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Is Racial Equality Unconstitutional?

Online ISBN:
9780190683634
Print ISBN:
9780190683603
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Book

Is Racial Equality Unconstitutional?

Mark Golub
Mark Golub

Associate Professor of Politics

Associate Professor of Politics, Scripps College
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Published online:
15 February 2018
Published in print:
26 April 2018
Online ISBN:
9780190683634
Print ISBN:
9780190683603
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract

Discussions of race in American law and politics have been captured by the figure of the color-blind Constitution. Whether embraced as an ideal of constitutional equality or rejected for perpetuating historical injustice, advocates and critics alike view color-blindness as a refusal of racial consciousness rather than its mobilization. And yet, enacting a color-blind rule may be understood in itself to affect a heightened awareness of race. Accordingly, color-blind constitutionalism represents a particular form of racial consciousness rather than an alternative to it. Challenging familiar understandings of race, rights, and the US Constitution, this book explores how current equal protection law renders the pursuit of racial equality constitutionally suspect. Identifying hierarchy rather than equality as an enduring constitutional norm, Is Racial Equality Unconstitutional? reveals the historical reception of racial equality as a violation of white rights. Arguing against both conservative and liberal redemption narratives, within which racial equality is imagined as the perfection of American democracy, the book calls instead for a break from the constitutional order and refounding upon principles of racial democracy.

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