Qualified Immunity and the Colorblindness Fallacy: Why “Black Lives [Don’t] Matter” to the Country’s High Court
On a November day in Charlotte, North Carolina, Dethorne Graham felt the onset of an insulin reaction. Mr. Graham, an individual with diabetes, asked his friend, William Berry, to drive him to a convenience store to “purchase some orange juice to counteract the reaction.” When he arrived at the store, Mr. Graham “saw a number […]
The Legal Weaponization of Racialized DNA: A New Genetic Politics of Affirmative Action
A white man in Washington State tries to use the results of his DNA ancestry test to claim access to minority set-aside contracts. A conservative federal circuit court judge in Texas invokes the work of an anti-racist evolutionary biologist to argue that since race is not genetic then racial categories are arbitrary and cannot be […]
Armed with Privilege: The “Right to Keep and Bear Arms” as a Tool for Reinforcing Exclusionary Conceptions of Citizenship
The “right to keep and bear arms” is often touted as a fundamental right that affords protections to all Americans. However, as this note argues, the “right to keep and bear arms” does not now provide—nor has it ever provided—the same presumptions of lawfulness to Black Americans as it does to White Americans. Part I […]
Coverage From the Storm: A.R.T. Insurance as Reparations for Biological Weathering
Though the violence of racism in the United States has never been unknown to Black Americans, the recent cases of police brutality and the resulting uprising have made it abundantly clear that racial subordination is the thread of most—if not all—American institutions. The racism perpetuated by these institutions has caused stress-induced wear that is most […]
Do You Know Why You Stopped Me?: Information and Injury in the Fight Against Racialized Policing
In many ways, the fight against racialized policing is a fight over information— and so far, for those interested in reform, it has been David against Goliath.Take, for instance, the complicated and still-nascent story of body-worn cameras. It goes something like this: In 2014, owing largely to a statement made by the family of Michael […]