Racial Culture

by Ford, Richard T.

• ISBN13: 9780691119601
• ISBN10: 0691119600
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-10-22
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr

Summary

What is black culture? Does it have an essence? What do we lose and gain by assuming that it does, and by building our laws accordingly? This bold and provocative book questions the common presumption of political multiculturalism that social categories such as race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality are defined by distinctive cultural practices. Richard Ford argues against law reform proposals that would attempt to apply civil rights protections to "cultural difference." Unlike many criticisms of multiculturalism, which worry about "reverse discrimination" or the erosion of core Western cultural values, the book's argument is primarily focused on the adverse effects of multicultural rhetoric and multicultural rights on their supposed beneficiaries. In clear and compelling prose, Ford argues that multicultural accounts of cultural difference do not accurately describe the practices of social groups. Instead these accounts are prescriptive: they attempt to canonize a narrow, parochial, and contestable set of ideas about appropriate group culture and to discredit more cosmopolitan lifestyles, commitments, and values. The book argues that far from remedying discrimination and status hierarchy, "cultural rights" share the ideological presuppositions, and participate in the discursive and institutional practices, of racism, sexism, and homophobia. Ford offers specific examples in support of this thesis, in diverse contexts such as employment discrimination, affirmative action, and transracial adoption. This is a major contribution to our understanding of today's politics of race, by one of the most distinctive and important young voices in America's legal academy.

Author Biography

Richard T. Ford is the George E. Osborne Professor of Law at Stanford Law School.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. vii
Preamble	p. 1
Difference Discourse	p. 4
Political Philosophy	p. 5
Legal Scholarship	p. 11
Legalism	p. 13
Ideology	p. 14
Lexicon	p. 17
Overview of the Book	p. 20
Difference Discourse	p. 23
A (Abridged) History of Difference	p. 29
The Production of Group Difference as Common Knowledge	p. 36
The "Repressive Hypothesis"	p. 36
"Diversity": Difference Discourse as Corrupt Detente	p. 42
Alan Bakke: Multiculturalist?	p. 44
IDentities As Collective Action	p. 59
Identity as Social Performance	p. 61
Free Time	p. 64
Recognition of Difference as Protective Custody	p. 67
Rights as Public Policy	p. 68
Rights-to-Difference Require an Official Account of Group Difference	p. 70
Difference Discourse as Social Discipline: Delegitimation and Stereotyping	p. 74
Cultural Reservations	p. 78
Copyrights-to-Difference: Culture as Property	p. 88
Identity Consciousness: Less Is More	p. 90
Group Consciousness without Cultural Romanticism	p. 91
Culture Distinguished from Status	p. 93
Against "Racial Characteristics"	p. 97
Status and Immutability	p. 100
Intimacy and Identity	p. 116
"Cultural Discrimination"	p. 125
Why "Cultural Bias" Is Like Death and Taxes	p. 127
Background Rules as Cultural Discrimination	p. 127
The Inevitability of Discriminatory Laws	p. 130
Everyone Can Make a Difference: Difference Discourse as Cultural Zeitgeist	p. 132
Difference as an Expensive Taste	p. 139
Institutional Cultures	p. 142
Institutions, Culture and Intergroup Conflict	p. 148
Cosmopolitan Difference	p. 156
The Cosmopolitan and the Province: An Ideological Reorientation	p. 162
The Ends Of Anti-Discrimination Law	p. 169
Civil Rights as a Limited Mechanism of Social Justice	p. 170
Anti-discrimination Law and Joint Costs	p. 172
Doctrinal Reform	p. 179
Disparate Treatment	p. 181
Disparate Impact	p. 183
Rogers Redux: Toward a Pragmatic Approach to Difference	p. 195
Alternative Approaches to Group Conflict and Social Injustice	p. 203
Postscript: Beyond Difference	p. 211
Notes	p. 215
Index	p. 227
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