* Copyright (c) 1999 by Deborah W. Post. Visiting Professor, DePaul Law School; Professor, Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg School of Law.
1 The First National Meeting of the Regional People of Color Conferences was held on March 25–27, 1999. The following also participated in the first roundtable discussion: Leslie Espinoza, moderator (Boston College); Shubha Ghosh (Georgia State); Cheryl Harris (University of California at Los Angeles); Twila Perry (Rutgers at Newark); Leland Ware (St. Louis University); Fred Yen (Boston College); Frank Valdes (Miami).
2 “And the Lord said ‘Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language that they may not understand one another’s speech.’” Genesis 11:6 (The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha, Revised Standard Version (1977)) [hereinafter Genesis]. The annotation contains the following translations: “Babel” means “gate of God,” while “balal” means “confuse.” See id. at 11:9 annot.
Bruce Lincoln discusses Roland Barthes’ theory that myth is a “second-order semiotic system” that has “mystificatory conceptual content.” See Bruce Lincoln, Discourse and the Construction of Society: Comparative Studies of Myth, Ritual and Classification 5 (1989). Barthes continues that myth is the “‘appropriate instrument for . . . ideological inversion.’” Id. (quoting Roland Barthes, Mythologies 142 (1972)). Lincoln, for his part, distinguishes between history, legend, and myth. See id. at 24–25. The last category is different from the prior two because it has authority—the power to evoke sentiments of solidarity. See id. The truth claims of a myth are not literal (like history) but “paradigmatic.” See id. at 24.
3 See Craig Calhoun, Social Theory and the Politics of Identity, in Social Theory and the Politics of Identity 9, 9–10 (Craig Calhoun ed., 1994) [hereinafter Identity].
4 See id. at 25.
5 The claims may contest the dichotomy drawn between representational and explanatory scholarship, between description and theory. See generally Margaret Somers & Gloria D. Gibson, Reclaiming the Epistemological “Other”: Narrative and the Social Constitution of Identity, in Identity, supra note 3, at 37. In another context, the debate is over the nature of the claim—whether it is an “interpretive framework dedicated to explicating how knowledge remains central to maintaining and changing unjust systems of power,” or whether standpoint theory is a claim about truth and reality. See Patricia Hill Collins, Comment on Hekman’s “Truth and Method: Feminist Standpoint Theory Revisited”: Where’s the Power?, 22 Signs: J. Women in Culture & Soc’y 375, 375 (1997).
6 See, e.g., Mari J. Matsuda, Looking to the Bottom: Critical Legal Studies and Reparations, 22 Harvard C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. 323, 324 (1987)(“Those who have experienced discrimination speak with a special voice to which we should listen. Looking to the bottom, adopting the perspective of those who have seen and felt the falsity of the liberal promise, can assist critical scholars in the task of fathoming the phenomenology of law and defining the elements of justice.”). Matsuda refers both to those who have “experienced discrimination” and to the experience of “people of color in America.” See id. at 324–25; but see Susan Hekman, Truth and Method: Feminist Standpoint Theory Revisited, 22 Signs: J. Women in Culture & Soc’y 341, 359 (1997) (rejecting feminist standpoint methodology because ultimately it makes “coherent analysis . . . impossible because we have too many axes of analysis. Ultimately, every woman is unique; if we analyze each in her uniqueness, systemic analysis is obviated”).
When we refer to the voice of someone other than a writer, like the informants used by anthropologists, the term invoked is “polyphonic” scholarship rather than poly-vocal scholarship. “[I]f writing in the field is not seen as beginning with inscription, then the ethnographic writer less automatically appears as a privileged recorder, salvager, and interpreter of cultural data. Greater prominence given to transcribed materials can produce a more polyphonic final ethnography.” James Clifford, Notes on (Field)notes, in Fieldnotes: The Makings of Anthropology 47, 57 (Roger Sanjek ed., 1990).
7 See Preface to Identity, supra note 3, at 3.
8 The meaning of the term “people of color” itself is historically contingent. See, e.g., Sunseri v. Cassagne, 185 So. 1, 4 (S. Ct. La. 1938). The etymology of the phrase has been traced by Louisiana courts. See, e.g., Lee v. New Orleans Great Northern R. Co., 125 La. 236, 238–39, 51 So. 182, 183 (La. 1910). Before the Civil War, people of color were those people who were neither white nor black. See id. After the Civil War, “colored people” was the polite way to refer to people who formerly were called “Negro” or “nigger.” See id. Contemporary use of the terminology is contested. One of the topics on a mixed race website recently was the appropriateness of the assumption that mixed race or multiracial people were also “people of color.” See Interracial Voice (visited Aug. 18, 1999) ~intvouce/point21.html>. The person who did the assuming then proceeded to explain her choice. See Letter from L. Johnson, Interracial Voice, supra. She described a letter she got from a racist white hate group that “boasted that their mixing with us was making more of them because their Mixed children would never want to be N*GGERS.” See id. The letter described is not consistent with the racial purity message of hate groups like the Church of the Creator discussed infra note 58.
9 See generally Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color, in Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement 357 (Kimberlé Crenshaw et al. eds., 1995). Professor Crenshaw begins with a discussion of the ways in which discourse and legislative reforms intended to assist the members of one subordinated community may be inadequate for some members of that community, specifically, those who are “subordinated by other structures of domination.” See id. at 359 (explaining example of immigrant women and the marital fraud waiver). Crenshaw then concludes, somewhat optimistically given her preceding arguments, that “intersectionality,” the theoretical approach she has just advocated, “provides a basis for reconceptualizing” race or gender or sexuality and that the intersections of these various identities may be sites for coalition between or among different communities. See id. at 377.
10 Memorandum from Leslie Espinoza, roundtable moderator, to participants (Feb. 8, 1999) (on file with author).
11 Colin Turnbull makes a distinction between individual self-awareness and self-perception and draws a parallel at the next level of analysis: the community. Turnbull states:
Conformity, order and uniformity, however voluntary, do not make a community any more than does the mere assertion by a given social unit, be it a rural village or an inner city ghetto or block association, that it is a “community.” Such an assertion may just be wishful thinking, or a conscious attempt to claim special consideration. And it may well be a mistaken extension of individual self awareness to group awareness, whereas what really defines a true community is the nature of its self perception.
Colin M. Turnbull, The Individual, Community and Society: Rights and Responsibilities from an Anthropological Perspective, 41 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 77, 91–92 (1984).
12 I should explain that Charles Ogletree was a classmate of mine in law school, proving that at least one stereotype about black people is true—we do all know each other.
13 The special got mixed reviews. Some thought it offered no new insight into a complex problem. See Walter Goodman, Debating Affirmative Action But Keeping It Cordial, N.Y. Times, Mar. 23, 1999, at E8. Another reviewer thought it was filled with “intelligence and even genuine good will.” See Phil Kloer, A Calm, Thoughtful T.V. Debate on Race, Atlanta J. & Const., Mar. 23, 1999, at 1E. Both reviewers had praise for Charles’ performance. See Goodman, supra; Kloer, supra. One called his questions “incisive.” See Kloer, supra. The other credited him with keeping the conversation “civil and even playful.” See Goodman, supra.
14 See Personnel (visited Nov. 29, 1999) quadrant.asp?ssector=personnel.asp&ID=23475>.
15 Octavia Butler’s heroine, Anyanwu, could change her body on a cellular level to a bird, dolphin, or leopard. See generally Octavia Butler, Wild Seed (1980).
16 See Dangerous (Fox 1991). When science fiction imagines technological differences, it often anticipates or imagines the future. We have submarines and rockets, we have gone to the moon, we are capable of transplants, and we might even be able to extend human life. A way to make (chemically or surgically) a black person white or vice versa may be discovered at some point in the future. The impracticability (or lack of demand) for this change may be the reason why at present morphing is only possible in the realm of “virtual reality.”
17 See, e.g., Patricia J. Williams, The Alchemy of Race and Rights, 207–08 (1991) (polar bear dreams); see generally, e.g., Charles R. Lawrence, III, A Dream: On Discovering the Significance of Fear, 10 Nova L. Rev. 627 (1986). I must add here, however, that in recognizing the use of dreams as a literary device, I do not mean to suggest that either my dream or any other is something less than “real.” I did have the dream, tropes notwithstanding.
18 Diversity has become an industry in corporate America. See Eric Gunn, Where Do White Men Fit In?, Chi. Trib., May 9, 1999, at C1. Most recently, diversity consultants have taken a different tack, downplaying the moral censure that might attach to the attitudes and practices that led to the exclusion of women and minorities from the corporate sphere. See id. Diversity trainers now emphasize “respect for the white male position” and recommend sensitivity to the feelings of exclusion experienced by white men. See id. At the same time, at least one expert interviewed has a theory about the insecurity of white men: “[e]veryone else is bicultural.” See id.
Outsiders are bicultural. In the words of one of the “underpeople” in a science fiction short story, outsiders “learn by imitation and imitation is conscious.” See Cordwainer Smith, The Ballad of Lost C’mell, in The Best of Cordwainer Smith 287, 297 (J.J. Pierce ed., 1975). This statement puts the idea of assimilation in a nutshell. See id. Dr. Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger wrote under the pseudonym Cordwainer Smith. He was born in Milwaukee but grew up in Japan, China, France, and Germany. See John J. Pierce, Introduction to the Best of Cordwainer Smith 1, 2 (J.J. Pierce, ed. 1975). He spoke six languages and was, as it says in the introduction to his book, “intimate with several cultures.” See id.
19 “Gateway” is a popular metaphor for the credentialing and training necessary to change status. The ABA refers to law school as “the gateway to the legal profession.” See American Bar Association, Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, Report to the House of Delegates, A.B.A. J., Aug. 1996, at 129, 129. Where there is a gateway, there often is a gatekeeper whose job it is to restrict entry or limit access to that which is within or beyond the gate. It can be a standardized test such as the SAT, the LSAT, or the bar exam; it can also be criteria that determine who is qualified to be hired, retained, promoted, or tenured.
20 For a discussion of the various psychological and biological explanations for dreams, see Martin Gardner, Post Freudian Dream Theory, Skeptical Inquirer, Jan.–Feb. 1996, at 7. See also Louise Harmon, Wild Dreamers: An Essay on Dreamtalk and the Law (unpublished manuscript on file with author).
21 I don’t know if hubris is a Hebrew concept as well as Greek, but the annotated version of the Bible I used explains the Tower of Babel as an example of a “Promethean desire for unity, fame and security.” See Genesis, supra note 2, at 11:8 annot. The annotation continues, “the story, now told to show the Lord’s judgment upon the continuing sin of mankind, once explained the origin of languages and the cultural glory of Babylon, the center of Hammurabi’s empire.” Id. at 11:9 annot. Apparently one culture’s sin can be another culture’s glory, which may make the Tower of Babel an even more fitting title for a roundtable discussion of emerging voices.
22 See briefing on the Borg (visited Sept. 17, 1999) . The Borg is a collective. See id. The individual members are “drones” linked to each other and a collective consciousness “experienced by the Borg as ‘thousands’ of voices. The Borg are not aware of themselves as individuals but only as part of the larger whole.” See id.
See briefing on the Founders (visited Sept. 4, 1999) . The Founders are able to unite in what is called the “great link”—a sea into which the shape shifters subside when they return to the home planet called Dominion. See id.
See discussion of the Taelons (visited Nov. 29, 1999) .
See information on the Vorlons (visited Feb. 2, 2000) . The evidence about the shared consciousness of the Vorlons is a bit sketchier. They may view themselves as part of a whole. Since Vorlons communicate telepathically, move around by entering someone else’s body, and can leave parts of themselves behind to become part of someone else’s mind/body, it is probably safe to conclude that the Vorlons have a communal (versus a highly individualistic) ethos.
23 For further discussion of the rhetorical inversion in political ideology, see generally Deborah Waire Post, The Salience of Race, 15 Touro L. Rev. 351 (1999).
24 Much has been made of my comment on the appropriateness of shunning those members of the African American community who put the community at risk. See, e.g., Daniel Subotnik, What’s Wrong with Critical Race Theory: Reopening the Case for Middle Class Values, 7 Cornell J. L & Pub. Pol’y 681, 695 n.77 (1998) (describing my comments on the moral dimension of identity as “heavy handed”). In building the case for intolerance within the minority community, Professor Subotnik has chosen to ignore the comparable tradition in his own community. Not long ago one of our colleagues wrote an article explaining how Jewish law might treat the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin. See Chaim Povarsky, The Law of the Pursuer and the Assassination of Prime Minister Rabin, Diné Israel, Vol. XVIII, at 7 (1995–1996). The “rodef,” or pursuer, is one who is about to commit murder or inflict serious injury, and the law of the pursuer is an assertion of the right to self-defense by an individual or by a community. See id. at 7. The criticism of this defense does not deny the existence of the “dinim laws,” but disputes the application of the laws to an elected official carrying out national policy. See id. at 9. Whether a group has something like a “din rodef” law may depend on the extent to which the members of that community are persecuted because of their minority status. Israel is a state, but the Jewish community exists in Diaspora, as do Africans who were sold into slavery. Presumably, Jews in Diaspora are always alert to the potential for another holocaust and are concerned about the Jew who may betray them to avoid his or her own persecution. But see discussion of the assimilation of American Jews infra note 74. Similarly, blacks are always alert to the possibility of re-enslavement and are concerned about the person within the community who might betray them into slavery in exchange for his or her own freedom.
25 One version of this attack on identity politics berates the demand for “racial loyalty” while characterizing the ethic that informs group solidarity as a herd mentality. See Randall Kennedy, Justice Thomas and Racial Loyalty, Am. Law., Sept. 1998, at 91. The critique also points to the impossibility of generalizing about the individual experiences of members of any group. See id. No individual can, according to these critics, express the concerns of an entire community, and any attempt to do so increases the risk of stereotyping. See id. Such critics like to refer to the lack of homogeneity in the black community—the “regions, classes, genders and other significant social stratifications.” See id.; see generally Post, The Salience of Race, supra note 23 (discussing the radical individualism featured in Supreme Court decisions attacking race conscious remedies).
26 See generally Robert J. Thorton, The Rhetoric of Ethnographic Holism, in Rereading Cultural Anthropology 15 (George E. Marcus ed., 1992).
27 See Renato Rosaldo, Culture and Truth: The Remaking of Social Analysis 69–87 passim (1989).
28 See Thorton, supra note 26, at 23.
29 See id.
30 See id. at 17.
31 See generally Colin M. Turnbull, The Forest People (1961).
32 See generally Turnbull, supra note 11.
33 See id. at 92.
34 See id. at 93.
35 Some might claim that in a series of novels Octavia Butler has imagined a nation of telepaths who conquer the United States. It is not clear what they conquer any more than it is clear who is conquered, although a contest between two groups, both of which have been transformed over time, is presented serially in these books. See generally Octavia E. Butler, Clay’s Ark (1984); Octavia E. Butler, Mind of My Mind (1977); Octavia E. Butler, Patternmaster (1976).
36 Turnbull states:
When we talk of the nation as a community we imply that nationality demands more than we commonly give it by way of loyalty, unity, and responsibility. While a community can, theoretically, be of any size, the intimacy, the degree of communality of interests, rights and responsibilities that we imply by the term “community” are only to be found in relatively small populations and geographical areas.
Turnbull, supra note 11, at 100.
37 Both Jean Luc Picard and Captain Janeway, characters from the Star Trek series, seek refuge in the classics: the music of Satie, Earl Grey Tea, and American detective fiction, for the former, and the studio of Leonardo da Vinci for the latter.
38 See Lincoln, supra note 2, at 142–59.
39 “The stealing back and forth of symbols is the approved method whereby the Outs avoid being driven into a corner.” Kenneth Burke, Attitudes Toward History 328 (1959).
40 See Octavia Butler, in Major 20th Century Writers 468 (2d. ed. 1999). Octavia Butler’s major characters are black women, and her stories are often concerned with the appropriate and inappropriate uses of power.
41 One scholar has described “Delany’s entry into [science fiction’s] previously all-white cultural terrain” as “a postmodern intervention.” Jeffrey Allen Tucker, Racial Realities and Amazing Alternatives: Studying the Works of Samuel R. Delany (visited Oct. 21, 1999) .
42 Samuel R. Delany, Flight from Neveryon 19 (1994) (emphasis added).
43 Id. at 16.
44 See the discussion of the use of symbolic inversion in the production of radical change in Lincoln, supra note 2, at 142–59. When we talk about subordinated communities and symbolic inversion, the most obvious examples are the appropriation and use of the terms “black” and “queer,” and the transformation of insults into symbols of self-esteem, group pride, and power.
45 See generally Deborah Waire Post, Reflections on Identity, Diversity and Morality, 6 Berkeley Women’s L. J. 136 (1990–91).
46 See generally, e.g., Berta Esperanza Hernandez Truyol, Building Bridges—Latinas and Latinos at the Crossroads: Realities, Rhetoric and Replacement, 25 Colum. Hum. Rts. L. Rev. 369 (1994); Juan Perea, The Black/White Binary Paradigm of Race: The “Normal Science” of American Racial Thought, 85 Calif. L. Rev. 1213 (1997); Elizabeth M. Iglesias, Out of the Shadow: Marking Intersections in and Between Asian Pacific American Critical Legal Scholarships and Latina/o Critical Legal Theory, 19 B.C. Third World L. J. 349 (1998). Professor Iglesias begins her article with “three themes beyond the black/white paradigm.” Iglesias, supra, at 351. First, Iglesias asserts that “the articulation and clarification of Asian/Latina/o commonalities. . . . will help ground our respective anti-subordination struggles in and upon, rather than against, the pursuit of inter-group justice and solidarity.” Id. Second, “discovered commonalities can shed new light on structures and processes of domination [that] might otherwise remain invisible.” Id. Third, “a deeper understanding of our commonalities provides the needed foundation for the equally necessary task of confronting and embracing our differences.” Id. at 352. The focus on interracial political identities such as that of the Latino/a which is located at the “intersection of multiple racialized identities,” is supposed to be anti-essentialist and supportive of broader-based anti-subordination coalitions. See id. at 354–55.
47 See generally, e.g., Carol R. Goforth, “What is She?” How Race Matters and Why It Shouldn’t, 46 DePaul L. Rev. 1 (1996); Tanya Kateri Hernandez, The Interests and Rights of the Interracial Family in a “Multiracial” Racial Classification, 36 Brandeis J. Fam. L. 29 (1997–98). See also the website devoted to the discussion of mixed race/multicultural issues, supra note 8.
48 See generally Post, supra note 45.
49 See the discussion of passing and biracial identity in Brent Staples, The Real American Love Story: Why America is a Lot Less White Than It Looks (visited Mar. 7, 2000) . On the other hand, my friend, Agnes Williams, née Travis, a native of Lawrenceville, Virginia, and granddaughter of a child of a slave owner and his slave, told me that the white “relations” actually encouraged the “white” blacks to “cross over.”
50 See generally, e.g., John M. Kang, Deconstructing the Ideology of White Aesthetics, 2 Mich. J. Race & L. 283 (1997). I think Professor Kang might take issue with the notion that aesthetics are innocuous:
From our immigration to America in the nineteenth century to our settlement today, and from our earliest days as children to our old age and retirement, we Asian Americans have lived and continue to live with the belief that Asian physical features can constitute legal, political and social liabilities. . . . For over one hundred years we have been told that our slanted eyes make us appear deceitful, untrustworthy, and at the very least abnormal.
Id. at 333–34.
I have taken the same position myself in the past. See Deborah Waire Post, Homecoming: The Ritual of Writing History, 10 Harv. Blackletter J. 5, 14–15 (1993).
51 The popularity of plastic surgery in the global Asian community has been noted in several periodicals. See generally, e.g., Under the Knife, The Viet Nam Economic Times, Nov. 1, 1998, available in LEXIS, World Library, VTTMES file; Alison Dakota Gee, The Price of Beauty, Asiaweek, Aug. 2, 1996, at 38, available in LEXIS, News Library, ASIAWK file; see also Elizabeth Haiken, Venus Envy: A History of Cosmetic Surgery 200-09 (1997) (describing the search for “racial anonymity” by Asian Americans). But see Laurie Goering, Changing the Faces of Peru; Budget Priced Plastic Surgery is Attracting a Growing Clientele, Many of Whom Believe Looking More European or Asian Will Bring Success, Chi. Trib., Aug. 16, 1999, at 4.
52 The changing attitudes towards American Indians, referred to by one court as a feeling of “awkward[ness]” at classifying “blacks and Indians together” and the subsequent acknowledgement of the ability of Indians to become white. See People v. Dean, 14 Mich. 406, 421 (1866) (prosecution for illegal voting). According to the majority, “Indian blood was never considered in that state [Ohio] (as it was not considered here) any detriment whatever to social consideration; and even half-breeds as well as quarter-breeds are by no means uncommonly reckoned among the whites, and are often quite indistinguishable from them in appearance and language.” Id.
53 See Ian F. Haney Lopez, The Social Construction of Race: Some Observations on Illusion, Fabrication, and Choice, 29 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. 1, 10 (1994).
54 Although the literature is replete with references to the “one drop” rule, most of the laws classifying people by race that I have seen refer to the lineage of a person and require racial purity back a certain number of generations. While the laws in many jurisdictions initially contemplated a process by which one could become white—examining whether one was more white than black—eventually the tendency was for laws to classify as negro or colored “every person in whose veins a single drop of African blood could be traced.” Dean, 14 Mich. at 430 (Martin, C.J., dissenting). The biological test was, of course, supplemented by tests that relied on appearance and on reputation in the community.
For example, in Louisiana, under a now-repealed statute, one was not “white” if there was a person of African American descent as far back as four generations. See Jane Doe v. State of Louisiana, 479 So.2d 369, 371 (1985). If one had 1/32 or less “Negro blood,” then he or she was white. See id. In Doe, several members of a family sought a writ of mandamus to compel the Louisiana Department of Health and Human Resources to reclassify their parents as “white” rather than “colored.” See id. The court refused the mandamus. See id. According to the court, “[i]ndividual racial designations are purely social and cultural perceptions, and . . . . [t]here is no proof in the record that [the parents] preferred to be designated as white. They might well have been proud to be described as colored.” Id. at 372. Therefore, the court concluded that the parents’ “subjective perceptions” about their race “were correctly recorded.” See id. See also Lawrence Wright, One Drop of Blood, New Yorker, July 25, 1994, at 46 (discussing hearings before the House Subcommittee on Census, Statistics and Postal Personnel on the use of racial classifications in the census).
55 See Jon Michael Spencer, The New Colored People: The Mixed Race Movement in America 15 (1997).
56 Brent Staples uses the statistics in the amicus brief for Loving v. Virginia to show that a substantial portion of the white population also has black ancestors. See Staples, supra note 49, at 5. The statistics were prepared by a sociologist and anthropologist from Ohio State University. See id. His report claimed that 155,500 blacks per year crossed over the color line in the 1940s. See id. Recent experiments have used DNA technology to attempt to determine the paternity of the children of Thomas Jefferson’s slave, Sally Hemings, thus providing another example of the surprises in store for some white Americans. See Morning Edition (NPR radio broadcast, May 17, 1999), available in LEXIS, News Library, NPR file. Ms. Mary Jefferson is the descendant of Eston Hemings, the son of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. See id. As Ms. Jefferson puts it, “I’m middle aged, middle class, white America. That’s what I know.” Id. She did not know until recently that Eston Hemings was black. See id.
57 Benjamin Nathaniel Smith, a friend and follower of Nathan Hale (leader of the World Church of the Creator), murdered a Korean and a black man and wounded seven others. See Pam Adams, Murder Spree Kills Hale’s Law Chances, Copley News Service, July 7, 1999, available in LEXIS, News Library, COPNWS file; John Holland, Leader of Racist Church Sentenced, Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale), Nov. 20, 1999, at 3B. Smith testified before the Illinois State Bar Association’s Committee on Character and Fitness in support of Hale’s petition to be admitted to practice law in Illinois. See Adams, supra. In an interview on NPR, Hale uses the term “mud people” to refer to all people of color—Asians, Hispanics, blacks, “people that aren’t white.” See Interview by Noah Adams with Matthew Hale, Leader of the World Church of the Creator, All Things Considered (NPR radio broadcast, July 9, 1999), available in LEXIS, News Library, NPR file. In further elaborating on his theory of human evolution, Mr. Hale explained:
What we mean by that [the use of the term “subhuman” to describe non-white people] is that the pinnacle of nature, once again, is the white race, and the pinnacle of human beings, if one was to use that term, is the white race. So the non-white races are certainly a lower form of life, and one can say that that is what subhuman means, a lower form of human.
Id.
58 Anyanwu could take the form of the porpoise or the eagle. See generally BUTLER, supra note 15.
59 Even mechanical intervention may not allow us to morph in a way that will be recognized by the law. Some transsexuals (persons who feel that they are trapped in a body that does not correspond to their gender identity) have “sex reassignment” therapy. Some courts have rejected the theory that a “male” who has undergone such surgery is biologically female. See, e.g., Littleton v. Prange, No. 04-99-00010-CV, 1999 Tex. App. LEXIS 7974 (Oct. 27, 1999) (holding that a person who is “chromosomally male” cannot validly be married to another man and, therefore, has no cause of action for wrongful death as another man’s spouse). It is too early to speculate on what will happen when medical technology reaches the point where genes can be manipulated to eliminate diseases associated with ethnicity. For a lucid discussion of gene replacement therapy, the replacement of defective genes in a person suffering from a genetic disease, see Janice Kane, The Promise of Antisense Drugs, Chemical Market Rep., Nov. 9, 1998, at FR11.
60 See supra note 51.
61 Cheryl Harris and Twila Perry were the other two black women on the panel. See Twila Perry’s article in this issue.
62 See Post, supra note 45, at 136.
63 For a discussion of these claims, see generally Dorothy E. Smith, Comment on Hekman’s “Truth and Method: Feminist Standpoint Theory Revisited,” 22 Signs: J. Women in Culture & Soc’y 392 (1997).
64 Cf. generally Collins, supra note 5.
65 It is not surprising to me that organizations promoting “family values” often are headed by men and that the solutions they offer for most social problems begin with the reinstatement of men as the head of households. Gary Bauer’s Family Research Council offers the following justification for welfare reform: “To the extent that the welfare state has eliminated the necessity of a father who provides, it has reduced the sense of personal responsibility that kept him at home through good times and bad.” See Jennifer E. Marshall, The Greatest of These is Love: A Faith Based Alternative to the Welfare State (visited Nov. 11, 1999) .
On the other end of the political spectrum are those whose “progressive” agenda is limited to families defined as heterosexual couples with children. Consider the following critique of the failures of the left on the issue of parenthood:
Many on the left fail to understand that we need to rein in untrammeled individualism. . . . [L]iberal welfare policies permit fifteen- and seventeen-year-olds to bear and raise children out of wedlock—indeed, through Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), now called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), government supports these teenagers, albeit grudgingly. The new freedom of individuals to choose single parenthood is, of course, not limited to poor teens. Madonna certainly didn’t think she needed a husband in order to have a child . . . .
Sylvia Ann Hewlett & Cornel West, The War Against Parents: What We Can Do for America’s Beleaguered Moms and Dads 34 (1998). My reaction to this section of the book is colored by my experiences as a single (divorced) parent. When I lived in Houston, Texas, I attended Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church from time to time. The minister, Reverend Lawson, was a man I much admired. One day, however, he made family the topic of his sermon and he expressed his opinion that single parents with children were not families. I never attended his church again.
66 The political activism of the mother of Vincent Chin brought violence against Asian men to the attention of the public. See, e.g., Michael Phillips, ‘Carry the Tiger’ Tells of Chinese Immigrant Family’s Tragedy, L.A. Times, Feb. 27, 1999, at F2 (reviewing Cherylene Lee’s play about Chin’s death and Lily Chin’s activism). Vincent Chin was beaten to death with a baseball bat by two automobile workers in 1982. See id. I could also reiterate my conclusion in an earlier article: “I wonder whether ultimately the fear of young black men is misplaced. Perhaps the person to fear is the mother of the young black man.” Deborah Waire Post, Race, Riots and the Rule of Law, 70 Denv. U. L. Rev. 237, 262–63 (1993). The article also points out the possibility for coalitions, noting that some mothers of young black men are white women. See id. at 263 n.59.
67 I remember reading an essay several years ago by Audre Lorde on raising a son. See Audre Lorde, Man Child: A Black Lesbian Feminist’s Response, in Sister Outsider 72 (1984). She acknowledged that “Black children in America must be raised to be warriors. For survival, they must also be raised to recognize the enemy’s many faces.” Id. at 75. Despite this reality, or perhaps because of it, she has a wish for her son that is not unlike my wish for my own son:
I wish to raise a Black man who will not be destroyed by, nor settle for, those corruptions called power by the white fathers who mean his destruction as surely as they mean mine. I wish to raise a Black man who will recognize that the legitimate objects of his hostility are not women, but the particulars of a structure that programs him to fear and despise women as well as his own Black Self.
See id. at 74.
68 See Collins, supra note 5, at 377. The National Organization for Women adopted a “Mothers’ Liberation Resolution,” prefaced by a statement that “70% of adult women (age 15 and over) are mothers.” See National Organization for Women, Madison Chapter, What at [sic] is a Family?: A Discussion of Family Values for the 1990s and Beyond (Nov. 12, 1994 Program) (visited Nov. 11, 1999) ~mwnow/files/program2.html> app.
69 See Delany, supra note 42, at 63–64.
70 For a discussion of appropriation of another artist’s creation as an example of postmodernism, see generally Louise Harmon, Law, Art and the Killing Jar, 79 Iowa L. Rev. 367 (1994).
71 In Chinese, there is more than one word for aunt, thus reflecting the distinction between maternal and paternal lines. See e-mail message from JoHanna Wong to Deborah Post (Aug. 30, 1999) (on file with author).
72 See Beth Greenfield, A Tribe Called Quest, The Long Island Voice, June 9, 1999, at 14. Part of the controversy over the status of the Shinnecocks as a tribe is related to their intermarriage with African Americans. The term that is used by racists to describe them is alleged to be “Monigs,” short for “more nigger than indian.” See id.
73 The differences between endogamy and exogamy are discussed in Claude Levi Strauss, The Elementary Structures of Kinship (1969). For examples of the anti-miscegenation laws at work, see generally Ferrall v. Ferrall, 153 N.C. 174, 69 S.E. 60 (1910) (divorce sought on grounds that wife was a negro) and State v. Melton, 44 N.C. 49 (1852) (indictment for fornication).
74 Rules such as the one that requires non-Catholics to agree that their children will be raised as Catholics or that lead gentile women to convert to Judaism so that the children of the marriage will be Jewish are two obvious examples. The survival of the Jewish community in the United States seems a more pressing concern than the survival of Catholicism, however. See Interview by Lou Waters with Alan Dershowitz, CNN Today (CNN television broadcast, Mar. 21, 1997), available in LEXIS, News Library, CNN file; Interview by John Gibson with Alan Dershowitz, Rivera Live (CNBC News Transcript, Mar. 21, 1997), available in LEXIS, News Library, CNBC file. Alan Dershowitz was discussing his latest book, The Vanishing American Jew. See id. His major premise was that American Jews assimilate at a very high rate (read: intermarry with gentiles). See id. The percentage of Jews in the U.S. has declined from four percent to two percent, and he predicts that it will become one percent. See id. Some might take issue with Dershowitz’s argument that anti-Semitism is disappearing in the United States.
One of the most controversial and exciting debates at Touro Law Center in recent years concerned the Halachic proscription of intermarriage: “While a prohibition against the performance of such conversions and against the subsequent marriage of the couples involved is a rule of behavior, and, therefore, under mitigating circumstances could be compromised, the effectiveness of those conversions is a factual matter and cannot be compromised.” See Chaim Povarsky, Contemporary Marriage—Motivated Conversions, Jewish Law Report, July 1992, at 2 (footnote omitted).
For an interesting look at the attitudes towards intermarriage in the Black community at the turn of the century, see generally Denise C. Morgan, Jack Johnson: Reluctant Hero of the Black Community, 32 Akron L. Rev. 529 (1999).
75 See generally Ruth G. McRoy & Edith Freeman, Racial-Identity Issues Among Mixed Race Children, in Critical Race Theory: The Concept of “Race” in Natural and Social Science 220 (E. Nathanial Gates ed., 1997).
76 See Lincoln, supra note 2, at 24.
77 See generally Mary Louise Pratt, Arts of the Contact Zone, in Ways of Reading: An Anthology for Writers 528 (David Bartholomae & Anthony Petrosky eds., 1996).
78 See id. at 530–36.
79 See id. at 531.
80 Id.
81 Id.
82 For a story about two young women in Indiana who were labeled “wiggers” and their subsequent 15 minutes of fame, see E. Jean Carroll, The Return of the White Negro, Esquire, June, 1994, at 100. See also the discussion of the controversy sparked by Toni Morrison when she discussed social location public discourse about President Clinton being treated like a black man in Patricia J. Williams, Mr. Lincoln’s Legacy, The Nation, Oct. 26, 1998, at 9. See also Wendy Shalit, Soundings: “Nobel Lie,” City J., Autumn 1998, at 9–10.
83 See Lincoln, supra note 2, at 142–45.
84 Id. at 145.
85 See Pratt, supra note 77, at 533.
86 See Lincoln, supra note 2, at 159.
87 Pratt, supra note 77, at 536.
88 One way in which different voices can be ignored is the tactical use of the “strong language” of theory that enacts power relationships within our own communities. See James Clifford, supra note 6, at 58. Clifford cites to the discussion of this distinction in Talal Asad, The Concept of Cultural Translation in British Social Anthropology, in Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography 141 (James Clifford & George E. Marcus eds., 1986).
89 See Clifford supra note 6, at 59 (noting that most ethnographies are “smoothed over” to cover up the “cacophony and discursive contradiction found in actual cultural life”).