Crossroads, Directions, and a New Critical Race Theory / Ethical Ambition: Living a Life of Meaning and Worth

Crossroads and Blind Alleys: A Critical Examination of Recent Writing About Race CROSSROADS, DIRECTIONS, AND A NEW CRITICAL RACE THEORY. Francisco Valdes,[dagger] Jerome McCristal Culp,[dagger][dagger] and Angela P. Harris,[dagger][dagger][dagger] eds. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002. Pp. xxi, 412. $29.95. ETHICAL AMBITION: LIVING A LIFE OF MEANING AND WORTH. By Derrick Bell. [dagger][dagger][dagger][dagger] New York: Bloomsbury, 2002. Pp. 183. $13.95. I. Introduction The nation stands today at the beginning of what many believe will be a protracted struggle against international terrorism,1 and a similar one to strengthen the hand of the moderate, democratic wing of Islam vis-a-vis its more fundamentalist counterparts.2 What does this situation portend for the fortunes of domestic minorities? History shows that intergroup competition increases prejudice and distrust,3 while international conflict and wars have seen blacks and other minorities register great gains.4 Will the current situation offer the type of alignment of interests that prevailed during the Cold War years and that may have contributed to Brown v. Board of Education5 and the 1964 Civil Rights Act? 6 Or will today's heightened patriotism, fear of outsiders, concerns over immigration, and retreat on civil liberties produce setbacks for blacks, Latinos, and other groups of color? 7 In fact, questions of this type, which examine the material determinants of civil rights progress, are not even on the radar screen of the leftist movement-Critical Race Theory-that one would think would be most vitally interested in them.8 Why should this be so? My answer, developed in the course of this Essay, is that Critical Race Theory, after a promising beginning, began to focus almost exclusively on discourse at the expense of power, history, and similar material determinants of minority-group fortunes. Are race and racism, at bottom, real, or are they social constructions? This seemingly simple question marks a deep, but largely unrecognized, divide within Critical Race Theory and modern progressive thought in general.9 That divide, in turn, explains the striking inattention to questions like the one posed above. An "idealist" school holds that race and discrimination are largely functions of attitude and social formation.10 For these thinkers, race is a social construction created out of words, symbols, stereotypes, and categories.11 As such, we may purge discrimination by ridding ourselves of the texts, narratives, ideas, and meanings that give rise to it and that convey the message that people of other racial groups are unworthy, lazy, and dangerous.12 These writers analyze hate speech, media images, census categories, and such issues as intersectionality and essentialism.13 They analyze unconscious or institutional racism and show how cognitive theory exposes a host of preconceptions, baselines, and mindsets that operate below the level of consciousness to render certain people consistently one-down.14 A second school holds that while text, attitude, and intention may play important roles in our system of racial hierarchy, material factors such as profits and the labor market are even more decisive in determining who falls where in that system.15 For these "realists," racism is a means by which our system allocates privilege, status, and wealth.16 They point out that the West did not demonize black or native populations until it determined to conquer and exploit them,17 and that media images in every period shift to accommodate the interests of the majority group, now for reassurance, now for vindication.18 Racial realists examine the role of international relations and competition, the interests of elite groups, and the changing demands of the labor market in hopes of understanding the twists and turns of racial fortunes, including the part the legal system plays in that history.19 In its early years, Critical Race Theory was dominated by the powerful writing of the racial realists. …