child!
There is always, of course, more to any picture than can speedily be perceived and in all of this—
groaning and moaning, watching, calculating, clowning, surviving, and outwitting, some tremendous
strength was nevertheless being forged, which is part of our legacy today. But that particular aspect
of our journey now begins to be behind us. The secret is out: we are men!
But the blunt, open articulation of this secret has frightened the nation to death. I wish I could
say, "to life," but that is much to demand of a disparate collection of displaced people still cowering
in their wagon trains and singing "Onward Christian Soldiers." The nation, if America is a nation, is
not in the least prepared for this day. It is a day which the Americans never expected to see,
however piously they may declare their belief in progress and democracy. Those words, now, on
American lips, have become a kind of universal obscenity: for this most unhappy people, strong
believers in arithmetic, never expected to be confronted with the algebra of their history.
One way of gauging a nation's health, or of discerning what it really considers to be its
interests—or to what extent it can be considered as a nation as distinguished from a coalition of
special interests—is to examine those people it elects to represent or protect it. One glance at the
American leaders (or figureheads) conveys that America is on the edge of absolute chaos, and also
suggests the future to which American interests, if not the bulk of the American people, appear
willing to consign the Blacks. (Indeed, one look at our past conveys that.) It is clear that for the
bulk of our (nominal) countrymen, we are all expendable. And Messrs. Nixon, Agnew, Mitchell,
and Hoover, to say nothing, of course, of the Kings' Row basket case, the winning Ronnie Reagan,
will not hesitate for an instant to carry out what they insist is the will of the people.
But what, in America, is the will of the people? And who, for the above-named, are the people?
The people, whoever they may be, know as much about the forces which have placed the abovenamed gentlemen in power as they do about the forces responsible for the slaughter in Vietnam.
The will of the people, in America, has always been at the mercy of an ignorance not merely
phenomenal, but sacred, and sacredly cultivated: the better to be used by a carnivorous economy
which democratically slaughters and victimizes whites and Blacks alike. But most white
Americans do not dare admit this (though they suspect it) and this fact contains mortal danger for
the Blacks and tragedy for the nation.
Or, to put it another way, as long as white Americans take refuge in their whiteness—for so
long as they are unable to walk out of this most monstrous of traps—they will allow millions of
people to be slaughtered in their name, and will be manipulated into and surrender themselves
to what they will think of—and justify—as a racial war. They will never, so long as their whiteness
puts so sinister a distance between themselves and their own experience and the experience of
others, feel themselves sufficiently human, sufficiently worthwhile, to become responsible for
themselves, their leaders, their country, their children, or their fate. They will perish (as we once
put it in our black church) in their sins —that is, in their delusions. And this is happening, needless
to say, already, all around us.
The disposability of the black body necessitates the urgency of an immediate end to
the oppressive structures of whiteness – While we debate about goals vs methods of
confronting oppression – real black and brown bodies endure pain, suffering, and
death – Our impact is happening now – the question is whether or not these peoples
lives are worth anything in the evaluative frame of policymaking
Yancey 08 professor at University of North Texas George Black Bodies, White Gazes:the
continuing significance of race Published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Co-Editor
Associate Professor of Philosophy
Although there are many white antiracists who do fight and will continue to fight against the
operations of white power, and while it is true that the regulatory power of whiteness will
invariably attempt to undermine such efforts, it is important that white antiracists realize how
much is at stake. While antiracist whites take time to get their shit together, a luxury
that is a species of privilege, Black bodies and bodies of color continue to suffer,
their bodies cry out for the political and existential urgency for the immediate
undoing of the oppressive operations of whiteness. Here, the very notion of the timidity
of poral gets racialized. My point here is that even as whites take the time to theorize the
complexity of whiteness, revealing its various modes of resistance to radical
transformation, Black bodies continue to endure tremendous pain and suffering.
Doing theory in the service of undoing whiteness comes with its own snares and seductiOns,
its own comfort zones, and reinscription of distances. Whites who deploy theory in the
service of fighting against white racism must caution against the seduction of white
narcissism, the recentering of whiteness, even if it is the object of critical reflection, and,
hence, the process of sequestration from the real world of weeping, suffering, and
traumatized Black bodies impacted by the operations of white power. As antiracist
whites continue to make mistakes and continue to falter in the face of institutional
interpellation and habituated racist reflexes, tomorrow, a Black body will be
murdered as it innocently reaches for its wallet. The sheer weight of this reality
mocks the patience of theory.
Advocacy Statement: We boycott the resolution. The state has already proven itself
an unethical actor specifically in the area of transportation infrastructure investment.
Federal policy developed, participated in and actively maintained transportation
apartheid and racial segregation, dumping billions of our tax dollars into a highway
system designed to separate the urban, poor people of color from the white middle to
upper class.
The harms we identify cannot be resolved through a single federal policy action, the
federal governments culpability is so extensive that a thorough interrogation and
reformulation of federal policy around transportation, education, housing, and
environmental protection would be necessary to reverse decades of government
sponsored, protected and maintained racism.
Only social movement and activism will force the kind of conversation about racism,
capitalism and segregation can target the dynamics of power that interact to maintain
the oppression of poor people and poor people of color.
And, the exclusions we identify in the broader structure of federal transportation
policy are replicated in the exclusionary practices in the debate space. The vision of
debate as a white male policy maker factory is detrimental to our society and
government. Traditional debate ensures the maintenance of a white supremacist
hetero-patriarchy, through its idealization of the white, middle class, male body as
the iconic image of debate success. The norms and practices of traditional debate
simply contribute to this endless cycle of segregation, racism, and poverty that
dominates our society today. Questioning these practices is essential to our survival.
While debating in this fiat world of the resolution, traditional debate continues to pretend that
the USFG is an ethical actor committed to helping the people. The community actively ignores the
problems of oppression and subjugation in our own communities where we use diversity to hide
the fact that racial minorities, particularly African-Americans, remain a statistical minority far
below their representation in the general population. Just as the USFG turns a blind eye to the
suffering of the poor and poor people of color in inner-cities across the nation, seemingly
colorblind or neutral practices result in segregation and inequality in our own community,
guaranteeing that the playing field is not level and those who lack resources or the social status of
race and/or gender privilege are more consistently the losers than the winners.
Transportation infrastructure is a key ground for building civil rights style activism Historically, the Civil Rights Movement used segregation in transportation policy as a
lynchpin for attacking racial inequality. From the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott, to
the 1961 freedom rides transportation politics has been a catalyst for racial justice
movement. In the status quo numerous movements in inner cities around the country
are confronting federal, state, and local policy as unjust, unfair and illegal. This years
debate topic offers a unique opportunity for us as students to learn about activist
strategies in confronting inequitable state policies and to engage in a direct action
tactic to stand in solidarity with movements against transportation racism
Bullard, Dean of the Jordan-Leland School of Public Affairs at Texas Southern University
and former Director of the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta
University, 04( Robert D., Ph.D. Highway Robbery: Transportation Racism and New Routes
to Equity) SJ
More than one hundred years ago, in the foreword to his classic book The Souls of Black
Folks, W. E. B. DuBois declared that "the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem
of the color line.'* DuBois*s diagnosis came seven years after the infamous Plessy v.
Ferguson US Supreme Court decision codified "separate but equal" as the law of the land.
Sadly, in the twenty-first century, the problem persists. Highway Robbery weighs in a halfcentury after the landmark US Supreme Court Brown v. Board of Education decision
overturned Plessy and outlawed "separate but equal" in 1954. Unfortunately, decades
of court rulings and civil rights laws have not eradicated the historic disparities
between races or the discrimination that perpetuates them.1 The United States
remains a racially divided nation where extreme inequalities continue to persist in
housing, schools, employment, income, environmental protection, and transportation.
The struggle against transportation racism has always been about civil rights, social
justice, equity, and fair treatment. For more than a century, African Americans and
other people of color have struggled to end transportation racism. Harbingers of the
modern civil rights movement. Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott of the
1950s challenged transportation racism. Later, the Freedom Riders of the 1960s
defied "Jim Crow" on interstate transportation. Despite the heroic efforts of many
and the monumental human rights gains over the past five decades, transportation
remains a civil rights and quality of life issue. Unfortunately, it appears that
transportation-civil rights issues have dropped off the radar screens of many mainstream
civil rights and social justice organizations at a time when racist political forces disguised as
"conservatives" attempt to roll back and dismantle many hard-won civil rights gains. It is
time to refocus attention on the role transportation plays in shaping human
interaction, economic mobility, and sustainability. From New York City to Los
Angeles, and a host of cities in between, people of color are banding together to
challenge unfair, unjust, and illegal transportation policies and practices that relegate
them to the back of the bus. From Rosa Parks and the brave souls who risked their
lives in the Montgomery Bus Boycott to John Lewis and the Freedom Riders,
individual and organizational frontal assaults on racist transportation policies and
practices represent attempts to literally dismantle the infrastructure of oppression.
Natural heirs of the civil rights legacy, the Los Angeles Bus Riders Union in the
1990s and hundreds of grassroots groups in the early years of the new millennium
have taken to our nation's buses, trains, streets, and highways and joined the battle
against transportation racism. Transportation racism hurts people of color communities
by depriving their residents of valuable resources, investments, and mobility. This book
represents a small but significant part of the transportation equity movement—a movement
that is redefining transportation as an environmental, economic, civil, and human right.
We may seem to have no agency to shape public policy – but youths have often used
the tactic of protest and social disruption to create space for democratic participation
– we as debate participants have agency to shape the policies of this debate
community – our boycott of the resolution is an attempt to contest and challenge the
social divisions we see in the debate community and in American society
Cammarota, Ginwright, and Noguera 2005 (Assistant professor in the Burea of Applied
Research in Anthropology and the Mexican-American studies and Research Center at the
University of Arizona AND associate professor of Education in the Black Studies
Department at San Francisco State University AND professor in the Steinhardt School of
Education at New York University, “Youth, Social Justice, and Communities: Toward a
Theory of Urban Youth Policy” Social Justice, Vol. 32, No. 3 (101), Waging War over Public
Education and Youth Services (2005), pp. 24-40) SEW
Second, in much of the literature, youth are conceptualized primarily as objects of
policy rather than as actors who possess the rights and abilities to shape policy.
Although young people in low-income communities confront barriers that constrain their
personal development, they also have demonstrated the capacity to resist and
challenge unjust institutional practices. When institutional avenues (such as voting or
lega representation) for social change are not available, groups often resort to noninstitutional strategies such as protests, marches, and social disruptions to create
opportunities for democratic participation (Piven and Cloward, 1979). Mokwena (1998:
17) argued that youth researchers and practitioners need to acknowledge “the structural
constraints placed on young people without discounting the different (often resourceful)
ways that young people deal with them.” He explained that young people are subjected to
wider patterns of social division and social control, and agency is really about how
young people negotiate, contest, and challenge the institutionalized processes of
social division in which they are situated.
The resolution must be revolutionized. It is our duty to change the policies enacted in
the debate community. This revolution is a necessary step to enable the eventual
breakdown of this seemingly infinite chain of inequality, a step that my partner and I
challenge you, the judge/educator, to facilitate. Seemingly we can’t change the state,
as we are only adolescents, we can start by changing the state of debate. Accessibility
and exportation of debate skills are multipliers for our argument; if the framework for
how the neg interprets debate results in exclusion, you must vote them down. The
exporting of traditional debate skills to urban debaters disenfranchises student
activists from being able to respond to the current structural inequalities they face on
a daily basis.
Here’s the role of the ballot -we only claim to solve for the things that are within our
reach. No ballot signed will result in nuclear war. So we can’t change the state.
Although we do have the ability to change the policies enacted in the debate
community. You do have the power to help reform our debate community. The role
of the ballot is to determine who has the best methodology for the liberation of the
oppressed. If the neg’s framework of interpreting debate is based on traditional
debate practices, they do nothing to liberate the oppressed; they are bystanders to
the hatred minorities face on a daily basis. They are the children who watch as a bully
beats up a classmate on the playground, it is not our role to condone oppressive
forms of framework over one of empathy – we believe you have an ethical obligation
to assist those who have been marginalized in the status quo.
Segregation Harms
Status quo racial inequality makes a mockery of fairness and equality as democratic
standards of American civil society – racial minorities face unequal access to education,
jobs, health care, and protection from surveillance and law enforcement
Lipsitz- Professor at Department of Ethnic Studies at University of California, 2000 (George, October
2000, “The White 2K Problem” (for Cultural Values ISSN 1362-5179 Volume 4 Number 4 pp.518-524)
The persistence of residential segregation, educational inequality, environmental racism, and
employment discrimination makes a mockery of the promises of fairness and equality inscribed within
civil rights laws. It means that members of aggrieved racial groups experience their racial identities
through impediments to the accumulation of assets that appreciate in value. People of color confront
disproportionate obstacles to acquiring education, marketable skills, and job training. They face
unparalleled exposure to health risks. Their racial identities confine them to the segments of the labor
market where it is most difficult to bargain over wages and working conditions. They face the targeted
scrutiny, discipline, and brutality of law enforcement officials intent on restricting their mobility and
their cultural and political expressions. People of color in the U.S. are not so much disadvantaged as
much as taken advantage of. At the same time, their unearned disadvantages structure unearned
advantages for whites.
Without racial segregation, nothing would be left to deploy race. This “line of
demarcation” ensures the separation of naturally fluid racial categories.
Mandell, Director of the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity Fair Housing Project, 8
(Bekah, “Racial Reification and Global Warming: A Truly Inconvenient Truth,” 28 B.C. Third World L.J.
289, Lexis Nexis, REM)
Segregation reifies race by the very fact that it uses race as a means of classifying people.
Urban/suburban segregation accomplishes this by separating people into distinct physical spaces
according to their "race" and preventing association between the two groups as a way to maintain
their distinct, relational identities. n138 Racial segregation is so integral to the reification of race that
"[w]ithout the clear spatial line between the races, nothing would be left with which to deploy race
with accuracy and secure it with permanency." n139 The act of classifying people by race carries and
confers racial meaning. Racial segregation ostensibly separates people by race, but in doing so, it
actually "facilitate[s] the assignment of racial identities according to separation." n140 Space becomes
a key tool for maintaining racial classification because of the constant mutability of race. n141 Without
the system of marks that segregation provides, racial identities become dangerously fluid. n142
Keeping track of who is black and who is white, to maintain the social order and to allocate
commodities and services, becomes vastly more complicated in a non-segregated world. n143
Because of the practical difficulty inherent in maintaining a [*314] strict (and artificial) white-over-black
hierarchy in the face of the overwhelming plasticity of phenotypical traits, spatial markers like
segregation are essential to maintain a racialized society. n144 As Professor Ford writes: [T]he line of
demarcation, the boundary line, the undrawn but universally felt line between neighborhoods, the line
between city and suburb . . . .. . . [T]his line that regulates and performs the spatial movement and
organization of bodies . . . is a (perhaps the) prerequisite for racial differentiation and the deployment
of race as a (perhaps the) regulatory fiction in late capitalist America. n145 Segregation eliminates the
ambiguity that would otherwise surround fluid, socially constructed racial categories by constructing
distinct, physical boundaries. n146 Strictly enforcing residential segregation, whether through private
covenants, government policy, or "facially race-neutral" public policy n147 "is essential to the
(re)production of a particular racial formation." n1
Segregation is wholly responsible for modern American racial hierarchy. It separates
the powerful from the disadvantaged, feeding on itself in an endless cycle of
discriminatory practices. Though the government has ceased to directly enforce it,
segregation has survived as a result of ingrained societal practices.
Mandell, Director of the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity Fair Housing Project, 8
(Bekah, “Racial Reification and Global Warming: A Truly Inconvenient Truth,” 28 B.C. Third World L.J.
289, Lexis Nexis, REM)
By separating living spaces according to race, federal, state, and local governments created and
perpetuated a white-over-black spatial and racial hierarchy. n152 Once in place, this hierarchy became
self-fulfilling, naturalizing the idea of race in American society by creating a closed feedback system.
n153 Racist, legally enforced segregation provided the physical separation necessary for the concept
of racial power hierarchies to crystallize in American society. n154 However, racist power hierarchies
in the United States no longer require the support of the legal system to maintain the same power
imbalance. n155 De facto residential segregation continues unabated today, further legitimizing the
hierarchies created in the centuries prior to Loving. n156 This entrenched segregation [*316] is no
less racist and no less damaging than the overtly legalized segregation that dominated the American
landscape until the late 1960s. n157 Racial segregation created and reinforced the white-over-black
hierarchy by institutionalizing a power imbalance based on spatially defined racial differences. n158
By consolidating power and wealth in the suburbs and restricting access to suburban life to whites for
decades through a series of racist housing and credit policies, segregation centralized economic, social,
and political disenfranchisement in inner city black neighborhoods. n159 The ultimate result is that
wealthy whites settle in the suburbs, while poor blacks remain confined to poor ghetto neighborhoods.
n160 This economic and spatial segregation translates into political disenfranchisement with resultant
power imbalances between those who are welcome in the suburbs and those who are not. n161 By
excluding blacks from the locus of power in contemporary American society (the suburbs), racist landuse patterns have preserved the racist power imbalances that slavery began. n162 Spatial
configurations predicated on race are not incidental, but integral, to racial power relations because
they create the framework for exclusion from powerful [*317] spaces, and power itself. n163 Indeed,
in contemporary American society, "[r]esidential segregation is the institutional apparatus that
supports other racially discriminatory processes and binds them together into a coherent and
uniquely effective system of racial subordination." n164 Without segregation, racial hierarchy and
race itself would be impossible to maintain.
White induced segregation is responsible for the majority of stereotypes linked to
blackness. Male joblessness, teenage pregnancies, alcoholism, and other dysfunctional
characteristics attributed to African Americans can be attributed to decisions made by
the white elite.
Mandell, Director of the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity Fair Housing Project, 8
(Bekah, “Racial Reification and Global Warming: A Truly Inconvenient Truth,” 28 B.C. Third World L.J.
289, Lexis Nexis, REM)
By isolating blacks socially, economically, and legally, residential segregation has allowed race to adapt
to changing social, economic, and political realities, ensuring that the system of marks with distinct
racial categories remains culturally relevant and identifiable, even as traditional racial characteristics
disappear. n171 Segregated social and political barriers generate a continuous feedback loop within
racialized communities, creating a hypersegregated black urban underclass with particular visible marks,
in stark definitional opposition to a white suburban middle and upper class. n172 [*319] These new
racial identifiers, the products of spatial, economic, social, and political isolation, are perceived as
natural results of racial difference by white elites. n173 Segregation contributes to the economic
isolation and "problems of social organization in inner city ghetto neighborhoods" n174 by
concentrating poverty and thus, "male joblessness, teenage motherhood, single parenthood,
alcoholism, and drug abuse." n175 These social problems are then perceived, by many whites, as both
naturally linked to blackness and signs of racial inferiority; mere "problems of social organization"
become a proxy for blackness--a euphemism for black dysfunction. n176 The spatial, social, political,
and economic isolation of the urban black ghetto has given rise to behaviors and consequences that are
"rational accommodations to social and economic conditions within the ghetto." n177 Despite the
conditionality of these behaviors, they are considered natural for blacks; "they are not widely
accepted or understood outside of [the ghetto], and in fact are negatively evaluated by most of
American society." n178 In contrast to black underclass urban neighborhoods, and the dysfunction that
marks them, suburbs are defined as the home of the American dream--middle class, safe, and white.
n179 The system of marks created by segregation's spatial, economic, social, and political hierarchy
seduces us with pernicious messages in the forms of ghettos and suburbs, littered streets and
manicured lawns, corner liquor stores and sprawling malls, welfare recipients and white-collar
professionals, school violence and college graduates . . . . These contrasting realities follow
neighborhood lines--in fact, racial boundaries--and thus testify to the ultimate difference race
makes . . . . On these streets, racial differences seem fundamental, immutable, real, and self-evident,
confirming not only the existence of races, but also every negative suspicion about racial characteristics.
n180 Because "housing is not just a dwelling and a place to live[,] it is a symbol of personal worth,
social status, and security," a house in the suburbs determines whiteness by serving as a both a mark
and a key to power and privilege. n181 This concentrates white privilege in the suburbs even further
by "perpetuat[ing] educational segregation and imped[ing] access to employment opportunities and
upward mobility for disadvantaged groups. In this way, housing expresses and perpetuates the
stratification of classes and races that exists within society as a whole." n182
Segregation prevents intermarriage, preserving phenotypical characteristics that are
used to determine societal status.
Mandell, Director of the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity Fair Housing Project, 8
(Bekah, “Racial Reification and Global Warming: A Truly Inconvenient Truth,” 28 B.C. Third World L.J.
289, Lexis Nexis, REM)
Finally, segregation maintains distinct racial categories by preserving the phenotypical characteristics
(marks) assigned racial meaning by preventing members of different racial groups from interacting
and, therefore, from procreating across established racial boundaries. n185 Segregation, even in the
absence of anti-miscegenation laws, prevents interracial marriage and interracial childbearing while
promoting same-race family units. n186 If blacks and whites are not permitted to live near each other
and are not allowed to go to school together, they are far less likely to date, marry, and produce
children whose physical characteristics would challenge the very notion of a natural racial order. n187
On a very practical level, segregation reifies race because the physical markers, such as skin color and
hair color and texture, that are used to mark race are artificially preserved. n188
Segregation and the Highway System
Highways act as “chinese walls,” cutting off minorities from white neighborhoods. This
isolation results in the development of two distinct cultures, making it nearly
impossible to desegregate.
Mandell, Director of the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity Fair Housing Project, 8
(Bekah, “Racial Reification and Global Warming: A Truly Inconvenient Truth,” 28 B.C. Third World L.J.
289, Lexis Nexis, REM)
As direct result, "[p]reviously stable and sustainable communities [have been] ruptured and destroyed
by massive highway projects designed to transport more people in automobiles to and from suburbs
and out of the urban core." n210 The damage done to once vibrant black residential and commercial
areas has been profound: The superhighways not only drained [cities] of their few remaining
taxpaying residents [by facilitating their migration to the newly accessible suburbs], but in many cases
the new belt-ways became physical barriers, "Chinese walls" sealing off the disintegrating cities from
their dynamic outlands. Those left behind inside the wall would develop, in their physical isolation
from the suburban economy, a pathological ghetto culture. n211 Referring to a newspaper story about
Manhattan, Jacobs explained how destructive these border vacuums were to the social, cultural, and
economic fabric of a once-vibrant neighborhood: [*325] The slaying in Cohen's butcher shop . . . was no
isolated incident, but the culmination of a series of burglaries and hold-ups along the street . . . . Ever
since work started on the Cross-Bronx Expressway across the street some two years ago, a grocer said,
trouble has plagued the area . . . . Stores which once stayed open to 9 or 10 o'clock are shutting down at
7 p.m. Few shoppers dare venture out after dark, so storekeepers feel the little business they loose
hardly justifies the risk in remaining open late . . . . n212 The affect of these policies on black
neighborhoods has been acute, creating a black urban underclass, cut off economically, socially, and
culturally from the safety and stability found in white society. n213 The 1950s construction of the
Cross-Bronx Expressway exemplifies the damage these policies caused, isolating blackness away from
white society and facilitating the continued reification of race in American society. n214 Under the
banner of urban renewal rights, highway baron Robert Moses condemned entire neighborhoods in the
Bronx, demolishing thriving businesses and driving families of color from their homes. n215 Once built,
his highway in the sky cut off the borough from [*326] the rest of the city, leaving it a gutted shell of the
vibrant neighborhood it once was. n216
Highway construction leads to the emergence of gangs, arson, and crime.
Mandell, Director of the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity Fair Housing Project, 8
(Bekah, “Racial Reification and Global Warming: A Truly Inconvenient Truth,” 28 B.C. Third World L.J.
289, Lexis Nexis, REM)
Finally, the transportation hierarchy compounds the economic, social, and political isolation of the
ghetto. n286 As vibrant black neighborhoods were demolished by whites who considered them less
valuable than highway construction, the neighborhoods became socially isolated, plagued by gangs,
arson, and crime. n287 Congressman Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously used these consequences of
racist [*335] transportation policies to justify the abandonment of black inner cities in a note to
President Richard Nixon, suggesting that it was time to enact a policy of "benign neglect" toward the
nation's black inner cities. n288 The Congressman's suggestion underscores the way in which the
consequences of racist transportation policies that sited highways in black urban areas were used to
prove the naturalness of race and to justify continued racism at all levels of government. The economic
and social devastation that inevitably followed in the wake of fed eral, state, and local highway siting
policies thus contributed to the reification of race in American society by coloring and shaping the
idea of a particular subordinate black identity in diametric opposition to a superior suburban white
identity.
Status Quo Bus Transit Fails
Highway construction leads to the emergence of gangs, arson, and crime.
Mandell, Director of the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity Fair Housing Project, 8
(Bekah, “Racial Reification and Global Warming: A Truly Inconvenient Truth,” 28 B.C. Third World L.J.
289, Lexis Nexis, REM)
Finally, the transportation hierarchy compounds the economic, social, and political isolation of the
ghetto. n286 As vibrant black neighborhoods were demolished by whites who considered them less
valuable than highway construction, the neighborhoods became socially isolated, plagued by gangs,
arson, and crime. n287 Congressman Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously used these consequences of
racist [*335] transportation policies to justify the abandonment of black inner cities in a note to
President Richard Nixon, suggesting that it was time to enact a policy of "benign neglect" toward the
nation's black inner cities. n288 The Congressman's suggestion underscores the way in which the
consequences of racist transportation policies that sited highways in black urban areas were used to
prove the naturalness of race and to justify continued racism at all levels of government. The economic
and social devastation that inevitably followed in the wake of fed eral, state, and local highway siting
policies thus contributed to the reification of race in American society by coloring and shaping the
idea of a particular subordinate black identity in diametric opposition to a superior suburban white
identity.
Segregation and Wealth Harms
Housing discrimination has ensured that blacks could not accumulate the kind of intergenerational wealth to be competitive with their white counterparts
Lipsitz- Professor at Department of Ethnic Studies at University of California, 2000 (George, October
2000, “The White 2K Problem” (for Cultural Values ISSN 1362-5179 Volume 4 Number 4 pp.518-524)
In several federal reserve districts, high income Blacks are denied home loans more frequently than
low-income whites. A Black person earning more than $50,000 a year is as likely to live in a segregated
neighborhood as a Black person who makes only $2,500 per year. Whites pay 15 percent less than
Blacks for identical housing in the same neighborhoods. Housing discrimination has cost the current
generation of African Americans a total of $90 billion in lost wealth. Favored access to assetaccumulation opportunities in a discriminatory housing market means that inter-generational transfers
of wealth give white children permanent advantages in life. As Melvin Oliver and Thomas Shapiro (1995)
show in their book, Black Wealth/White Wealth, it is much easier for white parents to pass on to their
children their economic status than it is for parents from aggrieved racial groups. More than 50 percent
of whites from lower-white collar families move into professional jobs, but only 30 percent of Blacks
from those families become professionals. Almost 60 percent of whites from blue-collar backgrounds
rise in class status, but little more than one third of Black children from those backgrounds do so. One
half of Blacks from upper-blue collar families wind up at the bottom of the occupational hierarchy. The
reasons for these disparities stem almost entirely from the ways in which home ownership gives
whites in every class more wealth than their Black counterparts with the same incomes, family
structures, and work histories (pp. 157-58).
Segregation and Environmental Harms
Housing segregation guarantees environmentally related health harms for poor,
minority communities – on a national average inner city children have high rates of
lead and pollution poisoning
Lipsitz- Professor at Department of Ethnic Studies at University of California, 2000 (George, October
2000, “The White 2K Problem” (for Cultural Values ISSN 1362-5179 Volume 4 Number 4 pp.518-524)
Unequal access to housing has important ramifications for the health of people from aggrieved racial
groups. 60 percent of African Americans and Latinos live in communities with uncontrolled toxic
waste sites. In Los Angeles, 34 percent of whites inhabit areas with the highest levels of air pollution,
but 50 percent of Latinos and 71 percent of African Americans dwell in districts with the greatest
degrees of polluted air (Bullard, 1994, p. 13; Lee, 1993, p. 49). Navajo teenagers experience organ
cancer at a rate seventeen times the national average (Wenz, 1996, p. 66). In the lowest income
families (making less than $6,000 per year), 36 percent of white children but 68 percent of black
children suffer from lead poisoning. Among families making more than $15,000 per year, 12 percent
of white children but 38 percent of Black children have toxic levels of lead in their bloodstream
(Bullard, 1993, p. 21). Some seventy five thousand African Americans die every year because of
unequal access to nutrition, health care, and environmental protection (Wray, 1992, pp. 357-61).
Racism and Global Warming
The growth of suburbs and the emphasis on private cars poses a significant threat to
the climate.
Mandell, Director of the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity Fair Housing Project, 8
(Bekah, “Racial Reification and Global Warming: A Truly Inconvenient Truth,” 28 B.C. Third World L.J.
289, Lexis Nexis, REM)
In addition to concretizing the abstract concept of race in American society, the growth of the
suburbs has become a major factor in [*295] changing the earth's climate. n26 Transportation,
electricity generation, and deforestation represent the most harmful human activities
because they release large amounts of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, into the
atmosphere. n27 Suburbanization and private car-centered transportation policies require
that more energy be spent on transportation, demand far more electricity, and cause more
deforestation than any other lifestyle. n28
The predominantly white ideal of unsustainability has resulted in the creation of racial
hierarchies and environmental abuse – must dismantle racism and practices of
consumption to avoid disaster
Mandell, Director of the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity Fair Housing Project, 8
(Bekah, “Racial Reification and Global Warming: A Truly Inconvenient Truth,” 28 B.C. Third World L.J.
289, Lexis Nexis, REM)
Global warming is an unforeseen side effect of the policies and behaviors that have been used to
"race" our society. n29 Therefore, a meaningful response to the global climate crisis requires a
dismantling, or at the very least a reordering, of the spatial systems we have created to construct and
perpetuate the concept of race in the United States. n30 The unsustainable land-use and consumption
that define the American dream--an inherently white ideal--create cultural and racial hierarchies by
setting up two classes of citizens in American society: those who can consume space and those who
cannot. n31 Representative Nydia M. Velazquez, who represents in Congress a predominantly poor
urban district of New York, points out, [*296] the simple fact is that our current unsustainable "more-isbetter" culture undermines any hope of achieving justice--at home or abroad. We often hear about
how the United States consumes a vastly disproportionate amount of resources relative to the rest of
the world. Americans are building bigger houses, driving bigger cars, consuming more and more of
everything than just about anyone else anywhere. This is certainly true, and the long-term
environmental effects of this overconsumption may well prove disastrous . . . . . . . [A]nd one thing is
for sure--Americans are not doing all this overconsuming in congressional districts like the one I
represent . . . .In my district, crime is high, test scores are low, schools are crumbling, and the "American
Dream"--however you choose to define it--is very, very difficult to attain. n32
The suburbanization of whiteness significantly contributes to global warming.
Mandell, Director of the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity Fair Housing Project, 8
(Bekah, “Racial Reification and Global Warming: A Truly Inconvenient Truth,” 28 B.C. Third World L.J.
289, Lexis Nexis, REM)
The suburbanization of whiteness has created endless acres of suburbs in the United States. n296
Between 1982 and 2003, the growth in developed land in the United States far outpaced population
growth, increasing by nearly half, as more and more of the population moved out to the suburbs. n297 In
1982, 72.9 million acres of the land in the United States were developed; twenty-one years later, by
2003, 108.1 million acres had been developed. n298 This new development transforms fields, farms,
and forest into inefficient housing, featuring large footprints on large lots. n299 As whites have had to
move farther and farther [*337] from cities and inner-ring suburbs to preserve their privilege, the lots
on which they have built their new homes have grown in size, eating up more land that was once forest
or grassland. n300 This increased distance from basic needs and larger home sizes require increasing
amounts of fossil fuels for transportation and for heating, cooling, and power. n301 Large, detached
homes that define suburban living use much more energy than urban dwellings for several reasons. n302
Because newer suburban homes are much larger than the homes in the urban core and older first-ring
suburbs, they demand much more energy to heat and cool than more compact homes. n303 Though they
may take advantage of more efficient technologies, they are much less energy efficient than the
townhouses or apartments that make up the bulk of urban housing stock because they cannot take
advantage of the efficiency of shared heating and cooling systems that reduce overall energy
consumption. n304 Moreover, the disastrous consequences of these inefficiencies are compounded by
heating homes with fossil fuels such as oil or gas, the extraction of which releases CO[2] into the
atmosphere. n305 Additionally, cooling large homes (many of which are located in the south where
cooling systems are run year-round) is equally damaging to the CO[2] levels in the earth's atmosphere
because of the vast amounts of [*338] electricity these large homes use to run air conditioners and
other cooling apparatuses. n306 Moreover, large, detached suburban homes consume much more
energy in the form of electricity per dwelling than do urban homes. n307 Each suburban home has
more electricity-consuming features than a typical urban home: more lights and more appliances.
n308 Consuming increased amounts of electricity, these extra appliances demand increased electricity
production. n309 Because "[t]he largest single source of carbon emissions in the United States is
electricity production," these large homes have caused the release of hundreds of millions of tons of
CO[2] into the earth's atmosphere. n310The increased energy consumption of each individual suburban
house is again compounded by the increased energy that low-density developments demand for public
services. n311 Sprawling neighborhoods require more street lighting than dense, urban neighborhoods
because they cover more ground with fewer efficiencies. n312 These added street lights put more
pressure on power grids, increasing demand for electricity and requiring the generation of more power-a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions. n313 Additionally, suburban neighborhoods require
more energy from fossil fuels to pump water and waste over larger [*339] distances; they are unable to
t
State Bad
The federal government purposely constructed highways to fuel the growth of
suburbs. As a result, lower class minorities become trapped in the inner city, far
separated from suburban whites.
Mandell, Director of the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity Fair Housing Project, 8
(Bekah, “Racial Reification and Global Warming: A Truly Inconvenient Truth,” 28 B.C. Third World L.J.
289, Lexis Nexis, REM)
Racist federal transportation policy has reified race in American society in a number of ways. n189
First and foremost, federal transportation policy contributed to racial segregation in American society
through decades of spending on an interstate highway system, which made private car transportation
possible. n190 Beginning with legislation in 1916 that made state and federal cooperation in highway
funding possible, a combination of state and federal dollars eventually paid to build the extensive
interstate highway system that now crisscrosses the nation. n191 This federal and state financial
commitment to passenger car travel contrasts sharply with its laissez-faire attitude towards funding
public transport. n192 According to the Federal Highway Administration, the federal subsidy of
passenger car travel on the interstate highway system had cost more than $ 119 billion by 1996. n193
Though the groundwork was laid in 1916, the government's commitment to subsidizing the automobile
reached its zenith during the Eisenhower administration. n194 The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956
ushered in the era of the interstate highway building, calling for 41,000 miles of highway between
cities and countryside. n195 The act created the Highway Trust Fund, with specially earmarked tax
funds to ensure that there would always be money available for highways. n196 The federal
commitment to an interstate highway system was so profound that the [*323] Federal-Aid Highway
Act pledged to reimburse states for ninety percent of their final construction costs, regardless of the
total price. n197 Government subsidy of the highways was so important that the new car-dependent
suburbs would not have been possible "without sustained public investment in highways" from the
Federal-Aid Highway Act and the Trust Fund. n198 This government spending to facilitate passenger
car travel between city and suburb helped to make the suburbs economically feasible housing
arrangements for millions of white Americans. n199 The federal interstate highway program became a
literal path to suburbia for middle-class whites during the post war period; building superhighways from
suburbs directly into urban downtowns facilitated such travel with insulated ease. n200 In New York,
middle class whites followed [Robert] Moses' Cross-Bronx and Bruckner Expressways to the promise of
[the American Dream of home] ownership in one of the 15,000 new apartments in Moses' Co-op City.
They moved out to the cookie cutter suburbs that sprouted along the highways in New Jersey and
Queens and Long Island. n201Without wide, smooth roads to transport suburbanites easily between
the center cities where they worked, the malls where they shopped, and the cul-de-sacs where they
lived, the growth of the suburbs in America simply would not have happened. n202 Federal and state
transportation policy has engaged simultaneously in a process of neighborhood destruction in the
nation's mostly black urban areas. n203 Highway policy matched housing policies throughout the
twentieth century to create profound black urban isolation. n204 In addition to funneling middle class
whites out to the growing suburbs, federal transportation policy asphyxiated black urban
neighborhoods by [*324] routing vast super-highways through once vibrant black areas to facilitate
movement along the suburban-urban pipeline. n205 Urban planning matriarch Jane Jacobs called
these expressway scars "border vacuums." n206 For decades, government policy was to route
highways through less valuable neighborhoods in already developed areas, concentrating these
border vacuums in black neighborhoods and ensuring that they bore the brunt of urban highway
construction. n207 The urban arm of the national interstate highway project was focused on
demolishing "entire swaths of apartment complexes or thousands of individual homes [in] densely
populated neighborhoods--usually poor neighborhoods inhabited main[ly] by members of minorities."
n208 Chosen because public opposition would be easiest to quell among the already disenfranchised
black and Latino community members that inhabited them, hundreds of minority neighborhoods were
cleared or bifurcated to make way for arteries and overpasses.
Federal government action functions to re-center whiteness in the status quo – it
ignores the discourse of discrimination while promoting white supremacy
Chin, J.D. candidate at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law and a Ph.D. candidate in the
department of Justice and Social Inquiry, 12 (Jeremiah, “Under Law of Color: Prisons, Post-Racism, and
Present Complexions: What a Load of Hope: The Post-Racial Mixtape,” 48 Cal. W. L. Rev. 369, LexisNexis,
REM)
Recognition of racism in the lives of people of color has been reduced to only acknowledging
individual acts of meanness; ignoring the systemic and structural discrimination that persists while
asserting that programs meant to enhance the lives and careers of people of color are, in fact, racist.
The hook repeats, the sample plays the sounds of the civil rights movement, the lyrics spout a post-racial
fiction, masking the all too familiar beat of white supremacy. Unfortunately, in Arizona this song is not a
one hit wonder. Each successive single on the post-racial mixtape, Senate Bill (S.B.) 1070, House Bill
(H.B.) 2281, and Proposition 107, goes platinum and gets amplified, attempting to drown out the calls
for action, coalitions, and responses from communities of color. This Comment analyzes how Supreme
Court decisions and recent legislation have used the language of post-racialism to re-center whiteness
through the law. Rather than using explicit racist language, the post-racial project exploits the
language of historical antiracist efforts to negate experiences with discrimination while continuing a
hostile environment for racial groups and promoting white supremacy in the United States.
Racist federal action is responsible for residential segregation. Since it was never
entirely dismantled, the forces of segregation are still active.
Mandell, Director of the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity Fair Housing Project, 8
(Bekah, “Racial Reification and Global Warming: A Truly Inconvenient Truth,” 28 B.C. Third World L.J.
289, Lexis Nexis, REM)
A cursory glance at metropolitan demographics in the United States demonstrates that decades of
federal, state, and local government policies, reinforced by government-sanctioned private behavior,
have created impoverished black inner cities surrounded by affluent, [*305] mostly white suburbs.
n79 Modern residential segregation in the United States is the result of a long series of racist federal
and local policies. n80 Although legally enforced segregation ended with Loving v. Virginia in 1967, the
forces maintaining segregation did not disappear with that decision. n81 De facto segregation
continues today without legal sanction because, although officially ended and now constitutionally
disfavored, its structure was never dismantled. n82 Though there is a powerful tendency in our postLoving world to describe racial segregation "as a natural expression of racial and cultural solidarity, a
chosen and desirable condition for which government is not responsible," it is in fact a result of
centuries of racist government action. n83 Beginning with the separate living and working spaces of
southern slave states, segregation continued to thrive in the Jim Crow south and the segregated schools
and neighborhoods of the north. n84 Just as race is not the result of static or inevitable differences
between distinct groups of people, contemporary residential demographics are not the result of any
innate or natural racial or spatial hierarchies. Rather, the heavy hand of the legal and political systems,
aided and abetted by private actors, created the "natural" racial segregation that continues to define
contemporary U.S. society. n85 The parallel hierarchies of suburban-urban and white-black are no
organic [*306] accident, but rather are the result of an interconnected web of policies and laws
designed to maintain race through strict segregation. n86
Politicians approach global warming through ineffectual change in an effort to
preserve the racial hierarchy that consolidates their power. Though society may claim
“racial equality,” whites don’t tolerate being denied their privileges.
Mandell, Director of the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity Fair Housing Project, 8
(Bekah, “Racial Reification and Global Warming: A Truly Inconvenient Truth,” 28 B.C. Third World L.J.
289, Lexis Nexis, REM)
Fear of eroding the hierarchies that define race explains why politicians and other elites have
consistently championed ineffectual "market-based approaches" to global warming. n36 By focusing
public and private energy on relatively insignificant individual behavior changes, the Bush
administration and other privileged elites are able to maintain the racial hierarchy that consolidates
their economic and social power. n37 Politicians know that "[w]ithout white-over-black the state
withers away." n38 Therefore, they have a profound incentive to maintain the racial hierarchy.
Unsurprisingly, "because th[ese elites] accrue social and economic benefits by maintaining the status
quo, they inevitably do." n39 This white consensus to maintain the spatial and mobility hierarchies that
reify race is possible because, "[w]hite privilege thrives in highly racialized societies that espouse
racial equality, but in which whites will not tolerate being either inconvenienced in order to achieve
racial equality . . . or being denied the full benefits of their whiteness . . . ." n40 With so much white
privilege to lose, it becomes clear why even most passionate environmental advocates are far more
willing to call for, and make, small non-structural changes in their behavior to ameliorate [*298] global
warming, but are unwilling to embrace significant or meaningful actions to address the crisis. n41 Even
as global warming is starting to become the subject of increasing media coverage and as more
environmental groups call for action to halt the crisis, most activism is limited to changes that maintain
the existing spatial, social, economic and legal framework that defines American society. n42 Despite
knowing for decades that we have been living unsustainable lifestyles, and "hav[ing] had some
intuition that it was a binge and the earth couldn't support it, . . . aside from the easy things
(biodegradable detergent, slightly smaller cars) we didn't do much. We didn't turn our lives around to
prevent it." n43
Politicians have refused to take meaningful action to counter climate change in fear of
undermining the underlying hierarchical, white supremacist structure of our society.
Mandell, Director of the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity Fair Housing Project, 8
(Bekah, “Racial Reification and Global Warming: A Truly Inconvenient Truth,” 28 B.C. Third World L.J.
289, Lexis Nexis, REM)
Lawmakers and politicians have not taken action to combat climate change because effectively
arresting climate change will challenge the foundational values of American society. n19 Meaningful
action would require changes in the way we live, which would undermine the foundation of our
hierarchical political and social structure. n20 The behaviors and lifestyles in the United States that
emit the lion's share of CO[2] into the atmosphere are the very same as those that have actualized the
idea of race and maintained the "white-over-black" hierarchy that is the essence of our social,
economic, and legal structure. n21 These environmentally destructive behaviors and lifestyles have
created and protected white privilege in American society. n22 Thus, meaningful action to combat
[*294] climate change will require a dismantling of the systemic policies and norms that have both
caused global warming and protected the racial hierarchy that underlies contemporary America. n23
This reality explains why meaningful action on the issue of climate change has eluded policy-makers for
decades.
Governmental suburban subsidy began in 1933 with the development of HOLC. HOLC
granted fewer loans to African Americans than to whites in order to feed segregation.
The development of the FHA and VHA furthered racist policies by focusing white
investment on the suburbs.
Mandell, Director of the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity Fair Housing Project, 8
(Bekah, “Racial Reification and Global Warming: A Truly Inconvenient Truth,” 28 B.C. Third World L.J.
289, Lexis Nexis, REM)
Governmental suburban subsidy began in earnest with the creation of the Homeownership Loan
Corporation (HOLC) in 1933. n97 The HOLC was a depression-era program designed to preserve and
encourage homeownership by making long-term mortgages feasible for most middle-class Americans.
n98 As part of its program, HOLC appraisers developed an elaborate set of standards for determining
which homes were worthy of HOLC credit, and these standards laid the groundwork for redlining--the
refusal of banks and the federal government to issue or guarantee loans in non-white or racially
mixed urban neighborhoods. n99 The standards developed by the HOLC "gave the highest ratings to
the newer, affluent suburbs that were strung out along curvilinear streets well away from the problems
of the city," and the lowest ratings to older, more urban black neighborhoods or neighborhoods with
any black presence at all. n100 [*308] Rating neighborhoods with any black population at all as
uncreditworthy caused racial segregation because it encouraged whites who were otherwise eligible
for HOLC financing to cluster in neighborhoods with higher HOLC grades, where they would be granted
mortgages and would be able to achieve the white American dream of homeownership. n101 With its
focus on financing newly-built homes in newly-built neighborhoods with fresh infrastructure and
housing stock available to whites only, the HOLC appraisal program marked the first of many federal
programs that used government power to simultaneously subsidize suburban sprawl and racial
segregation. n102 The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and the Veterans Housing Administration
(VHA) furthered the racist precedent set by the HOLC appraisal standards by focusing white
investment on the suburbs. n103 The FHA and VHA programs increased government subsidy of
suburban homeownership for white Americans in the post-war period so that hundreds of thousands
of World War II veterans could finance their slice of the American dream. n104 Through its rating
system, the FHA's programs were responsible for "subsidizing suburban housing construction,
contributing to and exacerbating neighborhood deterioration in inner cities, and institutionalizing a
racially segregated housing market on a national scale." n105 Because "FHA/VHA loans were made
with greater frequency in suburban than in inner city areas . . . these federal policies promoted racial
separation. And because population pressures pushed the suburbs ever outward, while expanding the
space ceded to minorities, these policies also underwrote urban sprawl." n106 The FHA's suburban bias
was so pronounced that its mortgage guarantee programs made it cheaper for white Americans to buy a
home in the suburbs than to rent an apartment or townhouse in the city. n107 Because they made
suburban homeownership affordable exclusively for whites, "the FHA's housing subsidies . . . had a
major impact on post-World War II migrations of middle-income whites to suburban [*309] areas and
the concentration of low-income, mostly African American families, in the deteriorating inner cities."
n108 FHA and VHA loans were offered only to white suburban residents as a result of three of the
FHA's rating system policies: (1) favoring the construction of new single family homes over multifamily projects; (2) offering unfavorable terms on loans for the repair of existing structures, making it
more economical to purchase a new home than to repair an existing one; and (3) using a racially
biased appraisal procedure to refuse to guarantee mortgages in black or racially mixed urban
neighborhoods. n109 These three institutional mechanisms ensured that "FHA insurance went to new
residential developments on the edges of metropolitan areas, to the neglect of core cities," which
became enclaves of deteriorating housing stock that could not be improved or repaired because loans
were made unavailable. n110 These increasingly dilapidated dwellings became the exclusive province of
black renters, as whites made their American dream of homeownership in the suburbs possible through
the support of the FHA and VHA. n111 Later, the decaying urban housing stock, entirely a result of
government policy, would become a cultural mark of race, as blacks were associated with squalid,
ghetto housing conditions. n112 Beyond merely favoring suburban over urban homeownership, the FHA
justified its overtly segregationist policies with warnings of the dire economic and social consequences
of allowing "adverse influences," like blacks, to "infiltrate" stable all-white neighborhoods. n113 The FHA
did not just condone existing segregationist trends, it "exhorted segregation and enshrined it as public
policy," by legitimizing the fear that "an entire area could lose its investment value if rigid black-white
separation was not maintained." n114
The government, under a “white consensus,” approved public housing because it
provided an opportunity to relocate blacks, ensuring their separation from middle and
upper class whites. This system continues to be responsible for the prolonged
separation of blacks from the mainstream economy.
Mandell, Director of the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity Fair Housing Project, 8
(Bekah, “Racial Reification and Global Warming: A Truly Inconvenient Truth,” 28 B.C. Third World L.J.
289, Lexis Nexis, REM)
Public housing was concentrated in urban neighborhoods as a result of two simultaneous policies. First,
racist homeownership lending policies meant that rental housing for blacks was unwelcome in white
suburban neighborhoods. n123 Rental housing for blacks had a perceived detrimental effect on
housing prices and social stability, resulting in a public-private consensus to locate large public
housing projects away from middle-class and affluent white suburban neighborhoods. n124 Second,
for much of the twentieth century, the federal government engaged in a systemic campaign to
eradicate "urban blight." n125 From the beginning, urban blight was a label applied to urban
neighborhoods regardless of their economic, social, or cultural vitality. n126 Federal, state, and local
governments systematically classified thriving black urban neighborhoods as blighted in order to
justify their razing. n127 Once razed, these desolate swaths of rubble and concrete became the site of
most of the nation's public housing projects. n128 Particularly in the decades following World War II,
public housing policy in the United States was used as "an institutional means of reinforcing racial
segregation" by concentrating public affordable housing in decaying inner city neighborhoods, far
from more affluent white settlements in the suburbs. n129 The data on housing in the United States
demonstrates that today, "whites are the overwhelming beneficiaries of single-family suburban
housing whereas African Americans and other racial minorities are likely to be restricted to
multifamily projects, conventional public housing units, and deteriorating and substandard housing in
inner cities." n130 The "result, if not the intent, of the public housing program of the United States
was to segregate the races, to concentrate the disadvantaged in inner cities, and to reinforce the
image of suburbia as a place [*312] of refuge from the problems of race, crime, and poverty." n131 As
a result, "[p]ublic housing projects in large measure accounted for the high levels of poverty
concentration in urban neighborhoods. Prolonged marginalization from the mainstream economy,
economic restructuring, and housing segregation via the efforts [of] government, bankers, realtors,
and private citizens, resulted in neighborhoods with high levels of joblessness." n132 Blackness
became synonymous with inner city public housing residents suffering economic isolation and
unemployment. n133 The concentration of public housing projects in low-income black neighborhoods
was the result of a "white consensus" that complemented FHA housing loan programs and its subsidy
of suburbanization to protect and perpetuate racial segregation. n134
Wealthy, white males, who dominate policy making, perpetuate the segregation of
transportation system by upholding the ideologies of the suburban American dream.
Mandell, Director of the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity Fair Housing Project, 8
(Bekah, “Racial Reification and Global Warming: A Truly Inconvenient Truth,” 28 B.C. Third World L.J.
289, Lexis Nexis, REM)
The structures, practices, and ideologies of the suburban American dream--with its detached singlefamily homes in spread-out neighborhoods, far from commercial and urban areas--have been some of
the strongest forces in creating and perpetuating white privilege in American society. n24 Henry
Holmes explains the role of the suburbs in that process: Suburbia, as we know it today, became the
preferred middle-class lifestyle. With it came patterns of economic development, land use, real estate
investment, transportation and infrastructure development that reflected race, class and cultural
wounds deeply embedded in the psyche and history of the United States. Jim Crow--institutionalized
segregation and apartheid against African Americans and other nonwhites--was reflected in urban and
suburban zoning codes, restrictive racial covenants in real estate investment and lending practices,
redlining by financial institutions, discriminatory private business practices, and the distribution of
public investments. All these served the interests of the policy-makers, usually the corporate elite who
were typically European-American and middle class or wealthy. n25
The black ghetto was purposely constructed to protect white privilege.
Mandell, Director of the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity Fair Housing Project, 8
(Bekah, “Racial Reification and Global Warming: A Truly Inconvenient Truth,” 28 B.C. Third World L.J.
289, Lexis Nexis, REM)
The evolution of segregated, all-black neighborhoods . . . was not the result of impersonal market forces.
It did not reflect the desires of African Americans themselves. On the contrary, the black ghetto was
constructed through a series of well-defined institutional practices, private behaviors, and public
policies by which whites sought to contain growing urban black populations. n87 The black ghetto
protects white privilege by maintaining separately racialized spaces.
Race is Central
Racism is not just an exception to an otherwise fair social order – race matters in the
structuring of our society
Lipsitz- Professor at Department of Ethnic Studies at University of California, 2000 (George, October
2000, “The White 2K Problem” (for Cultural Values ISSN 1362-5179 Volume 4 Number 4 pp.518-524)
Perhaps most important, we need an alliance agenda that enables us to see the relationships that link
racism to the other forms of discrimination and dehumanization that pervade our society. Racism is not
an exception in an otherwise just and fair social order. Rather, racism is one of the key crucibles where
inequality is learned and legitimated, where exploitation and injustice are made to seem natural,
necessary, and inevitable. It is depressing to confront the degree to which race still matters in
structuring opportunities and life chances in our society. It is depressing to live in a society that values
things more than it values people, a society that has learned so little from the emancipatory struggles
for social justice that it has provoked. It is depressing to see our leaders preach the work ethic while
making war on working people, to hear them preach inclusion but practice exclusion, to watch them
preach the love of God but practice the love of gain. But it is not depressing to join with people of good
will from all backgrounds to speak truth to power and try to do something about the unjust and
indecent social realities of our own day. The very severity of our problems underscores the opportunity
open to us. As Dr. King used to preach, we stand in this life at midnight, but always on the verge of a
new dawn.
AT: Obama Proves Post-raciality
Racism advances the interests of the already privileged. Obama’s election does not
signify a dramatic change in this behavior.
Halewood, Professor of Law, 12(Peter, “DEFINING RACE: LAYING DOWN THE LAW: POST-RACIALISM
AND THE DE-RACINATION PROJECT,” 72 Alb. L. Rev. 1047, LexisNexis, REM)
These material benefits are at the core of this system but not emphasized often enough; racism
ultimately advances the interests of capital and wealth by instituting and maintaining a system of
racial reward and preference. Behind the obvious racialization of American life lies the equally
obvious but often less controversial reality of massive economic inequality. Capital and elite interests
are very unlikely to relinquish the advantages of this system and Barack Obama's election alone does
not signal a change in that equation. And decades of civil rights law culminating in the hegemony of
colorblindness in constitutional theory may have unwittingly contributed to this state of affairs. These
same decades, after all, have seen a rapid and pronounced expansion of economic inequality here,
lending considerable credence to the critical race theory view that formal equality models leave
untouched or even reinforce substantive inequality. Colorblindness and post-racialism may also
contribute to this inequality. What then is the relation of law to post-racialism and to post-whiteness,
and what critical readings of law can we offer to disturb the racial-industrial complex?
Obama criticizes poor blacks, blaming them for their “failures.”
Bonilla-Silva and Dietrich. professor of sociology and PhD candidate in sociology at Duke University,
11 (Eduardo and David, “The Sweet Enchantment of Color-Blind Racism in Obamerica,” 634 Annals 190,
LexisNexis, REM)
Obama's Selma speech was spiced with color-blind racist ideology, and this color-blind spiciness
becomes more apparent when Obama addresses wider (and whiter) audiences. Obama minimized
contemporary racism in his tribute to the sacrifices of Selma's civil rights marchers. The depth of racial
inequalities of health, achievement, and justice in this country clearly indicates that we have much
further to go than 10 percent. In addition, Obama framed the problems of the black poor in the speech
as cultural pathology--"black blame" (Price 2009). These frames of color-blind racism were also evident
in Obama's (2006) book The Audacity of Hope. He claimed that although race still matters, "prejudice"
is declining. As proof he heralded the growth of the black elite whose members do not "use race as a
crutch or point to discrimination as an excuse for failure" (p. 241). He explicitly blamed poor blacks for
their own failures, stating that they watch "too much television," consume "too much... poisons," lack
an "emphasis on educational achievement," and do not have two-parent households (pp. 244-45). He
chastised those unwilling to acknowledge how their "values" contributed to their predicament (p. 254).
And his structural solution to racial inequalities was an "emphasis on universal, as opposed to racespecific, programs," which he stated "isn't just good policy; it's also good politics" (p. 247). n4 Obama's
color-blind racist ideology was also evident in his so-called "race speech" in March 2008 to quiet the
uproar over his association with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Obama characterized Wright as divisive
and condemned his [*201] perspective as "a profoundly distorted view of this country--a view that sees
white racism as endemic" (Obama 2008b). Obama admitted that race was still an issue that the "nation
cannot afford to ignore" and acknowledged America's segregated schools, legalized discrimination,
lack of economic opportunity, and the anger these issues foster in the black community. However, he
implied that racism is a two-way street in his conciliatory reference to a similar anger among workingand middle-class white Americans who "don't feel they have been particularly privileged by their
race. . . . So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town, when they hear that an
African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an
injustice that they themselves never committed . . . resentment builds up over time." Therefore, Obama
eschewed the need for structural solutions to racial problems. Instead, he proposed an abstract liberal
resolution to racial inequality: "to bind our particular grievances--for better health care, and better
schools, and better jobs--to the larger aspirations of all Americans--the white woman struggling to break
the glass ceiling, the white man who's been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family." He also
challenged blacks to step up morally: "It means taking responsibility for our own lives by demanding
more from our fathers and spending more time with our children."
Obama denounces affirmative action and refused to attend the UN World Conference
on Racism.
Bonilla-Silva and Dietrich. professor of sociology and PhD candidate in sociology at Duke University,
11 (Eduardo and David, “The Sweet Enchantment of Color-Blind Racism in Obamerica,” 634 Annals 190,
LexisNexis, REM)
When pressed more specifically about affirmative action as a solution to current racial inequality and
the effects of discrimination, Obama hinted at a class-based rather than racially based program. In an
April 2008 interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, he stated, I still believe in affirmative action as
a means of overcoming both historic and potentially current discrimination, but I think that it can't be a
quota system and it can't be something that is simply applied without looking at the whole person,
whether that person is black, or white, or Hispanic, male or female. What we want to do is make sure
that people who've been locked out of opportunity are going to be able to walk through those doors of
opportunity in the future. (Quoted in Canellos 2008) Obama's minimization of racism and his refusal to
tackle solutions to racial inequalities carried over into his presidential press conferences. For example, in
Obama's one-hundred-days press conference, Andre Showell, a black journalist, asked what specific
policies Obama had enacted to benefit specifically minority communities. Obama answered, Well, keep
in mind that every step we're taking is designed to help all people. But folks who are most vulnerable
are most likely to be helped because they need the most help. . . . So my general approach is that if the
economy is strong, that will lift all boats as long as it is also supported by, for example, strategies around
college affordability and job training, tax cuts for working families as opposed to the wealthiest that
level the playing field and ensure bottom-up economic growth. And I'm confident that that will help the
African American community live out the American dream at the same time that it's helping
communities all across the country. (Quoted in Huffington Post 2009b) Obama even projected the
minimization of racism onto the global stage when he decided not to attend the 2009 UN-sponsored
World Conference on Racism [*202] in Geneva. Obama's reasons for not attending were quite similar
to those of his predecessor--he did not want to contend with the dicey issue of reparations for racial
injustice or attendees who would accuse Israel of being a racist state (Huffington Post 2009a). He also
used the cultural racism frame in his second trip to Africa (specifically, in his visit to Ghana), where he
focused on issues of local governance rather than the negative effects of Western imperialism in the
region (Karenga 2009). White America uses Obama’s blackness to legitimate their colorblind racist views.
Obama, who consistently makes attempts to form connections with his white supporters, is a perfect
concealer of American racism. Bonilla-Silva and Dietrich. professor of sociology and PhD candidate in
sociology at Duke University, 11 (Eduardo and David, “The Sweet Enchantment of Color-Blind Racism in
Obamerica,” 634 Annals 190, LexisNexis, REM) Although Jim Crow is all but dead and most Americans
vociferously denounce overt acts of racism, people of color remain economically and socially
disadvantaged compared with whites (Pager and Shepherd 2008; Oliver and Shapiro 2006; Shapiro
2004). Whites have explained this inequality over the past 30 years by resorting to color-blind racism.
This ideology, we argue, is central to understanding the Obama phenomenon. It was the cornerstone of
the 43 percent white support he received in the election (Noah 2008) and of how whites explained
their support for this black politician. What is more significant, color-blind racism is in many ways
central to Obama's stand on race, his post-racial politics, and his own persona. Accordingly, the
blessing of having a black president may become a curse as he can legitimate whites' color-blind views.
The American public has interpreted Barack Obama's election as president as all but the fulfillment of
Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream. But for whites, Obama's blackness is more about style than political
substance (Wise 2009); "Obama is the 'cool' exceptional black man not likely to rock the American racial
boat" (Bonilla-Silva 2009, 1076). He advocates "universal" (class-based) policies in lieu of race-based
social policy--a policy stand that will not sufficiently ameliorate racial inequality. He talks about
inequality and discrimination but always mentions the need for blacks to be personally accountable.
Consequently, Obama's blackness is becoming whites' new weapon of choice for singing their colorblind lullaby. Since whites have the upper hand discursively, the space for challenging racial inequality
may be reduced and even diluted. By de-racializing his presidency and sponsoring color-blindness,
Obama has maneuvered himself into this narrow "white space" (Street 2009, 120). Even as he has
strategically claimed a black insider standing (to attract the black electorate), he has simultaneously
distanced himself from the black community by interjecting the cultural frame of blaming poor blacks
for their own problems (A. Reed 2008). Blacks are reluctant to challenge Obama's repudiation of racebased policies out of their strong desire to protect his image and "preserve the historic moment"
(Price 2009, 178). And the few blacks who have criticized Obama's race-neutral policies have incited
outrage among other blacks (Holmes 2008). Hence, the unity message of Obama (and white America)
goes unchallenged (R. M. Smith and King 2009), and we all, like Pangloss, believe we live in the "best of
all possible worlds" (Voltaire
White Privilege = Unfair Benefits for White People
Possessive investment in whiteness maintained through prejudice and racist public
policies – racial minorities are disproportionally disadvantages to allow whites to
accrue unearned benefits
Lipsitz- Professor at Department of Ethnic Studies at University of California, 2000 (George, October
2000, “The White 2K Problem” (for Cultural Values ISSN 1362-5179 Volume 4 Number 4 pp.518-524)
A broad range of private prejudices and public policies keep racism alive and functioning in our society,
not so much through the direct, snarling, and referential racism of avowedly white supremacist groups
like the Ku Klux Klan, but more through the indirect, institutional, and inferential racism encoded
within what I call the possessive investment in whiteness. In my view, the possessive investment in
whiteness creates the racialized hierarchies of our society. It determines which families receive home
loans and which families remain renters, whose children attend well-funded schools and whose
children go to the overcrowded and underfunded institutions with inexperienced teachers and
inadequate equipment that tend to be found in non-white neighborhoods. The possessive investment
in whiteness determines which people breathe polluted air, ingest lead in their blood streams, or eat
fish poisoned by mercury. It determines who can rely on inside information and personal networks to
secure one of the 85 percent of all available jobs in the U.S. that never appear in the ‘help wanted’
section of the newspaper, and influences the racial make-up of the unemployed and under-employed
population. It helps shape the tax code in such a way as to give favored treatment to precisely the
kinds of income that rest upon the fruits of past and present discrimination, allowing white parents to
pass on unearned advantages to their children.
The possessive investment in whiteness contributes to the social structures that skew
access to resources, opportunities, and life chances along racial lines.
Lipsitz- Professor at Department of Ethnic Studies at University of California, 2000 (George, October
2000, “The White 2K Problem” (for Cultural Values ISSN 1362-5179 Volume 4 Number 4 pp.518-524)
The possessive investment in whiteness is not simply a product of the past, the legacy of conquest,
genocide, slavery, and segregation. Rather, it is a reality renewed every day through a broad span of
practices ranging from urban renewal and freeway construction to discriminatory zoning and home
loan policies, from the weaknesses and non-enforcement of civil rights laws to tax laws that give
favored treatment to money made from past and present forms of discrimination while inhibiting
inter-generational transfers of wealth within communities of color. The possessive investment in
whiteness is about assets as well as attitudes; it is about property as well as pigment. It does not stem
primarily from personal acts of prejudice by individuals but from shared social structures that skew
access to resources, opportunities, and life chances along racial lines.
White people are ignorant of the privilege they have and blame Blacks for their own
failure rather than focus on institutional racism
Lipsitz- Professor at Department of Ethnic Studies at University of California, 2000 (George, October
2000, “The White 2K Problem” (for Cultural Values ISSN 1362-5179 Volume 4 Number 4 pp.518-524)
For the most part, white people appear ignorant of the privileges they derive from the possessive
investment in whiteness. 70 percent of white respondents to one public opinion poll claimed that
‘African Americans have the same opportunities to live a middle-class life as whites’ (Orfield and
Ashkinaze, 1991, pp. 46, 206). A National Opinion Research Council Report in 1990 disclosed that more
than 60 percent of whites felt that Blacks suffered from unemployment and inadequate housing
because of their own lack of will power (Landry, 1991, p. 206; Franklin, 1993, pp. 36-7). There is reason
to believe that even these figures are too optimistic, that white responses to poll takers reveal more
generosity than the actual behavior of whites in everyday life. Leonard Steinhorn (1997) points to one
poll where 80 percent of whites asserted that they have close personal friends who are Black. Yet for
this to be true it would have to mean that ‘every American black, even those most isolated from whites,
has five or six close white friends’, certainly an unlikely prospect (p. A2). Similarly, another poll found
that only 6 percent of whites identified themselves as prejudiced against Blacks. Yet nearly half of
African American respondents reported direct experiences with racial discrimination within the
previous thirty days. As Christopher Doob (1997) notes, if both responses are reliable ‘that small
percentage of whites must have remained very busy solidifying their racist reputations’ (p. A26).
Boycott Solvency
Direct Action protests are needed to build a new anti-racist vision – our boycott of the
resolution is an attempt at direct action strategies to address structural racism in
transportation infrastructure but also in the debate community
Lipsitz- Professor at Department of Ethnic Studies at University of California, 2000 (George, October
2000, “The White 2K Problem” (for Cultural Values ISSN 1362-5179 Volume 4 Number 4 pp.518-524)
A new anti-racist vision requires an asset accumulation agenda, especially programs designed to open
up loans for housing and small business start-ups by minority applicants. A new anti-racist vision
requires an enforcement agenda, especially through adding cease-anddesist orders to current laws
against housing and employment discrimination, using testers to discover where and when these laws
are being broken, prosecuting violators of civil rights laws in the ways that other criminals are
prosecuted, increasing penalties for civil rights violations so that they can no longer be written off as
routine cost of doing business. A new anti-racist vision requires an institution-building and activist
agenda capable of involving people of all ages and backgrounds in direct action protests, educational
campaigns, and leadership training.
We may seem to have no agency to shape public policy – but youths have often used
the tactic of protest and social disruption to create space for democratic participation
– we as debate participants have agency to shape the policies of this debate
community – our boycott of the resolution is an attempt to contest and challenge the
social divisions we see in the debate community and in American society
Cammarota, Ginwright, and Noguera 2005 (Assistant professor in the Burea of Applied
Research in Anthropology and the Mexican-American studies and Research Center at the University of
Arizona AND associate professor of Education in the Black Studies Department at San Francisco State
University AND professor in the Steinhardt School of Education at New York University, “Youth, Social
Justice, and Communities: Toward a Theory of Urban Youth Policy” Social Justice, Vol. 32, No. 3 (101),
Waging War over Public Education and Youth Services (2005), pp. 24-40) SEW
Second, in much of the literature, youth are conceptualized primarily as objects of policy rather than
as actors who posses the rights and abilities to shape policy. Although young people in low-income
communities confront barriers that constrain their personal development, they also have demonstrated
the capacity to resist and challenge unjust institutional practices. When institutional avenues (such as
voting or lega representation) for social change are not available, groups often resort to noninstitutional strategies such as protests, marches, and social disruptions to create opportunities for
democratic participation (Piven and Cloward, 1979). Mokwena (1998: 17) argued that youth
researchers and practitioners need to acknowledge “the structural constraints placed on young people
without discounting the different (often resourceful) ways that young people deal with them.” He
explained that young people are subjected to wider patterns of social division and social control, and
agency is really about how young people negotiate, contest, and challenge the institutionalized
processes of social division in which they are situated.
Youth activism is a rational response to state control and repression – Social
disruption is one of the few tools students have to make their voices heard – our
disruption of the normal policymaking frame is a crucial tactic to highlight inequity
and oppression
Cammarota, Ginwright, and Noguera 2005 (Assistant professor in the Burea of Applied
Research in Anthropology and the Mexican-American studies and Research Center at the University of
Arizona AND associate professor of Education in the Black Studies Department at San Francisco State
University AND professor in the Steinhardt School of Education at New York University, “Youth, Social
Justice, and Communities: Toward a Theory of Urban Youth Policy” Social Justice, Vol. 32, No. 3 (101),
Waging War over Public Education and Youth Services (2005), pp. 24-40) SEW
One way to understand youth and social justice is through the lens of social movement theory. As
youth respond to institutional barriers in their lives, they do so through various modes of collective
action. Unlike theorists who view such collective action as irrational, violent, emotional, and deviant
(Smelser, 1968; Useem 1985), we contend that youth collective action is a rational response to state
control and repression. Researchers have documented the various ways in which people act collectively
to respond to state repression (Fantasia, 1988; Gamson, 1990; Muller and Opp, 1986; Olson, 1971).
Other researchers have argued that when institutional means of social change are not available to
groups with grievances, they employ the only means of social disruption available to them (Piven and
Cloward, 1979). Youth who grossly lack political and economic power use school walkouts, marches, and
other forms of civil disobedience, which render seemingly static institutions vulnerable to change
(Carmichael and Hamilton, 1969Carson, 1981; Martinez, 1998; Newton, 1973; Piven and Cloward, 1979).
HoSang, James, and Chow-Wang (2004) found that youth groups frequently address issues related to
unfair suspension and expulsion policies, armed police officers on campus, unsanitary bathrooms, and
inadequate public transportation to and from school. The authors also emphasize that young people
frame these issues through a broader political analysis of power and operate within networks of
intergenerational allies, collaboration with other youth groups, and partnerships with larger political
organizations. These forms of capital—social and political—are important ingredients for effective
community mobilization for young people (Sampson, Morenoff and Earls, 1999)
AT: War Claims
The disposability of the black body necessitates the urgency of an immediate end to
the oppressive structures of whiteness – While white people debate about goals vs
methods of confronting oppression – real black bodies endure pain and suffering –
Our impact outweighs their nebulous war claims as the impact is happening now – the
question is whether or not these people lives are worth anything in the evaluative
frame of policymaking
Yancey 08 professor at University of North Texas George Black Bodies, White Gazes:the continuing
significance of race Published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Co-Editor Associate Professor of
Philosophy
Although there are many white antiracists who do fight and will continue to fight against the operations
of white power, and while it is true that the regulatory power of whiteness will invariably attempt to
undermine such efforts, it is important that white antiracists realize how much is at stake. While
antiracist whites take time to get their shit together, a luxury that is a species of privilege, Black
bodies and bodies of color continue to suffer, their bodies cry out for the political and existential
urgency for the immediate undoing of the oppressive operations of whiteness. Here, the very notion
of the timidity of poral gets racialized. My point here is that even as whites take the time to theorize
the complexity of whiteness, revealing its various modes of resistance to radical transformation, Black
bodies continue to endure tremendous pain and suffering. Doing theory in the service of undoing
whiteness comes with its own snares and seductiOns, its own comfort zones, and reinscription of
distances. Whites who deploy theory in the service of fighting against white racism must caution against
the seduction of white narcissism, the recentering of whiteness, even if it is the object of critical
reflection, and, hence, the process of sequestration from the real world of weeping, suffering, and
traumatized Black bodies impacted by the operations of white power. As antiracist whites continue to
make mistakes and continue to falter in the face of institutional interpellation and habituated racist
reflexes, tomorrow, a Black body will be murdered as it innocently reaches for its wallet. The sheer
weight of this reality mocks the patience of theory.
—the state no longer and really, has never been our protector — As the state
sponsored genocide of Native peoples in America and the brutal enslavement of
people from West Africa to fuel American capitalism, and more recently the state
sponsored murder of Troy Davis in Georgia and the malicious killing of Trayvon Martin
for having the audacity to be walking while Black, the US Government proves time and
time again that it offers no protection to disposable bodies. We must expand our
political and social vision that refuses the cynicism and sense of powerlessness. We
need a language that relates the discourse of war to an attack on democracy at home
and abroad, and we need to use that language in a way that captures the needs,
desires, histories, and experiences that shape people’s daily lives
Henry Giroux 4 (Henry Giroux is an American cultural critic. One of the founding
theorists of critical pedagogy in the United States, he is best known for his pioneering
work in public pedagogy, cultural studies, youth studies, higher education, media
studies, and critical theory.) “War Talk, the Death of the Social, and Dis appearing
Children: Rememberingthe Other War” Pg 208 & 209
The Bush “permanent war doctrine” is not just aimed at alleged terrorists or the
excesses of democracy but also against disposable popula- tions in the homeland,
whether they be young Black men who inhabit our nations jails or those unemployed
workers who have been abandoned by the flight of capital as well as all levels of
government. The financing of the war in Iraq is buttressed by what Vice President Dick
Cheney calls the concept of “never ending war.” This is a concept that declares
permanent war as a continuous state of emergency and brings into play a
fundamentally new mode of politics. In a recent commencement speech at the United
States Military Academy, Cheney provided a succinct outline of the permanent war
concept: The battle of Iraq was a major victory in the war on terror, but the war itself
is far from over. We cannot allow ourselves to grow complacent. We cannot forget
that the terrorists remain determined to kill as many Americans as possible, both
abroad and here at home, and they are still seeking weapons of mass destruction to
use against us. With such an enemy, no peace treaty is possible; no policy of
containment or deterrence will prove effective. The only way to deal with this threat
is to destroy it, completely and utterly. (Dillon, 2003, p. 28) The apocalyptic tone of
his comments do more than cover up the fictive rela- tionship between Iraq and
9/11, it also serves to legitimate a bloated and obscene military budget as well as
economic and tax policies that are financially bankrupting the states, destroying
public education, and plundering public services. The U.S. government plans to spend
up to $400 billion to finance the Iraqi war and the ongoing occupation, whereas it
allocates only $16 billion to welfare programs that cannot possibly address the needs
of over 33 million peo- ple who live below the poverty line, many of them children, or
the 43.8 million without health insurance, or the millions now unemployed because of
dimin- ished public services and state resources. Although $350 billion is allocated for
tax cuts for the rich, state governments are cutting a total of $75 billion in health,
welfare benefits, and education. The sheer inhumanity this government displays
toward the working poor and children living below and slightly above poverty level
can be seen in the decision by Republicans in Congress to elimi- nate from the recent
tax bill the $400 child credit for families with incomes between $10,000 and $26,000.
The money saved by this cut will be used to pay for the cut on dividend taxes. The
result, as Bill Moyers (2003a) observes, is “eleven million children punished for being
poor, even as the rich are rewarded for being rich.” These multiple attacks on the
poor and much-needed public services need to be connected to an expanded political
and social vision that refuses the cynicism and sense of powerlessness that
accompanies the destruc- tion of social goods, the corporatization of the media, the
dismantling of work- ers’ rights, and the incorporation of intellectuals. Against this
totalitarian onslaught, progressives need a language of critique and possibility, one
that connects diverse struggles, uses theory as a resource, and defines politics as not
merely critical but also as an intervention into public life. As Noam Chomsky (2003)
has argued with great brilliance and passion, we need a language that relates the
discourse of war to an attack on democracy at home and abroad, and we need to use
that language in a way that captures the needs, desires, histories, and experiences
that shape people’s daily lives. Similarly, as democratic institu- tions are downsized
and public goods are offered up for corporate plunder, those of us who take seriously
the related issues of equality, human rights, jus tice, and freedom face the crucial
challenge of formulating a notion of the polit- ical suitable for addressing the urgent
problems now facing the 21st century—a politics that, as Zygmunt Bauman (2002)
argues, “never stops criticizing the level of justice already achieved and seeking
more justice and better justice” (p. 54).
Democracy is now just a word in America, our national anthem says “with liberty, and
justice for all’ but the very street we walk on are now war zones. Each day minority
civilians go to war against drugs, poverty, and terrorism in which the US is using as a
mental asylum due to the criminalization of social policies
Henry Giroux 4 (Henry Giroux is an American cultural critic. One of the founding
theorists of critical pedagogy in the United States, he is best known for his pioneering
work in public pedagogy, cultural studies, youth studies, higher education, media
studies, and critical theory.) “War Talk, the Death of the Social, and Dis appearing
Children: Rememberingthe Other War” Pg 208 & 209
As Ulrich Beck (2002, p. 1) has argued, the language of war has taken a dis- tinctly different turn in the
new millennium. War no longer needs to be ratified by Congress as it is now waged by various
government agencies that escape the need for official approval. War has become a permanent
condition adopted by a nation-state that is largely defined by its repressive functions in response to
its powerlessness to regulate corporate power, provide social investments for the populace, and
guarantee a measure of social freedom. The concept of war occu- pies a strange place in the current
lexicon of foreign and domestic policy. It no longer simply refers to a war waged against a sovereign
state such as Iraq, nor is it merely a moral referent for engaging in acts of national self-defense. The concept of war has been both expanded and inverted. It has been expanded in that it has become one of
the most powerful concepts for understanding and struc- turing political culture, public space, and
everyday life. Wars are now waged against crime, labor unions, drugs, terrorism, and a host of alleged
public disor- ders. Wars are not declared against foreign enemies but against alleged domes- tic
threats. The concept of war has also been inverted in that has been removed from any concept of
social justice—a relationship that emerged under Presi- dent Lyndon Johnson and was exemplified in
the war on poverty. War is now defined almost exclusively as a punitive and militaristic process. This
can be seen in the ways in which social policies are now criminalized so that the war on poverty is now
a war against the poor, the war on drugs is now a war waged largely against youth of color, and the
war against terrorism is now largely a war against immigrants, domestic freedoms, and dissent itself.
In the Bush, Perle, Rumsfeld, and Ashcroft view of terrorism, war is individualized, as every citi- zen
becomes a potential terrorist who has to prove that he or she is not danger- ous. Under the rubric of
emergency time, which feeds off government-induced media panics, war provides the moral
imperative to collapse the “boundaries between innocent and guilty, between suspects and nonsuspects” (Beck, 2002, p. 3). War provides the primary rhetorical tool for articulating a notion of the
social as a community organized around shared fears rather than shared respon- sibilities and civic
courage. War is now transformed into a slick Hollywood spectacle designed to both glamorize a
notion of hypermasculinity fashioned in the conservative oil fields of Texas and fill public space with
celebrations of rit- ualized militaristic posturing touting the virtues of either becoming part of “an
Army of one” or indulging in commodified patriotism by purchasing a new Hummer. War as
spectacle easily combines with the culture of fear to divert public attention away from domestic
problems, define patriotism as consensus, and further the growth of a police state. The latter takes
on dangerous over- tones not only with the passage of the Patriot Act and the suspension of civil
liberties but also with the elimination of those laws that traditionally separated the military from
domestic law enforcement and offered individuals a vestige of civil liberties and freedoms. The
political implications of the expanded and inverted use of war as a metaphor can also be seen in the
war against “big gov- ernment,” which is really a war against the welfare state and the social contract
itself—this is a war against the notion that everyone should have access to decent education,
health care, employment, and other public services. One of the most serious issues to be addressed
in the debate about Bush’s concept of permanent war is the effect it is having on one of our most
vulnerable populations, children, and the political opportunity this issue holds for articulating a
language of both opposition and possibility.
The planning of children’s future are denied by the acts of aggression that start
ideological apparatuses based on war footing—the state now function under a rubric
of war in which we exclude people from basic social spheres that provide sense of
agency—schools are militarized, criminal justice used as a way to redefine poverty,
homelessness, and the rise of prison industrial complex as a way to contain disposable
bodies such as youth of color who are poor and marginalized
Henry Giroux 4 (Henry Giroux is an American cultural critic. One of the founding
theorists of critical pedagogy in the United States, he is best known for his pioneering
work in public pedagogy, cultural studies, youth studies, higher education, media
studies, and critical theory.) “War Talk, the Death of the Social, and Dis appearing
Children: Rememberingthe Other War” Pg 208 & 209
Wars are almost always legitimated in order to make the world safe for “our children’s future,” but the
rhetoric belies how their future is often denied by the acts of aggression put into place by a range of
ideological state apparatuses that operate on a war footing. This would include the horrible effects of
the militarization of schools, the use of the criminal justice system to redefine social issues such as
poverty and homelessness as violations of the social order, and the subsequent rise of a prisonindustrial complex as a way to contain dis- posable populations such as youth of color who are poor
and marginalized. Under the rubric of war, security, and antiterrorism, children are “disappeared”
from the most basic social spheres that provide the conditions for a sense of agency and possibility as
they are rhetorically excised from any discourse about the future. The “disappearing” of children is
made more concrete and repre- hensible with the recent revelation of the three children between the
ages of 13 and 15 who were being held without legal representation as enemy combatants in possibly
inhumane conditions at the military’s infamous Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. One wonders
how the Bush administration reconciles its construction of a U.S. gulag for children with their fervent
support of family values and the ideology of compassionate conservativism.
Aff Perm Card
Permute: The negative’s alternative is not mutually exclusive with the affirmative –
subjugated peoples must resist across multiple and sometimes contradictory fields of
possibility – any inconsistency between the Kritik alternative and the affirmative are
not a reason for rejection – both resistances are possible
Valdes 2010, Professor of Law University of Miami [Francisco, “Symposium: Latcrit XIV Outsiders Inside: Critical
Outsiders Theory and Praxis in the Policymaking of the New American Regime.” 18 Am. U.J. Gender Soc. Pol’y & L.
563. Lexis/nexis]
Having shown how economic, political, social, and legal forces have combined in this socio-legal setting
to produce it, Mahmud turns to resistance against it from below - from those at the bottom of this
stratification process. To do so, he emphasizes the contingency and [*583] limitation of all efforts in the
anti-subordination struggle. He notes that "the field of possibilities of resistance and transformative
political action" spans all sectors of society. n80 Most importantly, he observes that "resistance of the
oppressed may take multiple and even contradictory forms." n81 As a bottom line, Mahmud reminds us
that, "in conditions of extreme marginality, survival itself is resistance." n82 Working within and
through the informal sectors of society that slums and other marginalized spaces represent, Mahmud
observes that resistance must avail itself specifically both of "civil" society as well as "political" society
- that is, the existing network of established NGO's as well as the more "grass roots" organizations
that local outsiders can organize on their own terms and operate directly on the ground. n83 To be
effective, however, recall that "resistance of the oppressed may take multiple and even contradictory
forms." n84 Thus, the use of religious or cultural festivals, as well as the use of elections and political
systems, embraces the "field of possibilities" that outsiders living in informal settings must activate in
order to check the processes of corporate globalization and neo-liberal mandates; again, tactical
multidimensionality, and even contradiction, are part and parcel of anti-subordination struggle. With
this nuanced perspective, Mahmud urges anti-subordination activists to take advantage both of
markets as well as of states - in order to examine the field of possibilities of resistance and
transformative political action, slum-dwellers and other outsiders must engage in daily struggle at the
local level, even while striving to understand the transnational forces and dynamics that help to shape
local conditions, limitations, and injustices. Mahmud shows us yet again the continuing power of the
nation state to make and break fortunes as well as lives. Moreover, he effectively provides a compelling
invitation to consider how cultural warfare knows no boundaries or borders. In other words, in this
essay, focused on a particular place and time in the Global South, Mahmud depicts a socio-legal conflict
structured in ways reminiscent of the North American culture wars of the past several decades: in both
contexts, identitarian politics based on class and/or other forms of status and categorization are
practiced as a contestation over opportunity, culture and community. Although the configuration of
identity politics in different locations of the globe no doubt reflect local histories, circumstances, and
trajectories, the recurrence of similar conflicts or contestations based on identities and waged (in great
[*584] measure) through law, calls for critical examinations of law and society that help to tease out the
globalized patterns formed by these localized particularities. It is this type of critical project - seeking to
connect the local to the global in order to understand both better - that LatCrit scholars have long
espoused and labored to produce. n85 In sum, Mahmud's description and critique of the Mumbai slums
(or similar "liminal spaces") effectively call upon us to examine how "domestic" frames of cultural
warfare are paralleled in other nation-states, and across them, in order to create increasingly interlinked patterns of local hierarchy; as globalization replicates hierarchy, as particularities add up to
patterns, as the local and global converge in multiple locations across the globe, this specific call to
multidimensional criticalities also represents a basic and urgent standing challenge to LatCrit/OutCrit
scholars everywhere.
AT: Destroy Coalitions
Coalition building amongst white allies requires more than paying lip service to
agreement with our project – it requires one to critically engage with social location
and a commitment to anti-racist practice
Yancy 08 professor at University of North Texas George Black Bodies, White Gazes:the continuing
significance of race Published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Co-Editor Associate Professor of
Philosophy
Being an ally does not mean slumming around people of color, eager to eat their food, dance to their
music, rub against their "exotic" bodies. The racial politics of gentrification can achieve this end, while
simultaneously keeping the "darkies" within a circumscribed space. Being a white antiracist ally is not
simply a commitment to helping Black people and other people of color. AsGloria Yamato says, "Work
on racism for your sake, not 'their' sake., It involves an active commitment to relinquishing white
power. It entails accountability, where this "involves taking responsibility for one's social location, and
for the way that understanding flows from that location.,, A white ally is one who fights injustice even as
"it costs them something personally. This fight must be done precisely through the recognition that one
is a white person, "rather than attempting to step outside that identity, in order to rebuild it from
without, as it were. White people who are sincere about antiracism need to pay critical attentionto the
ways in which they can relinquish power. Merely rearticulating whiteness beyond white guilt and deep
feelings of angst is not sufficient. There must be the call, the continuous effort, to disarticulate
whiteness from those juridical-political, economic, institutional, aesthetic, and other locations that
will resist disarticulation to ensure the maintenance of white power. The point here is that the white
body is not simply implicated in and productive of racialized spaces that have profoundly destructive
psychological implications for Black bodies. Rather, the white body is tied to the operations of the state
as a powerful site of white hegemony. White people and critical whiteness studies theorists must
remain cognizant of the fact that Black people critiqued whiteness and struggled against whiteness
(and continue to do so) because whiteness is oppressive; it systemically excludes, derails, polices,
segregates, and murders. Deploying critical pedagogies in the name of valorizing cultural heterogeneity
in schools as a strategy for disrupting whiteness as normative is one thing. Fighting the police, the
prison system-the repressive apparatus of the state--de facto residential segregation, bank lending
practices, and racialized global capitalism, where the white imperial subject continues to expand its
reach and control over nonwhite others according to its mythos of manifest destiny, is another. Hence
"to bind to" Black people and other people ofcolor involves fighting to undo the racialized material
structures, discursive orders, and semiotic fields according to which the power of one's whiteness is
purchased. As whites attempt to undo power and privilege, they find themselves confronting a world in
which whiteness is not only around them but also working through them.3S Given this, disrupting sites
of whiteness will require that white allies cultivate identities "rooted in understandings of themselves
and their relations to others And given the pervasive and structural complexity of .whiteness to
reposition one's identity as center, and, hence, over and against those of people of color, undoing
whiteness "is a project in process, always becoming, always in need of another step.,,3 Even as one tries,
one's efforts will be thwarted by unconscious habits of white privilege, forming roadblocks as one
attempts to expose whiteness.38 What this means is that one cannot, through a sheer act ofwill, cast off
one's whiteness, particularly as whiteness qua "race" is not a thin covering laid over a fundamentally
non-raced identity.39 To combat whiteness effectively requires an understanding of social ontological
constitutive spaces wherein others can cite you "as white and thus contribute to the performative
reiteration ofracial difference.,,40
We do not reject coalition building and building alliances with others – however,
structural power relations are implicated in any attempt to build coalitions – even in
building alliances, whiteness must be confronted
Yancey 08 professor at University of North Texas George Black Bodies, White Gazes:the continuing
significance of race Published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Co-Editor Associate Professor of
Philosophy
There is also the issue of the meaning of alliances that-while grounded in mutual respect and the
deployment of suspension-are still shaped by radically differential social power positions that are
buttressed by material distribution along racial lines. That is, even as one demonstrates disaffiliative
efforts in relation to whiteness, one's whiteness is recuperative through mobility back to the vanilla
suburbs. The larger issue, one I do not address here, is whether the ultimate aims of undoing whiteness
involve making sure that people of color have greater opportutrities to get a piece of the American pie
(in short, having liberal democracy work for them in more effective ways) or whether undoing whiteness
requires redistributing wealth and power. The point is that many whites may be willing to do the
necessary work to engage in new and transformative ways of undoing whiteness without any concern
for tackling issues around disparity of wealth along racial lines. However, undoing whiteness is
inextricably linked to undoing those structural power relationships that continue to privilege whites,
even as they strive to perform whiteness differently within the context of transacting with people of
color on a daily basis. While undoing whiteness in elevator encounters is one thing or deploying critical
pedagogies that challenge white teachers to trouble their whiteness in the classroom is another, doing
these things does not necessarily lead to strong advocacy on the part of whites for broader systemic
structural change. Undoing whiteness must also involve undoing structural power as defmed along racial
lines.
Interracial coalitions that seek to combat oppression must begin in schools. This joint
effort offers a new approach to dealing with post racism. It modernizes the Civil Rights
Movement, exposing the “load of hope.”
Chin, J.D. candidate at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law and a Ph.D. candidate in the
department of Justice and Social Inquiry, 12 (Jeremiah, “Under Law of Color: Prisons, Post-Racism, and
Present Complexions: What a Load of Hope: The Post-Racial Mixtape,” 48 Cal. W. L. Rev. 369, LexisNexis,
REM)
Coalitions between racial groups empower people of color, and everyone involved, by giving them
greater political voice, and can help combat post-racial trauma by reaffirming experiences of
oppression as valid. Importantly, coalitions provide a space for discussion that does not distance or
disregard experiences with racism as being "too sensitive" or "over analyzing" encounters. This sort of
empowerment not only begins in schools, through ethnic studies programs that have been banned by
a post-racial agenda, but also by refining academic discourse through "political impact statements ... ,
[which] ascertain how well one's projects and ideas align with ... larger projects and goals in the
medium run and ... anticipate hazards along the way." n131 [*397] By generating coalitions against
post-racial ideology, people of color can generate a critical mass to respond to historic and present
oppression. Rather than the "critical mass" used to justify token representation of people of color in the
interest of diversity, critical mass coalition building strives to generate a larger social network that can
blossom into a social movement, creating a new beat, tune, and song that challenges the post-racial
mixtape; reminding everyone, like Kanye West has, that "racism's still alive, they just be concealing
it." Post-racialism has gathered acclaim by sampling the ideals and rhetoric of the civil rights movement,
but like an old cassette, the tune has become warped, twisting and morphing the words into hollow
support of people of color while reinforcing a white supremacist beat. Coalition building is less
destructive, and more creative, sampling the old tune to reinforce the old message, adding current
relevance by connecting the old beats and the modern style into an effort that can expose the postracial mixtape for what it is: a load of hope.
AT: Cap K/ Fem K: Intersectionality Turn
Race centered kritiks are also intersectional – we consider race at the intersection of
capitalism and heteronormativity
Gillborn 2006, Professor at the Institute of Education, University of London, UK [David, “Rethinking
White Supremacy : Who Counts in 'WhiteWorld'” Ethnicities 6(3): 318-340]
It is in this sense that many critics, especially those working within critical race theory (CRT), talk of
white supremacy (see Delgado and Stefancic, 2001). In these analyses, white supremacy is not only,
nor indeed primarily, associated with relatively small and extreme political movements that openly
mobilize on the basis of race hatred (important and dangerous though such groups are): rather,
supremacy is seen to relate to the opera- tion of forces that saturate the everyday, mundane actions
and policies that shape the world in the interests of white people (see Bush, 2004; Delgado and
Stefancic, 1997): [By] ‘white supremacy’ I do not mean to allude only to the self-conscious racism of
white supremacist hate groups. I refer instead to a political, economic, and cultural system in which
whites overwhelmingly control power and material resources, conscious and unconscious ideas of
white superiority and entitlement are widespread, and relations of white dominance and non-white
subordination are daily reenacted across a broad array of institutions and social settings. (Ansley,
1997: 592) CRT is sometimes attacked for placing race at the centre of the analysis, seemingly to the
detriment of gendered and class-based analyses. In fact, a good deal of CRT takes very seriously the
intersections of raced, classed and gendered inequities (see, for example, Parker et al., 1999; Wing,
1997). However, at its core, CRT demands that race and racism never be relegated to the sidelines or
imagined to be a complexifying element in a situation that is really about class, or really about gender.
In this article I examine two very different examples of how white supremacy currently operates. The
specifics of each case relate to contemporary England, but the wider mechanisms are common to
many similar ‘western’ states that claim to practice universalism and equality of opportunity for all. The
first example relates to a period of public crisis, a moment where ‘what really matters’ is thrown into
relief by a set of exceptional circumstances, in this case, the London bombings of July 2005. The
second example relates to the routine and unexceptional workings of national assessment
mechanisms in the education system. These apparently divergent cases are linked by the centrality of
white interests and the mobilization of structural and cultural forces to defend white power at the
expense of the racialized ‘Other’.
Whiteness is beyond classism; your social location does not change the privilege that
whites carry with them where ever they go
Yancey 08 professor at University of North Texas George Black Bodies, White Gazes:the continuing
significance of race Published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Co-Editor Associate Professor of
Philosophy(DV)
To encourage whites to avoid idealizations of themselves as antiracists and therefore in some sense see
their subject positions as marginal in relationship to the larger structure of white power, it is important
to remind them that in racist white America there is simply no place where they can remain
permanently marginal. This social realist position militates against any unproblematic notions of
having achieved a so-called color-blind perspective, which can function as another way of avoiding
challenging white structural power. While antiracist whites may anger other whites, the fonner still
"bare a socially privileged racial identity. Even so-called poor white trash identities are white. As
Bryant Keith Alexander notes, "Disregarding issues of class and location, they Identities I engage a
perfomance of 'better than thou' in the presence of non Whites; a perfomance of privilege that they
assume to be either a birthright or a historically perceived sanction. I would argue that "Black trash"
might be said to be a tautology. Dispose, as it were, of the trash in "white trash" and one has whiteness.
Dispose of the trash in "Black trash" and one is left with Blackness, which is more of the same, the
disposable, the wretched, the socially unpalatable refuse. White trash might be marked by class, and
inflected by class, but whiteness still allows entrance into The Gap without being followed. In other
words, whiteness is interpellated as innocence as it enters into those larger social and semiotic spaces
where it is constituted as "one of us." Addressing the issue of poor whites who embrace their whiteness
as an ontological stamp of superiority, Marilyn Frye notes: "Many poor and working-class white people
are perfectly confident that they are more intelligent, know more, have better judgment, and are
more moral than black people or Chicanos or Puerto Ricans or Indians or anyone else they view as not
white, and believe that they would be perfectly competent to run the country and to rule others justly
and righteously if given the opportunity. And while it is true that the white bourgeoisie deployed divide
and conquer tactics to sustain divisions and tensions between poor Blacks and poor whites, and that this
prohibited/prohibits the recognition of shared interests, "we must tell the full story of white racism in all
of its complexity, and this complexity cannot be fully resolved through a class analysis that sequesters
the guilty as only among the rich.
Capitalism seeks to subordinate peoples in an effort to maintain its own prosperity. By
creating a permanent race-based class, white elites ensure the continuation of this
success. – the permutation is the best option for interrogating the intersection
between racism and capitalism – focus on capitalism cannot explan racism
Mandell, Director of the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity Fair Housing Project, 8
(Bekah, “Racial Reification and Global Warming: A Truly Inconvenient Truth,” 28 B.C. Third World L.J.
289, Lexis Nexis, REM)
As capitalism began to replace the mercantile economy in the United States and as the industrial
revolution exploded on American [*304] soil, an even greater need for a subordinate race emerged.
n73 Capitalism, with its necessary inequalities, needed an underclass to survive and prosper as an
economic system. n74 Blacks, by virtue of the racially inferior status imposed upon them by the legal
system, were perfectly situated to play the necessary role. n75 Thus, after constructing race as a way
to ameliorate the moral discomfort of slavery, the political system passed and enforced laws to ensure
that blacks remained a distinct subordinate race in the interest of capitalism. n76 By legislating into
existence a permanent race-based proletariat class, white elites ensured that the capitalist system
could continue to deliver enormously disproportionate benefits to those lucky enough to have
received whiteness.
AT: Discourse is irrelevant
Discourse is an important site for the maintenance of a racist/ethnocentric social
imagination – discourse is critical to the reproduction of racism
Van Dijk 97 Teun A Professor of Discourse Studies at the University of Amsterdam.Political Discourse
and Racism:Describing Others in Western Parliaments
Discourse plays a role at both the micro and macro levels as well as in both interaction and cognition.
At the micro level, discourse as a form of interaction may be directly discriminatory, for example,
when white speakers or writers derogate minorities. At the same time, discourse expresses and
influences social cognitions such as ethnic prejudices, and this contributes to their acquisition, use, and
reproduction in everyday life. At the macro level, genres or orders of discourse, such as those of the
media and politics, may be seen as the overall manifestations of organizations or institutions in the
system of ethnic-racial relations and as expressing the shared ideologies of the white dominant group.
It already was suggested that elite groups within the white dominant group play a prominent role in
these processes of reproduction. Their power is defined not only by their preferential access to
material social resources but also by their preferential access to, and control over, various forms of
public discourse. This also is the major means in the production of public opinion and the dominant
consensus on ethnic affairs. Thus politicians, journalists, columnists, professors, corporate managers,
church or union officials, and many other leading elites in society play a role in a complex process in
the definition of the ethnic situation. This role may effectively contribute not only to the reproduction
of racism but also to the (often marginal) forces that combat racism.
In the case of racism, the discourse of race has concretized into material norms that
have a profound impact on society
Mandell, Director of the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity Fair Housing Project, 8
(Bekah, “Racial Reification and Global Warming: A Truly Inconvenient Truth,” 28 B.C. Third World L.J.
289, Lexis Nexis, REM)
Race is a relatively recent, "plastic and inconsistent" construction of the legal and social system, not a
fixed or natural classification. n58 The fluid and relational nature of race is demonstrated throughout
history. n59 For example, though now considered white, until early in the middle of the last century,
Irish and Italian immigrants were not socially or legally "white." n60 Both groups only became white
when they were granted the right to become U.S. citizens. n61 With whiteness came economic and
social domination over blacks, along with middle class comforts. n62 Despite the artificially
constructed foundation of racial categories, the process of racial reification--the transformation of
abstract racial categories "into concrete things," which "take on material forms which in turn
reinforce the ideas that shape the world"--has had, and continues to have, a tangible and profound
impact on our society. n63 Racial classifications have evolved over time both to shape and to reflect
predominant belief systems in the United States. Race has been developed and preserved to serve a
peculiar purpose in society: to justify disparate treatment of particular individuals, elevating one group
of individuals to superior status, while marking another group as inferior. n64 john a. powell calls this
stratification process "racing":
AT: Interest Convergence
Status quo culture wars make interest convergence impossible – the federal
government has been taken over by backlash laws and politics that roll back the gains
in civil rights over the last century
Valdes 2010, Professor of Law University of Miami [Francisco, “Symposium: Latcrit XIV Outsiders Inside: Critical
Outsiders Theory and Praxis in the Policymaking of the New American Regime.” 18 Am. U.J. Gender Soc. Pol’y & L.
563. Lexis/nexis]
In recent decades, the culture wars in this country have focused oftentimes, perhaps obsessively, on
identitarian ideologies - white power, male privilege, heterosexist supremacy, moral hegemony. n61 It is
no [*579] coincidence, therefore, that twice in sexual regulation cases Antonin Scalia has invoked this
very notion of cultural warfare - as a feature of his dissents from Romer v. Evans n62 and Lawrence v.
Texas. n63 Those cases suggest that high stakes and charged dynamics are involved in cultural warfare, at
least from the perspective of its purveyors. The dynamics of backlash law and politics generally have
pointed to three interactive and mutually-reinforcing prongs of majoritarian attack against minority
interests: (1) concentrating accumulated or entrenched resources to prevail in majoritarian contests
and take control of public policy, both in the form of representative elections and "direct" referenda;
(2) leveraging success in the first prong to pack the federal courts with ideological appointees
committed to reversing despised precedents, undoing "liberal" legislation, and shielding backlash
policymaking from meaningful judicial scrutiny; and (3) targeting the spending power, which is used in
tandem with the other two prongs, to "starve" social lifelines to vulnerable groups, especially when
the first two prongs fail to undo or reverse liberal legacies. n64 Rather than working in neat or linear
ways, these prongs are worked in various ways and contexts to pursue consistently reactionary
agendas. n65 In law and jurisprudence, this culture war backlash has been spearheaded through
organizations like the Federalist Society, which was formed by now-prominent cultural warriors like
Antonin Scalia. n66 In policy and politics, as recent history teaches, culture war agendas have been
formed and advanced by politicians like Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. n67 Using
law and politics, backlash warriors slowly but [*580] surely have striven to restructure the nation's
perspective on its own values and history. n68 Using identity wedge politics to polarize "ins" and
"outs," they have endeavored to redraw the legal landscape in favor of power and privilege, spanning
categories of doctrine from anti-trust to civil rights. n69 Indeed, they have aimed to restructure the very
structure of power, mainly to suit themselves, their sponsors and their allies. Of course, the culture
wars find "different" groups positioned "differently" vis-a-vis core constitutional commitments like
formal equality and key structural issues like democracy and judicial review, and thus vis-a-vis their
formal and actual retrenchment through backlash. n70 These differentials mean that the specific aspects
or techniques of cultural warfare have been tailored for and directed at "different" groups in groupspecific ways - ways that account for each group's standing in relationship both to formal law and to
social reality. n71 Nonetheless, experience indicates that the overarching pattern of backlash politics
(and jurisprudence) constitutes the pursuit of a self-subscribed "anti-antidiscrimination" agenda in
which judicial power and majoritarian power combine to roll back "liberal" gains of the past century.
n72
It therefore is no coincidence that legal observers of [*581] many different stripes have long been
detailing and critiquing willful judicial and political misbehavior in furtherance of culture war agendas
against minority civil rights.
Appealing to interest convergence is an ineffective strategy for confronting racism –
civil rights gains can too easily be rolled back at the whim of white interest – it is the
very “worthiness” of black and brown bodies that must be confronted
Gillborn 2006, Professor at the Institute of Education, University of London, UK [David, “Rethinking
White Supremacy : Who Counts in 'WhiteWorld'” Ethnicities 6(3): 318-340]
A central tenet of CRT is the understanding that the status of black and other minority groups is
always conditional upon the approval of whites. Even where apparent advances in civil rights have
been won, such as the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954, they have frequently
relied on the perception that white and minority interests converged on a particular issue: e.g. the
need to demonstrate US democ- racy in action in the midst of the Cold War (Bell, 1995). So long as
whites do not feel overly threatened – or better still, perceive some self-interest in the situation –
then minorities appear to be included. However, there is always the threat that this might be
removed at the whim of whites: Ever present, always lurking in the shadow of current events, is the
real possibility that an unexpected coincidence of events at some point in the future – like those that
occurred in the past – will persuade whites to reach a consensus that a major benefit to the nation
justifies an ultimate sacrifice of black rights – or lives. (Bell, 1992: 13) To many whites, such an analysis
might seem outrageous, but its perceptive- ness was revealed in dramatic fashion in the summer of
2005 when a series of bombs were exploded in London. The reaction, by government, media and
whites on the street, offers the clearest demonstration of the conditional status of people of colour in
contemporary England.
“Interest convergence” says that elites will only tolerate racial advances when they
will benefit themselves. Burying the language of race will result in the ultimate
redemption of whiteness.
Chin, J.D. candidate at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law and a Ph.D. candidate in the
department of Justice and Social Inquiry, 12 (Spring 2012, Jeremiah, 48 California Western Law Review
369, “Global Justice: Theories, Histories, Futures: Under Law of Color: Prisons, Post-Racism, and Present
Complexions: What a Load of Hope: The Post-Racial Mixtape,” LexisNexis, JS)
Existing social structures and institutions allow for change only through what Derrick Bell has termed
"interest convergence." n15 Social movements alone do not lead to racial justice, but rather "white
elites will tolerate or encourage racial advances for blacks only when such advances also promote
white self-interest." n16 Bell explains that even after policies have been put in place to create a
semblance of racial justice, "that remedy will be abrogated at the point that policymakers fear the
remedial policy is threatening the superior social status of whites, particularly those in the middle and
upper classes." n17 To understand and undermine interest convergence in law, Critical Race Theory
emphasizes a "call to context" that requires a deeper examination of legal and social issues by paying
"attention to the details of minorities' lives as a foundation for our national civil rights strategy." n18
Returning context to the legal conversation reveals the role of law as both ideology and coercion, as
"ideology convinces one group that the coercive domination of another is legitimate." n19 From the
foundation of Critical Race Theory, this Comment examines legal decisions and policies which represent
interest convergence, preserve white privilege, and decontextualize the social construction of race
through post-racialism. Professor Sumi Cho explains that post-racial ideology "reflects a belief that due
to the significant racial progress that has been made, the state need not engage in race-based
decision-making or adopt race-based remedies, [*374] and that civil society should eschew race as a
central organizing principle of social action." n20 Thus the "retreat from race" takes three forms:
materially in the removal of state created racial remedies, socioculturally in redefining the meaning of
racial equality and justice, and politically in delegitimizing racial political entities in pursuit of legal
and social change. n21 Post-racialism has deep connections to historic legal constructions of whiteness
outlined by Lopez, but also represents legal standards of whiteness. n22 Professor Cheryl Harris explains
that law has created a propertied investment in whiteness as "the law's denial of the existence of racial
groups is predicated not only on the rejection of the ongoing presence of the past, but is also grounded
on a basic tenet of liberalism - that constitutional protections Page 3 48 Cal. W. L. Rev. 369, *371 inhere
in individuals, not groups." n23 By burying the language of race, post-racialism results in "the ultimate
redemption of whiteness: a sociocultural process by which whiteness is restored to its full pre-civilrights value ... by disaggregating unjust enrichment and complicity from whiteness through the
redemptive and symbolic "big event' of racial transcendence." n24 To outline the features of postracialism as a racial project that forms the dominant narrative of modern legal and political rhetoric, this
Comment analyzes three Supreme Court cases and two pieces of Arizona legislation using the four key
features of post-racialism outlined by Professor Cho. First is "the trope of racial progress [that asserts]
racial thinking and racial solutions are no longer needed because the nation has "made great strides,'
achieved a[] historic accomplishment, or transcended racial divisions of past generations." n25 Second
is a "race-neutral universalism" that casts racial remedies as "partial and divisive, and benefiting
primarily those with "special interests' versus all Americans." n26 In other words, the United States is
normatively defined as white, heterosexual, and male. Those who want to change this norm, through
affirmative action or [*375] examinations of the United States as historically oppressive to
disenfranchised groups, undermine the legal standing of equality the United States. n27 Third is a
moral equivalence between racialism of the past and present, making racial divisions of the past, such as
Jim Crow, synonymous with policies that attempt to effect racial remedies, such as affirmative action.
n28 Cho explains "post-racialism views both the pre-civil-rights era (from European contact up to the
mid-twentieth century) and the civil-rights era (from the mid-to late twentieth century) as racially
polarizing. Instead, post-racialism idealizes a society in which race is no longer a basis for differential
treatment, grievance, or remedy." n29 Fourth is a distancing move, used by post-racialists to
distinguish themselves from and assert their superiority over civil rights advocates and critical race
theorists. n30 The distancing move is a "hegemonic device" that features "attacks against the preceding
racialisms, especially against advocates of race-conscious theories, race-based remedies, and race-based
collective political action to achieve such remedies." n31
Post-racialism attacks communities from a distance while the elites are insulated from
the effects of institutional racism. They feed people of color a “load of hope” that
racism is dead while claiming that oppression is no longer relevant.
Chin, J.D. candidate at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law and a Ph.D. candidate in the
department of Justice and Social Inquiry, 12 (Spring 2012, Jeremiah, 48 California Western Law Review
369, “Global Justice: Theories, Histories, Futures: Under Law of Color: Prisons, Post-Racism, and Present
Complexions: What a Load of Hope: The Post-Racial Mixtape,” LexisNexis, JS)
Post-racialism has integrated itself into legal ideology as a legitimate reading of race, discrimination,
and education in the United States. It has evolved into a modern political rhetoric that combats
antiracist efforts through what Ian Haney Lopez describes as a "new, well-honed jujitsu of reactionary
colorblindness in action: Exploit race (use coded terms to stir up racial animosity); parry (brush aside
charges of racism by demanding proof that you used an old-fashioned [*393] slur); punch (accuse your
critics of constantly playing the race card)." n118 The four features of post-racialism that Sumi Cho
outlines n119 become instructive in identifying the rhetorical and legal strategies used to insulate white
supremacy from challenges through a post-racial narrative. Post-racialism, however, makes a distinct
departure from reactionary colorblindness in its moral equivalence and distancing move. If reactionary
colorblindness is the hand-to-hand jujitsu of conversational white supremacy, then post-racialism,
through legislation and common law, is the heavy artillery. Post-racialism attacks communities from a
distance while those in Page 11 48 Cal. W. L. Rev. 369, *390 power sit comfortably, insulated, due to
the elimination of programs, opportunities, and histories of people of color. Post-racialism, in the law
and in political rhetoric, feeds people of color a "load of hope" that racism is dead. Post-racialists foist
this load of hope on people of color by acknowledging the history of oppression, and morally equating
any programs, organizations, or people that strive for racial justice with discrimination. This creates
"post-racial trauma"; a dissonance between the experiences of racism that people of color face daily
and the legal and political language that asserts the United States has transcended race. Indigenous
Scholar of Education Bryan Brayboy argues that historical trauma, or the cumulative emotional and
psychological damage that occurs across generations from massive group trauma, is deeply connected
to "genesis amnesia," or forgetting the beginning. n120 In contrast, post-racial trauma comes from laws
and political rhetoric that acknowledge the history of oppression in the United States, but deny that
said history has meaning, value, or impact on the present experiences of people of color. When Tom
Horne states that ethnic studies programs that utilize the pedagogy of the oppressed are a "downer," or
the Supreme Court rules that affirmative action programs that tread on white privilege in school
admissions is the same as segregation, a twisted history of the United States becomes institutionalized.
This [*394] twisted history recognizes that oppression existed (maybe, once upon a time), but claims
it is no longer relevant. Post-racialism creates post-racial trauma by connecting the institutional
racism codified in the law to the everyday experiences of people of color by denying that these
experiences are painful, have meaning, or are related to any form of systemic discrimination. The
prohibition of ethnic studies programs, and other post-racial projects, attempts to bury the potential
for empowerment in race consciousness n121 by removing the explicit language of racism from the
law and reviving oppression through race-neutral universalism and assertions of racial progress. Postracial laws define racism through overt individual acts of meanness, acts that do not connect to the
institutions of the status quo. These laws also deny the presence of racial microagressions, n122 and
equate racism with affirmative action or ethnic studies education. Post-racialism as a legal ideology
makes the law hostile to racial reform and thus makes post-racialism appear eternal.
The only way to overcome post-racialism is to advocate for a large social movement.
We need to educate our youth to communicate ideas about structural racism.
Chin, J.D. candidate at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law and a Ph.D. candidate in the
department of Justice and Social Inquiry, 12 (Spring 2012, Jeremiah, 48 California Western Law Review
369, “Global Justice: Theories, Histories, Futures: Under Law of Color: Prisons, Post-Racism, and Present
Complexions: What a Load of Hope: The Post-Racial Mixtape,” LexisNexis, JS)
Yet youth, the supposed victims of Tom Horne's "downer," generally don't believe the hype of postracialism. The Applied Research Center found that the "millennial" generation believes that systemic
racism and race continue to matter in United States society, based on focus group interviews conducted
with people ages eighteen to twenty-five of White, Asian American/Pacific Islander, Black, and Latina/o
descent. n123 Across the five identified racial groups, a majority of respondents believe racism
remains a significant problem in the criminal justice system and in employment, and a majority of
respondents believe racism is still a significant problem in education, except for a majority of white
respondents. n124 Most of the interviewees expressed concern with problems of inequitable access to
education or the ongoing segregation in schools. Yet while the youth [*395] talk about getting an
education through college degrees, diplomas, and careers, there was little focus on how education
itself can be a tool, process, or way of knowing, used to combat racism. Researchers found
respondents are hesitant to describe how systemic racism works, exists, or functions, but can more
easily describe interpersonal acts of meanness and systemic issues of class. n125 This paucity of
dialogue can be seen as one of the main symptoms of post-racial trauma, reducing racism to
individualized acts, while the systemic post-racial rhetoric obscures, obfuscates, and otherwise
obviates the need for formalized changes. While youth recognize that such problems may exist, they
experience difficulty in communicating ideas or feelings about structural problems. These difficulties
could be mended through the very kind of programs that Horne, H.B. 2281, and Proposition 107 are
attempting to erase. The kind of education that H.B. 2281 targets, such as the ethnic studies program
in the Tucson Unified School District, provides the type of language to talk openly about race,
structural oppression, and systemic racism. In a report funded by the Arizona State Superintendent's
office, n126 an independent auditor found that the Mexican American Studies Department (MASD) in
Tucson provided higher student-teacher interaction, improved student achievement through the
curriculum, and even complied with the vague language of H.B. 2281. n127 Although MASD courses
included readings on Latina/o history and LatCrit, the report's primary concern n128 was that [*396]
such readings were not "age appropriate" based on the complexity of the content. n129 However,
high rates of achievement reported in the audit show that coursework provided open discourse on
race, history, and oppression in the classroom and students were not only engaged in the coursework,
but engaged in education at higher rates, which indicated that students turn Page 12 48 Cal. W. L. Rev.
369, *393 racial and political literacy into action. Post-racialism seeks to individualize students,
eliminate group affiliations, and rearticulate the rhetoric of civil rights to make claims to universal
personhood incompatible with the goals of racial equity. Cooptation into interest convergence
becomes simple and ingrained into race-related legislation since whiteness is taken as the normative
position of power and victimization. Harms are typically localized to disparate impact on privileged
whites rather than oppressed and disenfranchised people of color. Sumi Cho reiterates that the power
to overcome post-racialism as an ideology lies in collective action, citing the work of Immanuel
Wallerstein and Andre Gunder Frank in advocating for the formation of a large-scale social movement
to combat post-racial attitudes and oppressions. "Only by empowering the various understrata may the
existing undemocratic structures be weakened." n130
Whiteness has been written as a form of political agency in popular cultures to
rearticulate a sense of individual and collective identity to many whites who feel
under assault by minorities, the time is now to start to halt white supremacy as race
becomes paramount in shaping American politics
Henry Giroux 4 (Henry Giroux is an American cultural critic. One of the founding
theorists of critical pedagogy in the United States, he is best known for his pioneering
work in public pedagogy, cultural studies, youth studies, higher education, media
studies, and critical theory.) “W H I T E S Q U A L L : R E S I S T A N C E A N D T H E
P E D A G O G Y O F W H I T E N E S S” Pg 377 & 378
A siege mentality arose for policing cultural boundaries and reasserting national identity. The
discourse of ‘whiteness’ as an ambivalent signifier of resentment and confusion gives expression to a
mass of whites who feel vic- timized and bitter while it masks deep inequalities and exclusionary practices within the current social order. Shifting the politics of race from the discourse of white
supremacy, the historical legacy of slavery and segre- gation as well as the ongoing burden of racial
injustice endured by African- American and other minorities in the United States, politicians such as
Pat Buchanan, David Duke, Jesse Helms and Pat Robertson mobilized a new populist discourse about
family, nation, traditional values and individual- ism as part of a broader resistance to multicultural
democracy and diverse racial culture. In the rapidly expanding medium of talk radio, conservatives
bashed blacks for many of the social and economic problems facing the country.3 Conservative
columnist Mickey Kaus exemplifies this sensibility in his comment: ‘I may want to live in a society where
there is no alienated race and no racism, where I need not feel uncomfortable walking down the street
because I’m white’ (quoted in Brenkman, 1995: 34). As race became paramount in shaping American
politics and everyday life from the 1980s on, racial prejudice in its overt forms was considered a taboo.
While the old racism maintained some cache among the more vulgar, right-wing con- servatives (for
example, New York city’s radio talk show host Bob Grant), a new racist discourse emerged in the United
States. The new racism was coded in the language of ‘welfare reform, neighborhood schools, toughness
on crime and “illegitimate ” births’. Cleverly designed to mobilize white fears while relieving whites of
any semblance of social responsibility and commitment, the new racism served to rewrite the politics
of ‘whiteness’ as a besieged racial identity. As the racial backlash intensified in the broader culture,
‘whiteness’ assumed a new form of political agency visible in the rise of right-wing militia groups,
skinheads, the anti-PC crusades of indig- nant white students and conservative, academic
organizations such as the National Association of Scholars and the Southern League.4 Rather than being
invisible, as left critics such as Richard Dyer and bell hooks have claimed, ‘whiteness’ was aggressively
embraced in popular culture in order to rearticulate a sense of individual and collective identity for
many whites who felt under assault by minorities, radicals and multi- culturalists. 5 Celebrated in the
mass media in the 1990s, the new cartogra- phy of race emerges as the result of an attempt to rewrite
the racial legacy of the past while recovering a mythic vision of ‘whiteness’ associated with purity and
innocence. Immensely popular films such as Forrest Gump (1994) attempted to rewrite public memory
by cleansing the American past of racial tensions and endorsing ‘a preferred understanding of racial
relations that work on the behalf of the public mourning of the “victimize d white male” ’ (Gresson, 1996:
13). Widely discussed books such as The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray (1994) and
The End of Racism by Dinesh D’Souza (1995) revised and reaffirmed the basic prin- ciples of the eugenics
debate of the 1920s and 1930s and provided a defence of racial hierarchies.
Framework
Framework = Maintain Racism
The policy-making frame must be interrogated for the reproduction of racism – the
framework of political theory, like topicality and framework arguments in debate play
a critical role in maintaining racism and solidifying white economic and race privilege
Van Dijk 97 [Teun A Professor of Discourse Studies at the University of Amsterdam.Political Discourse
and Racism:Describing Others in Western Parliaments]
Finally, these assumptions about the role of politicians and political discourse in the reproduction of
racism should be examined not only in the context of a theory of racism or a theory of discourse but
also within the framework of political theory. The role and influence of elites in general, and that of
political elites in particular, is one element in such a theory (Domhoff, 1978; Herman & Chomsky, 1988;
Mills, 1956). Analysis of parliamentary debates, however, presupposes assumptions about the role of
democratic institutions; about the functions, tasks, and conceptions of parliamentary representatives;
about the relations among the legislature, government, and agencies of the state; about the relations
between parliament and other political and social institutions; and about the relations among
parliamentarians, their constituencies, and the population at large. Obviously, these and many other
structures that ire among the objects of political theory cannot all be examined in this chapter, although
several of these relations are mentioned briefly. Within our discourse analytical perspective, I prefer to
focus on the structures and functions of political discourse. Against this background, it is not only the
power of legislation and policymaking in ethnic affairs that is a crucial element in the reproduction of
systems of inequality such as racism, but also the influence of politicians on public discourse ( through
the media) and hence on public opinion. Along this political power dimension, we discover the double
dimension of discrimination and prejudice that defines the system of racism. As a group, white
politicians sustain and legitimate the dominance of the white group with which they identify, and
their extraordinary legislative powers allow them to play a primary role in the reproduction of this
system of dominance. They have the prerogative to legislate in matters of racism, discrimination,
affirmative action, and other aspects of ethnic relations that are of crucial importance for the position
of minorities. In sum, their role in ethnic affairs is not marginal, and this also is how we should
understand their discourses and the functions of such text and talk in the reproduction of ethnic
relations in general and in the reproduction of racism in particular.
Liberal ideals like universality and objectivity that are the foundations for arguments
like topicality and framework make policy options for redressing oppression
impossible – the decentering of white privilege and claims of post-racialism have
created a dangerous mixture as a cover for white supremacy
Halewood, Professor of Law, 12(Peter, “DEFINING RACE: LAYING DOWN THE LAW: POST-RACIALISM
AND THE DE-RACINATION PROJECT,” 72 Alb. L. Rev. 1047, LexisNexis, REM)
Law and the modern state have achieved legitimacy by deploying the liberal ideology of universal
values and objectivity, strenuously objected to by critical legal theory. Garden variety mind/body
dualism allows liberal legalism to privilege disembodied and decontextualized interpretations of law and
society, key to maintaining the hegemonic discourse of neutral, objective principle. This has been
accomplished at the cost of repressing a whole discourse around group experiences of oppression and
disparate impact, and policy options for redressing that oppression, that do not comport with the
legalism of the modern liberal state. The persistence of whiteness and white privilege combined now
with claims to post-racialism and de-racination is a potent and dangerous mixture. The debate will
continue to be about whether we should further privatize responses to subordination, leaving them to
the market and jettisoning even the meager state protections we still have, or whether we build a
new and robust public commitment to progressive legalism and substantive measures of social justice.
We just do not know whether law is up to the task.
The frames of racial ideology are used to justify seemingly obvious racial practices.
Abstract liberalism does so by making whites appear “reasonable,” despite the fact
that they actively oppose solutions to racial inequality.
Bonilla-Silva and Dietrich. professor of sociology and PhD candidate in sociology at Duke University,
11 (Eduardo and David, “The Sweet Enchantment of Color-Blind Racism in Obamerica,” 634 Annals 190,
LexisNexis, REM)
The frames of any dominant racial ideology are set paths for interpreting information and operate as
cognitive culs-de-sac because, after people invoke them, they explain racial phenomena in a predictable
manner--as if they were getting on a one-way street without exits. Dominant racial frames are not "false
consciousness" but rather unacknowledged, contextual standpoints that provide the intellectual (and
moral) building blocks whites use to explain racial matters. The central frames of color-blind racism are
abstract liberalism, cultural racism, minimization of racism, and naturalization; we illustrate the first
three here (Bonilla-Silva 2006). Abstract liberalism. This frame incorporates tenets associated with
political and economic liberalism in an abstract and de-contextualized manner. By framing racerelated issues in the language of liberalism, whites can appear "reasonable" and even "moral" while
opposing all practical approaches to deal with de facto racial inequality. For instance, by using the
tenets of the free market ideology in the abstract, they can oppose affirmative action as a violation of
the norm of equal opportunity. The following example illustrates how whites use this frame. Jim, a 30year-old computer software salesman from a privileged background, explained his opposition to
affirmative action: [*193] I think it's unfair top to bottom on everybody and the whole process. Often,
you know, discrimination itself is a bad word, right But you discriminate every day. You wanna buy a
beer at the store and there are six kinds [of] beers you can get from Natural Light to Sam Adams, right
And you look at the price and you look at the kind of beer, and you . . . it's a choice. . . . And it's the same
thing about getting into school or getting into some place. . . . I don't think [MU] has a lot of racism in
the admissions process. . . . So why not just pick people that are going to do well at [MU], pick people by
their merit I think we should stop the whole idea of choosing people based on their color. Since Jim
assumes that hiring decisions are like market choices (choosing between competing brands of beer), he
embraces a laissez-faire position on hiring. The problem with Jim's view is that labor market
discrimination is alive and well (Holtzer 2009), and most jobs are obtained through informal networks
(Royster 2003). Jim's abstract position is further cushioned by his belief that although blacks "perceive
or feel" that there is a lot of discrimination, he does not see much out there. Therefore, by upholding
a strict laissez-faire view on hiring and, at the same time, ignoring the significant impact of
discrimination in the labor market, Jim can safely voice his opposition to affirmative action in an
apparently race-neutral way. This frame allows whites to be unconcerned about school and residential
segregation, oppose almost any kind of government intervention to ameliorate the effects of past and
contemporary discrimination, and prefer whites as partners/friends.
AT: Framework – Ideal Theory K
Arguments like topicality and framework depend upon a supposition of objectivity,
neutrality and fairness – traditionalists argue that normative debate practices, like the
resolution, plan focused debate are ideal visions of competitive debate that result in
the exclusion of considering the reality of oppression – ideal theories only serve elite
interests
Mills, 2005, John Evans Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy (Charles, “Ideal Theory as
Ideology.” Hypatia 20(3): 165).
[So the argument cannot be that as a matter of definitional truth, or factual irrelevance, or factual
convergence, ideal theory is required. The argument has to be, as in the quote from Rawls above, that
this is the best way of doing normative theory, better than all the other contenders. But why on earth
should anyone think this Why should anyone think that abstaining from theorizing about oppression
and its consequences is the best way to bring about an end to oppression Isn’t this, on the face of it,
just completely implausible I suggest that since in fact there are no good reasons for making this
assumption, and many good reasons against it, we have to look elsewhere to understand the dominance
within philosophy of ideal theory. Ideal theory, I would contend, is really an ideology, a distortional
complex of ideas, values, norms, and beliefs that reflects the nonrepresentative interests and
experiences of a small minority of the national population—middle-to-upper-class white males—who
are hugely over-represented in the professional philosophical population. Once this is understood, it
becomes transparent why such a patently deficient, clearly counterfactual and counterproductive
approach to issues of right and wrong, justice and injustice, has been so dominant. As theorists of
ideology emphasize, this should not be thought of in terms of conscious conspiratorial manipulation,
but rather in terms of social privilege and resulting differential experience, a nonrepresentative
phenomenological life-world (mis)taken for the world, reinforcement (in this case) by professional
norms of what counts as respectable and high-prestige philosophy, and—if not to be inflated into the
sole variable, certainly never to be neglected in the sociology of belief—the absence of any
countervailing group interest that would motivate dissatisfaction with dominant paradigms and a
resulting search for better alternatives. Can it possibly serve the interests of women to ignore female
subordination, represent the family as ideal, and pretend that women have been treated as equal
persons Obviously not. Can it possibly serve the interests of people of color to ignore the centuries of
white supremacy, and to pretend that a discourse originally structured around white normativity now
substantively, as against just terminologically, includes them? Obviously not. Can it possibly serve the
interests of the poor and the working class to ignore the ways in which an increasingly inequitable
class society imposes economic constraints that limit their nominal freedoms, and undermine their
formal equality before the law Obviously not.1 If we ask the simple, classic question of cui bono then it
is obvious that ideal theory can only serve the interests of the privileged,2 who, in addition—precisely
because of that privilege (as bourgeois white males)—have an experience that comes closest to that
ideal, and so experience the least cognitive dissonance between it and reality, ideal-as-idealized-model
and ideal-as-descriptive-model. So, as generally emphasized in the analysis of hegemonic ideologies, it
is not merely the orientation by this group’s interests that serves to buttress ideal theory, but their
(doubly) peculiar experience of reality.]
We do not argue that ideals like fairness in debate should be irrelevant considerations
– instead situating difference and domination as center to the development of ideal
theories for an argument community produces discussions that illuminate rather than
obfuscate difference
Mills, 2005, John Evans Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy (Charles, “Ideal Theory as
Ideology.” Hypatia 20(3): 165).
But though particularism (in this group-based form) responds to a real problem, its solution arguably
results from a faulty diagnosis. Dominant abstractions may indeed be remote, dominant principles may
indeed be unhelpful, dominant categories may indeed be alienating; but this lack of fit between
generality and one’s experience (the maleness and whiteness of the supposedly general, genderless,
and colorless view from nowhere) arguably arises not from abstraction and generality per se, but an
abstraction and generality that abstract away from gender and race. The problem is that they are
deficient abstractions of the ideal-as-idealized-model kind, not that they are abstractions tout court.
What one wants are abstractions of the ideal-as-descriptive-model kind that capture the essentials of
the situation of women and nonwhites, not abstract away from them. Global concepts like patriarchy
and white supremacy arguably fulfill this role, as Marxism’s class society/capitalism did (however
inadequately for nonclass oppressions) for earlier generations. These terms are abstractions that do
reflect the specificities of group experience, thereby potentially generating categories and principles
that illuminate rather than obfuscate the reality of different kinds of subordination.
We must interrogate the dominant conceptual tools that define the boundaries of
what is acceptable in the policy-making framework of debate competition – the norms,
practices, and framing techniques will replicate the interests of privilege unless
confronted
Mills, 2005, John Evans Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy (Charles, “Ideal Theory as
Ideology.” Hypatia 20(3): 165).
Moral cognition is no more just a matter of naïve direct perception than empiri- cal cognition is. Unless,
as moral intuitionists in the early twentieth century did, one believes in a distinct “moral sense”
separate from the more familiar nonmoral five senses, then it must be conceded that concepts are
necessary to apprehend things, both in the empirical and moral realm. After all, it was Kant, not some
anti-Establishment figure, who said that perceptions without concepts are blind. But once one
recognizes (unlike Kant) the huge range of possible conceptual systems, then—unless one is a relativist
(and I have already suggested that objectivism should be the ideal)—concern about conceptual
adequacy becomes crucial. This will be true even for mainstream theory, where the primary sources of
possible distortion will be attributed to simple human failings in our cognitive apparatus. But for the
radical oppositional theory of class, race, and gender, of course, the case for such alertness goes
through a fortiori. Instead of the idealized cognitive sphere that ideal theory tends to presuppose,
Marxists, feminists, and critical race theorists all have, as part of their theoretical analysis, elaborate
metatheories (theories about theories) mapping how systems of domination negatively affect the
ideational. (This is a direct consequence, of course, of nonideal theory’s recognition of the central- ity
of oppression, and its insight that in understanding the social dynamic, a theorization of the ideal-asdescriptive-model type is required—it is not just a minor “deviation” from ideal-as-idealized-model that
is involved.) The crucial common claim—whether couched in terms of ideology and fetishism, or
androcentrism, or white normativity—is that all theorizing, both moral and nonmoral, takes place in
an intellectual realm dominated by concepts, assumptions, norms, values, and framing perspectives
that reflect the experience and group interests of the privileged group (whether the bourgeoisie, or
men, or whites). So a simple empiricism will not work as a cognitive strategy; one has to be selfconscious about the concepts that “spontaneously” occur to one, since many of these concepts will
not arise naturally but as the result of social structures and hegemonic ideational patterns. In
particular, it will often be the case that dominant concepts will obscure certain crucial realities, blocking them from sight, or naturalizing them, while on the other hand, concepts necessary for accurately
mapping these realities will be absent. Whether in terms of concepts of the self, or of humans in
general, or in the cartography of the social, it will be necessary to scrutinize the dominant conceptual
tools and the way the boundaries are drawn.
Ideal theories like topicality and framework rationalize the status quo while
simultaneously providing a mask for the structural oppression that is justified by the
exclusion of power and domination from the discussion – racism is not an anomaly of
liberal democracy, it is foundational to its current maintenance
Mills, 2005, John Evans Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy (Charles, “Ideal Theory as
Ideology.” Hypatia 20(3): 165).
So the abstractions of ideal theory are not innocent. Nor, as is sometimes pretended, have they
simply descended from a celestial Platonic conceptual realm. Apart from their general link with the
historic evasions of liberalism, they can be seen in the U.S. context in particular as exacerbated
philosophical versions of apologist concepts long hegemonic in the self-image of the nation. In an
important recent work in American political science, Civic Ideals (1997), Rogers Smith argues that the
dominant tradition in studies of American politi- cal culture has long been to represent it as an
egalitarian liberal democracy free of the hierarchical and exclusionary social structures of Europe. Taking
the writ- ings of Alexis de Tocqueville, Gunnar Myrdal, and Louis Hartz as exemplary, Smith shows that
all three writers, even when they admit the existence of racism and sexism in national practices, public
policy, legal rules, and central ideologies, still fall back on the conceptualization of an essentially inclusive
“liberal democ- racy.” So racism and sexism are framed as “anomalies” to a political culture conceived
of as—despite everything—basically egalitarian. Despite the long history of racial subordination of
nonwhites (Native American expropriation, black slavery and Jim Crow, Mexican annexation, Chinese
exclusion, Japanese internment), despite the long history of legal and civic restrictions on women, the
polity is still thought of as essentially liberal-democratic. The result is that mainstream political theory
has not, until very recently, thought about and taken seriously what would be necessary to achieve
genuine racial and gender equality. I suggest that this is a perfect complement, in the more empirical
realm of political science, to the abstractions in the more rarefied realm of ethics and political
philosophy. In both cases, an idealized model is being represented as capturing the actual reality, and
in both cases this misrepresentation has been disastrous for an adequate understanding of the real
structures of oppression and exclusion that characterize the social and political order. The opting for
“ideal” theory has served to rationalize the status quo.
We do not argue that we should completely reject considerations like fairness,
competitive equity or predictability – instead we seek a nonideal theory that can
realize the goals of ideal theory by directing confronting the particularity of
oppression and domination
Mills, 2005, John Evans Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy (Charles, “Ideal Theory as
Ideology.” Hypatia 20(3): 165).
Finally, I would suggest that a nonideal approach is also superior to an ideal approach in being better
able to realize the ideals, by virtue of realistically rec- ognizing the obstacles to their acceptance and
implementation. In this respect, the debate between ideal and nonideal theory can be seen as part of
a larger and older historic philosophical dispute between idealism and materialism. I am using
“materialism” here as a term of art, not in the sense it is often meant—as a repudiation of ethics in the
name of amorality and realpolitik—but to signify the commitment to locating moral theory in society and
the interactions of human beings as actually shaped by social structures, by “material” social privilege
and disadvantage. Recognizing how people’s social location may both blind them to important
realities and give them a vested interest in maintaining things as they are is a crucial first step toward
changing the social order. Ideal theory, by contrast, too often simply disregards such problems
altogether or, ignoring the power relations involved, assumes it is just a matter of coming up with
better arguments. Summing it all up, then, one could say epigrammatically that the best way to bring
about the ideal is by recognizing the nonideal, and that by assuming the ideal or the near-ideal, one is
only guaranteeing the perpetuation of the nonideal.
AT: Framework: Fairness
Neutral and colorblind interpretations of fairness maintain racial hierarchies
Halewood, Professor of Law, 12(Peter, “DEFINING RACE: LAYING DOWN THE LAW: POST-RACIALISM
AND THE DE-RACINATION PROJECT,” 72 Alb. L. Rev. 1047, LexisNexis, REM)
Post-modern critiques of law have done a lot to dismantle the former strong consensus around the
liberal legal project. Critical legal studies, feminist legal theory, and critical race theory have torn at the
edges of liberal legalism such that it is no longer possible to merely assert it without argumentation.
But we are nonetheless a long way from being able to assert the existence of a new consensus around
the opposite principles, i.e. substantive equality, distributive justice, positive rights, and race
consciousness. A sustained and unflinching "look to the bottom," on the model of critical race theory,
may yield that new consensus and be able to resist the shortsighted urge to de-racinate our law.
Looking to the bottom is the jurisprudential method by which the law seeks to ground claims to
justice in the material reality of oppression which nonwhites experience in our society. n8 It is a
corrective to the metaphorical overflight that law has traditionally done on these matters, pronouncing
on oppression from an altitude of 30,000 feet. Were we to measure inequality substantively rather
than formally, to quantify subordination as an impact on real people rather than seek only to identify
impermissible discrimination, to [*1052] measure whether distributions of social goods are just
overall rather than focusing on whether discrete transactions were fair, then we would be looking to
the bottom and making place and perspective in the hierarchy of American civil rights discourse count
for something. No longer would we discount the material facts of oppression in favor of a narrative of
neutral, colorblind fairness that maintains racial hierarchy in the interest of capital accumulation.
Claims of what is normative as the basis for determining fairness can never serve to
challenge structural racism and inequality
Yosso 2005, Professor of Chicano and Chicana Studies, UC Santa Barbara [Tara Y. “Whose culture has
capital? A critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth.” Race Ethnicity and Education,
8(1): 69-91]
These five themes are not new in and of themselves, but collectively they represent a challenge to the
existing modes of scholarship. Informed by scholars who continue to expand the literature and scope of
discussions of race and racism, I define CRT in education as a theoretical and analytical framework that
challenges the ways race and racism impact educational structures, practices, and discourses. CRT is
conceived as a social justice project that works toward the liberatory potential of schooling (hooks, 1994;
Freire, 1970, 1973). This acknowledges the contradictory nature of education, wherein schools most
often oppress and marginalize while they maintain the potential to emancipate and empower. Indeed,
CRT in education refutes dominant ideology and White privilege while validating and centering the
experiences of People of Color. CRT utilizes transdisciplinary approaches to link theory with practice,
scholarship with teaching, and the academy with the community (see LatCrit Primer, 1999; Solórzano &
Yosso, 2001). Many in the academy and in community organizing, activism, and service who look to
challenge social inequality will most likely recognize the tenets of CRT as part of what, why and how
they do the work they do. CRT addresses the social construct of race by examining the ideology of
racism. CRT finds that racism is often well disguised in the rhetoric of shared ‘normative’ values and
‘neutral’ social scientific principles and practices (Matsuda et al., 1993). However, when the ideology of
racism is examined and racist injuries are named, victims of racism can often find their voice. Those
injured by racism and other forms of oppression discover that they are not alone and moreover are part
of a legacy of resistance to racism and the layers of racialized oppression.
AT Framework: Education K Space
We have a unique opportunity to confront racism in the debate space – race is a
central framework in the educational system – Unless we confront educational
inequality, even within our specific educational spaces – we actively sustain and
maintain the structure of racism
Gillborn 2006, Professor at the Institute of Education, University of London, UK [David, “Rethinking
White Supremacy : Who Counts in 'WhiteWorld'” Ethnicities 6(3): 318-340]
Despite these superficial differences, however, both cases indicate the fundamental position of
white identifications and interests. They also high- light the numerous ways in which racism can
operate through the accepted and mundane processes. This challenges the assumption, common to
liberal democratic societies in general, that race inequality is a temporary aberra- tion and that race is
a marginal issue in society at large, and the education system in particular. A critical perspective on
race and education highlights that – whatever the rhetoric – race inequality has been a constant
and central feature of the education system. In this article, I have tried to show how even the
most dramatic of setbacks can happen without apparent malice, and even without comment.
Until we address the presence of racism, as a fundamental defining characteristic of the education
system, the present situation is unlikely to change in any meaningful sense, regardless of superficial
rhetorical commitments to inclusion, civil rights and social justice.
Our current educational structure is designed to perpetuate and maintain existing
power relations – we must interrogate race and class inequity in educational spaces
Lynn and Jennings 09 (7/09, Marvin Lynna* and Michael E. Jennings, University of Illinois at Chicago,
Chicago, US; University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, US , Power, politics, and critical race
pedagogy: a critical race analysis of Black male teachers’ pedagogy”) SEW
African-American scholars and educators have explored the differences between ‘schooling’ as a
process of hegemonic control of African-American self-determination and ‘education’ as a liberatory
process of obtaining and utilizing community- sanctioned forms of knowledge in order to improve
society (Shujaa 1994). Knowledge of this distinction is important for a more complete understanding of
the socio-cultural context and uneven power dynamics that have shaped the African-American
educational experience (Jennings and Lynn 2006). Schooling is a formal process that takes place within
institutions that are directly (or indirectly) linked to the state (Aronowitz and Giroux 1994). This
process is ‘intended to perpetuate and maintain the society’s existing power relations and the
institutional structures that support those arrangements’ (Shujaa 1994, 15). In contrast, education is a
broader and often less formalized process (often taking place outside of formalized educational
institutions) that represents a ‘collectively produced set of experiences organized around issues and
concerns that allow for a critical understanding of everyday oppression as well as the dynamics involved
in constructing alternative political cultures’ (Arronowitz and Giroux 1994, 127). This is not to say that
schooling and education (or schools and non-schools) are mutually exclusive in their existence and
goals. It is possible for the two to overlap. There are certain aspects of schooling that can serve the
common interests of an entire society regardless of the particular ‘position’ (as related to race, class,
gender, etc.) of any given individual or group in that society (Shujaa 1994). However, these
commonalities are often overshadowed by the fact that the common mutual benefits of schooling and
education are contextualized within a particular set of experiences shaped by the race and class
distinctions of American society. For African-Americans, these experiences speak closely to how issues
of race, identity, and resistance are negotiated in America. Despite this realization, it must be
understood that the formal- ized learning process engendered within schools is an important
component for analyzing and understanding critical pedagogy. However, limiting this analysis to the
formal structures of schooling has left other educational venues un-examined and under-theorized
(Jennings 1999).
AT: K of Privilege Theory
Engaging in movement activism is critical toward generating new strategies, tactics,
and visions for the future – Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Buss Boycott prove that
demands for reform can lead to dreams of revolution
Kelley 07 (3/20/07, Robin D. G. Kelley is Gary B. Nash Professor of American History at UCLA, “Beyond
the “Real” World Or Why Black Radicals Need to Wake Up and Start Dreaming”) SEW
We see this process so clearly in the all-too-familiar story of the Montgomery bus boy- cott. Long before
Rosa Parks’s famous refusal, the Black community had already possessed knowledge of how they
were collectively treated on public transportation, and their stories and opinions were discussed in
the churches, in the streets, on the buses, and in the meetings of the Women’s Political Council. Their
knowledge was experiential, circulating in texts and stories and by bearing witness to day-to-day
encounters with bus drivers, police, and white passengers. The strategy proposed by community
leaders—to find a symbolic case around which to mobilize—worked precisely because the conditions on
buses did not have to be explained. Their demands were modest at first: The Women’s Political Council
and the Montgomery Improvement Association called for a more equitable division of space, the hiring
of Black bus drivers, more bus stops in Black neighborhoods, and an end to the policy of forcing Black
riders to pay at the front of the bus but enter through the back. As paying customers in Montgomery
and else- where, African American passengers fought for space to which they felt entitled. The very
conditions of struggle, however, and the nature of the opposition exposed the limits of their tactics and
led to a rethinking of the strategies and goals of the movement. The demands for an improved Jim Crow
gave way to the elimination of Jim Crow altogether. For Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in particular,
sustained involvement in the movement during the next ten years transformed his thinking. He
shifted from calling for reform to demanding outright revolution, and the revolutions he increasingly
identified with were led by the colonized and the poor. In 1967, he announced that America was “on
the wrong side of a world revolution.”9 He became ever-critical of U.S. foreign policy everywhere,
especially in Vietnam, and his movement’s failed efforts in the ur- ban north gave him a new perspective
on race and poverty in America. In other words, just as activism had transformed the Montgomery bus
struggle, the women Sudbury writes about, and countless others—myself included—the movement
educated King and his colleagues, unleashing his imagination and generating new strategies, tactics,
and visions. Even King’s views on public transportation shifted in the decade after Montgomery, and his
analysis informs contemporary social movements like the Los Angeles Bus Rid- ers Union (and it
anticipates current social science literature on the problems facing the urban labor market). King wrote
sometime in 1968: Urban transit systems in most American cities . . . have become a genuine civil rights
issue—and a valid one—because the layout of rapid-transit systems determines the accessibility of jobs
to the Black community. If transportation systems in American cities could be laid out so as to provide
an opportunity for poor people to get meaningful employment, then they could begin to move into the
mainstream of American life.10 I could go on with more examples, but the purpose of this essay is not
simply to demonstrate that social movements produce new and critical knowledge. I’m interested in
exploring a particular kind of knowledge that erupts from social movements—a knowledge that stems
from an imagination inspired by the possibility of a new order, a new world, freedom. Progressive
social movements do not simply produce statistics and narratives of oppression; rather, the best ones
do what great poetry does: transports us to another place, compels us to relive the horrors and, more
important, enables us to imagine a new society. As the above examples and my own political
development illustrate, social movements are important, not merely as forces for reform, or selfdefense; they are incubators of self-transformation—democratic forums for the articulation of new
ideas, new visions.
Only through a focus on whiteness can we dissect how whiteness as the dominant
racial identity has shaped Americans history, configures historical and political
relations among ethnic groups at different levels
Henry Giroux 4 (Henry Giroux is an American cultural critic. One of the founding
theorists of critical pedagogy in the United States, he is best known for his pioneering
work in public pedagogy, cultural studies, youth studies, higher education, media
studies, and critical theory.) “W H I T E S Q U A L L : R E S I S T A N C E A N D T H E
P E D A G O G Y O F W H I T E N E S S” Pg 377 & 378
Historians such as David Roediger, Noel Ignatiev and Theodore Allen among others build upon the
work of previous historians of race by focus- ing less on the African-American roots of mainstream,
white culture than on the issue of how white identities were constructed, appropriated and shaped
historically. Challenging both what it means to be white as well as how ‘whiteness’ was
experienced through an often unstable, shifting process of inclusion and exclusion, these
historians have rearticulated and broadened the concept of racial identity while simultaneously
challenging‘whiteness’ as a site of racial, economic and political privilege. More specifically,
such work brings a revisionist history to the highly charged debates about racial and national
identity central to contemporary Ameri- can politics. By focusing on how ‘whiteness’ as the dominant
racial identity shaped at different intervals the history of American labour and configured historical
and political relations among ethnic groups such as the Irish, Roediger and others have thrown
into sharp relief ‘the impact that the dominant racial identity in the United States has had not only
on the treat- ment of racial “others” but also on the ways that whites think of them- selves, of
power, of pleasure, and of gender’ (Roediger, 1994: 75).
Radical Poetry Solves
Social activism through poetry disrupts the norms of language and convention – the
poetics of struggle envisions new trajectories to new futures
Kelley 07 (3/20/07, Robin D. G. Kelley is Gary B. Nash Professor of American History at UCLA, “Beyond
the “Real” World Or Why Black Radicals Need to Wake Up and Start Dreaming”) SEW
We must remember that the conditions and the very existence of social movements en- able
participants to imagine something different, to realize that things need not always be this way. It is
that imagination, that effort to see the future in the present, to dramatically shift the question—from
“What do we want from the bus company?” to “How do we want to live our lives?”—that I shall call
poetry, or poetic knowledge. I take my lead from Aimé Césaire’s great essay “Poetry and Knowledge,”
first published in 1945. Opening with the simple but provocative proposition that “poetic knowledge is
born in the great silence of scientific knowledge,” he then attempts to demonstrate why poetry is the
only way to achieve the kind of knowledge we need to move beyond the world’s crises. “What presides
over the poem,” he writes, “is not the most lucid intelligence, the sharpest sensibility or the subtlest
feelings, but experience as a whole.” This means every- thing, every history, every future, every dream,
every life form from plant to animal, every creative impulse—plumbed from the depths of the
unconscious. Poetry, therefore, is not merely the poem itself, but is also a revolt: a scream in the night,
an emancipation of language and old ways of thinking. Consider Césaire’s third proposition regarding
poetic knowledge: “Poetic knowledge is that in which man spatters the object with all of his mobilized
riches.” Thus it is in the poetics of struggle and lived experience, in the utterances of ordinary folks, in
the cultural products of social movements, in the reflections of activists, that we discover the many
different cognitive maps of the future, of the world not yet born. Why don’t we dream of this world?
Because recovering the poetry of social movements, particularly the poetry that dreams of the new
world, is not such an easy task. Even the most visionary elements of the modern Black freedom
movement, the artists and various cultural workers, tend to place greater emphasis on the
overwhelming conditions of oppression—current and historical—than on constructing utopian visions of
the future, or what musician Sun Ra called an “alter-destiny.” For obvious reasons, what we are against
tends to take precedence over what we are for, which is always a more complicated and ambiguous
matter. Even the majority of the freedom songs from the Civil Rights movement emphasized faith, will,
and the need to stay strong in the face of adversity. It is a reflection of the powerful legacies of
oppression that opposition is so frequently stamped out, or that efforts to find “free spaces” for
realizing or even articulating our dreams are so marginalized. George Lipsitz helps explain the problem
when he writes, “The desire to work through existing contradictions rather than stand outside them
represents not so much a preference for melioristic reform over revolutionary change, but rather a
recognition of the impossibility of standing outside totalitarian systems of domination.” 11 Besides, even
if we could gather together our dreams of a new world, how do we figure them out in a culture
dominated by the marketplace? How have social movements actually reshaped the desires and dreams
of the participants?
Fighting everyday oppression can be a barrier to imagining new futures – poets are
critical to dreaming the futures that social movements are capable of producing
Kelley 07 (3/20/07, Robin D. G. Kelley is Gary B. Nash Professor of American History at UCLA, “Beyond
the “Real” World Or Why Black Radicals Need to Wake Up and Start Dreaming”) SEW
Sometimes I think the conditions of everyday oppressions, of survival, render so much of our
imagination inert. We are constantly putting out fires and, finding temporary refuge, which makes it
difficult to see anything beyond the present. As the great poet Willie Kgositsile put it, “When the clouds
clear/We shall know the colour of the sky.”12 When movements have been unable to clear the clouds,
it has been the poets—no matter the medium—who have succeeded in imagining the color of the sky,
in rendering the kinds of dreams and futures social movements are capable of producing. Knowing the
color of the sky is far more important than counting clouds. To put it another way, the most radical art
is not protest art, but works that take us to another place, allowing us to envision a different way of
seeing, perhaps a different way of feeling. This is what poet Askia Muhammad Toure meant when, in a
1964 article in Liberator Magazine, he called Black R&B artists “poet philosophers” and described their
music as a “potent weapon in the Black freedom struggle.”13 For Toure, the movement was more than
sit- ins at lunch counters, voter registration campaigns, freedom rides; it was about self- transformation,
changing the way we think, live, love, and handle pain. While the music frequently negatively mirrored
the larger culture, it nonetheless helped generate com- munity pride and challenged racial self-hatred. It
created a world of pleasure, not just to escape the everyday brutalities of capitalism, patriarchy, and
white supremacy, but to establish fellowship, to play and laugh, and plant seeds for a different way of
living. For Amiri Baraka, Black music has the potential to usher in a new future based on love. “The
change to Love. The freedom to (of) Love.”
The poetry of social movements produces the creative potential essential to liberation
– the real revolution happens in the mind
Kelley 07 (3/20/07, Robin D. G. Kelley is Gary B. Nash Professor of American History at UCLA, “Beyond
the “Real” World Or Why Black Radicals Need to Wake Up and Start Dreaming”) SEW
I believe the time is right for radical intellectuals, whether they are working in the area of Black Studies
or not, to embrace the marvelous, to infuse our work with the rich analytical insights surrealism has to
offer. It is certainly no panacea, nor does it provide answers to the many questions and issues with
which we are confronted. Yet, it can help us break the constraints of social realism and take us to
places where Marxism and other -isms in the name of revolution have yet to fully tread. It recognizes
the decadence of western civilization but doesn’t fall into the trap of cynicism. Moreover, surrealism
has long embraced an epistemology central to Black conceptions of liberation: that the real revolution
is in the mind. This is precisely what I mean by a “poetry of social movements”—an unleashing of the
mind’s most creative capacities, catalyzed by participation in struggles for change. Paul Garon’s
brilliant study of blues music put it best: “Human freedom depends not only on the destruction and
restructuring of the economic system, but on the restructuring of the mind. New modes of poetic action,
new networks of analogy, new possibilities of expression all help formulate the nature of the
supersession of reality, the transformation of everyday life as it encumbers us today, the unfolding and
eventual triumph of the marvelous.
Social Location Key
A critical stance on multiculturalism requires an engagement with social location and
requires a commitment to antiracist practice and not just rhetorics of inclusion and
diversity
Nylund 2006, MSW and PhD, affiliated with CSU, Sacramento [David, “Critical Multiculturalism,
Whiteness, and Social Work: Towards a More Radical View of Cultural Competence.” Journal of
Progressive Human Services, Vol. 17(2): 27]
So, how can multicultural education for social workers historicize racism and critically engage with a
more nuanced and complex analysis of culture, one that links diversity of education with social justice
and includes a power analysis A revised and transformative multiculturalism would take as its premise
that as Stuart Hall (1996) states, “We all speak from a particular place, out of a particular history, out of
a particular experiences, without being contained by that position” (p. 447). Hall’s argument
encourages multicultural educators and practitioners to speak less out of essential differences and more
out of all our different histories, life experiences, languages, family and peer cultures, discourses, and
values allowing one to illuminate the ways that differences are socially and politically constructed as well
as “the multiple axes of ‘same- ness’ that cross-cut axes of differences” (Perry, 2002, p. 197). This new
multiculturalism, which is referred to as “critical multicultur-alism” (McClaren, 1994) is committed to
taking cultural competence out of the classroom and into an antiracist practice. Critical multiculturalism
includes the following features: (1)Recognizes the socio-historical construct of race, and its
intersections with class, gender, nation, sexuality and capitalism; (2) creates pedagogical conditions in
which students interrogate conditions of “otherness;” (3) challenges the idea of social work (and other
social sciences) as an apolitical, trans-historical practice removed from the power struggles of history;
and (4) makes visible the historical and social construction of whiteness. Hence, critical
multiculturalism is more inclusive of white students/social workers and possibly may have the most
profound impact on them. White students are encouraged to critically reflect and deconstruct what
being “white” means to them. According to Perry (2002), this type of critical reflection would: Help
white and students of color move productively through times when different interpretive frameworks
are hindering cross-understanding, such as when African-American students need to express pain and
anger about slavery but white youth won’t listen because they cannot see how the “past” matters. It
would also offer white students a means of moving past immobilizing feelings of guilt or denial and
towards reformulating their identities in ways that chal- lenge dominant interests, cross boundaries,
and help develop a range of personal connections and political coalitions. (p. 197) It is imperative that
social work programs adopt “critical multicultur- alism” (which includes a critical analysis of whiteness) as
a core curric- ulum if social workers are to destabilize its legacy of racism (along with sexism, classism,
ableism, heterosexism, and nationalism). This next section will discuss a key component of critical
multiculturalism–criti- cal whiteness studies.
White Student Activism
White students should reinvent white identity around an oppositional whiteness that
takes seriously the production and maintenance of white hegemony combined with
antiracist practice – the goal is not to shame white students, but to open up new
spaces by which they can be active agents of change rather than passive recipients of
privilege
Nylund 2006, MSW and PhD, affiliated with CSU, Sacramento [David, “Critical Multiculturalism,
Whiteness, and Social Work: Towards a More Radical View of Cultural Competence.” Journal of
Progressive Human Services, Vol. 17(2): 27]
Henry Giroux (2002) has discussed pedagogical strategies to assist white students to gain an
understanding of the power of whiteness, white supremacy, and the historical legacy of racism. In order
for whites to become antiracist activists, Giroux argues that whiteness needs to be reinvented (once
whites have begun to notice and take responsibility for their racial privilege). Otherwise, according to
Giroux (2002), “whiteness as a marker of identity is confined within a notion of domi- nation and
racism that leaves white youth no social imaginary through which they can see themselves as actors in
creating an oppositional space to fight for equality and social justice” (p. 144). This re-articulation of
whiteness begins with the simple question: What does it mean to be white Giroux follows up with this
inquiry: “How can we answer this question in such a way that allows for a cri- tique and rejection of the
oppression inflicted in the name of whiteness but simultaneously opens space for an oppositional,
progressive white identity (p. 145) Giroux (and others such as me) is not comfortable with the concept
of a new oppositional white identity as a “race traitor” who renounces whiteness (Ware & Back, 2002). It
is unlikely that a mass movement will grow around the race traitor concept, as oppositional whites
would have little to rally around or affirm. The reinvention of whiteness operates outside any notion of
racial superiority or inferiority, while confronting white hegemony directly. As it confronts the tyranny
of white supremacy, oppositional whiteness avoids the projection of guilt onto individual white
students. In the process, it generates a sense of hope in the possibility that white people can help
transform the reality of racial injustice and re-articulate themselves around notions of justice,
coalition building, community, and critical democracy. Giroux (2002) sums up his notion of oppositional
whiteness: By re-articulating whiteness as more than a form of domination, white students can
construct narratives of “whiteness” that both challenge, and, hopefully provide a basis for transforming
the dominant relationship between racial identity and citizenship, one informed by oppositional politics.
Such a political practice suggests new subject positions, alliances, commitments, and forms of
solidarity between white students and others engaged in a struggle over expanding the possibilities of
democratic life, especially as it affirms both a politics of difference and a redistribution of power and
material resources. (p. 164) Following Giroux’s call for the re-articulation of whiteness, what possibilities
are there for oppositional whiteness among white social workers who are interested in an anti-racist
practice The next section will illustrate pedagogical strategies used to interrogate whiteness in social work
diversity classes. Following the section on classroom strategies, is an example of oppositional whiteness
through a case transcript by my col- league, Stephen Madigan. This case example exemplifies a
performance of whiteness that is situated within a discourse of resistance and anti- racism.
A2 Boycott Arguments
Framework Theory Arguments
A.) Interpretation: The Aff must defend a instrumental implementation of a topical
plan
B.) Violation- The affirmative does not argue for an instrumental plan action through
the USFG.
C.) Vote Neg:
1) Plan Focus- Our Framework establishes a stable threshold for which the negative can garner
links and compare impacts. Alternative frameworks that don’t make the resolution, topic, or plan
the focus of the debate only leads to judge intervention.
2) Therefore, we believe that the question that the judge should resolve in this debate is
whether the affirmative plan is better than the status quo or a competitive policy option. This
framework is beneficial for debate for five reasons.
1) Role of the Ballot: In our framework, the ballot merely tells the tab room which team is
assigned a win and which team is assigned a loss, along with some speaker points. We
do not attempt to argue that signing the ballot for us means that you necessarily believe
in the arguments that we made or that you are joining a movement to create change.
We believe that few, if any people, ever see the ballot and that you could easily vote for
us and personally work hard to accomplish any political goals of the negative that you
agree with.
2) The role of the judge: Our framework preserves an important role for the judge as a
critic of competing policy options. This is a good role because if the judge is interpreted
as an intellectual supporter of the winning team’s movement or position then they are
often times placed in an impossible position because of external constraints. For
example, if the judge strongly believes in one team’s intellectual position but that team
does not answer all of their opponent’s arguments then the judge is forced to either
intervene on behalf of their favored team or to vote against their beliefs. Or if both
teams argue for positions that the judge disagrees with then the judge, under other
frameworks, would be forced to intellectually endorse something that they do not
believe in.
3) Switch Side Debate Good: our framework of debate forces both teams to rigorously
examine a policy question proposed by the resolution from several perspectives over
the course of a debate season. The path to demagoguery is littered with people who
believe that there is no other view of the world but their own—debating two sides of a
policy trains us to think in ways that prevent this.
Neg: Framework – Ideal Theory
Rejecting universalism and abstraction as the foundation for fair debate competition
robs the aff/neg of the ability to deconstruct the mainstream apparatuses of power –
leads to relativism and oppression Olympics
Mills, 2005, John Evans Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy (Charles, “Ideal Theory as
Ideology.” Hypatia 20(3): 165).
Moreover, particularism holds many dangers, whether individual or group- based. Theory necessarily
requires abstraction, and to concede this realm to the adversary is an odd way of challenging him.
Rejecting abstraction and generalism deprives one of the apparatus necessary for making general
theoretical statements of one’s own, and indeed of critiquing those same hegemonic misleading
abstractions. One is ghettoizing oneself in a self-circumscribed intellectual space, rather than
challenging the broader mapping of that space. One also risks the dangers of relativism, which makes
it difficult to affirm that, objectively, women and people of color are indeed oppressed—not merely
that they believe they’re oppressed. In addition, the mainstream apparatus (for example, of justice
and rights) then becomes a necessarily alien tool in the oppressor’s arsenal, rather than a weapon to
be used and turned against him. One can no longer demand gender or racial justice. Finally, another
obvious problem with particularism is that since there is more than one oppressed group, it will
sometimes be necessary to adjudicate rival ethical claims among those subordinated by different
systems, for example race and gender, or gender and North/South domination. The obvious example
here is the situation of Southern women, and the claim that their subordination is not subordination at
all, but a cultural tradition whose condemnation by the North is imperialist and racist. For example,
see the exchange between Susan Moller Okin and Jane Flax in Okin (1994); Flax (1995); and Okin (1995).
In the absence of some universalist, intertranslatable, not incommensurable measure of rights or well
being, how can such clashes be resolved
Neg: AT: Whiteness
Whiteness is not monolithic – the affirmative ignores the multiple complexity of
whiteness
Nylund 2006, MSW and PhD, affiliated with CSU, Sacramento [David, “Critical Multiculturalism,
Whiteness, and Social Work: Towards a More Radical View of Cultural Competence.” Journal of
Progressive Human Services, Vol. 17(2): 27]
The most recent research on critical whiteness also illustrates that whiteness is not a monolithic,
unchanging, and fixed category that al- ways embodies a certain set of meanings within any context
(Rasmus- sen, Klinenburg, Nexica, & Wray, 2001). For instance, John Hartigan’s (1997) ethnographic
work on the meaning of whiteness for poor whites in Detroit, Michigan in the 1990s–a site where
whiteness is not equated with economic privilege–called attention to the fact that within a partic- ular
historical context, multiple forms of whiteness exist. Critical white- ness researchers are currently
studying when and where whiteness is marked and when it is unmarked and the ways it intersects with
class, race, gender, nation, generation, age, ability, and sexuality. Most impor- tantly, critical whiteness
scholars are interested in praxis–combining critical analysis of whiteness with antiracist activism.
Neg: Cap K Link
Systemic racism requires a commitment to the analysis of power and the functions of
global capital – a race-only analysis is just conservative multiculturalism
Nylund 2006, MSW and PhD, affiliated with CSU, Sacramento [David, “Critical
Multiculturalism, Whiteness, and Social Work: Towards a More Radical View of
Cultural Competence.” Journal of Progressive Human Services, Vol. 17(2): 27]
Pamela Perry (2002) suggests that there are two types of multiculturalism practices in schools:
“Conservative multiculturalism” and “liberal multiculturalism.” Conservative multiculturalism is an
assimilationist model of cultural diversity in which white is posited as an “invisible norm by which
other ethnicities are judged” hence reinforcing the hege- mony of whiteness (McLaren, 1994, p. 49).
Conservative multicultural- ism tends to marginalize and dismiss the different experiences of
students/clients of color and avoid a power analysis of institutional forms of racism. Anthony Platt
(1992) argues that conservative forms of multiculturalism present race in ahistorical, universal terms
devoid of any economic or class analysis. Hence, most multicultural programs do not link racism to
economic injustices and helps create the false notion that racism can be overcome without any
structural alteration of global capitalism. Platt also contends that multicultural education privileges
racial and ethnic studies over feminist, queer, and disability studies al- lowing little theoretical space for
intersectional analysis.
Neg: Identity Politics
Pitting one Race against another through preference increases damage to the already
dysfunctional ways that we operate as a nation.
Finley, 2010 (Gordon E. Finley, Professor of Psychology at Florida International University, “The Pitfalls
of Pitting Ethnicities, Genders”, The Washington Times, 5/18/10, Lexis Nexis Database [SJW])
Standing starkly in contrast to America's historically dominant "melting pot" philosophy is the
philosophy of pitting one identity group against another for the purposes of political and ideological
supremacy. Most noteworthy in this regard is President Obama's recent rally-the-troops video seeking
to reconnect with "young people, African-Americans, Latinos and women" before the November
elections. Identity politics might work, but at what cost? The greatest danger is backlash by the
nonfavored segments of the population, with the potential risk of class, ethnic, racial or gender conflict,
which today's article about Arizona's ethnic studies programs clearly demonstrates ("Arizona governor
now targets ethnic studies," Page 1, Thursday). Following on the heels of challenges to ethnic studies
programs are challenges to women's studies programs. For decades women's studies programs have
thrived based on a host of purported "victimization" and gender gap claims. Both government data and
sound social science research now have exposed many of these claims as myths. Today it is clear that
"gender gaps" predominantly favor females and disfavor males. Specific examples would include
strikingly higher rates of male unemployment, strikingly lower rates of male educational attainment,
blatant gender bias in family and divorce law and, even when women and men initiate domestic
violence at equal rates, the government's providing of services to women but not to men (as seen in the
Violence Against Women Act). Finally, and contrary to President Obama's public statements, in early
2009, the U.S. Labor Department issued an extensive review of the literature and concluded that there
was no gender gap in wages. Indeed, as a consequence of women's studies, a new field of male studies
already has emerged.
Identity Politics leads to the political confusion that the Affirmative claims.
Blankley, 2008 (Tony Blankley, executive v p for global public affairs at Edelman International, visiting
senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation. “The race card; Using a contemptible strategy too early” , The
Washington Times, 1/16/08, Lexis Nexis Database [SJW])
I confess that, at a petty and vindictive level, it is vastly amusing to watch Hillary and Bill Clinton fight
with Barack Obama over whether they are racist or not. Exploiting identity politics has been one of the
cornerstones of Clintonian politics for two decades now. Both in the 1992 and 1996 presidential
elections (as well as in Al Gore's 2000 campaign) nasty race-baiting advertisements on urban black radio
stations in the closing weeks of the election campaign were a reliable method of turning out a maximum
black vote. Bill Clinton's fabricated recollection of seeing black church burnings was another method
used by the Clintons to attempt to induce African Americans to vote on the basis of racial identity rather
than on the basis of issues and the actual character of the actual Republican candidates against whom
the Clintons were running. Of course the Clintons are not the only politicians who attempt to induce
voting based on similar genetic codes, rather than on objective criteria. And Hillary has certainly
exploited the genetic code of sex as well as race. It is an old and proven method of corrupting the
democratic process. When Hillary said in New Hampshire that she "embodied" change (by virtue of
hoping to be the first female president), she was again attempting to get votes not based on the policy
judgment of the voters - but rather on their loyalty to their genetic code (a bizarre and sad human trait).
It is a mark against the mainstream media that such explicit inducements to bigoted voting is not harshly
criticized. If a man were to seek votes just because he was not a woman, if a white person were to
appeal to votes on the basis of his or her white race, they would be promptly and correctly condemned
for such base appeals. It should be no less worthy of condemnation if votes are sought on the basis of
any other genetic details. The upward trajectory of civilization has relied in substantial part on moving
away from tribal or racial identity and toward reason and the individual. In its most virulent form,
identity politics becomes genocide. American Indians, Blacks, Jews, Poles, Armenians - so many peoples
have been the victims of identity politics taken to its ultimate extent. Thankfully, in U.S. politics in
modern times it merely induces moronic decision-making in the voting booths. What makes this current
round of race-baiting political strategies distinctive, of course, is that Democrats are using it on each
other. Usually they reserve it for Republican opponents. And, obviously, the Clintons started it with their
disgraceful surrogate campaign targeting Obama as a cocaine user and perhaps dealer. This vulgar use
of a crude racial stereotype coming from "our first black president" and his wife can only be understood
as a desperation measure as they faced otherwise sure defeat in New Hampshire. They then followed up
that negative identity politics with Hillary's affirmative identity politics - playing up her femaleness to
induce women to vote for her for that reason. In its slimy way, it was smart politics. And in a surprising
turn of events, while it may not gain Hillary the nomination, Obama's ill-considered reaction to it may
hurt his general election candidacy. Just as the Clinton's surrogates started it, Obama's surrogates
responded by playing their own race card against the Clintons. The feigned Obama-camp outrage
against Bill Clinton's use of the word fairy tale, and Hillary's reference to Lyndon Johnson, is likely to be
counter-productive for Obama. By playing the race card Obama undercuts his best chance of winning in
November. He had made a strong and admirable case until then that he was a man running for
president who happened to be black. Now his campaign has taken on the attribute of a black man
running for president. And, given the nasty nature of identity politics, inducing racial thinking is not a
positive for a black man in a country that is only about 10 percent black. But at a tactical level, he has
played his race card too soon. One of his greatest advantages in a general election campaign against a
white Republican opponent would be the care with which the white Republican would need to avoid
saying anything that might be misconstrued as racially insensitive. But American voters are somewhat
inured to black charges of racism - so many fraudulent such charges having been made over the last
generation. The deterrent threat of the racial charge is more valuable to Obama than actually making
the charge - particularly if its first use is frivolous, as in this instance. By misplaying the contemptible
strategy prematurely, Obama may have helped his primary chances, but he has hurt his general election
prospects. Moreover, by emphasizing race, Obama runs the serious risk - both in his primary and general
election campaigns - of minimizing his Hispanic vote, as Hispanic voters are somewhat resistant to
supporting black candidates. And the more Obama runs as a black candidate rather than a candidate
who happens to be black, the lower his Hispanic support is likely to trend.
Identity Politics influence political decisions drastically and can lead to violence and
bloody conflicts.
Young, 2012 (Jeffrey Young, VOA-TV senior correspondent, “Identity Politics Play A Role in US
Elections”, VOA News, 6/20/12. http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/lnacademic/? [SJW])
WASHINGTON -- It is human nature to identify with others who look and act like us, and share our values.
The political process in the United States - and nearly everywhere else on Earth - taps into that self-
identification as a means of motivating voters. While many voters would say they cast their ballots on
the basis of where the candidates stand on key issues, some of them are swayed by a candidate's color ...
or ethnicity ... or other factors. And that's called "Identity Politics." "When people vote, they like to vote
for people [who are] like them. Someone who has the same race, someone who has the same sex,
someone who has the same religion, or someone who has the same political views," says Mark Rom of
Georgetown University. Rom and other analysts say that before the 2008 South Carolina primary,
presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had some support from African American voters. Then, her
husband, former President Bill Clinton, compared then-Senator Barack Obama's bid to that of another,
earlier black candidate. "Jesse Jackson won South Carolina twice in 1984 and 1988, and he ran a good
campaign," Clinton said. "And, Senator Obama has run a good campaign here." Analysts say that remark
polarized black voters because it was seen as diminishing. That sent them overwhelmingly into Obama's
camp. And, in 2012, that support is expected to be equally strong. While race and ethnicity are
traditional elements of identity politics, the term encompasses far more. Religion has been an identity
factor in America since the early days of the country. In the 20th century, Roman Catholicism was an
issue for 1928 Democratic presidential candidate Al Smith, and 1960 Democratic candidate John F.
Kennedy. In 2008, and again in 2012, the Mormon faith of Republican candidate Mitt Romney has been
polarizing to some voters. There is also ideology, as noted by Rothenberg Political Report's Nathan
Gonzales: "I think that when it comes to the Republican party, the biggest 'Identity Politics' identifier is
'Conservative.' "Who is conservative? Who is the most conservative? Who is the purest conservative?"
To one political scientist, identity politics will continue so long as people are regarded and treated
according to their skin color and other involuntary factors. "There is no such thing as being in a postracial era unless we can get rid of the inequalities and inequities that we see in American society along
the lines of race, ethnicity, and gender," says Darryl Harris of Howard University. Identity politics is not
an exclusively American phenomenon. It influences political decisions in countries worldwide - in some
places, such as the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and Sudan, to the point of bloodshed.
Race Preference needs to end. Now is the time for a color-blind society.
Bellantoni, 2005 (Christina Bellantoni, senior reporter, former White House Correspondent for the
Washington Times. “Color Blind Schools Urged”, Washington Times 3/15/05,
http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/lnacademic/? [SJW])
McDonnell says race preference time has passed Virginia Delegate Robert F. McDonnell, who is running
for state attorney general, said yesterday state colleges should not base admissions decisions on race.
"We need to do everything we can under the law to move toward a color-blind society," the Virginia
Beach Republican told editors and reporters at The Washington Times. "The time has now come, 40
years past the Civil Rights Act, that we ought to do everything we can at the K through 12 level to train
all of our kids - black, white, brown, rich, poor - to get a good education so they are able to compete for
entry into the colleges and not to have to guarantee slots." A delegate since 1992, Mr. McDonnell said
quotas and racial preferences at colleges were needed after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to help
transition society. "I think that time has passed," he said. "If we are really interested in a color-blind
society, people ought to compete on their merits." Mr. McDonnell, 50, and Richmond lawyer Steve Baril
will square off in the state's June 14 primary. The winner is expected to face Sen. Robert Creigh Deeds,
Charlottesville Democrat, in November. Mr. Deeds is expected to be the only candidate seeking the
Democratic Party's nomination for state attorney general. The issue of racial preferences surfaced in
Virginia in April 2002 when Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore, a Republican, told state colleges in a
memo that they should not base admission solely on race or sex. In March 2003, Virginia Tech's Board of
Visitors unanimously voted in a closed-door meeting to end affirmative action in its admissions process.
However, that decision was reversed after pressure from students, alumni, the National Association for
the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and Gov. Mark Warner, a Democrat. In June 2003, the U.S.
Supreme Court issued a split decision that upheld the University of Michigan law school's policy of
considering race. The majority of the court decided the policy when applied to individual applicants can
help achieve a "critical mass" of diversity. However, the court overturned the undergraduate admissions
policy, which automatically awarded points to minority applicants. Mr. Baril, who was not available for
an interview yesterday, issued a statement addressing the racial preference issue. "As the state's highest
legal officer, I'd make sure that the colleges and universities uphold the Constitution, as prescribed by
the Supreme Court of the United States," Mr. Baril said through his spokesman. Mr. Deeds said Mr.
Kilgore's memo was "wrong." "I don't believe in quotas, but I think it is right that we have a policy that
encourages the admission of minorities in our institutions of higher learning to make up for 350 years of
wrongs that were committed against African-Americans and minorities in general," he said yesterday.
"It's the right thing to do." The Supreme Court's decision did not address scholarships reserved for
students of specific races. Since the decision, some Virginia schools reportedly have opened up
scholarships previously reserved for black students to all students. Mr. McDonnell said schools should
have the freedom to determine how they want to distribute financial aid. Mr. McDonnell, who serves as
chairman of the House Courts of Justice Committee, also said illegal aliens should not be allowed
admission to state colleges and universities. The only quotas Mr. McDonnell recommends are those that
guarantee spots to Virginia students rather than out-of-state students or illegal aliens. "We have a huge
problem in America with illegal aliens in our country," he said. "We just cannot let anybody who is not
legitimately here in the United States or in Virginia have the same rights or benefits as a taxpaying
citizen." The state House has made several attempts to bar colleges from admitting illegal aliens, but the
state Senate has defeated those efforts each year. Allowing illegals admission to colleges "completely
undermines the work the [government] is doing to make sure that everybody is playing by the rules," he
said. Mr. McDonnell also is campaigning in favor of deregulation. "There has been an expansion of
government law and regulation over the last four or five decades," he said. "Much of it has been
prudent, but each new law and regulation ebbs away at somebody's liberty and freedom a little bit and I
think we've got to do some things to get our regulatory climate under control. It stifles business and
doesn't allow families and business people to reach their full potential."
Small Steps have been made to start the movement, but are not enough.
Orange County Register, 4/6/12 (Orange County Register, “Only Character Should Count:
Affirmative-action ban upheld again. ”, 4/6/12, http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/lnacademic/?
[SJW])
Martin Luther King Jr. said he dreamed that his "four little children will one day live in a nation where
they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." Such a world
does not exist, but chances that it might someday improved a little Monday when a three-judge panel of
the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld Proposition 209. Prop. 209 is the 1996
voter-approved California initiative that stipulates, "The state shall not discriminate against, or grant
preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity,or national
origin in the operation of public employment, public education or public contracting." The same court
upheld Prop. 209 in 1997. Monday's reaffirmation of the law came in a lawsuit brought by 55 applicants
to the University of California and the By Any Means Necessary activist group. Gov. Jerry Brown and
state Attorney General Kamala Harris were elected to implement and defend California laws, including
Prop. 209. Instead, they filed amicus briefs attacking it. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution
guarantees to all Americans "the equal protection of the laws," a guarantee at odds with the BrownHarris position backing special preferences for some groups. Prop. 209 was specifically designed to
comply with the 14th amendment, Ward Connerly told us; he's a co-author of the initiative and the
founder and president of the American Civil Rights Institute in Sacramento. "The era of race preferences
is really over," he said. "That message now is seeping into the decisions of our courts. We're watching
the end of an era. The cultural bias that race preferences have enjoyed has come to an end." In the past,
he said, "The courts wanted to bend over backward to give every benefit of the doubt to preferences.
That's gone." Laws or initiatives similar to Prop. 209 have been enacted in five other states, and by
executive order in Florida. Oklahoma will vote on such an initiative in November. It is unfortunate that
some minority groups are not admitted to state universities in the proportion they represent in the
general population. But affirmative-action programs, by slighting academic achievement, pit group
against group. They replace achievement with quotas. Affirmative action also treats the surface of the
problem instead of the root causes. One root cause is the dismal state of public school teaching for
minorities. Yet, the powerful teachers' unions continue to fight such common-sense reforms as paying
teachers for performance and California's new "trigger law," which allows parents to vote to change a
dysfunctional school. The activists are appealing the three-judge 9th Circuit decision to the full appeals
court. We hope the full court again upholds Prop. 209. Only character, not skin color, should count.
Racial Preferences cannot solve-only a direct route of political color-blindness can
solve.
Fein, 2008 (Bruce Fein, constitutional lawyer with Bruce Fein & Associates and chairman of the
American Freedom Agenda, “A Profile in Racial Unity?”, The Washington Times, 3/25/08,
http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/lnacademic/? [SJW])
At present, Sen. Barack Obama is not the leader to end racial divisiveness in the United States. The
measure of his leadership can be deduced from his "A More Perfect Union" address and his indulgence
of laws and practices that pivot on racial distinctions. Ending racism requires a colorblind Constitution
and a colorblind society. It requires homage to Justice John Marshall Harlan's majestic dissent in Plessy v.
Ferguson (1896): "[I]n view of the Constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior,
dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here. Our Constitution is colorblind, and neither
knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the
law. ... The destinies of the two races, in this country, are indissolubly linked together, and the interests
of both require that the common government of all shall not permit the seeds of race hate to be planted
under the sanction of law" Justice Antonin Scalia penned a codicil to Justice Harlan in Adarand
Constructors, Inc. v. Pena (1995): "In the eyes of the government, we are just one race here. It is
American." The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. celebrated a colorblind society to complement a colorblind
Constitution in his "I Have a Dream" speech that electrified the nation on Aug. 28, 1963: "I have a dream
that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of
their skin but by the content of their character." Racial divisions will end when King's dream is honored.
The Supreme Court revolted at race-based politics less than a year after King's oration. In Anderson v.
Martin (1964), the court invalidated a Louisiana law that required ballots to designate the race of
candidates. The designations encouraged racial prejudice at the polls. Justice Tom C. Clark explained:
"We see no relevance in the state's pointing up the race of the candidate as bearing upon his
qualifications for office." But since at least 1968, colorblindness has been abandoned for racial
distinctions that inflame. Blacks and whites are encouraged daily to believe that their difference in skin
color eclipses their common interests as citizens. Three pernicious ideas that Mr. Obama neglected to
confront or repudiate fuel racial conflict: first, that only blacks can legitimately represent black voters,
which requires, among other things, racial gerrymandering in drawing legislative districts to ensure a
quota of black victories. This idea finds expression in Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires
that electoral results yield results approaching proportional representation based on race. White
candidates in majority black districts risk being maligned as modern-day plantation owners. The
Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), which includes Mr. Obama, is a first cousin manifestation of
monochromatic thinking. The CBC is racially exclusive. Rep. Pete Stark California Democrat, was blocked
in 1975. In January 2007, Rep Steve Cohen, Tennessee Democrat, applied to give voice to his 60 percent
black constituency without result. Rep. William Lacy Clay Jr., Missouri Democrat, explained: "Quite
simply, Rep. Cohen will have to accept what the rest of the country will have to accept - there has been
an unofficial Congressional White Caucus for over 200 years, and now it's our turn to say who can join
'the club.' He does not, and cannot, meet the membership criteria, unless he can change his skin color.
Primarily, we are concerned with the needs and concerns of the black population, and we will not allow
white America to infringe on those objectives." Mr. Obama voiced no protest. He has similarly declined
to challenge a second racially combustible idea: namely, that blacks and whites display racially
distinctive ways of thinking and learning, which justify racial preferences in admissions in higher
education. The Supreme Court sustained the constitutionality of such racial preferences in Grutter v.
Bollinger (2003). But Mr. Obama has neither assailed the dubious ruling nor supported colorblind
initiatives led by Ward Connerly in California, Washington, Michigan, Arizona and elsewhere to forbid
racial distinctions in public life. In other words, Mr. Obama seems to endorse racial preferences on the
theory that blacks and whites are endowed with racially distinctive cerebral faculties. A third catalyst of
racial division is the idea that odious historical subjugation and discrimination, including slavery and Jim
Crow, has crippled the ability of blacks to compete with whites. Accordingly racial preferences or quotas
in jobs, contracting, or the professions authorized by civil rights laws are justified. Mr. Obama has not
challenged the preferences. Nor did he comment on whether he believed slave ancestry caused black
underperformance. His opinion would have been persuasive because his wife "carries within her the
blood of slaves..." Whites compound racial divisiveness by knowing little or nothing of their own morally
nauseating racist history - an insult to millions of black victims and their descendants, just as ignorance
of the Holocaust would be an affront to Jews. Whites generally do not remember that black soldiers
were drafted in World Wars I and II to risk that last full measure of devotion abroad while they were
forced to fight in segregated units and their loved ones back home encountered cross burnings and KKK
terrorism; or, that hundreds of lynchings were perpetrated for generations with impunity to reduce
blacks to serfdom and to entrench White Supremacy. They do not recall the moral abomination of
slavery acknowledged in the subtext of Thomas Jefferson's anxiety articulated nearly two centuries ago:
"Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice will not sleep forever."
Mr. Obama should have rebuked whites for learning so little about the stain of black oppression in
American history. Mr. Obama is not yet a profile in racial unity. But he may come to deserve that
accolade. He seems to appreciate, like President Abraham Lincoln, that a man who does not grow wiser
by the day is a fool.
Race Preference needs to end. Now is the time for a color-blind society.
Bellantoni, 2005 (Christina Bellantoni, senior reporter, former White House Correspondent for the
Washington Times. “Color Blind Schools Urged”, Washington Times 3/15/05,
http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/lnacademic/? [SJW]
McDonnell says race preference time has passed Virginia Delegate Robert F. McDonnell, who is running
for state attorney general, said yesterday state colleges should not base admissions decisions on race.
"We need to do everything we can under the law to move toward a color-blind society," the Virginia
Beach Republican told editors and reporters at The Washington Times. "The time has now come, 40
years past the Civil Rights Act, that we ought to do everything we can at the K through 12 level to train
all of our kids - black, white, brown, rich, poor - to get a good education so they are able to compete for
entry into the colleges and not to have to guarantee slots." A delegate since 1992, Mr. McDonnell said
quotas and racial preferences at colleges were needed after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to help
transition society. "I think that time has passed," he said. "If we are really interested in a color-blind
society, people ought to compete on their merits." Mr. McDonnell, 50, and Richmond lawyer Steve Baril
will square off in the state's June 14 primary. The winner is expected to face Sen. Robert Creigh Deeds,
Charlottesville Democrat, in November. Mr. Deeds is expected to be the only candidate seeking the
Democratic Party's nomination for state attorney general. The issue of racial preferences surfaced in
Virginia in April 2002 when Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore, a Republican, told state colleges in a
memo that they should not base admission solely on race or sex. In March 2003, Virginia Tech's Board of
Visitors unanimously voted in a closed-door meeting to end affirmative action in its admissions process.
However, that decision was reversed after pressure from students, alumni, the National Association for
the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and Gov. Mark Warner, a Democrat. In June 2003, the U.S.
Supreme Court issued a split decision that upheld the University of Michigan law school's policy of
considering race. The majority of the court decided the policy when applied to individual applicants can
help achieve a "critical mass" of diversity. However, the court overturned the undergraduate admissions
policy, which automatically awarded points to minority applicants. Mr. Baril, who was not available for
an interview yesterday, issued a statement addressing the racial preference issue. "As the state's highest
legal officer, I'd make sure that the colleges and universities uphold the Constitution, as prescribed by
the Supreme Court of the United States," Mr. Baril said through his spokesman. Mr. Deeds said Mr.
Kilgore's memo was "wrong." "I don't believe in quotas, but I think it is right that we have a policy that
encourages the admission of minorities in our institutions of higher learning to make up for 350 years of
wrongs that were committed against African-Americans and minorities in general," he said yesterday.
"It's the right thing to do." The Supreme Court's decision did not address scholarships reserved for
students of specific races. Since the decision, some Virginia schools reportedly have opened up
scholarships previously reserved for black students to all students. Mr. McDonnell said schools should
have the freedom to determine how they want to distribute financial aid. Mr. McDonnell, who serves as
chairman of the House Courts of Justice Committee, also said illegal aliens should not be allowed
admission to state colleges and universities. The only quotas Mr. McDonnell recommends are those that
guarantee spots to Virginia students rather than out-of-state students or illegal aliens. "We have a huge
problem in America with illegal aliens in our country," he said. "We just cannot let anybody who is not
legitimately here in the United States or in Virginia have the same rights or benefits as a taxpaying
citizen." The state House has made several attempts to bar colleges from admitting illegal aliens, but the
state Senate has defeated those efforts each year. Allowing illegals admission to colleges "completely
undermines the work the [government] is doing to make sure that everybody is playing by the rules," he
said. Mr. McDonnell also is campaigning in favor of deregulation. "There has been an expansion of
government law and regulation over the last four or five decades," he said. "Much of it has been
prudent, but each new law and regulation ebbs away at somebody's liberty and freedom a little bit and I
think we've got to do some things to get our regulatory climate under control. It stifles business and
doesn't allow families and business people to reach their full potential."
Race needs to be disassociated with character as the primary factors of defining an
individual.
Prewitt, 2010 (Kenneth Prewitt, professor of public affairs at Columbia University, “How to fix Census'
broken race question; Americans have understandably been puzzled by the 2010 count's complex query.
Here's a way out.” , USA Today, 7/13/10, http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/lnacademic/ [SJW])
The successful 2010 Census left millions of Americans puzzling over its race question. Many disliked
declaring any race; others were uncertain which box fit them; some wondered why the government
even asked their race. In fact, the question does not work well, and we can do better. But first, how did
we get here Eighteenth century science ordained a hierarchical ordering of five human "races." At
America's founding, given legal and demographic realities, it counted three in its first Census in 1790:
White, Black, Red. It added a fourth race in the mid-19th century when, driven by hysteria over the
"yellow peril," the distinct Chinese and Japanese nationalities blurred into the catch-all Asian race, which
then became the Census home for additional Asian nationalities. Mid-20th century civil rights policies
that statistically measured racial discrimination needed to accommodate people from the Caribbean and
Mexico, so the strange Hispanic/Non-Hispanic ethnicity-but-not-a-race question was shoehorned into
the mix. Multiculturalism in the 1980s put pressure on Census categories, especially on behalf of a
multiracial choice, leading the 2000 Census to introduce the mark-one-or-more option. Out of this
history came our current classification, which uses color (White and Black); civil status (Native American
enrolled tribe); nationality (Chinese, Japanese, Filipino and six more) summarized as two umbrella races
-- Asian and Pacific Islanders; and Hispanic ethnicity (with three nationalities listed). Why race But, asks
the public: "Why does the government insist on sorting and counting us by race" There is no simple
answer because assorted purposes -- each reasonable on its own terms -- have been yoked to an archaic
classification. These purposes trace to our history and to contemporary conditions. The tragedies of
black slavery and Indian genocide left inequalities that racial justice policies are still trying to erase.
Policy responses to disparities in employment, education, health and incarceration call for statistics on
groups being left behind. Diversity goals in universities and businesses use Census categories. How new
Americans are assimilating is a further question answered with Census statistics. Beyond specific policy
uses of Census data, citizens see in the Census an opportunity to express pride in their heritage.
President Obama emphasized his African heritage by checking only one Census box, rather than
recognizing his dual black and white parentage. Social justice, social disparities, social assimilation and
social pride are all folded into a Census question based on the five 18th century "races" of Black, Brown,
Red, Yellow, White and a question insisting that there are only two ethnicities in America: Hispanic/NonHispanic. No wonder the questions puzzle and irritate. Some demand that the questions be dropped
altogether, expecting this to magically produce a color-blind society. But when discrimination penalizes
groups because of their color, ancestry or immigrant status, a nation committed to fairness will not
choose to be statistically ignorant of these facts. A simpler way The next Census, however, doesn't have
to repeat today's questions. It should simply ask: What national origin, ethnicity, tribe, language group
or ancestry do you consider yourself to be (List all those important to you.) This open question finally
erases the 18th century racial hierarchy, dispenses with the slippery term race itself, easily allows selfexpression and can happily embrace multiple identities. This question doesn't assume that a recently
arrived Ethiopian belongs to the same race as 10th generation descendents of enslaved people from
Africa's Gold Coast. It doesn't put fifth generation Chinese Americans into the same race box as first
generation Vietnamese. It doesn't count an Argentinean who speaks only English the same way it treats
a Mayan immigrant. From the open-ended responses, answers can be categorized in the various ways
that make sense depending on public purposes at hand, even re-constructing the five 18th century races
if that is desired. This open-ended question should be paired with questions on immigration status:
Where were you born, and where were your parents born This question, combined with the one above,
tells us how immigrant status interacts with national origin, ethnicity or language group, so that we can
eliminate barriers as 21st century newcomers follow the path marked out by Italians and Irish a century
ago, or Germans and Swedes a century earlier. Unfortunately, neither Congress nor the Obama White
House will initiate a serious national conversation about today's patched together racial classification.
"Too political," they will conclude. But America's universities, think tanks, advocacy organizations and
news media can supply the intellectual work we need to ensure that carefully designed questions will
provide information relevant to the public purposes that justify asking the questions in the first place.
And if one day everyone simply writes "American," the color-blind society will have arrived by public
choice. A statistical portrait of how different groups are faring remains necessary both to erase the
inequities of historical racism and to prevent discrimination as the recently arrived strive to participate
fully in their new country -- but only if we draw the portrait more carefully than that produced by the
2010 Census.
Neg: K of Privilege Discussions
The affirmatives discussion of white privilege as a means of creating consciousness
raising and educating the students in the debate community functions as privilege
theory
Black Orchid Collective 2012 (March 12, a multi-gendered,
multiracial revolutionary collective attempting to develop an
effective relationship between theory and practice, “Privilege Politics
is
Reformism,”
http://blackorchidcollective.wordpress.com/2012/03/12/guest-postprivilege-politics/)
[The combination of structural oppression based on race and class, the history of white supremacy
and capitalism, and how that affects people’s interactions with one another, has led to a school of
thought called Privilege theory. Privilege theory recognizes structural and historical oppression, but
has an undue focus on individual behavior and thoughts as a major way of addressing white
supremacy (and other oppressions, but I will tend to focus on white supremacy and class). Privilege
theory has a set of basic principles: a) Privilege theory argues that movement spaces should be safe for
all oppressed groups. One way to make such a space safe is by negotiating one anothers’ actions in
non-oppressive ways. For example, this means straight white men should talk less or think about the
privileges they have when discussing an action or political question. b) Privilege theory justifies that
militancy and political sophistication is the domain of a privileged elite based on class, gender and
racial privileges. c) Privilege theory roots political and strategic mistakes in the personal privileges
that people bring into the movement. d) Privilege theory seeks to deal with these issues primarily
through education, teach-ins and conversations. This piece will point out key failures in all four
principles of Privilege theory. It will tentatively lay out some ways forward, while recognizing more
research and, more importantly, more struggle is needed to resolve some of the outstanding problems
facing the movement.
A focus on discussions of privilege de-generate into consciousness-raising sessions
that prevent a focus on the destroying the system of white supremacy – movements
that turn into talk sessions will discourage participation from real activists – the harms
the affirmative cites are real – but they cannot be solved by us talking to each other
Black Orchid Collective 2012 (March 12, a multi-gendered, multiracial revolutionary collective
attempting to develop an effective relationship between theory and practice, “Privilege Politics is
Reformism,” http://blackorchidcollective.wordpress.com/2012/03/12/guest-post-privilege-politics/)
[There is certainly a long history of people of color facing white supremacy inside the
movement. However they have tended to focus around programmatic and organizational critiques.
Areas where deficiencies could be more easily seen and addressed. For example, if a group does not
organize around Black prisoners, it can be addressed by having political discussions, changing the
program of the group, and making an organizing orientation towards Black prisoners. Privilege theory
addresses this by claiming that someone’s privilege creates a blind spot to the reality of incarceration
of Black men. Another aspect of oppression Privilege theorists tackle are social interactions. However,
it becomes much harder to objectively assess if a white man’s glance objectifies a person because of
the color of their skin; if a white man yelling at a person of color is due to race, if it is a non-racializedgendered reaction to political differences; or if a white man is taking up a lot of space because of his
privilege or because he needs to speak because he simply has something valid/ important to say.
There is no doubt that in any organization or movement, where this is common behavior, people of
color will either not join or leave after some time. But at the same time, any movement/ organization
which spends tons of time on this will no longer be a fighting organization/ movement and eventually
people of color will leave. It will become talk shops or consciousness raising circles. In a period when
the NYPD are killing Black and Latino men with impunity, schools are being closed in POC
neighborhoods, anti-Muslim propaganda is rampant, and immigrants are deported every day, few will
join a group which only focuses on inter-personal relationships. They key is to understand the tension
and get the balance right. At the same time it is undeniable that that many POC believe this to be a
serious way to deal with white supremacy. That many believe a movement can be built from Privilege
Theory’s political and strategic claims. Privilege Theory has come to be the dominant trend under
specific historical circumstances, which I will briefly address. I believe this to be a false strategy,
ultimately failing to actually solve the problems Privilege Theory wishes to address.]
Confronting white privilege will not solve – focusing on education and consciousness
raising will not work – we need a militant activism – it is through direct action –
through the work of revolutionary practices that privilege and white supremacy will
be dismantled
Black Orchid Collective 2012 (March 12, a multi-gendered, multiracial revolutionary collective
attempting to develop an effective relationship between theory and practice, “Privilege Politics is
Reformism,” http://blackorchidcollective.wordpress.com/2012/03/12/guest-post-privilege-politics/)
[Fanon stands at the heights of attempting to reconcile the experiences of oppression with the need to
develop human interactions and the necessity of changing them through militant struggle. There is no
doubt that Fanon’s attempt to have human interactions with white people constantly clashed with
white people’s racialized interactions with him. In other words, white people do talk to people of color
in condescending ways, dismiss POC issues as secondary, ignore POC etc. The issue is how to address
it when it happens and in that realm Privilege theory fails. Privilege theory puts too much weight on
consciousness and education. It ends up creating a politics of guilt by birth. At the same time, there is
no doubt that more education is needed on the history of white supremacy in the United States and on
a global level. Furthermore, the relationship of white supremacy and its effect on consciousness is vital
and a legitimate field of politics and philosophical inquiry. W.E.B. Du Bois, James Baldwin, Michelle
Wallace, Frantz Fanon and others have all made vital contributions in the United States regarding this
tradition. Re-framing the debate along such a tradition is vital. New social relations can only be forged
in collective struggle of the most militant character. No amount of conversation and education can
form new relationships. It is only the mass involvement and struggle of oppressed people which can
ultimately destroy white supremacy, re-establish the humanity of people color, and create social
relationships between people as one among humans instead of the racially oppressed and white
oppressor.]
A focus on privilege encourages the oppressed to cede power to those with cultural
capital in the social system – yet revolution requires that the oppressed rise up
Black Orchid Collective 2012 (March 12, a multi-gendered, multiracial revolutionary collective
attempting to develop an effective relationship between theory and practice, “Privilege Politics is
Reformism,” http://blackorchidcollective.wordpress.com/2012/03/12/guest-post-privilege-politics/)
[There is no doubt that certain groups are more likely to be targeted by the police during political
actions and that the repression they face will be greater, not to mention they might have less resources
to call upon in their defense. These are all fairly obvious realities of white supremacy. These factors
certainly hinder greater struggle. At no point should they be underestimated. At the same time, these
factors are exactly the forms of oppression which must be defeated. These movements must find ways
to deal with these issues politically and organizationally. Who will defeat these forms of oppression and
how If the liberation of oppressed people must be carried out by oppressed people then the tasks of
liberation remain in the hands with the people who have the greatest risks. If white supremacy can
only be defeated by mass and militant action and not legislation or pithy reforms then the style of
struggle is fairly clear as well. What is privilege theory’s response to these two fundamental
premises Privilege theory ends up in a dead end. According to its arguments, the most oppressed
should not struggle in the most militant ways because they do not have the privileged access to bail
money, good lawyers and not to mention their racial status which will surely guarantee extra
punishment. This leaves only one group of people who can possibly resist: those with a set of
privileges who have access to lawyers, have the spare time to struggle, etc. This is in sharp contrast to
the revolutionary tradition which has argued that the defeat of capitalism, white supremacy,
patriarchy, homophobia, imperialism etc are the responsibilities of billions of oppressed people. This
is exactly the group of people Privilege theory tends claims has so much to risk.]
Privilege discussions destroy the revolutionary potential of movements
Black Orchid Collective 2012 (March 12, a multi-gendered, multiracial revolutionary collective
attempting to develop an effective relationship between theory and practice, “Privilege Politics is
Reformism,” http://blackorchidcollective.wordpress.com/2012/03/12/guest-post-privilege-politics/)
[Privilege theory de-politicizes most discussion from their most revolutionary potentials. Privilege
theory has no political program other then a sociological analysis of who is more likely to be imprisoned,
shot, or beaten in protests, strikes, and rebellions. The past struggles have been over communism,
anarchism, nationalism, Maoism, anti-colonialism, African socialism etc. These struggles have fought
for the defeat of capitalism, the state, patriarchy, white supremacy, and homophobia (or at least they
should have fought for all their defeats if they failed to do so in actuality). The point is that the
greatest struggles of the oppressed rallied around mass struggle, militancy, and revolutionary
theory. Privilege theory de-centers all three.]
Revolutionary struggle requires putting one’s body on the line – discussions of
privilege encourages inactivity of a movement – human freedom has empirically been
bread out of the destruction carried out by revolutions
Black Orchid Collective 2012 (March 12, a multi-gendered, multiracial revolutionary collective
attempting to develop an effective relationship between theory and practice, “Privilege Politics is
Reformism,” http://blackorchidcollective.wordpress.com/2012/03/12/guest-post-privilege-politics/)
[Privilege theorists are a generation who have never known mass and militant struggle. They are a
generation who have never seen the masses as described in Frantz Fanon’s Towards the African
Revolution. They have never met an oppressed people who have simply stated, I will either live like a
human or die in struggle. I do not know if they have been in rebellions where very oppressed people
choose to fight the police and other oppressors risking imprisonment and much worse. Have they
seen such a people Is there any doubt it is only a people who are willing to go this far who have any
chance of defeating white supremacy Privilege theory thrives off the inactivity of the masses and
oppressed. They seek only to remind the masses of its weaknesses. Instead of immortalizing fallen
sheroes they only lament of the tragedy of the dead. Perhaps it is better to be beaten and killed in
struggle then to die on your knees like so many have in the past 50 years. Who does not live on their
knees today Humiliation by the police, humiliation by the boss, humiliation everywhere we go.
Ironically these privilege theorists who claim to be representatives of the underprivileged tokenize
and trivialize the struggles of the past. They name drop past struggles only to argue that the conditions
are different today. They fail to recognize that “the conditions are not right for struggle” is an old
argument going back hundreds of years constantly reminding the oppressed to delay revolution and
mass struggle. Who is willing to tell the oppressed, “the system sees you as a dog. Only when you
struggle on the terms of life and death will you achieve humanity.” Every fighter in the past has
known this. The privilege theorists are afraid to accept from where human freedom comes from.]
The struggle for freedom necessarily carries within the threat of death – we must
embrace this risk – privilege politics is simply reformism – we must be willing to risk
death in our militancy – only revolution can solve
Black Orchid Collective 2012 (March 12, a multi-gendered, multiracial revolutionary collective
attempting to develop an effective relationship between theory and practice, “Privilege Politics is
Reformism,” http://blackorchidcollective.wordpress.com/2012/03/12/guest-post-privilege-politics/)
[Every struggle for freedom carries the risk of death imposed on the oppressor or the oppressed. It is
a universal reality. There was a time when Harriet Tubman simply told all slaves that. Ironically, she
is lionized today, but her life and wisdom have no practical political lesson for revolutionaries other
then tokenizing this brave Black woman. I simply state: those who speak of privilege are
reformists. Their only task is to remind oppressed people of what it cannot do and what it has to
lose. The privilege theorists have not lived in an era of rebellions and revolutions. They are far
removed from the days when Black and Brown worker-unemployed militants shook 1968. Such
privilege theorists cover their own tracks by hiding behind the risks which the proletariat must
take. No doubt, deportation, imprisonment, and certainly death are at stake. Is the price of freedom
and human recognition be any else When any militant action or militant politics is proposed in a
meeting, privilege theorists are the first to stand up and remind those at the meetings that only those
with such and such privilege can participate in such and such militant action. That the oppressed has no
such luxury in participating in militant actions. Gone are the days when revolutionaries such as Harriet
Tubman simply stated that human live was meant to be lived in freedom or not at all. That existential
proclamation of humanity has been lost to fear and political degeneration. Those are the stakes. There
is no denying that militancy and revolution are a grave risk for the oppressed. The struggles of the
past are littered with corpses and destroyed lives. If capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy,
imperialism, ableism, homo and transphobia can only be destroyed by the most violent, militant, and
revolutionary means, what other option then all out struggle do oppressed people have. What say the
Privilege theorists Is there any other strategy Voting for the Democrats]
Boycotts and Discussions of privilege are just reformism – they risk coopting the
revolutionary potential of movements – they are mutually exclusive – the affirmative
has no hope of a permutation
Black Orchid Collective 2012 (March 12, a multi-gendered, multiracial revolutionary collective
attempting to develop an effective relationship between theory and practice, “Privilege Politics is
Reformism,” http://blackorchidcollective.wordpress.com/2012/03/12/guest-post-privilege-politics/)
[The implications of Privilege theory run much deeper then what has been addressed in this small
essay. While they have not been addressed, some of the best readings regarding this are the works of
Frantz Fanon. He sharply dealt with the very question of being a human being in light of the color of his
skin, in relationship to the anti-colonial struggle, and the desire to forge a common human-bond. The
purpose of this essay has been to challenge the framework of Privilege theory. This theory fails in its
ability as a theory of struggle and actual emancipation of oppressed people. In fact, it locks in people
in the very categories capitalism assigns them by only focusing on their oppressed category: whether
it be Black, woman, Queer, worker or student. It fails to develop actual politics, organizations and
strategies of liberation, because it was never meant to do that. Privilege theory is the politics of radical
sociology attempting to struggle. Privilege theory forces serious discussion of revolutionary politics,
organization and strategy out. Forms of oppression obviously mean different risks depending on who
you are, but what solutions does Privilege theory offer It is only the revolutionary tradition which
offers a way forward so oppressed people, through their own militancy and politics, can destroy all
the things which oppress them.]
Neg: A2: Critical Race Theory
Critical race theorists’ narrow, interested stances prevent them from offering better
alternative to solve the issues of race; their advocacy does nothing for disadvantaged
minorities.
Pyle, a trial lawyer specializing in First Amendment and media law, 99 (May 1999, Jeffrey J., 40 Boston
College Law Review 787, “Race, Equality and the Rule of Law: Critical Race Theory’s Attack on the
Promises of Liberalism,” LexisNexis, JS)
This Note criticizes CRT as an unprincipled, divisive and ultimately unhelpful attack on the liberal
tradition in America. n18 First, race-crits fail to offer replacements for liberalism's core values. n19
Rather, their postmodern Page 1 rejection of all principles leaves them entirely "critical," while their
narrow, interested stance renders them mere advocates within the liberal legal system, not theorists
who might offer better alternatives. n20 Second, despite their undeniable energy, the race-crits are
remarkably unhelpful as legal and political advocates within the liberal system. Their wholesale
rejection of the rule of law limits [*790] their persuasiveness as legal advocates, while their dismissal
of America's guiding principles makes them politically ineffective. n21 In the process, the race-crits'
racialist, blame-game rhetoric does much to alienate potentially helpful whites. n22 My disagreement
with the race-crits has less to do with their long-term goals than with their diagnoses and solutions.
Disadvantage in the United States continues to fall too heavily on racial minorities. n23 Inequities in
criminal justice, n24 immigration law n25 and welfare "reform" remain rampant, n26 but are due to
much more than simple bigotry. n27 The most important political problem today is to prepare all
persons to survive and prosper in a service-oriented, information-driven economy. n28 Inequalities in
wealth are growing because low-skilled jobs are leaving for third-world shores, while better paying jobs
increasingly require advanced education. n29 Addressing these problems is a tall order, and will not be
advanced very far by academic demands for race-based benefits. Indeed, the very idea of race-based
measures as a remedy for economic disadvantage is collapsing as Americans come to think less in
terms of black and white and more in terms of a diverse rainbow of colors, with many hues in
between. n30 So long as race was a reasonable proxy for disadvantage, as [*791] it was in the wake of
de jure segregation, identity-group remedies like race-based affirmative action made a great deal of
sense. n31 But, as the black middle class has grown and Americans have come to recognize wide
economic and cultural differences within (and not just between) ethnic groups, such claims have lost
some of their force. n32 Thus, when critical race theorists treat civil rights law as a species of interestgroup politics, they surrender the moral high ground of constitutional principle and risk being seen as
just another group clamoring for benefits. n33 Such advocacy does nothing for disadvantaged
minorities in America.
Critical race theorists ignore the nuance and complexity of the race issues in favor of
dismissing all knowledge as “socially constructed” and preferring subjective, personal
stories over civil discourse.
Pyle, a trial lawyer specializing in First Amendment and media law, 99 (May 1999, Jeffrey J., 40 Boston
College Law Review 787, “Race, Equality and the Rule of Law: Critical Race Theory’s Attack on the
Promises of Liberalism,” LexisNexis, JS)
All CRT writers believe, in varying degrees, that "racism is endemic to American life." n38 While
mainstream civil rights reformers assume that racism is a product of ignorance and can be overcome
by education, critical race theorists insist that racism is pervasive and immutable, and "lies at the very
heart of American -- and western -- culture." n39 To critical race theorists, white racism is a "defect in
the collective unconscious," n40 a cultural phenomenon that automatically "reproduces hierarchy"
even in the absence of conscious discrimination. n41 In a racist society, everyone is either an "outsider"
or an "insider," n42 a "victim" or a "perpetrator." n43 Much as Marx described human history as a
permanent conflict between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, n44 the racecrits view American
society as a zero-sum conflict between powerful white males and powerless minorities that cannot be
mitigated by other affinities or commonalities. n45 Race-crits do not arrive at this conclusion
empirically; nor do they acknowledge alternative explanations for disadvantage, such as low wages,
job insecurity, limited inheritances, absence of health benefits, poor labor markets or access to quality
education. n46 Inconvenient facts do not long detain them because they value ammunition more than
Page 2 40 B.C. L. Rev 787, *789 nuance or complexity. n47 They are also part of the postmodernist left,
an academic movement that insists that all knowledge is "socially constructed," n48 and therefore
inherently subjective, contingent and immune to [*793] objective evaluation. n49 For example, Derrick
Bell, a pre-eminent racecrit, insists that "abstraction, put forth as 'rational' or 'objective' truth, smuggles
the privileged choice of the privileged [i.e., whites] to depersonify their claims and then pass them off as
the universal authority and the universal good." n50 In other words, mainstream truths dominate legal
discourse not because they are better than other truths, but because groups in power espouse them.
n51 Charles Lawrence urges "outsiders" (i.e., minorities) to free themselves from the "mystification"
produced by the "ideology" of objective truth: "We must learn to trust our own senses, feelings, and
experiences, and to give them authority, even (or especially) in the face of dominant accounts of social
reality that claim universality." n52 According to the race-crits, knowledge is not universal; n53 it is
autobiographical and group-based. n54 [*794] By discarding the processes of objectivity and rational
empiricism, race-crits clear the ground for their idea that a person's position on the racial totem pole
controls his or her fate to the exclusion of all else. Under this worldview, minorities today are faring
little better than they were before segregation was declared unconstitutional. n55 According to Bell,
many black people are "more deeply mired in poverty and despair than they were during the 'Separate
but Equal' era." n56 Indeed, he claims, the lives of some people of color are "little less circumscribed
than were those of their slave forbears." n57 Bell further argues that even those blacks in the middle
class have "seen their progress halted and many are sliding back toward the low income status they
worked so hard to escape." n58 Richard Delgado, one of the most prolific critical race theorists, asserts
that those blacks who make it to the middle class are worse off than those who live in low-income, all-
black communities because they are more likely to come in contact with whites, and therefore, racism.
n59 And Regina Austin argues that the "ideology of individual black advancement" is "but a veneer,
unraveling in the face of collective lower-class decline." n60 Because evidence plays little role in the
race-crits' description of black disadvantage, they feel no need to explain the economic and political
progress of black Americans during the last thirty years. n61 Postmodern subjectivism allows racecrits to dismiss inconvenient facts [*795] as suspect if they appear to support the "dominant"
perspective. n62 Thus, Derrick Bell dismisses all criticism of CRT by whites as "a pathetically poor
effort to regain a position of dominance." n63 He encourages racecrits, when criticized, to "consider
the source. As to a response, a sad smile of sympathy may suffice." n64 Black scholars like Randall
Kennedy, who dare dispute CRT's assertions, are tarred with an academic version of the "Uncle Tom"
epithet. n65 For example, Paul Butler dismissed criticism of his call for race-based jury nullification with
the insulting allegation that his critic (Kennedy) simply wanted to be an "honorary white." n66 Instead
of civil discourse, race-crits substitute subjective, personal and even fictitious "narratives" as evidence
of the permanence and prevalence of racism. n67 Public discourse, to race-crits, is just a clash of
different "stories." n68 Indeed, "'rationalism' is itself just a particular kind of story" n69 which can be
contradicted with non-rational "counterstories." n70 Unlike empirical research, however, the meaning,
accuracy or representativeness of a personal story cannot be questioned without attacking the
storyteller's identity, thereby confirming the critic's hostility to the victims of racism. n71 Questioning
the race-crits' grip on reality, then, is not just disrespectful, it is oppressive. n72
Race critics leave nothing in the law to make changes. Legal realists, on the other hand,
use empirical research about social conditions to make informed decisions about legal
rules.
Pyle, a trial lawyer specializing in First Amendment and media law, 99 (May 1999, Jeffrey J., 40 Boston
College Law Review 787, “Race, Equality and the Rule of Law: Critical Race Theory’s Attack on the
Promises of Liberalism,” LexisNexis, JS)
After asserting the ubiquity of racial "subordination" in American society, race-crits assert that law is
not the solution -- it is part of the problem. n82 The American legal system, they argue, is structurally
incapable of achieving racial equality because law is essentially politics, n83 and politics is white
supremacy. n84 Neither laws nor judicial decisions can rest, as Herbert Wechsler said they must, "on
reasons quite transcending the immediate result that is achieved," n85 because white law-makers
cannot transcend their subconscious racism. n86 To the race-crits, the hard-won protections of civil
rights law, so dear to integrationists like Thurgood Marshall, n87 serve primarily to deflect calls for
more radical change, thereby preserving the racial status quo. n88 As a result, "abstract principles,"
such as racial equality, can only "lead to legal results that harm blacks and perpetuate their inferior
status." n89 Race-crits sometimes refer to this as a "realist" interpretation of law, in the tradition of
American legal realism. n90 The legal realism movement, prominent in law schools between the late
1920s and early 1950s, attacked the formalistic notion that legal rules, if applied faith-fully, [*798]
would produce predictable outcomes in most situations. n91 Critical race theory's links to this body of
scholarship, however, are superficial -- the only real similarity between CRT and legal realism is that both
theories are hostile to rigid formalism. n92 Unlike race-crits, the legal realists did not "deconstruct" law
and leave nothing in the void. Some used empirical research about social conditions to inform legal
rules, n93 while others focused their efforts on making legal scholarship more reflective of legal
reality. n94
Race critics do not propose realistic solutions to change; their only strategy, resistance
against dominant legal thought, make them look like academic posers because they
do little within the confines of the real world.
Pyle, a trial lawyer specializing in First Amendment and media law, 99 (May 1999, Jeffrey J., 40 Boston
College Law Review 787, “Race, Equality and the Rule of Law: Critical Race Theory’s Attack on the
Promises of Liberalism,” LexisNexis, JS)
For all their talk of "realism," n186 race-crits are strangely unrealistic in their proposals for reform.
n187 Most probably realize that radical measures like racial or ethnic reparations are not likely to be
granted, especially by a court. But even unrealistic proposals are rare, because race-crits generally
prefer not to suggest solutions, but to "resist" the dominant legal thought, doctrine and policy,
whatever that happens to be. n188 As Derrick Bell has put it, "most critical race theorists are
committed to a program of scholarly resistance, and most hope scholarly resistance will lay the
groundwork for wide-scale resistance." n189 How this ivory tower oppositionalism would foment
grassroots revolt is unclear, because CRT professors rarely suggest anything practical. Rather, their
exhortations are meant, as Bell says, to "harass white folks" and thereby "make life bearable in a
society where blacks are a permanent, subordinate class." n190 One of the race-crits' few practical
programs of "resistance" is Paul Butler's proposal that inner-city juries practice racially-based jury
nullification. n191 Jurors of color, Butler argues, have the "moral responsibility" not to apply the criminal
law to blacks and whites equally, but to "emancipate some guilty black outlaws" because "the black
community" would be "better off" if there were fewer black men in prison. n192 If enough juries were
hung or not-guilty verdicts rendered, he imagines, the white-dominated government would change its
excessive reliance on incarceration. n193 Butler rejects the ordinary democratic process of legal reform.
n194 Democracy, he says, ensures a "permanent, homogenous majority" of whites that "dominates"
African Americans. n195 Butler is probably correct that occasional acts of jury nullification might well
express the resentment that many African Americans justifiably feel towards discriminatory law
enforcement. n196 As Randall Kennedy [*808] has pointed out, however, black Americans are
disproportionately the victims of crimes, n197 and therefore tend to favor more, not less, criminal
prosecution and punishment. n198 The race-crits' preference for "resistance" n199 over democratic
participation seems to flow from a fear of losing their status as "oppositional scholars" n200 to the
game of mainstream law and politics, which they regard as "an inevitably co-optive process." n201
Better to be radically opposed to the "dominant political discourse" n202 and remain an outsider than
to work within the current system and lose one's "authenticity." n203 In rejecting the realistic for the
"authentic," however, race-crits begin to look like academic poseurs -- ideological purists striking the
correct radical stance, but doing little within the confines of the real world, so sure are they that
nothing much can be done. n204
Liberalism solves better than race critics’ fatalistic description of race. Liberalism
ensures continuity and change, stability and flexibility, tradition and innovation as it
has a capacity for social change. Even civil rights leader, the Reverend Martin Luther
King, concurs with this view of social change.
Pyle, a trial lawyer specializing in First Amendment and media law, 99 (May 1999, Jeffrey J., 40 Boston
College Law Review 787, “Race, Equality and the Rule of Law: Critical Race Theory’s Attack on the
Promises of Liberalism,” LexisNexis, JS)
The race-crits' fatalistic description of race and law in the United States places them far outside the
liberal tradition in America. n206 In their cynicism, they insist that our legal system is beyond
redemption, that whites are irredeemably racist and that the principles of the liberal legal system are
false promises. n207 In short, they reduce law to politics [*809] and politics to white supremacy. n208
Their theory is a stark departure from what most Americans, of all races, believe. n209 A. The Liberal
Tradition in America Unlike the race-crits, the vast majority of Americans have believed, at least since
the eighteenth century, in a broad set of principles that can be classified, albeit vaguely, as "liberal."
n210 As obvious as these principles may seem, it is necessary to revisit them briefly, if only to explain
what CRT purports to reject. Liberalism may be defined as belief in government with the consent of
the governed; n211 representative democracy; n212 equality; n213 guaranteed liberties; n214
separated institutions checking and balancing one another; n215 and multiple sovereignties of federal,
state, local and individual authority. n216 These principles are embodied in the higher law of
constitutions, which are enforced (imperfectly) by reasonably independent judges (appointed through
political processes), under a rule of law, n217 which is largely insulated from partisan politics. n218
[*810] To subscribe to such principles is not necessarily to practice them. The man who wrote the
Declaration of Independence owned 200 slaves. n219 He was, like most of us, both principled and
inconsistent. n220 Indeed, liberalism makes bold promises and continually fails to live up to them. n221
Nor does faith in the liberal tradition mean that Americans would automatically agree on particular
policies if they only were faithful to their common creed. American politics is united by an overarching
consensus on basic principles, n222 and divided among a myriad of conflicting interests that make
consistent and uniform adherence to common principles unlikely. n223 Liberal principles are therefore
"indeterminate" to the extent that they are not mechanically determinative of every controversy. n224
Indeed, as Samuel Huntington has pointed out, Americans hold potentially conflicting ideals (such as
individualism and democracy, liberty and equality) simultaneously, without trying to resolve the
conflicts between them once and for all. n225 Rather, they have set up processes and institutions to
resolve conflicts pragmatically, case-by-case, issue-by-issue, problem-by-problem. n226 Liberals,
unlike radical legal theorists, assume that there are no universal solvents, that values are not easily
ranked n227 and that reasoning by analogy is usually more helpful (and more persuasive) than
deductions from the abstract theories of philosopher-kings. n228 Liberal politics, like the common-law
courts on which it relies, requires perpetual re-examination of both the major and [*811] minor
premises of most legal syllogisms. It allows for both continuity and change, stability and flexibility,
tradition and innovation. n229 The liberal system's celebrated capacity for social change rests in the
ability of aggrieved citizens to confront power-holders, such as legislators, judges or voters, with their
failures to live up to the promises of the "American Creed." n230 In doing so, the aggrieved can argue
with some force that they are seeking justice, not revolution, when in fact they may be seeking both.
n231 The Voting Rights Act of 1965, for example, was not a radical measure, yet it started a revolution
in Southern politics. n232 It purported to secure a right already enshrined in the Fifteenth
Amendment, n233 and thus fulfill fundamental notions of equality that most Americans could not
easily deny. n234 The Act would probably not have passed, however, if it had been presented as a
benefit to one group to the detriment of another in a zero-sum power game. Second, liberal politics is
about morality as well as interests. It is about holding public officials morally and politically responsible
for meeting unfulfilled promises. n235 By casting victims of discrimination as legitimate claimants to
the promise of equality in the American Creed, liberal politics gives victims the higher moral ground,
without fully separating them from the people whose oppressive behavior they seek to change. n236
The Reverend Martin Luther King exemplified this promissory politics best on the steps of the Lincoln
Memorial in 1963, when he said: Page 8 40 B.C. L. Rev 787, *808 [*812] In a sense we've come to our
nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the
Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every
American was to fall heir. This note was the promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men,
would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious
today that America has defaulted on this promissory note. . . . America has given Negro people a bad
check; a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." We refuse to believe that there are
insufficient funds in the great vaults of this nation. And so we have come to cash this check, a check that
will give us upon demand the riches of freedom, and the security of justice. n237 Through this metaphor,
King brilliantly articulated the promises and realities that animated the civil rights revolution in
America. n238 He reminded Americans of their founding principles, assumed the fundamental
equality of the bargainers, and placed the power structure on the defensive. n239 King did not paint
whites as irredeemably racist; he simply insisted that they live up to their obligations. n240
Race critics take a profoundly utopian and totalitarian approach to racism. Liberalism,
instead, prefers to emphasize the process of change and take a more incremental
approach to political change. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 provide empirical evidence of
this.
Pyle, a trial lawyer specializing in First Amendment and media law, 99 (May 1999, Jeffrey J., 40 Boston
College Law Review 787, “Race, Equality and the Rule of Law: Critical Race Theory’s Attack on the
Promises of Liberalism,” LexisNexis, JS)
The race-crits, like other class theorists, do not attempt to prove that African Americans are
permanently disadvantaged; they simply assert it. n245 Nor do they acknowledge that black
Americans have made considerable (although far from satisfactory) progress since de jure segregation
was ended. n246 Critical race theory, like Marxism before it, [*814] clings to group "domination" as the
single cause of disadvantage. n247 It takes one unifying idea -racial domination -- and tries to fit all
facts and law into it. n248 Liberalism, on the other hand, distrusts grand unifying theories, preferring
to emphasize process over ends. n249 As a result, liberalism frustrates anyone, Left or Right, who would
have governments embrace their ideologies. n250 Because of the value liberals place on liberty, they
tend to be wary of the sort of power concentrations that could mandate changes quickly. n251 They
prefer a more incremental approach to political change that depends on the consent of the governed,
even when the governed are often ignorant, misguided and even bigoted. n252 Liberalism is never
utopian, by anyone's definition, but always procedural, because it presupposes a society of people
who profoundly disagree with each other and whose interests, goals, stakes and stands, cannot easily,
if ever, be fully reconciled. n253 Because of these differences, liberals know there is no such thing as a
"benevolent despot," and that utopias almost invariably turn out to be dystopias. n254 [*815] Race-crits,
on the other hand, are profoundly utopian and sometimes totalitarian. n255 In their view, the law
should ferret out and eliminate white racism at any cost. n256 Richard Delgado, for example,
complains that "nothing in the law requires any [white] to lend a helping hand, to try to help blacks find
jobs, befriend them, speak to them, make eye contact with them, help them fix a flat when they are
stranded on the highway, help them feel like full persons. . . . How can a system like that change
anything" n257 The race-crits, in their preoccupation with power, forget that the power to persuade
remains the principal way of achieving lasting change in a democratic political culture. n258 A
beneficial but controversial measure is much more likely to survive changes of the party in power if it
can be said to carry out the will of "the people," from whom all power in the United States is said to
derive. n259 For example, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, controversial as it was, n260 has remained a
bulwark of civil rights protection for thirty-six years because of its democratic and constitutional
legitimacy. n261 On the other hand, if Malcolm X or the Black Panthers had attempted to set up a
separate black state Page 9 40 B.C. L. Rev 787, *812 on American soil in the tradition of John Brown,
their efforts would have been crushed immediately.
Critical race theory fails because it only critiques liberal values without building
anything to replace it. Liberalism, at least, has tangible, constructive benefits.
Pyle, a trial lawyer specializing in First Amendment and media law, 99 (May 1999, Jeffrey J., 40 Boston
College Law Review 787, “Race, Equality and the Rule of Law: Critical Race Theory’s Attack on the
Promises of Liberalism,” LexisNexis, JS)
At bottom, CRT fails because of its single-mindedly "critical" character. Race-crits bewail minority
disadvantage, blame liberal values for "constructing" this disadvantage and dismiss any defense of
them as a [*816] legitimation of white supremacy. n262 But here endeth their analysis. As CLS scholar
Mark Tushnet admitted: "Critique is all there is." n263 "Critique," however, never built anything, and
liberalism, for all its shortcomings, is at least constructive. It provides broadly-accepted, reasonably
well-defined principles to which political advocates may appeal in ways that transcend sheer power,
with at least some hope of incremental success. n264 Critical race theory would "deconstruct" this
imperfect tradition, but offers nothing in its place. An apt example of how unconstructive CRT is can be
found in its approach to equality. To the extent that race-crits discuss "equality" at all, they do so less
to advance tangible goals than to disparage liberalism's different approaches, including the ultimate
goal of a society where race does not matter. n265 The race-crits are particularly hostile to the liberal
ideal of "color blindness," expressed most eloquently by Martin Luther King's dream that his children
"will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the
content of their character." n266 To the race-crits, this integrationist goal of color-blind
constitutionalism is not just naive or premature. n267 In Neil Gotanda's words, it "supports the
supremacy of white interests and must therefore be regarded as racist." n268 Unlike King, who saw
affirmative action as a color-conscious means to a more inclusive, integrated nation, n269 race-crits
consider affirmative action an end in itself, more akin to an award of permanent damages than
transitional assistance. n270 To the race-crits, any doctrine that gets in the way of that end, including
egalitarian colorblindness, is ipso facto "racist." n271
Critical race theorists have no provided a theory that can transcend mere factional
interests and aid minorities. Their emphasis on the “equality of results” does not
explicitly advocate any legal structure, rather a rough distribution between
“racial”groups.
Pyle, a trial lawyer specializing in First Amendment and media law, 99 (May 1999, Jeffrey J., 40 Boston
College Law Review 787, “Race, Equality and the Rule of Law: Critical Race Theory’s Attack on the
Promises of Liberalism,” LexisNexis, JS)
Race-crits also reject the liberal idea of equality as "belonging" that inspired much of the civil rights
movement. n272 Under this view, so eloquently advanced by Kenneth Karst, equality occurs when all
people "belong" to America, that is, when they gain equal citizenship and equal justice under the
Constitution, despite their pluralistic differences. n273 The race-crits, however, usually reject inclusion.
They prefer the separatist and unattainable goal of black nationalism. n274 Richard Delgado, for
example, believes that whites are so different from minorities that the groups should have as little to do
with each other as possible. n275 Finally, the race-crits ridicule the idea of "equal opportunity" that
inspires much of liberal political and economic thought. n276 In a pervasively racist society, they say,
there is no such thing as equality of opportunity for minorities because the system and its operators
will always favor members of the majority. n277 "Merit," to the race-crits, is a racist construct
calculated to keep whites in charge, and therefore a merit-based equality of opportunity amounts
only to "affirmative action for whites." n278 A better endeavor, they argue, would engage in "a
broadscale [*818] inquiry into why jobs, wealth, education, and power are distributed as they are." n279
So what conception of "equality" would the race-crits impose in place of liberal egalitarianism They
never say, but they come closest with their occasional calls for "equality of results" through
reparations-based affirmative action. n280 For example, Cheryl Harris proposes that affirmative action
should "equalize treatment by redistributing power and resources in order to rectify inequities and to
achieve real equality." n281 Similarly, Mari Matsuda argues for racial reparations in part because they
would alleviate "the destabilizing inequities in wealth distribution," n282 while Richard Delgado
advocates "equality of result" as a more simple, direct and effective goal than the complicated, valueladen "equality of opportunity." n283 No race-crit, however, has explained what "equality of results"
means. The term seems to suggest equality of resources for all citizens, but race-crits do not explicitly
advocate either communism or socialism. More likely, they would prefer a rough distribution of
resources between "racial" groups -- e.g., a reparations tax system that would grant Page 10 40 B.C. L.
Rev 787, *815 each ethnic group money and power commensurate with its percentage of the
population. n284 Yet the race-crits do not say who should pay and who should benefit from such a
system. n285 Should the "one drop of blood" method of racial classification apply, n286 or should a
person have to be primarily of minority stock to receive reparations To the race-crits, all black
Americans are clearly victims of slavery and racism, n287 but should recent immigrants from Haiti,
Africa or Europe receive the same benefits as descendants of American slaves Are all black
descendants of American slaves entitled to payments, or do blacks with slave-owning ancestors fit into
Mari Matsuda's class of [*819] "perpetrator descendants" who must pay n288 Would Asians be
classified as an oppressed minority, or would they be forced to give up their disproportionate share of
wealth n289 If all Asians are "victims," as Matsuda has suggested, n290 must a third-generation
Japanese American be aided equally to a recently-arrived Vietnamese or Laotian immigrant Should all
Native American tribes receive payments, or only those without successful casinos Suppose, after the
initial payment, one ethnic group's average wealth fell behind that of another. Should the allocations be
reshuffled annually to achieve "equality of result" n291 And how much of a redistribution of "power"
is necessary to achieve "equality of result" n292 Should official positions be rotated among
representatives of various ethnic groups, or is it enough to gerrymander voting districts to assure the
election of minorities n293 Perhaps political appointments, (especially those of judges), n294 should
be distributed among race-group caucuses in proportion to the percentage of ethnic groups in the
population. And perhaps corporations should be required to elect CEOs from among different ethnic
groups every few years. Critical race theory's failure to address the difficulties of administering a
reparations-based, "equality of result" system leaves one with the impression that either they really
are not serious, or their invocation of "equality" is little more than an assertion of group interests.
Indeed, the more pessimistic race-crits, like Derrick Bell, would be happiest if social reformers jettisoned
the goal of "equality" altogether, because that goal "merely perpetuates our disempowerment." n295 If
legal doctrine is to be judged solely by how it advances the interest of racial minorities, the race-crits
implicitly dismiss any vision of equality that could aid other disadvantaged groups, or that could treat
disadvantaged members of the racial majority with equal concern and respect. n296 [*820] To the
race-crits, the proper inquiry is not how the law lives up to aspirations or principles, but how it serves
the interests of a constituency. n297 In this respect, the race-crits are more political advocates than
legal scholars. n298 There is, of course, nothing wrong with being an advocate, and disadvantaged
people certainly need advocates. But legal theories -- the principles and ideas that guide the
determination of legal outcomes -- must transcend mere factional interests if they are to aid
minorities. They must win the majority's acquiescence, if not its active support. So far, race-crits have
not provided such a theory. CRT is only "scholarly resistance" that lives within, and indeed depends
upon, the liberal legal order. n299 Without liberalism to "critique," critical race theory would have little
meaning. In the end, critical race theory could no more supplant liberalism than the mission statement
of a political action committee could replace the Constitution.
Critical race theory fails in its ability to persuade others; it has little to no influence
outside the walls of academia.
Pyle, a trial lawyer specializing in First Amendment and media law, 99 (May 1999, Jeffrey J., 40 Boston
College Law Review 787, “Race, Equality and the Rule of Law: Critical Race Theory’s Attack on the
Promises of Liberalism,” LexisNexis, JS)
How effective, then, is CRT as advocacy for racial minorities within the liberal system The answer
depends, of course, on one's criteria. As a therapeutic screed against the frustrations of incremental
liberalism, critical race theory probably "works" well. n300 It may also push liberals into constructive
action, much as black radicals pushed whites into the arms of Martin Luther King, Jr. n301 If advocacy
is judged by its ability to persuade others, however, CRT must be judged a failure. [*821] Despite its
ten years as a "movement," n302 its voluminous publications and ubiquitous presence in law schools,
n303 critical race theory has had almost no influence outside the walls of academia. n304 This poor
showing can be attributed to the inherent inadequacies of the theory. First, the race-crits' critique of
liberalism is historically and analytically at odds with the common law system of reasoning by analogy
and ensuring equality by following precedent. To them, the unifying explanation of American history
is racial domination, so any seeming departure from that ideology must be either a fleeting aberration
or a ruse to protect white supremacy. n305 For example, Derrick Bell believes that because the federal
Constitution accommodated slavery, no meaningful theory of racial equality can possibly be deduced
from it. n306 He holds to this absolute position despite decades of opinions and laws that have
subjected racial classifications to a degree of scrutiny so strict in theory that it is fatal in fact. n307
Indeed, Bell's focus on the intentions of the Framers rather than their larger purposes is as unhelpful in
its own way as Raoul Berger's slavish historicism. n308 By contrast, liberal jurisprudence allows legal
advocates to ignore the specific intentions of ignoble framers in order to give nobility to their grand
promises. n309 Thus, Sir Edward Coke was not bothered by the fact that the Magna Carta was obtained
by extortion and meant to [*822] benefit the nobility. n310 By creative interpretation, he transformed
that crabbed feudal contract into a mythic charter of liberty. n311 Abraham Lincoln knew that the most
inspiring words of the Declaration of Independence were not meant to end slavery, but he realized their
potential. n312 Congresswoman Katherine St. George understood that equality for the sexes was added
to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by racist, sexist men in a cynical effort to defeat the bill. n313 She just
smiled, knowing that great legal principles have a way of transcending their origins. n314 In short,
American liberals have not allowed their jurisprudence to become frozen by an excess of historicism.
In jurisprudence, as in nearly everything else, they have been cheerfully eclectic, pragmatic and
undogmatic. n315
Judges will not be persuaded by race critics’ “deconstruction” of neutral principles.
Their institutional commitment to legal principles will prevent them from giving
critical race theorists’ view much weight.
Pyle, a trial lawyer specializing in First Amendment and media law, 99 (May 1999, Jeffrey J., 40 Boston
College Law Review 787, “Race, Equality and the Rule of Law: Critical Race Theory’s Attack on the
Promises of Liberalism,” LexisNexis, JS)
The second reason the race-crits fail as legal advocates is that their "deconstruction" of neutral
principles and the rule of law leave them unpersuasive to judges who have pledged to uphold both.
No judge could possibly trust a piece of scholarship to reflect law or facts accurately if the scholar who
wrote it had previously declared that law is merely politics and that political ends are all that count in
legal advocacy. n316 For example, Kimberle Crenshaw has described the civil rights litigation of the
1950s and 1960s not as an effort to redeem principles, but as a cynical "manipulation of legal rhetoric"
and use of "appropriate rhetorical and legal incantations" to dupe the state into achieving the desired
political outcome: dismantling white supremacy. n317 Given judges' institutional commitment to legal
principles (not to mention their distaste for being overturned on appeal), it is unlikely that even
liberal judges would give further "incantations" from Crenshaw much weight. In debunking the rule of
law, the race-crits think of themselves as more "realistic" than liberals who believe (or hope) that the
law can [*823] be impartial. n318 In truth, they are less so. Instances in which judges ignore precedent
to achieve some blatantly partisan end are not unknown, but they are rare. More often, judges
swallow their political misgivings about laws and apply them. This was certainly true of the nineteenthcentury judges who opposed slavery yet enforced the fugitive slave laws, n319 as it is of present-day
judges who oppose mandatory sentences, but impose them. n320 It is as true of the judges who ruled in
favor of the Amistad captives n321 as it is of the president who sent troops to Little Rock to enforce a
judicial order to desegregate the schools. n322 Such officials may be political apparatchiks, but that is
different from their being purely partisan.
Race critics’ demonization of whites and their Marxian, group-based ideologies do not
even resonate with the people for whom they claim to speak.
Pyle, a trial lawyer specializing in First Amendment and media law, 99 (May 1999, Jeffrey J., 40 Boston
College Law Review 787, “Race, Equality and the Rule of Law: Critical Race Theory’s Attack on the
Promises of Liberalism,” LexisNexis, JS)
Finally, even if the race-crits were to stop demonizing whites, they would still be doomed to political
irrelevancy because their Marxian, group-based theories have little resonance in a nation which, since
its founding, has rejected the Page 12 40 B.C. L. Rev 787, *821 idea of hereditary entitlements. n332
Slavery and racial discrimination are exceptions to this tradition -- huge, horrific exceptions, but
exceptions nonetheless. For all the hypocrisies and bigotries of its citizens and leaders, the United
States does promise liberty, equality and justice. The gap between these promises and realities often
yaws wide, but the promises abide. They are part of the "American Dream," the "American Creed" n333
and the American "civil religion" n334 which no amount of "realism" or cynicism seems able to smother.
No group in American history has had more reason to disbelieve America's promises than African
Americans. No group should be more amenable to the cynical separatism of the academic race-crits.
And yet, race-crits are largely marginal among African Americans. Imbued with Christianity and the
American Creed, n335 most black Americans rejected [*825] the appeals of socialists in the late
nineteenth century, n336 Communists in the 1930s n337 and neo-Marxist "liberationists" in the 1960s.
n338 Rather, when America's unpaid "promissory note" came due in the 1950s and 1960s, they
marched forth from Christian churches to demand fulfillment of the very American promise that "all
men are created equal." n339 And faith in the redeemability of America's promises remains in the
African-American community today, sustaining efforts to overcome continued segregation, unjust
incarceration and enduring economic inequality. n340 Thus, the more the race-crits rail against the
principles of liberal democracy, n341 the further they separate themselves from the very people for
whom they claim to speak.
Neg: Civil Rights Activism Fails
The most powerful identity politics protect whiteness – 1960’s style Civil Rights
Activism cannot solve
Lipsitz- Professor at Department of Ethnic Studies at University of California, 2000 (George, October
2000, “The White 2K Problem” (for Cultural Values ISSN 1362-5179 Volume 4 Number 4 pp.518-524)
The possessive investment in whiteness can be combated, but only by changing our way of thinking
about civil rights. For the most part, racial injuries in our society do not stem from aberrant acts by
individual racists, but rather they originate from the indirect, inferential, institutional, and systemic
skewing of opportunities and life chances along racial lines. Whiteness is the most subsidized identity
in our society; the most powerful identity politics are those that protect the value of whiteness. White
advantages come from favoritism, not fitness, fortitude, or family formations. Under these conditions
the language and strategies of the 1960s civil rights movement will not suffice. We need to develop an
approach to racial injuries that reveals them to be structural and social, not simply the aberrant acts
of improperly socialized individuals. This approach would entail a new anti-racist vision capable of
encompassing: