Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race (Critical America Series) by Ian F. Haney Lopez ISBN: 0-8147-5137-7 Publisher: New York University Press Pub. Date: January, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.5 (8 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Debunking Attacks
Comment: One of the many attacks Lopez receives regarding White By Law is his alleged "white pessimism" that keeps him from genuinly wanting to deconstruct whiteness, because he would lose his White benefits. This is backed up by his many contradictions throughout the book. Though I agree he does contradict himself quite often, he does not cave into the idea of White superioroity as some critics on this page say. Critics of Lopez who are well versed in Race Theory and who want to deconstruct whiteness, fault him for simotaneously stating that whiteness is a "fantasy" and yet still "exists." To put it in common-man's English, this makes sense. Whiteness DOES exist, but only as a socially constructed idea. To blindly say that Race does not exist in any form is like saying that Liberalism doesn't exist. I mean, you can't touch liberalism. There is no genetic way of identifying liberals. Same with religion. Catholocism doesn't really exist, only in social construct. Critics of Lopez would have him write his entire book with out mention of racial existance because acknowledging race would go against Critical Race Theory. However, this book was not written to be read solely by the most enlightened intellectuals. It was written for any lay-person with a vocabulary large enough to understand it (which should be everyone, but sadly isn't.)
One point I would agree with critics on is that White By Law has large moments of useless contradictory ranting. This is especially obnoxious to the average American who is trying to educate themselves. If Lopez wants to gain more support for his theories, he needs to take the first step in the new intellectual revolution: the uniting between scholars and the average-joe's and the removal of the painfully obvious elitest attitude in the intellectual world. A book more to the point would be a great resource for the masses.
Overall, the book is beneficial. Lopez is not absorbed in his own personal conflict. He admits the painful truth, that race does exist in America. A critical race thesis should read as this "Race exists right now, but it didn't used to and it doesn't have to anymore."
Rating: 2
Summary: an intellectual surprise the size of a pin
Comment: Here's his argument: White dominated courts ruled against nonwhite immigrants from seeking political inclusion. If you're interested in spending a couple of hundred pages watching a guy try to prove this, enjoy.
Mischievious surprises and intellectual deft? Afraid not.
Rating: 1
Summary: White By Law: A self-Portrait Part 2
Comment: One hundred pages into his work, Lopez begins a barrage of questions raised in response, it seems, to the answers that have been given in the preceding chapters. It is here that Lopez restates his thesis that "law constructs race" and then questions how the law accomplishes this, although his chapters on the "prerequisite cases" seem to have clearly answered the question of method. The law, as aforementioned, was depicted as having the official word on the race of an individual and assigns particular meaning to that determination based on whatever views are convenient for the upholding of false hierarchy: popular opinion, science or a combination of the two. Lopez himself states, "law influences...the meanings ascribed to our looks, and material reality that confirms the meanings of our appearance". And although he writes that law is squarely to blame for the enforcement of inequality based on race, he also claims "there are no 'laws'" only "ill-coordinated social practices" and that these practices are "incoherent". It is this rehashing of already addressed questions that give rise to some of the most blatant contradictions in Lopez's arguments and makes way for Whiteness to prevail yet again, in a critical analysis. It is here that he makes plain his reversals of opinion and contradictory statements that reveal the inconclusive and useless arguments being articulated. (Re)opening his question as to the relationship of the law to whiteness, Lopez says that the prerequisite cases showed the "multiple levels on which legal rules and actors construct the social systems of meaning we commonly refer to as race". However, further down the page he poses the questions, "What role do legal actors play?" and asks if these actors are merely consuming social concepts or if they are defining them. It is apparent that the opening line of the paragraph has already addressed the answers to these questions. This inability to recognize answers to the "more difficult question[s]" that he has already generated is characteristic of ranting; his refusal to recognize legitimate notions of whiteness he argued leads one to question the real commitment to unmasking the law. Lopez seems willing enough to expose the law, but unwilling to believe the reality of what is revealed, willing to see the equation of whiteness and the legal system, but unwilling to dismantle the law the way he suggests whiteness should be. He is unwilling to give up his role in whiteness and therefore seeks to defend it against his own harsh criticisms. Even though he is a professor of law at a reputable university and authors a book asserting his understanding the processes of whiteness in law, he calls whiteness the "pillar of racial inequality in America", but shies away from making an attack on the law by perverting it's image as "incoherent." Lopez's position as a "minority", as a non-white, and in that sense from outside the legal system, leads him to damn the law, but his position inside the system as a professor requires him to maintain a fundamental faith that keeps him aligned with law and thus, with whiteness. The contradictions in Lopez's writings arise from the contradictions in his personal identity and politics.
In the latter half of the book, Lopez reverts back to his original contradictions. His assertion that whiteness can exist in another form suggests the birth of a positive white identity, but one that will never happen. Initially, Lopez rejects the creation of a race consciousness centered on the elaboration of a positive white racial identity. It is when Lopez refutes Barbara Flagg's argument for "a conscious attempt to develop a positive (laudatory) White racial identity" (172) that his non-white perspective prevails. Lopez asserts that this conscious attempt will be "redundant and dangerous" in that the creation of a positive white identity will only elevate whiteness and the practice of a white superiority. Says Lopez, "an uncritical celebration of positive (laudatory) White attributes might well reinforce these established stereotypes" (Lopez, 172). He insists that this new White identity will only recreate the Whiteness that is constituted through the denigration of Blackness. Thus, "celebrating Whiteness seems likely only to entrench the status quo of racial beliefs" (Lopez, 172) implying that no White racial positive identity can exist. Although Lopez and his non-white criticism prevail in this instance, his whiteness comes shining through when (on the next page) he implies that a positive white identity can exist without the denigration of minorities. He utterly destroys his non-white approach by stating that a white racial identity can be problematic, but "Perhaps with great care a self -conscious White identity could be elaborated in a manner that did no unduly laud Whites or denigrate minorities" (Lopez, 173). Here, his limitations in the analysis of whiteness are exceedingly apparent. This contradiction suggests Lopez cannot lose his own whiteness because he falls back, like most whites, onto an argument of a white positive identity, thus freeing himself from the guilt of his own whiteness. In doing so, Lopez buys into the hierarchical structure of Whiteness, that he deems a fantasy, when he suggests "a positive White identity that, while race-based... might not be harmful to minorities, and might even lead to a 'happily cacophonous universe' (Lopez, 173). Thus, in suggesting that a White race consciousness can exist "while race-based" represents Lopez's inability to step outside of his whiteness. The illusion that whiteness can be deconstructed through a White race consciousness maintains the idea of a racial hierarchy instead of recognizing that it is a lie. A White race consciousness cannot be race based because race is fantasy, a social construction.
Lopez not only offers a solution to Whiteness that includes the possibility of a White positive identity and White race consciousness that will dismantle Whiteness, but he later goes so far as to say that the implementation of a White race consciousness is the only way in which whiteness can be eliminated. However, Lopez nullifies his idea of a solution by concluding that an elimination of whiteness will never occur because "for whites even to mention their racial identity puts notions of racial supremacy into play" (Lopez, 175). Therefore, he suggests that it is possible, but not realistic for Whites to adopt a White positive identity and White race consciousness that is not based on their White privilege and White superiority. This is a horrifically contradictory suggestion that enraptures his white identity. He states that it may not be possible for Whiteness to be dismantled, but he fails to mention to what extent it can be dismantled-in its entirety or partly. In the next sentence, he reveals, "efforts to challenge whiteness are already underway". This infers that Whiteness is already being dismantled. This statement contradicts his former suggestion that the deconstruction of Whiteness may fail stating, "Whiteness is so deeply a part of our society it is impossible to know even whether Whiteness can be dismantled" (Lopez, 188). Once again, Lopez is lost in his White pessimism.
It is clear that Haney Lopez fails to make any argument in his entire work that he does not himself contradict or repudiate later. Lopez's arguments are self-defeating and useless to the non-white community that seeks to critique whiteness with the goal of change. Without such a goal, a critique is meaningless and perpetuates the mental slavery prevalent in oppressive relationships like that of White to non-white. By eliminating the real possibility of deconstructing whiteness, Lopez again buys into the fantasy of the hierarchy and white privilege and also, undermines the power of revolution. Lopez fails to recognize the repercussions of his own greatest argument: if whiteness is indeed a fantasy, then white privilege is merely perceived. If this privilege is merely perceived, then it is possible to enlighten whites to the costs of this "privilege" and hence deconstruct the lie of anyone benefiting from whiteness. It is in this task that Lopez undermines the power of non-whites in enlightening white to their own delusions, to rouse them from their slumber, to rest power by exposing the emptiness of whiteness. It is Lopez's own attachment to whiteness that is responsible for his confused analysis and keeps him from making crucial connections and thinking critically about his own arguments. Due to his position as a professor of law, his underlying faith in the system leads him to defend it at the cost of implicating the very victims of its racism. His role as an enforcer of the status quo, of the law and therefore whiteness leaves Lopez straddling the fence, critiquing whiteness on one hand and upholding it on the other. His pessimism about ever deconstructing whiteness is evidence as to how whiteness coerces people into believing their "inferior" status, believing in their own perceived powerlessness. Through all his fiery insight and intense opinions, Lopez has yet to truly r
 |
Title: The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics by George Lipsitz, George Lipstiz ISBN: 1566396352 Publisher: Temple Univ Press Pub. Date: June, 1998 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
 |
Title: The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class by David R. Roediger ISBN: 1859842402 Publisher: Verso Books Pub. Date: January, 1999 List Price(USD): $19.00 |
 |
Title: How the Irish Became White by Noel Ignatiev ISBN: 0415918251 Publisher: Routledge Pub. Date: September, 1996 List Price(USD): $19.99 |
 |
Title: The Rites of Men: Manhood, Politics, and the Culture of Sport by Varda Burstyn ISBN: 0802077250 Publisher: University of Toronto Press (secondary address) Pub. Date: June, 1999 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
 |
Title: Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race by Matthew Frye Jacobson ISBN: 0674951913 Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: September, 1999 List Price(USD): $17.50 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
