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Race/Law $29.99 U.S.
CONTRIBUTORS INCLUDE:
“BEYOND THE EBB AND FLOW OF RACIAL PROGRESS LIES
JANET DEWART BELL
is a social justice activist with a THE STILL VIABLE AND WIDELY ACCEPTED (THOUGH SELDOM
doctorate in leadership and change from Antioch University. EXPRESSED) BELIEF THAT AMERICA IS A WHITE COUNTRY
She founded the Derrick Bell Lecture on Race in American Soci- IN WHICH BLACKS, PARTICULARLY AS A GROUP, ARE NOT
ety series at the New York University School of Law in honor MICHELLE ALEXANDER SHERRILYN IFILL ENTITLED TO THE CONCERN, RESOURCES, OR EVEN EMPATHY
of her late husband, and is the author of Lighting the Fires of THAT WOULD BE EXTENDED TO SIMILARLY SITUATED WHITES.”
R
Freedom: African American Women in the Civil Rights Move- ANITA ALLEN EMMA COLEMAN JORDAN A —DERRICK BELL
ment (The New Press). An award-winning television and radio C
E
producer, she lives in New York City.
, In our moment of mass insurrection against the brutal and rac-
DERRICK BELL CHARLES LAWRENCE
R ist institutions of policing and prisons, those who have devoted
VINCENT M. SOUTHERLAND
is the executive director I
G their lives to studying the intersection of race and the law have
of the Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law at NYU School of STEPHEN BRIGHT IAN HANEY LÓPEZ H immeasurable insight to lend. Carving Out a Humanity gathers
Law. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. T
some of our country’s brightest progressive legal stars in a vol-
S
PAUL BUTLER KENNETH W. MACK , ume that illuminates the facets of the law that have continued
A to perpetuate racial inequality and to confound our nation at
N
the start of a new millennium.
JOHN CALMORE MARI MATSUDA D
“To what extent does equal protection protect?” asks
R
Ian Haney López in a penetrating analysis of the gaps that
E
DEVON W. CARBADO CHARLES OGLETREE D remain in our civil rights legal codes. President and Director-
E Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund Sherrilyn Ifill des-
M
cribes the hypersegregation that plagues our nation and the
WILLIAM CARTER JR. ANGELA ONWUACHI-WILLIG P
work necessary to bridge the limits of the law’s ability to
T
I change deep-seated attitudes about race. Patricia J. Williams
O
RICHARD DELGADO THEODORE M. SHAW explores the legacy of slavery in the law’s current construc-
N
tions of sanity. Anita Allen discusses competing privacy and
accountability interests in the lives of African American celeb-
ANNETTE GORDON-REED KENDALL THOMAS
rities. Charles Lawrence interrogates the judicial backlash
against affirmative action. Angela Onwuachi-Willig explores the
LANI GUINIER PATRICIA J. WILLIAMS
parallels between the lynching of Emmett Till and the killing of
Trayvon Martin. And Michelle Alexander describes what caused
CHERYL I. HARRIS ROBERT A. WILLIAMS her to challenge the civil rights community to take up the cause
of those our criminal legal system has labeled unworthy. A total
of twenty-four leading legal luminaries, all at the forefront of
the movement to advance racial justice and acolytes of the late
Derrick Bell, speak with eloquence, power, and wisdom about
the role of race in contemporary American society.
Originally delivered as the annual Derrick Bell Lec-
www.thenewpress.com
tures at New York University School of Law, celebrating their
twenty-fifth anniversary in 2020, the chapters in Carving Out
Jacket design by David Shoemaker
a Humanity offer an unprecedented array of today’s most cre-
ative and brilliant thinking on race and the law.
CCaarrvviinngg OOuutt aa HHuummaanniittyy__jjaacckkeett..iinndddd 11 99//33//2200 1122::3377 PPMM
Carving Out a
Humanity
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Carving Out
a Humanity
RACE, RIGHTS, AND REDEMPTION
Edited by Janet Dewart Bell
and Vincent M. Southerland
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Contents
A Brief History of the Derrick Bell Lectures vii
Introduction by Congresswoman Barbara Lee ix
1. No Justice, No Peace 1
charles ogletree
2. Each Other’s Harvest 12
charles lawrence
3. The Archetypes That Haunt Us 28
patricia j. williams
4. Derrick Bell’s Toolkit— Fit to Dismantle That
Famous House? 40
richard delgado
5. Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming
Democracy 55
lani guinier
6. Accountability for Private Life 60
anita allen
7. Somebody Else’s Child 73
mari matsuda
8. From the West to the Rest: Interest Convergence
in California Racial Politics 92
cheryl i. harris
9. Envisioning Abolition: Sex, Citizenship, and the
Racial Imaginary of the Killing State 117
kendall thomas
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vi contents
10. And We Are Still Not Saved: Twenty-First-Century
Constitutional Conflicts 139
derrick bell
11. Racism as the Ultimate Deception 157
john calmore
(lecture delivered by derrick bell)
12. Like a Loaded Weapon 170
robert a. williams
13. A Hip- Hop Theory of Justice 190
paul butler
14. Between Slavery and Freedom: The Deep Racial
Roots of the 2008 Financial Crisis 208
emma coleman jordan
15. After Obama: Three “Post- racial” Challenges 222
devon w. carbado
16. Justice Undone: Color Blindness After Civil Rights 238
ian haney lópez
17. Critiquing the F amily Tree: White Supremacy in the
Writing of History 255
annette gordon- reed
18. Badges and Incidents: Lingering Vestiges of Slavery
and the Thirteenth Amendment 267
william car ter jr.
19. The Criminal Injustice of Capital Punishment 277
stephen bright
20. What’s Left Out of Brown 292
sherrilyn ifill
21. The Society We Want 308
michelle alexander
22. A Tale of Two Amer i cas 320
theodore m. shaw
23. The Bound aries of Whiteness: From Till to Trayvon 331
angela onwuachi- willig
24. Race, Violence, and the Word 348
kenneth w. mack
Tributes to Derrick Bell from the Bell Lecturers 369
Acknowledgments 380
Permissions 386
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A Brief History of the
Derrick Bell Lectures
Founded in 1995, the Derrick Bell Lectures were originally created as a
birthday pre sent from Janet Bell to her husband, and were designed to
highlight not only Derrick Bell’s legacy as the father of the Critical Race
Theory (CRT) movement, but also to give that movement exposure in the
acad emy and beyond. Janet Bell worked tirelessly to endow the series,
which has continued after Derrick’s death in 2011. Over the years, the
series has featured an elite group of CRT scholars and offered them a
distinguished platform at New York University Law School to talk about
race in Amer i ca. The series was originally set up under the auspices of
then-dean John Sexton. In 2016, NYU Law School dean Trevor Morrison
and NYU law professor Tony Thompson arranged to have the series for-
mally incorporated into the law school’s new Center on Race, Inequality,
and the Law, whose executive director, Vincent Southerland, is an editor
of this volume.
Because of Professor Bell’s well- known love for gospel m usic, musical
per for mances always played a part of the lecture, and the singing of Stevie
Won der’s “Happy Birthday” was very much a part of the tradition.
While many of the lectures w ere recorded and could be transcribed
for this volume, in the early years that was not the case. Where pos si ble,
the editors have reconstructed lectures from the lecturer’s written notes.
In a few cases, law review articles or book chapters based on unrecorded
lectures w ere included in the lectures’ stead. In 2006, University of North
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viii a brief history of the derrick bell lectures
Carolina School of Law professor John Calmore was scheduled to give the
annual lecture. When he took ill, Professor Bell delivered his lecture from
notes provided by Professor Calmore; the transcription provided is of
Professor Bell’s words. In 2000 a panel discussion took the place of an
individual lecture. Unfortunately, the panel discussion was not recorded.
Lani Guinier was one of the featured panelists, and her remarks on the
panel informed her subsequent book The Miner’s Canary (co-authored
with Gerald Torres), a brief excerpt of which is included here.
The Derrick Bell Lecture continues to be one of the most cherished cul-
tural and scholarly events at NYU School of Law.
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Introduction
congresswoman barbara lee
As a student during the 1970s, I was also a community worker with the
Black Panther Party in Oakland, California. There were very few academ-
ics who, for me, spoke about systemic and structural racism in an honest
and forthright manner. Derrick Bell was one of the few professors who, in
many ways, embodied the principles guiding the work of black, progres-
sive, “revolutionary” organizations. Derrick’s visionary work and clarity about
racism, the laws that continue to perpetrate this system, and how to dis-
mantle them and create a true system of justice, helped me formulate my
political consciousness and work.
I remember that, while I was working for a great warrior for peace and
justice—the late Congressman Ronald V. Dellums—I had the privilege to
meet Derrick Bell, mainly at conferences and lectures, and thought he
should run for public office. I told Ron that, and we concluded that Der-
rick was too valuable as a renowned attorney and scholar, whose work
should undergird the agenda of black elected officials committed to trans-
forming this country. Derrick Bell’s brilliance was as important then as it
is today—as we witness the movement for black lives throughout the
country. We owe Derrick Bell a debt of gratitude for his brilliant legal
mind as he addressed racism at its core. I am privileged to have been a
student from afar of this great human being.
A bold legal scholar, educator, author, activist, veteran, husband, father,
brother, mentor, and friend, Professor Derrick Bell was a preeminent
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