Document Type

Working Paper

Publication Date

7-8-2008

SSRN Discipline

Legal Scholarship Network; Law School Research Papers - Legal Studies; LSN Subject Matter eJournals

Abstract

Two recent books illustrate a preoccupation with interracial coalition Lani Guinier and Gerald Torress book The Miners Canary Enlisting Race Resisting Power Transforming Democracy forcefully argues that minorities should unite beginning with local issues in pursuit of social justice Eric Yamamotos book Interracial Justice Conflict and Reconciliation in PostCivil Rights America outlines a program for minorities to bury their grievances and work together toward essentially the same ends The two books differ greatly in their organization style and scope For example one is elegant even overwrought while the other is lucid and terse But they share the faith that Americas hope lies with a heady coalition of the dispossessed They argue that outsider scholars and communities because of the legacy of oppression enjoy a deeper sharper sense of social justice than the more complacent majority Accordingly if blacks Latinos Asians Native Americans and downandout whites join forces not only they but also the country as a whole will benefitPart I of this Review briefly describes and compares the GuinierTorres and Yamamoto books noting their strengths and weaknesses Part II explores the logic of coalition making Part III shows that when race is an element coalition making becomes more not less problematic Part IV examines the historical record of interminority coalitions The Conclusion urges reformers to replace the procedural objective of coalition with the substantive goal of social justice and to work to realize that goal both individually and collectively The hope for a great union of dispossessed people standing shoulder to shoulder is ultimately an evasion motivated by the unspoken desire to let someone else do the hard work The differential racialization hypothesis posits that racial harms will vary from group to group and over time It logically follows therefore that redress for those harms will take culturally specific forms so that the collective dimension of struggle will very often take second place to the individual one

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