As Black History Month comes to a close, I offer:
“[T]he words ‘race,’ ‘racism,’ and ‘race relations’ are . . . used as shorthand for specific historical legacies that have nothing to do with biological determinism, and everything to do with power relations.” JACQUELINE JONES, A DREADFUL DECEIT: THE MYTH OF RACE FROM THE COLONIAL ERA TO OBAMA’S AMERICA xvii (2013).
The term “racial thinking” is also used to mean “cognitive and emotional” prejudice; the term is interchangeable with “racial discrimination” which is “the exercise of power to create and reinforce social inequality between racially defined groups.” Emilio Zamora, Connecting Causes, Alonso S. Perales, Hemispheric Universal and Mexican Rights in the United States, in MICHAEL A. OLIVAS, IN DEFENSE OF MY PEOPLE: ALONSO S. PERALES AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF MEXICAN-AMERICAN PUBLIC INTELLECTUALS 287, 311 n.3 (2013).
The legal dictionary defines "racism" as "The belief that some races are inherently superior to other races" and "Unfair treatment of people, often including violence against them, because they belong to a different race from one's one." BRYAN A. GARNER, BLACK'S LAW DICTIONARY, racism at 1509 (11th ed. 2019).
If we all just pause long enough to contemplate the exact words of the definition, everybody ought to be able to see how stupid it is to hold such a belief and how shameful it is to act with such animus.
On this blog I will post some of my publications and writings together with occasional comments on topics of legal history and, to a lesser extent, current events.