BERKELEY JOURNAL OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN LAW & POLICY
University of California, Berkeley, Boalt Hall
Please click the links below for abstracts of our past issues:
ALPR VOLUME 1
ALPR
VOLUME 2
(Joint Issue with the Berkeley Women’s Law Journal)
ALPR VOLUME 3
ALPR
VOLUME 4
(Joint Issue with the La Raza Law Journal)
ALPR VOLUME 5
ALPR VOLUME 6
ALPR VOLUME 7
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ALPR
VOLUME 1
ARTICLES & AUTHORS
Roy L. Brooks, Race as an Under-Inclusive and
Over-Inclusive Concept
Margaret Russell, Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual
Rights and the "Civil Rights Agenda"
Jerome McCristal Culp, Jr., Frank
Cooper, and Lovita Tandy, Foreword: A New Journal of Color in a "Colorblind"
World : Race and Community
Abstract: McCristal, Cooper, and Tandy introduce the inaugural issue of the African-American Law & Policy Report with a compelling essay on the need for specialized journals for communities of color. Conscious of the fact that they are writing in a period that is awash in talk of "colorblindness" and preceding the ballot initiative that would end affirmative action in the California educational system, the authors use the essay to point to the persistent relevance of addressing race-based discrimination in an academic forum. Calling it one of the most important tasks and greatest honors of his legal career, Culp insists on the importance of journals like ALPR to doggedly focus on the pertinent issues facing the black community in a way that makes up for the inadequate coverage they are afforded in already existing, broad-based journals.
Jerome M. Culp, Jr. is currently a permanent faculty member at Duke University School of Law and has been a Professor of Law at University of California, Berkeley School of Law. He graduated from Chicago in 1972, secured an M.A. in economics at Harvard University in 1974, and subsequently entered Harvard Law School. In 1980 he clerked for the Honorable Nathaniel R. Jones of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati. Professor Culp teaches Torts, Black Legal Scholarship, Law and Economics, Employment Discrimination, Sexuality and the Law, Narratives and the Legal Process, and Labor Law. He writes on race and the law, autobiography, torts, law and economics, and labor economics issues.
Frank Cooper is currently a Professor at Villanova University School of Law. He received his B.A. from Amherst College and his J.D. from Duke University School of Law. Following law school, he clerked for U.S. District Court Judge Solomon Oliver, Jr. Professor Cooper then worked at Brown, Rudnick, Freed & Gesmer in Boston. He teaches criminal law as well as advanced courses in legal theory.
Lovita Tandy is currently a partner at King & Spaulding. She graduated from Harvard University with a Bachelor of Arts in African-American Studies in 1992. She received her J.D. from Duke School of Law in 1996 and clerked for the Hon. Richard L. Williams in the Eastern District of Virginia, Richmond Division.
Roy L. Brooks, Race as an Under-Inclusive and Over-Inclusive Concept
Abstract: Brooks asks us to recognize the differences between the histories of discrimination against African Americans and discrimination against other groups. Brooks argues that the legacy of slavery and systemic discrimination against African Americans is so fundamentally divergent from other experiences of oppression that it forecloses any unifying theory of subordination. Any such attempt would merely oversimplify the African-American experience and place unnecessary demands on our country's finite political and judicial resources. At the same time, Brooks notes that race itself is often an over-inclusive category. Relying on socioeconomic differences to illustrate this point, he examines the ways in which several civil rights policies are only of practical use to certain socio-economic groups.
Roy L. Brooks is currently the Warren Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law. He received his B.A. in 1972 from the University of Connecticut and his J.D. in 1975 from Yale University. Professor Brooks served as an Editor on the Yale Law Journal, clerked on the U.S. District Court in Philadelphia and practiced law with Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York City before joining the faculty in 1979. He teaches and writes in the areas of civil procedure, civil rights, employment discrimination and critical theory. His publications include Rethinking the American Race Problem (University of California Press) and Integration or Separation? A Strategy for Racial Equality (Harvard University Press), both of which received the Gustavus Meyers Outstanding Book Award for civil rights.
Margalynne Armstrong, Speech: African-Americans and Property Ownership: Creating Our Own Meanings, Redefining Our Relationships
Abstract: Armstrong emphasizes the shared history of racial oppression that has shaped African-American conceptions of property and property law. She notes that historically, African-Americans have moved from a native culture devoid of concepts of object dominance through a painful and still remembered era as object. Armstrong argues that as modern day property owners we engage in a dialogue to reconceptualize and harmonize property and property theories. African-American communities must explore the potential for property as an avenue for group advancement and goal definition. Additionally, we must use law, politics, and all other available forums to deconstruct remaining societal barriers that devalue property when it is in the hands of African Americans.
Margalynne Armstrong is currently a Professor of Law at Santa Clara University School of Law. She obtained her undergraduate degree from Earlham College, majoring in English. In 1981 she received her J.D. from Boalt Hall, where she served as Associate Editor of the Ecology Law Quarterly. She is a member of the California and Illinois bars. Prior to teaching at Santa Clara, she practiced in public employment law, was a staff attorney with the Legal Aid Society of Alameda County, and directed the Academic Support Program at Boalt Hall. Professor Armstrong teaches Property, Remedies, Race and Racism in the Law, and Comparative Law. She writes in the areas of housing, racial discrimination, and comparative law.
Margaret Russell, Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Rights and the "Civil Rights Agenda"
Abstract: Russell criticizes conservative efforts to divide the interests of African-Americans and gay, lesbian and bisexual individuals and shows the possibilities for a coalition of oppressed groups. Opponents of civil rights must not be allowed to turn the debate over anti-discrimination policies into a debate about "special rights." Nor should they be allowed to drive a wedge between gay and other minority communities by redefining gay identity as merely a choice of lifestyle. What cannot be forgotten is that oppression is directed at both African Americans and gays and that some African Americans have intersecting identities as gay and lesbian blacks.
Margaret M. Russell is currently a Professor of Law at Santa Clara University School of Law. She received her B.A. from Princeton University and her J.D. from Stanford Law School. After law school Professor Russell held a one-year clerkship with U.S. District Judge James E. Doyle in Wisconsin. In 1986, she returned to Stanford Law School as the Director of Public Interest Programs and also served as the Acting Assistant Dean of Student Affairs. Professor Russell is a founding member and past Chair of the Board of Directors of the East Palo Alto Community Law Project, a non-profit legal services organization in East Palo Alto, CA. She is Chair of the Board of Directors of the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California and a Vice President of the National American Civil Liberties Union. In 1991, she traveled to South Africa with a delegation of legal scholars to consult with the African National Congress on constitution-drafting; in 1990, she traveled to Nicaragua as an election monitor. In 1992, she was co-director of the Santa Clara summer program in Tokyo. Professor Russell teaches civil procedure, constitutional law, and contemporary legal theory.
Mario L. Barnes, Book Note: "Each One, Pull One": The Inspirational Methodology Behind and Impassioned Through Impassioned Protest
Abstract: Barnes offers an analysis of Bell's book and a critique of his strategies for activism. Barnes emphasizes the relationship between the individual and the community. Barnes utilizes an Alice Walker poem and experiences from other African American leaders and scholars to create a richly contextualized essay. This approach allows him to engage in a more attentive exploration of the dilemmas inherent in Professor Bell's, or any individuals, efforts to direct the advancement of our diverse community. As both Bell and Barnes acknowledge, every strategy we develop requires a delicate balancing of the concerns of discrete groups within the whole, long-term and short-term goals, personal concerns, and public realities.
Mario L. Barnes was Editor-in-Chief of the African-American Law & Policy Report in 1994, which was the year that the first volume was published. He received his J.D. from Boalt in 1995. He is currently employed at the University of Wisconsin. He is a member of the Advisory Council of the Boalt Center for Social Justice.
Malcolm Carson, Book Note: A Message
From the Grassroots: Participatory Democracy, Community Empowerment, and
the Reconstruction of Urban America
Abstract: Carson traces the history of the two major strategies of black empowerment: W.E.B. DuBois' drive for full social inclusion and Booker T. Washington's strategy of economic advancement within our separate spheres. McDougallo's book argues for the resolution of these opposing strategies through grassroots activism. McDougall shows that base "communities"-small groups establishing dialogue about particular topics of local concern- have been an effective means of empowering African-American communities in Baltimore. Carson welcomes the idea of participatory strategies to the panoply of choices for African-American empowerment but warns that overemphasis on self help could obscure the structural character of the problems we must address.
Malcolm Carson was Executive Editor of the African-American Law & Policy Report in 1994, which was the year that the first volume was published. He is a staff attorney in the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles' Community Economic Development unit.
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ALPR
VOLUME 2
(Joint Issue with the Berkeley Women’s Law Journal)
ARTICLES & AUTHORS
Angela P. Harris, Forward, The Unbearable Lightness of Identity
Barbara J. Flagg, Changing the Rules: Doctrinal Reform, Indeterminacy and Whiteness
Nadine Taub, Welfare "Reform": An
Attack on Us All
Donna Young, Two Steps Removed: The Paradox of Diversity for Women of Color Law Professors
Angela P. Harris, Forward, The Unbearable
Lightness of Identity
Abstract: Harris introduces the issue by commenting
on how, following the legal termination of segregation, “race consciousness”
and “color blindness” emerge as competing orienting concepts
in American society. Harris notes how the articles examine the issues
surrounding identity categories as organizing principles.
Angela Harris is currently Professor of Law at Boalt and an Executive Committee Member of the Boalt Center for Social Justice. Before joining the Boalt faculty in 1988, Angela Harris served as a law clerk to Judge Joel M. Flaum of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, and as an attorney in the San Francisco office of Morrison & Forester. She was a visiting professor at Stanford Law School in 1991, Yale Law School in 1997 and Georgetown Law Center in 2000. Harris's writing and research focus on feminist legal theory and critical race theory. Her recent publications include Gender and Law: Theory, Doctrine, Commentary (with Katherine Bartlett, 1998) and Race and Races: Cases and Resources for a Diverse America (with Juan Perea, Richard Delgado and Stephanie Wildman, 2000).
Barbara J. Flagg, Changing the Rules:
Doctrinal Reform, Indeterminacy and Whiteness
Abstract: Flagg addresses the themes of articles
she has presented in previous articles regarding Critical Race Theory
(CRT) and Critical Legal Studies (CLS) in the search for achieving racial
justice. Specifically, she looks at how doctrines, by the weight of their
moral force, constrain decision makers in the legal arena. By exposing
ostensibly race-neutral doctrines that Flagg identifies as actually white
race-conscious, she is able to suggest new normative structures that can
more effectively accommodate racial diversity. She also explores how the
strength of a reformed doctrine that acknowledges race might also play
a part in formulating an antiracist white race consciousness.
Barbara J. Flagg is currently a Professor of Law at at the Washington University School of Law in St. Louis. She received her A.B. in 1967 from the University of California, Riverside, her M.A. in 1971 from the University of California, Riverside, and her J.D. in 1987 from Boalt Hall. Professor Flagg is an expert on Constitutional Law and Critical Race Theory. Prior to joining the School of Law, she was a law clerk to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, then a U.S. Court of Appeals judge for the D.C. Circuit.
Nadine Taub, Welfare "Reform": An Attack on Us All
Abstract: Taub looks at how the abolition of
the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (“AFDC”) program
has in its termination similar dynamics to the legal weakening of Roe
v. Wade. Beginning her argument with the cultural dynamic manifested in
the 1994 Republican take-over of congress, Taub adumbrates the strategies
and rhetoric employed by the right (and complied with on “the left”)
in changing the content of the debate over federally funded programs for
abortion and welfare. Taub asserts that Conservatives de-emphasize the
moral debate and supplant it with a discourse on fiscal choices that mask
the ideological thrusts of legislation aimed at reinforcing traditional
notions of the American family. In her analysis, Taub points out that
poor women of color are the object of derision, but that the implications
for the planned social engineering by conservative forces are of concern
to all women.
Nadine Taub is Professor of Law and Director of the Women’s Rights Litigation Clinic at Rutgers School of Law in Newark, New Jersey. She is the co-author of The Law of Sex Discrimination (West/Wadsworth, 2nd edition 1993), as well as numerous articles concerning feminism and the law. She co-edited Reproductive Laws for the 1990s (Humana Press, 1989).
Donna Young, Two Steps Removed: The Paradox
of Diversity for Women of Color Law Professors
Abstract: Young looks at the nuances of the affirmative action debate as it applies to women of color law professors and some of the undesired ramifications of its practical effects. Young contends that women of color professors have the least success in obtaining instructor positions at law schools, garner the least prestigious and challenging positions, and face additional barriers to promotion once hired. Her main argument is that while one of the primary objectives of affirmative action, to enhance the educational mission through diversity, is noble, the policy produces some side effects that are detrimental including, not being recognized for a specialty field unrelated to race and being beset by unrealistic expectations for unrealistic goals in an environment inhospitable to diversity. Young contends it is these dynamics that contribute to the high rate of attrition among legal academics of color.
Donna Young is a Professor of Law at Albany Law School. She received a B.Sc. from the University of Toronto, an LL.B. from Osgoode Hall Law School of York University. She received an LL.M. from Columbia University School of Law where she was an Associate Editor on the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law. Professor Young was an Associate-in-Law at Columbia University School of Law from 1994-96. Her research interests include comparative labor/employment law, feminist legal theory, critical race theory, civil rights, and international labor and human rights law.
Mary Coombs, Book Note, "Interrogating
Identity": Review Essay of Judy Scales-Trent, Notes of a White Black
Woman: Race, Color, Community
Abstract: Coombs uses Scales-Trent’s book
as a springboard for examining some aspects of the construction of identity.
Coombs suggests there is value, epistemologically and politically, in
recognizing the complexities and ambiguities of identity. A white, Jewish
woman scrutinizing her sexuality, Coombs allies herself with Scale-Trent
in the determination that conventional identities should be questioned
for their incompleteness. Both women examine the fringes of conventional
categories and agree that in deliberately smiting them one is able to
find new and stronger affiliations based on deeper realities of personhood.
Coombs compliments Scales-Trent’s book as speaking eloquently on
issues of racial identity, for all it does and does not encompass, and
as illuminating into the life of a brilliant law professor.
Mary I. Coombs is currently Professor of Law at the University of Miami School of Law. She earned a B.A. in 1965, an M.A. in sociology in 1967, an M.A. in library science in 1970, and a J.D. in 1978, all from the University of Michigan. Following graduation from law school, Professor Coombs served as law clerk to Judge Henry J. Friendly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. She was in private practice with the law firms of Latham & Watkins and Wald, Harkrader & Ross in Washington, D.C., until she joined the Miami faculty in 1983. Professor Coombs teaches in the areas of criminal law, international criminal law, family law, feminist jurisprudence, and torts.
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ALPR
VOLUME 3
ARTICLES & AUTHORS
Jennifer M. Russell, Book Note, Stuck at the Bottom: Race, Work, and the American Dream
Roslyn Mack, Comment, Bringing Down the Walls of State Pre-emption: California Cities Fight for Local Control of Alcohol Outlets
Abstract: Mack addresses the issue of liquor stores in
low-income neighborhoods as magnets for nefarious persons and activity.
She outlines the basic context as the neighborhood store being licensed
by the state while the local municipality must find ways to interject
its own methods of law enforcement and behavior regulation. Mack approaches
the issue from the perspective of the importance of land use restrictions
in areas with a high concentration of liquor stores then argues that cities
need to be able to regulate these stores in the interest of ameliorating
social problems. By looking at case studies in Oakland and Los Angeles,
Mack concludes that bringing individual nuisance abatement suits by the
city against store owners is an onerous and ineffective strategy for dealing
with a pervasive neighborhood problem. She concludes that local governments
are better suited to dealing with persistent social ills of this type
and should be empowered to effectively regulate problem stores.
Jennifer M. Russell, Book Note, Stuck at the Bottom: Race, Work, and the American Dream
Abstract:
Russell looks at William’s examination of the larger trend in American
society of a diminishing work force and its particular effects on the
African-American community. Russell compliments Williams’ structural
focus as being a welcomed change of perspective form the usual examination
of individual pathologies. She only mildly criticizes Williams’
policy recommendations as being insufficient in addressing the raciality
of black poverty and the ethos governing the structural sphere within
which they are to be implemented. Nevertheless, Russell exhorts us to
read When Work Disappears for the keen insights it offers into the social
and economic structure that is the root of impoverishment in the black
inner-city community.
Jennifer M. Russell earned her B.A. from Queens College and her J.D. from New York University School of Law. After two years service with the New York regional office of the Securities Exchange Commission, she entered private practice as an associate attorney with Sills, Cummis, Zuckerman, Radin, Tischman, Epstein & Gross. She began her teaching career at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, and has held visiting appointments as the University of San Francisco, the University of San Diego and Whittier College of Law. For three years she was Affiliated Research Scholar at the UCLA Center for the Study of Women.
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ALPR VOLUME 4
(Joint Issue with the La Raza Law Journal)
ARTICLES & AUTHORSHiroshi Fukurai, Social De-Construction of Race and Affirmative Action in Jury Selection
Adrien K. Wing & Christine A. Willis, From Theory to Practice: Black Women, Gangs, and Critical Race Feminism
Abstract: Wing and Willis explore the role that African-American
women play within the gang realm and examine how critical race feminism
can be used as a tool to analyze the gang phenomenon. They suggest that
effective solutions to gang violence and crime must place black women
at the center, rather than at the margins of the analysis. By taking a
critical race feminism approach to the formulation of solutions to the
gang problem, programs can be developed which more effectively address
the woman’s role in gang life and, thus, provide a more effective
solution to the gang problem than the programs currently in place.
Adrien Wing is a Professor of Law at the University of Iowa. After graduation from Princeton in 1978, Professor Wing earned her M.A. the University of California, Los Angeles. While at Stanford Law School, she served as an editor of the Stanford Journal of International Law, as an intern with the United Nations Council on Namibia, and as Southern Africa Task Force Director of the National Black Law Students Association. Professor Wing spent five years in practice in New York City with Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle and with Rabinowitz, Boudin, Standard, Krinsky & Leiberman, specializing in international law issues regarding Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. She also served as a representative to the United Nations for the National Conference of Black Lawyers. She was the Chair of the Association of American Law Schools Minority Section in 2002. Professor Wing presently teaches Constitutional Law, Critical Race Theory, Human Rights, Law in the Muslim World, Comparative Law, and Comparative Constitutional Law, and has taught Race, Racism & American Law, Law in Radically Different Cultures and the International and Domestic Legal Aspects of AIDS.
Hiroshi Fukurai, Social De-Construction
of Race and Affirmative Action in Jury Selection
Abstract: Fukurai examines the extent to which affirmative action measures are needed to ensure minority representation on juries in trials involving minority defendants. He compares the various models of affirmative jury selection and discusses the advantages of ensuring minority participation on juries when a minority defendant is on trial. Through survey research and analysis, Professor Fukurai suggests that some form of an affirmative jury structure is needed to maintain public confidence in the American judicial system.
Hiroshi Fukari is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He received a B.A. from California State University, Fullerton, an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Riverside. His/Her research includes American jury and racial justice, legal construction of race, civil jury trials involving U.S. and foreign firms and their verdict patterns, peremptory inclusion and affirmative action in jury selection, advanced quantitative methods, covariance and moment structural analysis, pacific rim and Japan-U.S. relations.
Ruth E. Friedman, Statistics and Death: The Conspicuous Role of Race Bias in the Administration of the Death Penalty
Abstract: Friedman examines the role that race plays
in capital cases in the American south. She looks at the various pressures
that influence district attorneys in their decision to pursue the death
sentence in capital cases. Analyzing the disproportionate percentage of
minority defendants that are sentenced to death, Ms. Friedman argues that
many district attorneys ignore the impact of race when, acting in their
prosecutorial discretion, they decide to pursue the death sentence.
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ALPR
VOLUME 5
ARTICLES & AUTHORS
John Powell, Campaign
Finance Reform is a Voting Rights Issue: The Campaign Finance System as
the Latest Incarnation of the Politics of Exclusion
Gaurav Kalra, Comment, On the Verge of Information Apartheid: The Future of Governmental Intervention to Address the Digital Divide: The Need for a Broader Constituency
William C. Kidder, Comment, Legal Storytelling: Derailing a Civil Rights Legacy: The Chronicle of the Second Underground Railroad
John Powell, Campaign Finance Reform is a Voting Rights Issue: The Campaign Finance System as the Latest Incarnation of the Politics of Exclusion
Abstract: Powell argues in favor of reforming the campaign
finance system, including limitations on wealth, while insisting that
any reforms must address the racialization of wealth and the racialization
of political voice and exclusion. Powell asserts that in order for reforms
to be successful, campaign financing must be understood as an expression
of a much larger problem. He also examines the needs of low-income communities
with particular focus on communities of color. The purpose of the paper
is to broaden the discussion on campaign finance reform and consequently,
to articulate how we should conceptualize the vision of racially just
democratic change.
John Powell received his B.A. from Stanford University and his J.D. from University of California at Berkeley. Professor Powell is a nationally recognized authority in the areas of civil rights, civil liberties and issues relating to race, poverty and the law. He was the Earl R. Larson Chair of Civil rights and Civil Liberties at the University of Minnesota and was Executive Director of the Institute on Race and Poverty. He has taught at Columbia University School of Law, Harvard Law School, University of Miami School of Law, American University and the University of San Francisco School of Law. Professor Powell teaches Civil Rights, Poverty Law, and Jurisprudence.
Gaurav Kalra, Comment, On the Verge of
Information Apartheid: The Future of Governmental Intervention to Address
the Digital Divide: The Need for a Broader Constituency
Abstract: Kalra asserts that minority leadership has
a unique opportunity to build alliances with other working people in an
effort to create [a] greater Internet. Some governmental and community
leaders, minority and non-minority, have used race specific language to
discuss the digital divide. Minority communities do have distinct needs
and concerns regarding technological inequity. However, minorities- many
of whom are working class people- share significant common interests with
other working class Americans as well as other Americans that value technological
equality. Kalra argues that minority leadership should quickly de-racialize
the discussion regarding the digital divide to facilitate the development
of a multiracial constituency.
Gaurav Kalra graduated in 1997 from the University of California, Berkeley, with the Highest Distinction in General Scholarship. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Alpha of California. Gaurav received a law degree from the University of California, Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law in 2001. At Boalt Hall, he earned the American Jurisprudence Award in Complex Issues in Civil Litigation. Gaurav is a member of the American Bar Association, the State Bar of California, the South Asian Bar Association of Northern California, and Consumer Attorneys of California. He was formerly employed as an attorney at Paul, Hanley & Harley.
William C. Kidder,
Comment, Legal Storytelling: Derailing a Civil Rights Legacy: The Chronicle
of the Second Underground Railroad
Abstract: Kidder employs two fictional characters derived
from Derrick Bell’s The Unspoken Limit on Affirmative Action: The
Chronicle of the Dive Gift in this heavily footnoted conversation between
a law professor and a former student. Drawing on a wide body of case law
dealing with affirmative action, legacy preferences at elite schools,
and scholarly works examining the evolution of university admission practices,
Kidder weaves together an entertaining and educational short story which
explores yet more alternatives in pushing the agenda for equal justice
for minority applicants.
William Kidder has done legal research that makes connections between legal scholarship and social science for organization’s such as Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, Society of American Law Teachers, Testing for the Public and the ACLU. His scholarship often focuses on the inherent biases in the admissions process as a rationale for affirmative action.
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ALPR
VOLUME 6
ARTICLES & AUTHORS
Randall Robinson, What America Owes to Blacks and What Blacks Owe to Each Other
Eva Jefferson Paterson, And Still We Rise
Emma Coleman Jordan, The Non-Monetary Value of Reparations Rhetoric
Dale Minami, Japanese-American Redress
Richard Buxbaum, German Reparations After The Second World War
Troy Duster, Repairing the National Memory by Acknowledging the Living Presence of ‘Our Childhood Locked in the Closet
Roy Brooks, Toward A Perpetrator-Focused Model of Slave Redress
Ryan Fortson, Correcting the Harms of Slavery: Collective Liability, the Limited Prospects of Success for a Class Action Suit for Slavery Reparations, and the Reconceptualization of White Racial Identity
Randall
Robinson, What America Owes to Blacks and What Blacks Owe to Each
Other
Abstract: Robinson, in a compelling argument in favor
of reparations, asserts that the enslavement of African Americans produced
two distinct and perpetual crimes against African Americans: economic
crime and “psychological intergenerational” crime. Robinson
posits that these transgressions are evidenced in the fundamental evils
of America’s private prison system, the irony of a Black History
Month, and the absence of Africans from the pages of American history
books. Reparations are, according to Robinson, necessary restitution both
for the human capital African Americans contributed to the construction
of early America and for the systematic denial to African Americans of
their history, culture, and language. For Robinson, such restitution is
but a small step in the direction of social correction and healing.
Randall Robinson received his B.A. from Virginia Union University in 1967 and his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1970. Robinson is the founder and former president of TransAfrica, the African-American advocacy organization he established to promote constructive and enlightened U.S. policies toward Africa and the Caribbean. He is the author of the national bestsellers The Debt, The Reckoning, and Defending The Spirit, and his views on U.S. foreign policy and race in America are widely discussed in American print and television media. He lives with his wife and daughter in St. Kitts.
Eva Jefferson Paterson, And
Still We Rise
Abstract: Paterson discusses the current state of the
Civil Rights Movement and the role of the Reparations Movement. She outlines
the defensive stance taken by the Civil Rights Movement in the wake of
post-September 11th sentiments suppressing the discussion of race relations
and California’s Proposition 54, the so called “Racial Privacy”
Initiative or CRECNO. She also highlights the achievement of the Civil
Rights Movement in defeating CRECNO and the strategies that grew out of
this success. Paterson then points out that the Reparations Movement forces
us to remember what transpired when Africans were captured, brought to
this country, and made to work without compensation. She argues that the
Reparations Movement compels the country to examine the present-day consequences
of chattel slavery, helps us to understand why civil rights laws and affirmative
action remain important, creates an opportunity to talk about the great
wealth created in this country, and gives us an opportunity to reclaim
and rewrite our history, to tell it like it is.
Eva Jefferson Paterson is currently the Executive Director, and a founder, of the Equal Justice Society. She worked at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area for twenty-six years and was the Executive Director for thirteen of those years. She co-founded and chaired the California Coalition for Civil Rights for eighteen years. Paterson was the Vice President of the ACLU National Board for eight years. She also chaired the boards of Equal Rights Advocates and the San Francisco Bar Association. She has received more than fifty awards, including the Fay Stender Award from the California Women Lawyers, Woman of the Year from the Black Leadership Forum, the Earl Warren Civil Liberties Award from the ACLU of Northern California, and the Alumni Award of Merit from Northwestern University where she received her B.A. in political science. She received her J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law in 1975. She also worked for the Legal Aid Society of Alameda County after law school and co-founded A Safe Place, a shelter for battered women in Oakland, California.
Emma Coleman Jordan, The Non-Monetary Value of Reparations Rhetoric
Abstract: Beginning with a recounting of the 1923 Rosewood
massacre, Jordan illustrates how only by reckoning with atrocities against
African Americans during and after slavery can all Americans hope to achieve
true racial reconciliation. By directly addressing the “alternative”
histories of Blacks and Whites in America, Jordan proposes what she terms
the “transformative model of reparations.” This model addresses
the inadequacies of pursuing an exclusively compensatory model of reparations
by explicitly taking into account the need for internal healing of individuals
as well as the African-American community as a whole. Jordan’s main
contention is the need to undertake the difficult task of meticulously
reconstructing the often incomplete African-American historical experience
as presented in official tomes. She asserts that by presenting all Americans
with the full truth of historical white privilege and the subordination
of African Americans the necessary foundation will be laid for genuinely
repairing the racially divisive wounds of the past.
Emma Coleman Jordan is professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center. She teaches courses in Torts, Financial Services, and Commercial Law. Jordan received her J.D. from Howard University where she was editor in chief of the Howard Law Journal. Before joining Georgetown, she taught for twelve years at the University of California, Davis. She was a White House Fellow in 1980 81, serving as special assistant to the Attorney General, and was counsel to Professor Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings. Jordan is best known for her work in the fields of financial services and civil rights. She is a past president of both the Association of American Law Schools and the Society of American Law Teachers. Her recent writings include Race, Gender and Power in America (with A. Hill, 1995) and Lynching the Dark Metaphor of American Law (1999).
Dale Minami, Japanese-American Redress
Abstract: Minami discusses the Japanese-American Redress
Movement, a campaign to educate America about the injustice that was done
to Japanese Americans in World War II, to extract monetary compensation,
and to receive an apology. Beginning with a recounting of the 1988 signing
of the Redress Bill that granted twenty-thousand dollars to each internee
living at the time he signed the bill, an apology, and a five-million
dollar fund, Minami argues that the strategies used to achieve redress
were crucial to the success of the campaign. Minami argues that the creation
of the Commission on the Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians
and litigation of these claims helped to influence public opinion and
to educate the American people about the Japanese-American struggle. Furthermore,
the Commission report documenting the historical causes that shaped the
decision to intern Japanese Americans and the recommendations offered
in this report became the foundation of the redress bill that was introduced
into Congress. Finally, Minami argues that Japanese-American solidarity
around the Redress Movement and support of other minority groups were
also compelling factors to the success of the movement. Minami concludes
that the lessons of the Japanese-American Redress Movement should be used
to continue the efforts to achieve African-American redress.
Dale Minami is a partner with Minami, Lew & Tamaki LLP. He received his J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law. Minami has extensive civil litigation experience, specializing in personal injury cases, including multi million dollar wrongful death and catastrophic injury suits. He has also represented clients in highly publicized civil rights and labor law matters. Minami has established a reputation of providing pro bono representation to minorities and the indigent with respect to major civil rights issues. He is probably best known for serving as lead counsel for the legal team which successfully reopened the landmark United States Supreme Court cases of Fred Korematsu, Gordon Hirabayashi and Minoru Yasui, overturning their convictions for refusing to be interned during WWII. Minami also co founded the Asian Law Caucus, Inc., a public interest law firm representing low income individuals and the indigent of the Bay Area; he was one of the founders of the Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area; and he co founded and served as the first president of the Asian Pacific Bar of California.
Richard Buxbaum, German Reparations After
The Second World War
Abstract: Buxbaum discusses the evolution of American
race-consciousness, calling attention to the current reshaping of American
history by various ethnic groups. He begins by describing the scope and
logistics of German reparations, asserting that absent the requisite symbolism
of the act, the system of individual payments employed by the German government
has not provided more than trivial compensation to the progeny of concentration
camp survivors. He notes Germans were forced to react, given that they
represented the “defeated adversary.” Buxbaum compares the
methodology compelling German reparations to that of reparations for American
slavery. According to Buxbaum, the lack of the compelling “defeated
adversary” dynamic illustrates one possible cause for the difficulty
in gaining momentum for American slavery reparations. Acknowledging that
the two are not truly analogous, he contends that although flawed in many
ways, German reparations have made possible discussion, growth, and communal
rehabilitation. To the recipients of German reparations, the mere acknowledgment
of the atrocities has been psychologically therapeutic. Thus, initial
steps taken towards reparations for American slavery are crucial in that
they may force America into a state of self-reflection and self-awareness
– and subsequent historical rediscovery.
Professor Richard Buxbaum practiced law in Rochester, New York, and the U.S. Army before joining the Boalt faculty in 1961. He publishes in the fields of corporation law and comparative and international economic law, and since 1987 has been editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Comparative Law. Buxbaum founded and was the first chair of UC Berkeley's Center for German and European Studies and the Center for Western European Studies. From 1993 to 1999, he was dean of international and area studies at UC Berkeley, and was the first director of the Earl Warren Legal Institute at Berkeley from 1969 to 1974.
Troy Duster, Repairing
the National Memory by Acknowledging the Living Presence of ‘Our
Childhood Locked in the Closet
Abstract: In this talk, delivered as part of the Models
of Reparations for Slavery, Duster points out that reparations movements
are forward looking and focused on the “repair” of past damage.
Duster contends that the type and level of repair necessary depends on
the damage done. In addition, Duster points out that different types of
repair can be complementary and are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
Duster proposes two types of repair to begin the process of reparations
for slavery. First, Duster proposes symbolic repair through rethinking
our criteria and priorities for who should be honored by statues and plaques.
Second, Duster proposes substantive repair through an effort similar to
the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Troy Duster currently holds the position of Chancellor‘s Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is also director of the American Cultures Center. A UC Berkeley professor since 1969, Duster has been a campus leader on racial issues for decades. He founded and directed for 17 years the Center for the Study of Social Change. In 1990, Duster led the Diversity Project, a campus-wide study to assess the intercultural experiences of UC Berkeley students that was based on interviews with hundreds of groups. He is also professor of Sociology at New York University.
Roy Brooks, Toward A Perpetrator-Focused Model
of Slave Redress
Abstract: Brooks argues that African Americans should
adopt a perpetrator-focused rather than victim-focused model as the primary
future strategy for obtaining redress for slavery and Jim Crow. According
to Brooks, a perpetrator-focused model is more desirable because it is
forward-looking and lays the foundation for repairing a broken relationship
between victim (African Americans) and perpetrator (oppressors of African
Americans); the perpetrator-focused model leads to atonement and racial
conciliation because it requires the perpetrator to seek forgiveness.
A victim-focused model, on the other hand, is compensatory and backward-looking.
After comparing and contrasting the two models, Brooks concludes that
the victim-focused model—the current strategy—is too confrontational
to provide the kind of racial reconciliation needed for future race relations.
Roy Brooks is Warren Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law. He received his J.D. from Yale University, where he served as senior editor of the Yale Law Journal. After clerking for the Honorable Clifford Scott Green, then United States district court judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Brooks practiced corporate and securities law at Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York City. He has taught law since 1979, teaching courses in Civil Procedure, Civil Rights, Corporate Finance, Corporations, Employment Discrimination, Jurisprudence, International Human Rights, and Public Law Litigation.
Ryan Fortson, Correcting the Harms of Slavery: Collective Liability, the Limited Prospects of Success for a Class Action Suit for Slavery Reparations, and the Reconceptualization of White Racial Identity
Abstract: Fortson argues that compensating African Americans
for past discrimination is not a viable strategy to address the economic
and social disparities existing in the Black community. He contends that
mounting a class-action law suit for reparations is procedurally and politically
infeasible; moreover, demanding reparations shifts focus away from present
disparities to past actions. As an alternative to reparations, he advocates
a reconceptualization of race through the lens of whiteness as property,
a concept that emphasizes systemic inequalities rather than attributing
fault to whites. Conceiving of whiteness as property thereby provides
a necessary level of abstraction for dealing with race problems and circumvents
the racial divisiveness of any discussion of reparations.
Law clerk to the Honorable Dana Fabe, Chief Justice of the Alaska Supreme Court. J.D., Stanford Law School, 2001; Ph.D. (Political Science), University of Minnesota, 2000; B.A., Amherst College, 1993.
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Abstracts and Authors's information forthcoming.