* Professor, William S. Richardson School of Law, University of Hawaii. The text of this introduction is based upon my Keynote address, given on March 26, 1999, at the First National Meeting of the Regional People of Color Legal Scholarship Conferences. Michelle Kim provided much appreciated research assistance.
1 For a fully developed discussion on interracial grievances and healing, see Eric K. Yamamoto, Interracial Justice: Conflict and Reconciliation in Post-Civil Rights America (1999) [hereinafter Yamamoto, Interracial Justice]. See generally Martha Minow, Between Vengeance and Forgiveness (1998); Nicholas Tavuchis, Mea Culpa: A Sociology of Apology and Reconciliation (1991).
2 See Cal. Const., art. I, § 1(a)(1996) (“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.”). This law is colloquially known as Proposition 209.
3 See generally Eric K. Yamamoto, Critical Race Praxis: Race Theory and Political Lawyering Practice in Post-Civil Rights America, 95 Mich. L. Rev. 821 (1997) [hereinafter Yamamoto, Critical Race Praxis] (describing settlement of Chinese American claims of discrimination in Ho v. San Francisco Unified Sch. Dist., (N.D. Cal. 1986)).
4 See generally Taxman v. Bd. of Educ. of Piscataway, 91 F.3d 1547 (3d Cir. 1996), cert. dismissed, 522 U.S. 1010 (1997). Sharon Taxman, a white schoolteacher, was laid off while an equally qualified black teacher was retained. See id. at 1551. Her appeal, pending before the Supreme Court, was withdrawn as part of a $433,500 settlement, paid partially by a civil rights organization which sought to preclude the conservative Court from ruling on the case. See also David Savage, Black & White Case, A.B.A. J., Jan. 1998, at 33.
5 See David R. Roediger, Towards the Abolition of Whiteness: Essays on Race, Politics, and Working Class History 1 (1994).
6 See Elizabeth Martinez, Beyond Black/White: The Racisms of Our Time, 20 Soc. Just. 22, 32 (1991).
7 See Yamamoto, Interracial Justice, supra note 1, at 8–9 (describing media attempts to fill the void by narrowly portraying conflicts between African American and Asian American communities).
8 Id.
9 Interview with Diane Wong, Executive Director of Unity 99, in San Francisco, Cal. (Mar. 23, 1999).
10 See Yamamoto, Interracial Justice, supra note 1, at 1.
11 See id.
12 See id.
13 See id.
14 See id. at 2.
15 Yamamoto, Interracial Justice, supra note 1, at 3.
16 Id.
17 See id.
18 See id.
19 See id. at 3.
20 Yamamoto, Interracial Justice, supra note 1, at 5.
21 See id.
22 Id. at 3–4.
23 See id. at 5.
24 See id.
25 See Yamamoto, Interracial Justice, supra note 1, at 5.
26 See id.
27 See id.
28 See id. at 4–5.
29 See id. at 5.
30 See Yamamoto, Interracial Justice, supra note 1, at 5.
31 See id.
32 Id.
33 See id. at 5–6.
34 Id. at 6.
35 See Yamamoto, Interracial Justice, supra note 1.
36 See generally id.
37 See generally id.
38 See id. at 5.
39 See generally Yamamoto, Critical Race Praxis, supra note 3.
40 See generally id.
41 See generally Yamamoto, Interracial Justice, supra note 1.
42 Lisa Lowe, Heterogeneity, Hybridity, Multiplicity: Marking Asian American Differences, 1 Diaspora 24, 28 (1991) (presenting Franz Fanon’s argument).
43 See Yamamoto, Interracial Justice, supra note 1, at 10–11.
The first dimension is recognition. It asks racial group members to recognize and empathize with the anger and hope of those wounded; to acknowledge the disabling social constraints imposed by one group on another and the resulting group wounds; to identify related justice grievances often underlying current group conflict; and to critically examine stock stories of racial group attributes and interracial relations ostensibly legitimating those constraints and grievances. The second dimension is responsibility. It suggests that amid struggles over identity and power, racial groups can be simultaneously subordinated in some relationships and subordinating in others. In some situations, a group’s power is both enlivened and constrained by specific social and economic conditions and political alignments. Responsibility therefore asks racial groups to assess carefully the dynamics of group agency for imposing disabling constraints on others and, when appropriate, to accept group responsibility for healing the resulting wounds.
The third dimension is reconstruction. It entails active steps (performance) toward healing the social and psychological wounds resulting from disabling group constraints. Those steps might include apologies by the aggressors and, when appropriate, forgiveness by those injured and a joint reframing of stories of group identities and intergroup relations. The fourth dimension, closely related to the third, is reparation. It seeks to repair the damage to the material conditions of racial group life in order to attenuate one group’s power over another. This means material changes in the structure of the relationship (social, economic, political) to guard against “cheap reconciliation,” in which healing efforts are “just talk.”
Id.
44 See generally Taunya Lovell Banks, Both Edges of the Margin: Blacks and Asians in Mississippi Masala, Barriers to Coalition Building, 5 Asian L.J. 7 (1998).
45 See generally Eric K. Yamamoto, Race Apologies, 1 Iowa J. Gender, Race & Just. 47 (1997) (cataloging national and international trends of race apologies).
46 See Interview with Diane Wong, supra note 9.
47 See Eric K. Yamamoto, Rethinking Alliances: Agency, Responsibility and Interracial Justice, 3 U.C.L.A. Asian Pac. Am. L.J. 33, 40 (1995).
48 For a more in-depth discussion on Asian American and Native Hawaiian apology and redress, see Banks, supra note 44 and accompanying text.