Law Commons^™

Reforming Property Law To Address Devastating Land Loss, Thomas W. Mitchell

Thomas W. Mitchell

Tenancy-in-common ownership represents the most widespread form of common ownership of real property in the United States. Such ownership under the default rules also represents the most unstable ownership of real property in this country. Thousands of tenancy-in-common property owners, including members of many poor and minority families, have lost their commonly-owned property due to court-ordered, forced partition sales as well as much of their real estate wealth associated with such ownership as a result of such sales. Though some scholars and the media have highlighted how thousands of African-Americans have lost an untold amount of property and substantial real …

Evicted: The Socio-Legal Case For The Right To Housing, Lisa T. Alexander

Lisa T. Alexander

Matthew Desmond's Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City is a triumphant work that provides the missing socio-legal data needed to prove why America should recognize housing as a human right. Desmond's masterful study of the effect of evictions on Milwaukee's urban poor in the wake of the 2008 U.S. housing crisis humanizes the evicted, and their landlords, through rich and detailed ethnographies. His intimate portrayals teach Evicted's readers about the agonizingly difficult choices that low-income, unsubsidized tenants must make in the private rental market. Evicted also reveals the contradictions between "law on the books" and "law-in-action." Its most …

From Reconstruction To Deconstruction: Undermining Black Landownership, Political Independence, And Community Through Partition Sales Of Tenancies In Common, Thomas W. Mitchell

Thomas W. Mitchell

This article considers one of the primary ways in which African Americans have lost millions of acres of land that they were able to acquire in the latter part of the nineteenth century and the beginning part of the twentieth century and the sociopolitical implications of this land loss. Specifically, this article highlights the fact that forced partition sales of tenancy in common property, referred to more commonly as heirs' property, have been a major source of black land loss within the African American community. The article argues that involuntary black land loss has had a significant negative impact upon …

Racism As Subjectification, David Schraub

David Schraub

Nobody likes to feel used. But everyone likes to feel useful. This paradox has long been overlooked by people examining the parameters of racism in the United States. The classic model of racism focuses on the manner in which Black Americans have been objectified—and for good reason. From chattel slavery to Jim Crow, African Americans have faced a long and sordid history of being regarded as little more than objects—useful tools for White power-brokers, but not independent subjects with their own desires, perspective, and rights. However, following the Civil Rights revolution, this dynamic has shifted. While racial objectification has by …

Black Protectionism As A Civil Rights Strategy, Katheryn Russell-Brown

Katheryn Russell-Brown

This Article has identified and outlined the parameters of Black protectionism, a practice used by African-Americans to protect prominent community members who have been charged with criminal or unethical activity. This practice took root during slavery-during a time when a false or minor charge against one African-American could result in death or great bodily harm to him and scores of other African-Americans. History has cultivated a culture of Black mistrust of Whites in particular and mainstream society in general. This suspicion is reinforced with the continued disparate treatment of African-Americans within the criminal justice system. History and contemporary conditions explain …

Responsibility And The Representation Of Suffering: Australian Law In Black And White, Richard Mohr

Richard Mohr

Abstract: This article critically analyses the concept of suffering, with particular emphasis on responsibility for and representations of suffering. Suffering is seen as a social relationship, with objective characteristics, classified by Renault as domination, deprivation and the weakening of intersubjective supports (désaffiliation). Veitch and Wolcher have inquired into legal responsibility for suffering. The author adds that suffering is also constructed subjectively, through aesthetic, political and legal representations. This theoretical model of suffering is applied to recent political and legal issues in Australia dealing with an apology for earlier policies of removing Indigenous children from their families, and a more recent …

Women (Under)Development : The Relevance Of The "Right To Development" To Poor Women Of Color In The United States, Hope Lewis

Hope Lewis

This essay, written during a time of Clinton-era welfare reform, was an attempt to reimagine South-North roles. What if "right to development" analysis were applied to poor women of color living in the United States? Some see the right to development as an anachronism in the face of the apparent globalization of market-based economic development. However, “development” in the narrow form of a thriving industrial sector, reliable infrastructure, and steady economic growth, remains beyond the reach of many nations - particularly the poorest African nations. More important, the broader goals of human development - access to basic needs and an …

Transnational Dimensions Of Race In America, Hope Lewis

Hope Lewis

Race, a key concept in international human rights law from the beginning, should still be high on today's global priority list. However, to remain a useful concept in our increasingly complex world, race must be defined and explored as a transnational and multidimensional social construct. I reflect here on the complex nature of "Blackness." I suggest that international human rights law should engage intra-racial diversity among Blacks along cultural, gender, political, economic, and ethnic lines. Because "Blackness" itself is a product of popular social consciousness, I draw here on popular accounts of U.S Black migration and stories about the Presidential …

The Imposition Of The Death Penalty In The United States Of America: Does It Comply With International Norms?, Beverly Mcqueary Smith

Beverly McQueary Smith

No abstract provided.

Transnational Dimensions Of Race In America, Hope Lewis

Hope Lewis

Race, a key concept in international human rights law from the beginning, should still be high on today's global priority list. However, to remain a useful concept in our increasingly complex world, race must be defined and explored as a transnational and multidimensional social construct. I reflect here on the complex nature of "Blackness." I suggest that international human rights law should engage intra-racial diversity among Blacks along cultural, gender, political, economic, and ethnic lines. Because "Blackness" itself is a product of popular social consciousness, I draw here on popular accounts of U.S Black migration and stories about the Presidential …

Transnational Dimensions Of Racial Identity : Reflecting On Race, The Global Economy, And The Human Rights Movement At 60, Hope Lewis

Hope Lewis

The last six decades have witnessed the end of formal colonialism, the adoption of the Race Convention, the rise of domestic civil rights movements and the partial implementation of affirmative action measures in North America and Europe, the end of formal apartheid in South Africa, a World Conference Against Racism and Xenophobia, and the election of the first African -American president of the United States of America. These positive developments seem to signal the potential for a new, non-racist, global perspective. "Another World is Possible," as the saying goes.

Nevertheless, and during the same period, mass killing, genocide, and ethnic …

Lionheart Gals Facing The Dragon : The Human Rights Of Inter/National Black Women In The United States, Hope Lewis

Hope Lewis

This Article commands a more explicit engagement of critical race scholarship with feminist international human rights strategies. It focuses on Jamaican-American women. Part I discusses key aspects of the historical and sociological context in which the migration of Jamaican women to the New York City area has occurred. It also discusses trends in their participation in the paid labor force since the migratory patterns of Jamaican women are strongly linked to their employment opportunities. Part II describes and analyzes significant survival strategies used by working-class Jamaican-American women to escape from, reshape, or resist the exploitative conditions they face. The strategies …

Women (Under)Development : The Relevance Of The "Right To Development" To Poor Women Of Color In The United States, Hope Lewis

Hope Lewis

This essay, written during a time of Clinton-era welfare reform, was an attempt to reimagine South-North roles. What if "right to development" analysis were applied to poor women of color living in the United States? Some see the right to development as an anachronism in the face of the apparent globalization of market-based economic development. However, “development” in the narrow form of a thriving industrial sector, reliable infrastructure, and steady economic growth, remains beyond the reach of many nations - particularly the poorest African nations. More important, the broader goals of human development - access to basic needs and an …