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Origin Stories: Critical Race Theory Encounters The War On Terror, Natsu Taylor Saito Jan 2021

Origin Stories: Critical Race Theory Encounters The War On Terror, Natsu Taylor Saito

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Stories matter. They matter to those intent on maintaining structures of power and privilege, and to those being crushed by those structures. In the United States, the space to tell, and to hear, our stories has been expanding. This means that the histories and lived realities of those who have been excluded, particularly people of color, are seeping into mainstream discourse, into the books our children read, the movies and television shows they watch, and the many websites comprising social media. Critical race theory has played a role in this expansion. It insists that we recognize the legitimacy of the …


When Critical Race Theory Enters The Law & Technology Frame, Jessica M. Eaglin Jan 2021

When Critical Race Theory Enters The Law & Technology Frame, Jessica M. Eaglin

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Michigan Technology Law Review is proud to partner with our peers to publish this essay by Professor Jessica Eaglin on the intertwining social construction of race, law and technology. This piece highlights how the approach to use technology as precise tools for criminal administration or objective solutions to societal issues often fails to consider how laws and technologies are created in our racialized society. If we do not consider how race and technology are co-productive, we will fail to reach substantive justice and instead reinforce existing racial hierarchies legitimated by laws.


How Critical Race Theory Marginalizes The African American Christian Tradition, Brandon Paradise Oct 2014

How Critical Race Theory Marginalizes The African American Christian Tradition, Brandon Paradise

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Article offers the first comprehensive account of the marginalization of the African American Christian tradition in the movement of race and law scholarship known as critical race theory. While committed to grounding itself in the perspectives of communities of color, critical race theory has virtually ignored the significance of the fact that the civil rights movement came out of the Black church and that today more than eighty percent of African Americans self-identify as Christian. In practical terms, critical race theory’s neglect of the Christian tradition has meant that arguments developed in race and law scholarship are sometimes incompatible …


Reading, Writing, And Reparations: Systemic Reform Of Public Schools As A Matter Of Justice, Verna L. Williams Jan 2006

Reading, Writing, And Reparations: Systemic Reform Of Public Schools As A Matter Of Justice, Verna L. Williams

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Article analyzes Virginia's effort to remedy massive resistance and posits that, under reparations theory, a broader remedy is necessary to redress the scope of the state's wrongdoing. To do this, Part I briefly examines reparations theory, which provides the tools to identify the proper scope of the injury to be addressed, and, in turn, informs the proper choice of remedy. With this background, Part II discusses the Brown Fund Act and the massive resistance it seeks to remedy. In this connection, the Article demonstrates that the school shutdowns were part of a statewide decision to defy Brown and maintain …


Accumulation, Anthony Paul Farley Jan 2005

Accumulation, Anthony Paul Farley

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Anthony Farley brings a focus on class back to Critical Race Theory by exploring the intersection of race and class as a singular concept that finds its creation in the marking of difference through the primal scene of accumulation. Professor Farley's Essay contends that the rule of law is the endless unfolding of that primal scene of accumulation. By choosing to pray for legal relief rather than dismantling the system, the slave chooses enslavement over freedom. Professor Farley discusses the concept of ownership as violence and explains that property rights are the means of protecting the master class until everything …


From Race To Class Struggle: Re-Problematizing Critical Race Theory, E San Juan Jr. Jan 2005

From Race To Class Struggle: Re-Problematizing Critical Race Theory, E San Juan Jr.

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

The misconstrual of "class" as a theoretical and analytic concept for defining group or individual identity has led, especially during the Cold War period, to its confusion with status, life-style, and other ideological contingencies. This has vitiated the innovative attempt of CRT to link racism and class oppression. We need to reinstate the Marxist category of class derived from the social division of labor that generates antagonistic class relations. Class conflict becomes the key to grasping the totality of social relations of production, as well as the metabolic process of social reproduction in which racism finds its effectivity. This will …


Si Se Puede, But Who Gets The Gravy?, Richard Delgado Jan 2005

Si Se Puede, But Who Gets The Gravy?, Richard Delgado

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

In this piece, the author writes in two alternating voices: the voice of rap and the voice of standard academic discourse. The rap passages are rude, direct, even raunchy, while the prose passages are rendered in academic English. This dichotomy is intentional: Rap represents the voice of the people, the voice from below, the voice of those who live in neighborhoods filled with broken glass, an impatient, insurgent voice that bears little in common with the complex, jargon-filled sentences of most contemporary left discourse. The latter voice, in my view, has become too detached from that of our many constituents …


Engaging The Spirit Of Racial Healing Within Critical Race Theory: An Exercise In Transformativethought, Rebecca Tsosie Jan 2005

Engaging The Spirit Of Racial Healing Within Critical Race Theory: An Exercise In Transformativethought, Rebecca Tsosie

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This essay posits that Critical Race Theory (CRT) must operate at both the "idealist" and "materialist" levels. Although the emphasis may be in one direction or another at particular times, both domains are continually engaged. This essay links the debate between the "materialist" and "idealist" views to another central theme within CRT, which is the need for "justice" and how the law relates to justice. This essay focuses on the contemporary debate surrounding the status of Native Hawaiians to show how "race" is being used to construct the civil and political rights of Native Hawaiian people. CRT is a jurisprudence …


The Sacred Way Of Tibetan Crt Kung Fu: Can Race Crits Teach The Shadow's Mystical Insight And Help Law Students "Know" White Structural Oppression In The Heart Of The First-Year Curriculum? A Critical Rejoinder To Dorothy A. Brown, Reginald Leamon Robinson Jan 2005

The Sacred Way Of Tibetan Crt Kung Fu: Can Race Crits Teach The Shadow's Mystical Insight And Help Law Students "Know" White Structural Oppression In The Heart Of The First-Year Curriculum? A Critical Rejoinder To Dorothy A. Brown, Reginald Leamon Robinson

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Part I of this Article uses a quasi-parable, in which Dorothy Brown is a Tibetan Master who teaches law students CRT Kung Fu, the monastic fighting skills by which they will acquire the Shadow's mystical insight to "know" the heart of the first-year curriculum. Part II challenges the organizing principles and content on which Brown's Critical Race Theory purports to critically interrogate traditional legal doctrine, applying a New Age Philosophical critique as well as agency theory to crack dealing in Spanish Harlem. I use this case study to argue that crack dealers deliberately and purposefully choose extra-legal economic opportunities, even …


From Discourse To Struggle: A New Direction In Critical Race Theory, Megan K. Whyte Jan 2005

From Discourse To Struggle: A New Direction In Critical Race Theory, Megan K. Whyte

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

To commemorate the Michigan Journal of Race & Law's tenth anniversary, they hosted a symposium in February 2005 that marked a shift within critical race theory. Entitled "Going Back to Class?: The Reemergence of Class in Critical Race Theory," the symposium brought together speakers, students, Journal alumni, and members of the community to begin a fuller examination of the relationship between race and class.


Lawyering For Social Change: What's A Lawyer To Do?, Kevin R. Johnson Jan 1999

Lawyering For Social Change: What's A Lawyer To Do?, Kevin R. Johnson

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This article analyzes two questions that are raised by Professor Yamamoto's provocative article. Part I argues that any significant transformation of the social structure of United States society is far more likely to occur through mass political movements than through litigation. Consequently, advocates of social change, especially those trained in law, should not expect too much reform from the courtrooms. They instead should consider how traditional legal action might complement and encourage-not replace-community activism and political involvement. Put simply, an exclusive focus on litigation will not accomplish fully the desired objective. Part II contends that attorneys' ethical duties to their …