The imposition of transparently white norms is a unique form of unconscious discrimination and exemplifies the structural aspect of white supremacy. Beyond the individual forms of racism that stereotyping, bias, and hostility represent lie the vast terrains of institutional racism, the maintenance of institutions that systematically advantage whites, and cultural racism the usually unstated assumption that white culture is superior to all others. A raised white consciousness of race would produce a very different rule in disparate impact cases. The process of reconstructing a disparate impact rule must begin, however, with a careful examination of the transparency phenomenon. Whiteness is always a salient personal characteristic, but once identified,
…show more content…
Critical race theorists in particular have focused on the salience of race to legal analysis, arguing compellingly that race does and should matter in all aspects of the law, from legal doctrine and theory to the conduct of legal education and the composition of the legal academy. Alexander Aleinikoff has argued that racial justice cannot be attained absent recognition of the social significance of race; whites ' increased, color-conscious attention to black perspectives and experience is a crucial ingredient in the effort to eradicate the difference race has made in this society. Gary Peller has described the historical development of contemporary antidiscrimination norms. He argues that integrationism, colorblindness expressed as social policy, holds the dominant position it does in white ideology at least in part in response to the "threat" that the black nationalism of the 1960s and 1970s posed to whites. Whites ' endeavors to understand our own and blacks ' ways of thinking about blackness are never unimportant, but a thorough reexamination of race consciousness ought to feature a careful consideration of whites ' racial …show more content…
One step in that process is the deconstruction of transparency in the context of white decision making. We can work to make explicit the unacknowledged whiteness of facially neutral criteria of decision, and we can adopt strategies that counteract the influence of unrecognized white norms. These approaches permit white decision makers to incorporate pluralist means of achieving our aims, and thus to contribute to the dismantling of white
Critical race theorists in particular have focused on the salience of race to legal analysis, arguing compellingly that race does and should matter in all aspects of the law, from legal doctrine and theory to the conduct of legal education and the composition of the legal academy. Alexander Aleinikoff has argued that racial justice cannot be attained absent recognition of the social significance of race; whites ' increased, color-conscious attention to black perspectives and experience is a crucial ingredient in the effort to eradicate the difference race has made in this society. Gary Peller has described the historical development of contemporary antidiscrimination norms. He argues that integrationism, colorblindness expressed as social policy, holds the dominant position it does in white ideology at least in part in response to the "threat" that the black nationalism of the 1960s and 1970s posed to whites. Whites ' endeavors to understand our own and blacks ' ways of thinking about blackness are never unimportant, but a thorough reexamination of race consciousness ought to feature a careful consideration of whites ' racial …show more content…
One step in that process is the deconstruction of transparency in the context of white decision making. We can work to make explicit the unacknowledged whiteness of facially neutral criteria of decision, and we can adopt strategies that counteract the influence of unrecognized white norms. These approaches permit white decision makers to incorporate pluralist means of achieving our aims, and thus to contribute to the dismantling of white