Racial Culture

What is black culture? Does it have an essence? What do we lose and gain by assuming that it does, and by building our laws accordingly? This bold and provocative book questions the common presumption of political multiculturalism that social categories such as race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality are defined by distinctive cultural practices.





Richard Ford argues against law reform proposals that would attempt to apply civil rights protections to "cultural difference." Unlike many criticisms of multiculturalism, which worry about "reverse discrimination" or the erosion of core Western cultural values, the book's argument is primarily focused on the adverse effects of multicultural rhetoric and multicultural rights on their supposed beneficiaries.





In clear and compelling prose, Ford argues that multicultural accounts of cultural difference do not accurately describe the practices of social groups. Instead these accounts are prescriptive: they attempt to canonize a narrow, parochial, and contestable set of ideas about appropriate group culture and to discredit more cosmopolitan lifestyles, commitments, and values.





The book argues that far from remedying discrimination and status hierarchy, "cultural rights" share the ideological presuppositions, and participate in the discursive and institutional practices, of racism, sexism, and homophobia. Ford offers specific examples in support of this thesis, in diverse contexts such as employment discrimination, affirmative action, and transracial adoption.





This is a major contribution to our understanding of today's politics of race, by one of the most distinctive and important young voices in America's legal academy.

Preface vii PREAMBLE 1 Difference Discourse 4 Political Philosophy 5 Legal Scholarship 11 Legalism 13 Ideology 14 Lexicon 17 Overview of the Book 20 CHAPTER 1. DIFFERENCE DISCOURSE 23 A (Abridged) History of Difference 29 The Production of Group Difference as Common Knowledge 36 The "Repressive Hypothesis" 36 "Diversity": Difference Discourse as Corrupt Detente 42 Alan Bakke: Multiculturalist? 44 CHAPTER 2. IDENTITIES AS COLLECTIVE ACTION 59 Identity as Social Performance 61 Free Time 64 Recognition of Difference as Protective Custody 67 Rights as Public Policy 68 Rights-to-Difference Require an Official Account of Group Difference 70 Difference Discourse as Social Discipline: Delegitimation and Stereotyping 74 Cultural Reservations 78 Copyrights-to-Difference: Culture as Property 88 Identity Consciousness: Less Is More 90 Group Consciousness without Cultural Romanticism 91 Culture Distinguished from Status 93 Against "Racial Characteristics" 97 Status and Immutability 100 Intimacy and Identity 116 CHAPTER 3. "CULTURAL DISCRIMINATION" 125 Why "Cultural Bias" Is Like Death and Taxes 127 Background Rules as Cultural Discrimination 127 The Inevitability of Discriminatory Laws 130 Everyone Can Make a Difference: Difference Discourse as Cultural Zeitgeist 132 Difference as an Expensive Taste 139 Institutional Cultures 142 Institutions, Culture and Intergroup Conflict 148 Cosmopolitan Difference 156 The Cosmopolitan and the Province: An Ideological Reorientation 162 CHAPTER 4. THE ENDS OF ANTI-DISCRIMINATION LAW 169 Civil Rights as a Limited Mechanism of Social Justice 170 Anti-discrimination Law and Joint Costs 172 Doctrinal Reform 179 Disparate Treatment 181 Disparate Impact 183 Rogers Redux: Toward a Pragmatic Approach to Difference 195 Alternative Approaches to Group Conflict and Social Injustice 203 POSTSCRIPT: BEYOND DIFFERENCE 211 Notes 215 Index 227