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Full-Text Articles in Legal History
The Promise Of A Post-Genocide Constitution: Healing Rwandan Spirit Injuries, Adrien Katherine Wing, Mark Richard Johnson
The Promise Of A Post-Genocide Constitution: Healing Rwandan Spirit Injuries, Adrien Katherine Wing, Mark Richard Johnson
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
This Article hopes to extend Critical Race Theory's social construction of race theory by emphasizing ethnicity as well as race. The Rwandans are undoubtedly within the so-called "Black race." Historically, they have also been socially constructed as consisting of different races and ethnicities, even though many scholars and Rwandans do not see ethnic, much less racial, distinctions. Some of these Rwandans who did see such differences participated in the genocide.
Puerto Rico: Cultural Nation, American Colony, Pedro A. Malavet
Puerto Rico: Cultural Nation, American Colony, Pedro A. Malavet
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
This Article articulates a theory of Puerto Rican cultural nationhood that is largely based on ethnicity. In linking ethnicity and citizenship, it is imperative, however, to avoid the evils of ethnic strife and balkanization, while celebrating rather than imposing difference; community consciousness cannot degenerate into fascism.
Can Money Whiten? Exploring Race Practice In Colonial Venezuela And Its Implications For Contemporary Race Discourse, Estelle T. Lau
Can Money Whiten? Exploring Race Practice In Colonial Venezuela And Its Implications For Contemporary Race Discourse, Estelle T. Lau
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
The Gracias al Sacar, a fascinating and seemingly inconceivable practice in eighteenth century colonial Venezuela, allowed certain individuals of mixed Black and White ancestry to purchase "Whiteness" from their King. The author exposes the irony of this system, developed in a society obsessed with "natural" ordering that labeled individuals according to their precise racial ancestry. While recognizing that the Gracias al Sacar provided opportunities for advancement and an avenue for material and social struggle, the author argues that it also justified the persistence of racial hierarchy. The Article concludes that the Gracias al Sacar, along with their present-day …