Recommended Citation
Jeremiah Chin, What a Load of Hope: The Post-Racial Mixtape, 48 CAL. W. L. REV. 369 (2012), https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/faculty-articles/1087
Publication Title
California Western Law Review
Keywords
racial justice, Critical Race Theory, Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, Grutter v. Bollinger, Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1
Document Type
Article
Abstract
This Comment analyzes how Supreme Court decisions and recent legislation have used the language of post-racialism to re-center whiteness through the law. Rather than using explicit racist language, the post-racial project exploits the language of historical antiracist efforts to negate experiences with discrimination while continuing a hostile environment for racial groups and promoting white supremacy in the United States.
Beginning with Supreme Court decisions on affirmative action, in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke and Grutter v. Bollinger, and school desegregation in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, this Comment analyzes how legal constructions of race have gradually dismantled the legal achievements of the civil rights movement and re-centered whiteness in the law through post-racial ideology. Beyond the Supreme Court, recent Arizona legislation such as H.B. 2281 (ending ethnic studies in high schools) and Proposition 107 (banning affirmative action) are symptomatic of the changing legal rhetoric of race in the United States. Rooted in rhetoric of colorblindness and individual rights, the three Supreme Court decisions and two pieces of Arizona legislation outline the dominant narrative of post-racialism in United States law. Drawing on Critical Race Theory as a theoretical framework, this Comment uses legal scholar Sumi Cho's definition of post-racialism to outline the legal narrative from the Supreme Court to Arizona legislation. To consider the implications of post-racial legal narratives, Critical Race Theory underscores the role of interest convergence in United States law, forming a legal ideology that is simultaneously permissive of racist actions and insulated from legal challenges that strive for racial justice.