Document Type

Working Paper

Publication Date

2-11-2009

SSRN Discipline

Legal Scholarship Network; *Humanities - Forthcoming Areas; Law School Research Papers - Legal Studies; African-American Studies; AFAM Subject Matter eJournals; LSN Subject Matter eJournals; Constitutional Law, Jurisprudence & Legal Philosophy eJournals; Humanities Network; delete2

Abstract

Does United States antidiscrimination law embrace a blackwhite binary paradigm of race in which other nonblack minority groups must compare their treatment to that of African Americans in order to gain redress In this Derrick Bell Lecture Professor Richard Delgado argues that it does and that other minorities also fall from time to time into the trap of exceptionalism placing their own experiences at the center of discussion Taking as his text a recent chronicle by Derrick Bell Bluebeards Castle Professor Delgado argues that narrow binary thinkingregardless of the group that engages in itweakens solidarity reduces opportunities for coalition deprives one group of the benefits of the others experiences makes one overly dependent on the approval of the white establishment and sets one up for ultimate disappointment The blackwhite binary in short is bad for blacks just as her foolish fixation on the gloomy noble of operatic fame finally doomed Judith the heroine of Bluebeards Castle

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