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Archive for July, 2005

July 25, 2005

Pérez Sonia and Denise De La Rosa Salazar. “Economic, Labor Force and Social Implications of Latino Educational and Population Trends,” Latinos and Education: A Critical Reader, Eds. Antonia Darder, Rodolfo D. Torres and Henry Gutíerrez. New York: Routledge, 1997, 47-79.

July 25th 2005 Posted to Uncategorized

Pérez and Salazar’s analysis of socio-economic and educational trends in Latino populations uses a variety of data from studies conducted throughout the 1980s and 1990s to understand why the rapid increase in the Latino population has not been accompanied by a proportionate increase in educational attainment. Their analysis not only highlights the historic and self-perpetuating connection between the low socioeconomic status of Latino populations and low levels of educational attainment; it also points to specific problems contributing to these problems and suggests possible changes in educational policy. (Read the article)

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Isaksen, Judy. “From Critical Race Theory to Composition Studies: Pedagogy and Theory Building.” Legal Studies Forum v.24 n.3-4: 695-711.

July 25th 2005 Posted to Uncategorized

This essay argues for a greater degree of collaboration between Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Composition Studies. The essay emphasizes in particular the shared concern in these fields with promoting agency through the development of discursive expression. The essay begins with a review of CRT, tracing its origins from a critique of Critical Legal Studies, and from student activism at Harvard (both taking place in the 1980s). (Read the article)

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Lynn, Marvin. “Toward a Critical Race Pedagogy.” Urban Education v.33 n.5 (January 1999): 606-626.

July 25th 2005 Posted to Uncategorized

This article explores links between African American emancipatory pedagogy and Critical Race Theory (CRT) in order to outline a critical race pedagogy. Lynn begins by summarizing scholarship that focuses on educational institutions that have systematically failed to address the needs of African American students. Lynn then offers a summary of CRT, describing it as “an emergent ethical and moralistic discourse on race and racism in the law.” CRT is subsequently used as a framework for interpreting ethnographic interviews conducted by the author with a select group of (K through 12) African American teachers. Based on the data gained through the interviews (data read in light of CRT), Lynn outlines the tenets of a critical race pedagogy. (Read the article)

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July 24, 2005

Crenshaw, Kimberlé Williams. “Foreward: Toward A Race-Conscious Pedagogy in Legal Education.” National Black Law Journal v11 (1): 1-14.

July 24th 2005 Posted to Uncategorized

Focusing on “the substantive dynamics of the law school classroom and their particular impact on minority students,” Crenshaw argues that “dominant beliefs in the objectivity of legal discourse serve to suppress conflict by discounting the relevance of any particular perspective in legal analysis and by positing an analytical stance that has no specific cultural, political, or class characteristics.” Crenshaw calls this primary mode “perspectivelessness.” Noting that this mode is problematic for many reasons, Crenshaw focuses on the particular burden it places on minority students as they are expected to adopt a worldview that in fact fosters white middle-class values while claiming to carry no perspective. (Read the article)

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July 23, 2005

Poster, Mark. “Virtual Ethnicity.” What’s the Matter with the Internet? Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001. 148-170.

July 23rd 2005 Posted to Uncategorized

In chapter eight of What’s the Matter with the Internet?, Mark Poster (UC Irvine) applies his broader thesis analyzing the material matter of the Internet on the subject of race and ethnicity. Drawing upon heavy theory, Poster questions how the Internet affects race. He speculates that race and ethnicity as portrayed on the Internet is somehow transformed; that in becoming virtual and disembodied, race and ethnicity (and on a larger scale, communities in general) must define itself against a global context, causing a technology-induced anxiety for some, elation for others. In his attempt to systematically parse and organize virtual ethnicity, Poster touches on the Maori, Asian American and Jewish cybercommunities, which, he contends, use the Internet as a means for enhancing and strengthening their communities, rather than any kind of transcendence of ethnicity.

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July 20, 2005

Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction. Trans. Robert Hurley. New York: Random House, 1978.

July 20th 2005 Posted to Uncategorized

In this work Michel Foucault describes the deployment of sexuality as one of the most important technologies of power designed to control and discipline human life in post-Enlightenment Western society. For Foucault power, broadly defined, is the multiplicity of immanent forces which are both constitutive of and constituted by each other through a variety of conjunctions and contradictions and which sustain and are sustained by the structures of the state, the law, and various hegemonic social groups. It is in the final section of the book (Part Five: Right of Death and Power over Life) that Foucault addresses how race and racism are tied up with the deployment of sexuality as a technique of power. (Read the article)

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July 19, 2005

Nakamura, Lisa. “Race In/For Cyberspace: Identity Tourism and Racial Passing on the Internet.” Reading Digital Cultures. Ed. David Trend. Malden: Blackwell Publishers, 2001. 226-235

July 19th 2005 Posted to Uncategorized

“Despite claims by digital uptopians,” contends Nakamura, “identity positions are still very much in evidence” (226). The Internet, she claims, does not realize any racial democracies nor does it create an egalitarian space for its users. Drawing upon her own forays into MUDs (Multi-user Dungeons) or MOOs (MUD, Object-Oriented), which are online, text-driven environments, Nakamura critically reads how users address or attempt to ignore issues of race. Her central thesis argues that the Internet allows for a new kind of racial “passing,” in which members of a minority can assume a “default white” status by simply keeping quiet, and whites can reinforce stereotypes by engaging in “identity tourism.” She calls for the Internet to be a place for thoughtful discourse instead of perpetuating old hierarchies.

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July 6, 2005

Hua, Anh. “Critical Race Feminism.” Canadian Critical Race Conference 2003: Pedagogy and Practice. University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC Canada. May 2 - 4, 2003.

July 06th 2005 Posted to Uncategorized

Critiquing the limits of a binary, black/white racial dialogue, Hua turns to Critical Race Feminism as a useful method of expanding the conversation along more multiple and complex gender and racial lines. Distinct from standard North American feminisms, Critical Race Feminism theorizes the relationship between race, gender, and other oppressions; it insists on greater multiplicity within feminism; and it suggests an alternative feminist epistemology. Hua analyzes bell hooks’ and Audre Lorde’s valuable contributions to the intersection of feminism and race, but notes their limitations within the black/white binary. Ella Sohat’s multicultural feminism is useful, Hua believes, for it bases its political project in a process of identification and affiliation, rather than any single and essential identity. “Critical Race Feminism” Article Online

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Hall, Kim. “White Feminists Doing Critical Race Theory: Some Ethical and Political Considerations.” APA Newsletters: Newsletter on Philosophy, Law, and the Black Experience 98.2 (Spring 1999).

July 06th 2005 Posted to Uncategorized

Writing from the perspective of a white feminist who considers herself a Critical Race Theorist, Hall notes the danger of separating gender, class, and sexuality from discussions of race. Hall acknowledges that white philosophers approaching questions of race must negotiate their own positions of white privilege, but she writes that such perspectives on race—as well as such negotiations of white privilege—are necessary to the eventual elimination of racial marginalization. Rather than simply adding another element to an already-complete discussion, gender is in fact integral to any adequate treatment of race. Similarly, any treatment of gender must acknowledge race as a constitutive component of the conversation. “White Feminists Doing Critical Race Theory” Article Online

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