Book Description
”Henry Lopez has provided a piece of scholarship worthy of brining out for a curtain call on its 10th anniversary.”
—
"Whiteness pays. As
White by Law shows, immigrants recognized the value of whiteness and sometimes petitioned the courts to be recognized as white. Haney Lopez argues for the centrality of law in constructing race."--Voice Literary Supplement
"
White by Law's thoughtful analysis of the prerequisite cases offers support for the fundamental critical race theory tenet that race is a social construct reinforced by law. Haney Lopez has blazed a trail for those exploring the legal and social constructions of race in the United States."
--Berkeley Women's Law Journal
Lily white. White knights. The white dove of peace. White lie, white list, white magic. Our language and our culture are suffused, often subconsciously, with positive images of whiteness. Whiteness is so inextricably linked with the status quo that few whites, when asked, even identify themselves as such. And yet when asked what they would have to be paid to live as a black person, whites give figures running into the millions of dollars per year, suggesting just how valuable whiteness is in American society.
Exploring the social, and specifically legal origins, of white racial identity, Ian F. Haney Lopez here examines cases in America's past that have been instrumental in forming contemporary conceptions of race, law, and whiteness. In 1790, Congress limited naturalization to white persons. This racial prerequisite for citizenship remained in force for over a century and a half, enduring until 1952. In a series of important cases, including two heard by the United States Supreme Court, judges around the country decided and defined who was white enough to become American.
White by Law traces the reasoning employed by the courts in their efforts to justify the whiteness of some and the non- whiteness of others. Did light skin make a Japanese person white? Were Syrians white because they hailed geographically from the birthplace of Christ? Haney Lopez reveals the criteria that were used, often arbitrarily, to determine whiteness, and thus citizenship: skin color, facial features, national origin, language, culture, ancestry, scientific opinion, and, most importantly, popular opinion.
Having defined the social and legal origins of whiteness,
White by Law turns its attention to white identity today and concludes by calling upon whites to acknowledge and renounce their privileged racial identity.
Customer Reviews:
Yet another "Blame The Whites For All Our Problems" book.......2007-06-23
This book may have been relevant 60 years ago, but in a post civil rights era, this book has no merit. It's the same old and tired diatribe "blame the white man for all hispanic's shortcomings". That is nonsense. Hispanics are to blame for themselves. If White America is so racist, why is it that Asians excel in this country... usually far beyond whites??? Why do Jews (who are White but ethnically different than WASP's) consistently reach the highest levels of leadership, academics, and business? Asians don't need affirmative action or racial quotas, in fact they view such programs as insulting. The simple reason Asians & Jews excel in the USA and hispanics don't is rooted in a fundamental cultural difference - Asians & Jews value education greatly and hispanics don't (refer to Herman Badillo's book on this topic concerning Hispanic's disinterest in education).
This book will go over well with hispanics who practice ethnic politics; it will feed into their self pity and victimization syndrome. Oh....... how we always love to blame someone else for our shortcomings, in this case it's the "evil white man". That song and dance is so worn out.
In light of the raging debate over illegal immigration (mostly from Mexico), here is something to ponder... the two ethnic groups who are most hurt by illegal immigration are blacks and Hispanic Americans (ie. LEGAL citizen Hispanics). Illegal aliens take jobs primarily from these two ethnic groups. Further, it's the U.S. middle class that pays for most of the social services which illegal aliens take full advantage of and don't pay for. Most illegal aliens are paid in cash thus they pay no income tax and those who work "on the books" generally earn too little to pay any income tax as they are in the lowest tax bracket (further they engage in identity theft in stealing an American's social security number to satisfy their criminal employer who has hired them). Illegal alien activists commonly like to talk about the "huge" sums of money illegal workers pay into social security which, "they will never get back". The truth is that, 1) About 1/2 of all illegal workers are paid in cash, thus they pay no income tax including no SS tax, 2) Those illegal workers who are "on the books" generally earn very little, maybe at most $26,000/year, meaning they pay at most $1500/year in SS tax. In this case, it is true that they ARE contibuting to Social Security and if they are never legalized, they won't see that money. But there is another angle to the equation - it's called EIC, Earned Income Credit, which many illegal workers apply for by using a TIN (Taxpayer Identification Number) or the SS# they are fraudulantly using. EIC is basically free money from the federal gov't (an illegal alien can get up to $4,000 if he/she has at least 3 kids). EIC in theory is supposed to bring poor people above the poverty level. Trouble is, we all pay for it, even for illegal aliens who apply. Go to any Mexican neighborhood in the USA during tax season and you'll see signs in Spanish (usually in strip malls) that basically say, "Rebate... Free money", they are referring to EIC. Spanish speaking tax preparers are more than happy to give away American taxpayer's money to their illegal alien bretheren. Even if an illegal Mexican worker doesn't apply for EIC, they often have lots of babies here and each baby costs on average $10,000 in hospital bills, not a dime of which the illegal alien woman pays... you and I pay for it. Don't forget about the free K - 12 public education that child will get, courtesy of the American tax payer, usually about $9,000/year for each child. Don't forget about WIC, food stamps, federal welfare, housing subsidies, etc. - all free for the taking by illegal aliens with the bill passed onto the American taxpayer.
Regarding property tax?? Of course illegals pay no property tax as the vast majority of them rent.
Debunking Attacks.......2003-12-26
One of the many attacks Lopez receives regarding White By Law is his alleged "white pessimism" that keeps him from genuinly wanting to deconstruct whiteness, because he would lose his White benefits. This is backed up by his many contradictions throughout the book. Though I agree he does contradict himself quite often, he does not cave into the idea of White superioroity as some critics on this page say. Critics of Lopez who are well versed in Race Theory and who want to deconstruct whiteness, fault him for simotaneously stating that whiteness is a "fantasy" and yet still "exists." To put it in common-man's English, this makes sense. Whiteness DOES exist, but only as a socially constructed idea. To blindly say that Race does not exist in any form is like saying that Liberalism doesn't exist. I mean, you can't touch liberalism. There is no genetic way of identifying liberals. Same with religion. Catholocism doesn't really exist, only in social construct. Critics of Lopez would have him write his entire book with out mention of racial existance because acknowledging race would go against Critical Race Theory. However, this book was not written to be read solely by the most enlightened intellectuals. It was written for any lay-person with a vocabulary large enough to understand it (which should be everyone, but sadly isn't.)
One point I would agree with critics on is that White By Law has large moments of useless contradictory ranting. This is especially obnoxious to the average American who is trying to educate themselves. If Lopez wants to gain more support for his theories, he needs to take the first step in the new intellectual revolution: the uniting between scholars and the average-joe's and the removal of the painfully obvious elitest attitude in the intellectual world. A book more to the point would be a great resource for the masses.
Overall, the book is beneficial. Lopez is not absorbed in his own personal conflict. He admits the painful truth, that race does exist in America. A critical race thesis should read as this "Race exists right now, but it didn't used to and it doesn't have to anymore."
an intellectual surprise the size of a pin.......2002-04-11
Here's his argument: White dominated courts ruled against nonwhite immigrants from seeking political inclusion. If you're interested in spending a couple of hundred pages watching a guy try to prove this, enjoy.
Mischievious surprises and intellectual deft? Afraid not.
White By Law: A self-Portrait Part 2.......2001-11-08
One hundred pages into his work, Lopez begins a barrage of questions raised in response, it seems, to the answers that have been given in the preceding chapters. It is here that Lopez restates his thesis that "law constructs race" and then questions how the law accomplishes this, although his chapters on the "prerequisite cases" seem to have clearly answered the question of method. The law, as aforementioned, was depicted as having the official word on the race of an individual and assigns particular meaning to that determination based on whatever views are convenient for the upholding of false hierarchy: popular opinion, science or a combination of the two. Lopez himself states, "law influences...the meanings ascribed to our looks, and material reality that confirms the meanings of our appearance". And although he writes that law is squarely to blame for the enforcement of inequality based on race, he also claims "there are no `laws'" only "ill-coordinated social practices" and that these practices are "incoherent". It is this rehashing of already addressed questions that give rise to some of the most blatant contradictions in Lopez's arguments and makes way for Whiteness to prevail yet again, in a critical analysis. It is here that he makes plain his reversals of opinion and contradictory statements that reveal the inconclusive and useless arguments being articulated. (Re)opening his question as to the relationship of the law to whiteness, Lopez says that the prerequisite cases showed the "multiple levels on which legal rules and actors construct the social systems of meaning we commonly refer to as race". However, further down the page he poses the questions, "What role do legal actors play?" and asks if these actors are merely consuming social concepts or if they are defining them. It is apparent that the opening line of the paragraph has already addressed the answers to these questions. This inability to recognize answers to the "more difficult question[s]" that he has already generated is characteristic of ranting; his refusal to recognize legitimate notions of whiteness he argued leads one to question the real commitment to unmasking the law. Lopez seems willing enough to expose the law, but unwilling to believe the reality of what is revealed, willing to see the equation of whiteness and the legal system, but unwilling to dismantle the law the way he suggests whiteness should be. He is unwilling to give up his role in whiteness and therefore seeks to defend it against his own harsh criticisms. Even though he is a professor of law at a reputable university and authors a book asserting his understanding the processes of whiteness in law, he calls whiteness the "pillar of racial inequality in America", but shies away from making an attack on the law by perverting it's image as "incoherent." Lopez's position as a "minority", as a non-white, and in that sense from outside the legal system, leads him to damn the law, but his position inside the system as a professor requires him to maintain a fundamental faith that keeps him aligned with law and thus, with whiteness. The contradictions in Lopez's writings arise from the contradictions in his personal identity and politics.
In the latter half of the book, Lopez reverts back to his original contradictions. His assertion that whiteness can exist in another form suggests the birth of a positive white identity, but one that will never happen. Initially, Lopez rejects the creation of a race consciousness centered on the elaboration of a positive white racial identity. It is when Lopez refutes Barbara Flagg's argument for "a conscious attempt to develop a positive (laudatory) White racial identity" (172) that his non-white perspective prevails. Lopez asserts that this conscious attempt will be "redundant and dangerous" in that the creation of a positive white identity will only elevate whiteness and the practice of a white superiority. Says Lopez, "an uncritical celebration of positive (laudatory) White attributes might well reinforce these established stereotypes" (Lopez, 172). He insists that this new White identity will only recreate the Whiteness that is constituted through the denigration of Blackness. Thus, "celebrating Whiteness seems likely only to entrench the status quo of racial beliefs" (Lopez, 172) implying that no White racial positive identity can exist. Although Lopez and his non-white criticism prevail in this instance, his whiteness comes shining through when (on the next page) he implies that a positive white identity can exist without the denigration of minorities. He utterly destroys his non-white approach by stating that a white racial identity can be problematic, but "Perhaps with great care a self -conscious White identity could be elaborated in a manner that did no unduly laud Whites or denigrate minorities" (Lopez, 173). Here, his limitations in the analysis of whiteness are exceedingly apparent. This contradiction suggests Lopez cannot lose his own whiteness because he falls back, like most whites, onto an argument of a white positive identity, thus freeing himself from the guilt of his own whiteness. In doing so, Lopez buys into the hierarchical structure of Whiteness, that he deems a fantasy, when he suggests "a positive White identity that, while race-based... might not be harmful to minorities, and might even lead to a `happily cacophonous universe' (Lopez, 173). Thus, in suggesting that a White race consciousness can exist "while race-based" represents Lopez's inability to step outside of his whiteness. The illusion that whiteness can be deconstructed through a White race consciousness maintains the idea of a racial hierarchy instead of recognizing that it is a lie. A White race consciousness cannot be race based because race is fantasy, a social construction.
Lopez not only offers a solution to Whiteness that includes the possibility of a White positive identity and White race consciousness that will dismantle Whiteness, but he later goes so far as to say that the implementation of a White race consciousness is the only way in which whiteness can be eliminated. However, Lopez nullifies his idea of a solution by concluding that an elimination of whiteness will never occur because "for whites even to mention their racial identity puts notions of racial supremacy into play" (Lopez, 175). Therefore, he suggests that it is possible, but not realistic for Whites to adopt a White positive identity and White race consciousness that is not based on their White privilege and White superiority. This is a horrifically contradictory suggestion that enraptures his white identity. He states that it may not be possible for Whiteness to be dismantled, but he fails to mention to what extent it can be dismantled-in its entirety or partly. In the next sentence, he reveals, "efforts to challenge whiteness are already underway". This infers that Whiteness is already being dismantled. This statement contradicts his former suggestion that the deconstruction of Whiteness may fail stating, "Whiteness is so deeply a part of our society it is impossible to know even whether Whiteness can be dismantled" (Lopez, 188). Once again, Lopez is lost in his White pessimism.
It is clear that Haney Lopez fails to make any argument in his entire work that he does not himself contradict or repudiate later. Lopez's arguments are self-defeating and useless to the non-white community that seeks to critique whiteness with the goal of change. Without such a goal, a critique is meaningless and perpetuates the mental slavery prevalent in oppressive relationships like that of White to non-white. By eliminating the real possibility of deconstructing whiteness, Lopez again buys into the fantasy of the hierarchy and white privilege and also, undermines the power of revolution. Lopez fails to recognize the repercussions of his own greatest argument: if whiteness is indeed a fantasy, then white privilege is merely perceived. If this privilege is merely perceived, then it is possible to enlighten whites to the costs of this "privilege" and hence deconstruct the lie of anyone benefiting from whiteness. It is in this task that Lopez undermines the power of non-whites in enlightening white to their own delusions, to rouse them from their slumber, to rest power by exposing the emptiness of whiteness. It is Lopez's own attachment to whiteness that is responsible for his confused analysis and keeps him from making crucial connections and thinking critically about his own arguments. Due to his position as a professor of law, his underlying faith in the system leads him to defend it at the cost of implicating the very victims of its racism. His role as an enforcer of the status quo, of the law and therefore whiteness leaves Lopez straddling the fence, critiquing whiteness on one hand and upholding it on the other. His pessimism about ever deconstructing whiteness is evidence as to how whiteness coerces people into believing their "inferior" status, believing in their own perceived powerlessness. Through all his fiery insight and intense opinions, Lopez has yet to truly r
White By Law: A Self Portrait--.......2001-11-08
In his book White By Law, Ian F. Haney Lopez argues that law creates race. To state that Lopez argues anything further than this basic point is moving into dangerous territory. Although Lopez asserts that Whiteness is a "hierarchical fantasy" that should be dismantled, he simultaneously "embraces and protects" Whiteness through arguments of complicitness and gross reversals of opinion, ultimately leading his writing to useless and uninspired conclusions. Through defense of the law, Lopez's personal affiliation with whiteness becomes increasingly apparent, cast in stark contradiction to his own "minority" identity. His own "unconscious whiteness" is more detrimental than David Roediger's because it leads Lopez to believe that the real possibility of deconstructing Whiteness is non-existent. Most telling is the pessimism of the conclusion itself, as only whites can afford to be so down on the possibility of greater racial equality. Lopez's indecisiveness within his own arguments create a sense of inert ranting, useless bitching about Whiteness in which prescriptions are suggested and defeated, depicting the solutions to whiteness as an infinite `catch 22'. Handing whites the sole ability to deconstruct whiteness, Lopez perpetuates the hierarchical fantasy, the non-reality of a perceived "white privilege", a perspective that backs deconstruction into a corner and usurps the power in critiquing whiteness at all.
White By Law opens with a harsh critique of whiteness calling it bluntly, "nothing good". From this beginning, Lopez advances himself as non-white asserting a critical analysis of whiteness. He states that law attaches meaning to race, that white people "cannot be measured or found in nature" and the definition of white is "socially fashioned" (p. 9) with the aid of the law's authority. He most brilliantly describes whiteness as a "hierarchical fantasy" that relies on "inferior minority identities" (p. 31). Despite this, Lopez fails to follow through with the fierce intensity of his arguments. Instead, within this seemingly brutal attack, Lopez contradicts himself incessantly within these first few chapters. The danger of these contradictions lies within their subtlety (his reversals evolutionarily become more apparent in future chapters). Only through scrutinizing examination of his word choice and phrasing does his internal struggle and "white" analysis of whiteness and its construction by law become painfully apparent. A prime example of his contradictory self-defeat lies within the same aforementioned sentence and the entire following page in which he seems to pin point the very nature of Whiteness "Because whiteness is a hierarchical fantasy that requires inferior minority identities, Whiteness as it currently exists should be dismantled" (p.31). In this sentence Lopez simultaneously damns and saves whiteness. The second part of this statement reneges his earlier assertion that Whiteness is void of all positives and his argument that Whiteness is socially fashioned, a fantasy, not real, tangible or measurable in two severely detrimental ways. First, the phrase "as it currently exists," suggests that Whiteness can exist in some other form which is not oppressive or offensive. As long as Whiteness "exists", so does the myth of a racial hierarchy and as long as that myth "exists" people are placed in imaginary boxes with various connotations attached. There is no other form in which whiteness can "exist" without it necessitating dismantling. But, this is not the most contradictory aspect of this sentence. The word "exist" itself entirely, contradicts Lopez's former assertion. For if Whiteness is a "fantasy", then it does not exist. Referring to it as existing demonstrates that Lopez has not denounced Whiteness and its mentality continues to enslave him. If this reference to whiteness as existing was simply a poor word choice, the repercussions may be different, but Lopez refers to Whiteness' "existence" two more times on page thirty-one alone. Therefore the crux of his critique of Whiteness, its instability and falsity, is reputed and the idea of real existence of a white race is, yet again, given credibility. As this page continues he does not in anyway redeem himself, instead he further digs himself into a hole of contradictory statements. He asserts that "in this violent context, Whites should renounce their privileged racial status," once again calling for the deconstruction of whiteness and following this sentence with a buffer, "They should do so, however, not simply out of guilt or any sense of self-depreciation...but because ...whiteness in its current incarnation necessitates and perpetuates patterns of superiority" (p.31). Lopez again suggests there is another incarnation for whiteness that could somehow be good, that would not necessitate superiority. But, because Whiteness originates as a fantasized lie, it is impossible for it to be reincarnated into some form of truth.
Lopez's internal battle continues to undermine his assertions in his analysis of Whiteness' construction through the prerequisite cases. With the prerequisite cases Lopez proves that the law determines race through usage of "common knowledge," "science," or both. He demonstrates the fluidity of whiteness, the absence of a definition, how it is "nothing in particular." Case after case judges indiscriminately choose whichever argument most powerfully confines their defendant to the category of non-white, adamantly protecting their personal idea, as defendants of the status quo of who and what is White. But there is a very damaging element to this approach. By utilizing the prerequisite cases as his founding argument to demonstrate the nature of Whiteness, Lopez paints a misleading portrait of non-white complicitness. While these cases did occur in such a manor, Lopez solely demonstrates non-whites surrendering to the laws' construction of race and attempting to become something else (White) to attain citizenship. The argument of complicitness fails to address the foundational decisions that created these naturalization laws and fails to acknowledge a crucial ingredient in the construction and deconstruction of Whiteness; resistance. Cases in which individuals sought to fight for equal rights and to actively deconstruct these laws (vs. play into them) would equally prove Lopez's arguments about the nature of Whiteness and it's legal construction while depicting non-whites power within the situation. By failing to use examples of non-white resistance and solely representing complicitness, Lopez ignores former non-white struggles against the law and current non-white participation in deconstructing Whiteness as represented by law. This perpetuates White mentality that non-white people want to be White while simultaneously arresting non-white power to deconstruct whiteness, thus disregarding an imperative component in the nature of Whiteness and its dismantling. Yet, this is not the height of Lopez's downfall.(...)
Book Description
Immigration and Naturalization Law of the United States serves as a one-stop source for the most important federal legislation affecting immigration and naturalization, supplementing any casebook on the subject. With its consistent timeliness and reasonable pricing, this publication is a staple in classrooms nationwide. The 2005 edition reflects important amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act, including changes in the Legal Immigration Family Equity (LIFE) Act and LIFE Act Amendments, as well as the Child Citizenship Act of 2000, the disability oath waiver legislation, and the new H-1B and V and K visa provisions. Other forms include I-551, the Alien Registration Receipt Card; I-589, the Request for Asylum in the United States; I-9, the Employee Eligibility Verification; 1-94, the Arrival-Departure Record; I-130, the Petition for Alien Relative; ETA-750, the Application for Alien Certification; I-140, the Petition for Prospective Immigration Employee; and I-485, the Application for Permanent Residence.
Book Description
The decision to become a United States citizen is one of the most important choices you can ever make. Before you can become a U.S. citizen, however, you first must be a lawful permanent resident of the U.S. For this reason, before you begin the process, you need to know what you want to achieve – legal immigration or naturalization – and if you can expect to qualify for it.
U.S. Citizenship For Dummies will help you get through this often confusing process, from determining how best to qualify to live permanently in the United States to gaining a green card and then citizenship. This reference guide is for anyone who
- Is interested in living permanently in the U.S.
- Is a friend or relative of someone who wishes to live permanently in the U.S.
- Wants to become a naturalized citizen
- Has no legal background or any familiarity with U.S. immigration
This book helps you discover the important requirements you need to meet and offers tips and insights into dealing with the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services (BCIS). You also get to know other government agencies that you’ll work with while attempting to immigrate to the U.S. or become a citizen. U.S. Citizenship For Dummies covers the following topics and more:
- Clear information on the immigration process
- Up-to-date information on various application forms
- The rights of legal aliens
- Recent changes in immigration laws
- Review of English and Civics tests
- Pointers on the interview process
- Survey of U.S. history, government, and culture
- Coverage on visas and green cards
- Troubleshooting immigration problems
Becoming a U.S. citizen carries important duties and responsibilities as well as rights, rewards, and privileges. Before you make the decision to pursue U.S. citizenship, you need to be aware of what you stand to lose and what you stand to gain; you also need to be sure you’re ready to fulfill all the obligations of a good citizen. U.S. Citizenship For Dummies will help you understand all that it means to become a citizen of the United States of America.
Customer Reviews:
Good book but not needed.......2007-05-16
I read this book for US citizenship. I found it very lucid and to the point. If you are interested in knowing US history in a concise manner this book will not dissappoint you. However if you intend to read this book just for passing US citizenship exam then the flashcards on the website of USDOJ are enough and I don't recall anybody being asked any other question apart from them. Goodluck!
US Citizenship for Dummies, by Cheri Sicard.......2007-04-10
Not as thorough as I'd hoped. I've had to seek other references as well (Bill of Rights, Constitution, Representatives, application for citizenship--N400).
Would have 5 stars if it were not outdated.......2006-07-27
This book is very good and very agreeable to read and learn the topics. Simple plain English and fun to read.
Took one star out because the edition I received is 3 years old.
Nonetheless, a very good book.
Just passed the Citizenship interview and test, and frankly I think I would have succeeded with only the flash cards I downloaded from the USCIS site. But then again, maybe I was simply lucky and got an easy test :)
US Citizenship for Dummies.......2005-08-13
My wife ordered this book for herself after checking out several different books that her friends were using. This book is the most complete in terms of the information available under one cover -- it also proves easy to understand and utilize for someone who has learned English as their second language.
Book Description
View the
Table of Contents. Read the
Preface.
Praise for the 10th Anniversary Edition
"
White by Law remains one of the most significant and generative entries in the crowded field of 'whiteness studies.' Ian Haney López has crafted a brilliant study, not merely of how 'race' figures in the juridical logic of U.S. citizenship, but of the ways in which law fully participates in the wholesale manufacture of those naturalized groupings we know as 'races.' A terribly important work."
—Matthew Frye Jacobson, author of Roots Too: White Ethnic Revival in Post-Civil Rights America
"Ten years after its initial publication,
White by Law remains the definitive treatment of the naturalization cases, and provides a compelling account of the role of law in constructing race. A wonderful combination of thematic development and historical excavation, one leaves this revised edition with a thoroughgoing understanding of the ways in which citizenship functioned not only to include and exclude but as a process through which people quite literally became white by law."
—Devon W. Carbado, Professor of Law and Associate Dean, UCLA School of Law
"
White by Law remains the definitive work on how American law constructed a 'white' race at the turn of the twentieth century. Haney López has added a chapter to the new edition, a sobering analysis of how, in our own time, 'colorblind' law and policy threaten to perpetuate, not eliminate, racial inequality. A must-read."
—Mae M. Ngai, author of Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America
“Here is one work that proved challenging to review with a fresh eye, having been widely reviewed and discussed since its original publication more than 10 years agoÂ….While oneÂ's first question upon picking up such a book could easily be Â`why bother?Â' with the re-release of an older work, in this case, the strategy worksÂ….[T]he addition of the authorÂ's personal narrative in the Preface and his intriguing view into the future with the new conclusion will add to the bookÂ's pedagogical value. In sum, Haney Lopez has provided a piece of scholarship worthy of bringing out a curtain call on its 10th anniversary.”
—Law and Politics Review
Praise for the 1st edition:
"Haney López performs a major service for anyone truly interested in understanding contemporary debates over racial and ethnic politics. . . . A sobering and crucial lesson for a society committed to equality and fairness."
—Martha Minow, Harvard Law School
"This book is remarkable for sheer information value, but draws its analytic power from the emphasis on whiteness to make sense of racial oppression. . . . Haney López convincingly demonstrates that the US is ideologically white not by accident but by design."
—Choice
White by Law was published in 1996 to immense critical acclaim, and established Ian Haney López as one of the most exciting and talented young minds in the legal academy. The first book to fully explore the social and specifically legal construction of race,
White by Law inspired a generation of critical race theorists and others interested in the intersection of race and law in American society. Today, it is used and cited widely by not only legal scholars but many others interested in race, ethnicity, culture, politics, gender, and similar socially fabricated facets of American society.
In the first edition of
White by Law, Haney López traced the reasoning employed by the courts in their efforts to justify the whiteness of some and the non-whiteness of others, and revealed the criteria that were used, often arbitrarily, to determine whiteness, and thus citizenship: skin color, facial features, national origin, language, culture, ancestry, scientific opinion, and, most importantly, popular opinion.
Ten years later, Haney López revisits the legal construction of race, and argues that current race law has spawned a troubling racial ideology that perpetuates inequality under a new guise: colorblind white dominance. In a new, original essay written specifically for the 10th anniversary edition, he explores this racial paradigm and explains how it contributes to a system of white racial privilege socially and legally defended by restrictive definitions of what counts as race and as racism, and what doesn't, in the eyes of the law. The book also includes a new preface, in which Haney López considers how his own personal experiences with white racial privilege helped engender
White by Law.
Customer Reviews:
It's the White Man's Fault (yaaaaaawn)........2007-06-22
This book may have been relevant 60 years ago, but in a post civil rights era, this book has no merit. It's the same old and tired diatribe "blame the white man for all hispanic's shortcomings". Nonsense. Hispanics are to blame for themselves. If White America is so racist, why is it that Asians excel in this country... usually far beyond whites??? Why do Jews (who are usually white but ethnically different than WASP's) consistently reach the highest levels of leadership, academics, and business? Asians don't need affirmative action or racial quotas, in fact they view such programs as insulting. The simple reason that Asians & Jews excel in the USA and hispanics don't is rooted in a cultural difference - Asians & Jews value education greatly and hispanics don't (refer to Herman Badillo's book on this topic concerning Hispanic's disinterest in education).
This book will go over well with hispanics who practice ethnic politics; it will feed into their self pity and victimization syndrome. Oh how we always love to blame someone else for our shortcomings, in this case the "evil white man". That song and dance is so worn out.
In light of the raging debate over illegal immigration (mostly from Mexico), here is something to ponder... the two ethnic groups who are most hurt by illegal immigration are blacks and Hispanic Americans (ie. legal citizen Hispanics). Illegal aliens take jobs primarily from these two ethnic groups. Further, it's the U.S. middle class that pays for most of the social services which illegal aliens take full advantage of and don't pay for. Most illegal aliens are paid in cash thus they pay no income tax and those who work "on the books" generally earn too little to pay any income tax as they are in the lowest tax bracket (further they engage in identity theft in stealing an American's social security number to satisfy their criminal employer who has hired them). Illegal alien activists commonly like to talk about the "huge" sums of money illegal workers pay into social security which, "they will never get back". The truth is that, 1) About 1/2 of all illegal workers are paid in cash, thus they pay no tax including no SS tax, 2) Those illegal workers who are "on the books" generally earn very little, maybe at most $26,000/year, meaning they pay at most $1500/year in SS tax. In this case, it is true that they ARE contibuting to Social Security and if they are never legalized, they won't see that money. But there is another angle to the equation - it's called EIC, Earned Income Credit, which many illegal workers apply for by using a TIN (Taxpayer Identification Number) or the SS# they are fraudulantly using. EIC is basically free money from the federal gov't, at the expense of the legitimate American taxpayers. EIC in theory is supposed to bring poor people above the poverty level. Trouble is, we all pay for it, even for illegal aliens who apply. Go to any Mexican neighborhood in the USA during tax season and you'll see signs in Spanish (usually in strip malls) that basically say, "Rebate... Free money", they are referring to EIC. Spanish speaking tax preparers are more than happy to give away your money to their illegal alien brethern. Even if an illegal Mexican worker doesn't apply for EIC, they often have lots of babies and each baby costs on average $10,000 in hospital bills, not a dime of which the illegal alien woman pays... you and I pay for it. Don't forget about the free public education that child will get, courtesy of the American tax payer, usually about $9,000/year for each child. Don't forget about WIC, food stamps, federal welfare, housing subsidies, etc. - all free for the taking by illegal aliens with the bill passed onto the American taxpayer.
Regarding property tax?? Of course illegals pay no property tax as the vast majority of them rent.
I would like to see the author of this book write a different book, one which talks about the true victims in the current illegal immigration situation: whites, Jews, and Asians.
Book Description
Theories of social justice are necessarily abstract, reaching beyond the particular and the immediate to the general and the timeless. Yet such theories, addressing the world and its problems, must respond to the real and changing dilemmas of the day. A brilliant work of practical philosophy, Frontiers of Justice is dedicated to this proposition. Taking up three urgent problems of social justice neglected by current theories and thus harder to tackle in practical terms and everyday life, Martha Nussbaum seeks a theory of social justice that can guide us to a richer, more responsive approach to social cooperation.
The idea of the social contract--especially as developed in the work of John Rawls--is one of the most powerful approaches to social justice in the Western tradition. But as Nussbaum demonstrates, even Rawls's theory, suggesting a contract for mutual advantage among approximate equals, cannot address questions of social justice posed by unequal parties. How, for instance, can we extend the equal rights of citizenship--education, health care, political rights and liberties--to those with physical and mental disabilities? How can we extend justice and dignified life conditions to all citizens of the world? And how, finally, can we bring our treatment of nonhuman animals into our notions of social justice? Exploring the limitations of the social contract in these three areas, Nussbaum devises an alternative theory based on the idea of "capabilities." She helps us to think more clearly about the purposes of political cooperation and the nature of political principles--and to look to a future of greater justice for all.
Customer Reviews:
Instructive insights on applied ethics.......2007-08-27
Martha Nussbaum has delivered another thought-provoking book, this time applying her "capabilities" approach to questions on disability, national identity, and obligations to non-humans. As always, her writing is clear and forceful, and her insights are provocative, if not always completely convincing. As a follow-up to her earlier works, this book is likely to become a key resource for discussions of philosophical ethics, human rights, and the continued effort to interpret and modify the work of John Rawls.
disappointingly spread out.......2007-05-04
There is substance to Nussbaum's account here -- the most interesting material is a consideration of how intuitive ethical duties towards the disabled, and towards members of other countries and species, conflict with a Rawlsian contractualism. Her notion of capability duties/outcomes, while nothing particularly innovative to my eye, is interesting, and the failures of contractualism are examined fairly and in detail.
The main problem with the book is that it is very diluted (it is also repetitious -- actually the stapling together of separate essays, and if I had had to read how GDP per capita does not take into account internal inequality one more time I would have gone mad.) A book of equivalent perceptivity could be a hundred pages or less.
The remainder of the book is taken up by Nussbaum's rather long winded examinations of different ways to be nice (indeed, very very nice) to other people and to animals (to give a sense, there is more than one paragraph devoted to whether we should put gazelles into protective custody to save them from lions.)
Quite a bit of the material -- especially the animal material, but also the nationality material -- is both philosophically uninteresting (the conceptual point has been made, and there is no more refined analysis presented) and practically naieve or vague (for example, if Nussbaum is aware of the ongoing debates in the NGO world over the nature of foreign aid, it doesn't show here.)
Worth a read in many ways, but also in many ways an indulgent performance.
What Constitutes A Life Worthy of Human Dignity?.......2006-03-25
Martha Nussbaum is a promoter of the capabilities approach, a school of thought that seeks to delineate the conditions for a just and decent world based on what people are actually able to be and to do (their "capabilities") in order to lead a life worthy of human dignity. Amartya Sen has pioneered this approach in the realm of economics where he has proposed to analyze development as consisting of freedom as much as of material progress. Nussbaum's approach differs from Sen in subtle ways: she is more interested in philosophical debates than economic reasoning, and (whereas Sen remains in the vague as to what constitutes basic human functionnings) she provides a list of ten capabilities that must be fulfilled beyond a certain threshold in a fully just society.
Nussbaum applies this approach to three unsolved problems of social justice: how to treat people with physical and mental impairments so that they can live up to their human potential; how to extend justice to all world citizen regardless of the place they live in; and what are the issues of justice involved in our treatment of nonhuman animals. In doing so, she engages in a detailed discussion of the social contract theory proposed by John Rawls which, all its merits notwithstanding, cannot provide a satisfying answer to these three pressing social problems.
Take people with disabilities. Social contract theorists imagine the contracting agents who design the basic structure of society as "free, equal and independent," and usually conceive the social contract as providing mutual advantages to its members. But how to include people who may have a limited ability to take part in the deliberations establishing the contract, or whose special needs often contradict the assumption that social justice should provide all members of society with roughly equal endowments? Nussbaum shows that a conception of the person more akin to Aristotle than to Kant helps frame the idea of a life in accordance with human dignity, while countries like Sweden or Germany show examples of practical arrangements that allow people with disabilities to participate actively in all the major spheres of life.
The contract model also typically constructs a single society, which is imagined as self-sufficient and not interdependent with any other society. In a second step, these societies establish relations to regulate their dealings with one another based on a set of core principles embodied in international law. This model leaves many issues unanswered, such as the unequal distribution of wealth and power across countries and the universal validity of human right principles. Based on Grotius and the natural law tradition, Nussbaum develops a theory of transnational justice that includes respect for human rights and the need for economic redistribution.
Likewise, moral philosophers typically hold either that we have no direct moral duties to animals or that, if we do, they are duties of charity and compassion rather than justice. But nonhuman animals are also capable of a dignified existence, and our theories of justice should recognize that right. Nussbaum mentions a court ruling in India that goes into this direction; she could also have referred to the European Union, which has enshrined the protection of farm animals' welfare in its constitutional treaties.
Book Description
Cuba has long fascinated, mystified, and frustrated Americans. Now, in this sweeping work, Louis A. Pérez Jr. transforms the way we view Cuba and its relationships with the United States. Drawing from an enormous range of sources, including archival records, oral interviews, and examples from popular culture, Pérez reveals a powerful web of everyday, bilateral connections between Cuba and the United States. He shows how America's cultural and political forms profoundly influenced Cuba's identity, nationality, and sense of modernity from the early 1850s, when the island was still a Spanish colony, until the revolution that erupted in 1959. In exploring Cuba's encounter with the United States, Pérez articulates the cultural context for that revolution, tracing it to the country's growing dissatisfaction at not having kept pace with America's own rampant prosperity and modernization.
Customer Reviews:
Cuban-Americans Must Read this book.......2004-12-19
Castro's bloody footprint on Cuba's back will soon be over, and the re-construction will then begin.
Before that happens, this book - together with a few more - should be read by those who hope to stake a claim on the future of that island.
The book is educational and informative, although it seems to put a lot of emphasis on the upper middle class of pre-Castro Cuba and little on the lower classes, with some small exceptions on the issue of race and Afro-Cubans. Too much is also made of Desi Arnaz's negative portrayal of Cuban men, although I never knew until I read this book that Eamon de Valera was half Cuban and that the Capote in Truman was Cuban.
But it does hit the nail right on the head on the formula via which the Cuban culture and character - so different from other Latin American countries - was formed.
The powerful influence of the USA and all things American upon the island may have been somewhat blown out of proportion (especially when not brought to a lower class context), but it was (and is) nonetheless important and a key ingridient in the make-up of the modern Cuban.
I suspect that when Cuba opens up to the world, those Cubans who remained in the prison island will soon re-join the interrupted life of a island full of paradoxes, brilliant thinkers and an unfortunate history of dictators and bloodshed. And perhaps the marriage between Castro's Afro-Cuba and the exile's mostly white-Cuba will result not in a baptism of fire (or blood) but in an incorporation of lessons learned in 50 years of modern exile with the astounding eneregy and creativity of the Cuban people.
On Becoming a Member of the Privileged Class in Havana.......2002-09-29
That should be the title of this book. The author makes the same mistake many have made: to them Havana=Cuba. If it happened in Havana, it must be so in the rest of the island. From the beginning of the book he attributes to all Cubans what really applies to the upper class of Havana: travelling to the U.S. on vacation; sending their children to be educated on the U.S.; shopping sprees in New York; conducting their businesses on the American model, etc.
I was born in Camagüey and lived in Oriente and still have family in Cuba and I never heard of, much less witnessed many of the "facts" he gives. I've checked with several other Cubans, older than I from all over the island, about some of the authors assertions and everyone assures me Cubans did not celebrate Thanksgiving; kids did not get toys on December 25 (it was January 6); few Cubans spoke English, many Americans spoke Spanish; men did not stop flirting with "mulatas" in favor of blondes; and American supermarkets did not obliterate the neighborhood bodega. Perhaps that's the way it was in the Americanized Vedado neighborhood.
The author quotes from many novels and short stories. The writings of Cuban revolutionaries, the constitution written for the formation of the Cuban nation during the 10-year war, the effects of that 10-year war, and the effects of the war of independence on Cubans' idea of nationality are practically ignored. It seems we Cubans obtained all notion of who we are from the U.S.
Sociologist-like, he ascribes deeper meaning to all kinds of things; for example: the Cubans' enthusiastic adoption of baseball becomes an anti-Spanish, pro-feminist protest and a condemnation of Bullfighting as a bloody, colonial sport. How about this: baseball was fun and was not only a spectator sport, even kids could play it pretty much anywhere. Can't do that with a bull fight. As for rebelling against bloody, primitive sports: cockfighting has been part of Cuba's "sports" life from the colonial period.
It goes on and on. True there are neat facts in there: the early adoption of technology in Cuba, the symbiotic relationship between the U.S. and Cuba and a few other interesting tid bits. But his interpretation of the American influence in the notion of what it means to be Cuban is skewed. I must admit it got to me: I couldn't finish the book. I stopped at Chapter 6 because I anticipated what was coming: Fidel's revolution puts a stop to all that and now Cubans have a more real view of who they are. Am I right? Is that the punch line?
No one can deny the influence of the U.S. on Cuba. Its proximity, and its intervention in Cuban affairs garanteed that, but this book is replete with misinterpretations or are they misrepresentations?.
Can't recommend it.
On becoming russian: after 1959.......2002-09-09
This book helped me very much as a source of data on events that happened way before my time, mainly because in Castro's Cuba most of this has been distorted, or in many cases, access has been totally impossible. I found the book very interesting and educational at the same time, very helpful also in making me understand better our influences and roots, as well as that tremendous link, for good or bad, that always existed with the United States and that Castro always persisted and portrayed as something not important and besides , very negative. However I have my problems with this book , especially on the last chapters, the revolution era, which is the one I lived, and know the most. I'm 36 now, and lived 25 years in Cuba, so I have a pretty clear knowledge of how things were and are during this years of "revolution". As many other non-cuban authors, Perez seem to have a problem criticizing the regime for what it's been responsible and on the other hand puts most of the blame on the United states, I think than from a fear point of view we got more positive things than negative ones from them. Corruption and mishandling of the government is constantly mentioned during the republic period; but very little is said about castro's failures. Nothing is said about the assassination and abuses that took place during those first years of revolution, practice that has continued during all these years. Unfortunately it was during these years that many liberals and idealist turned a blind eye to what was happening in the island. Nobody wanted to talk about what was really happening and preferred to accept the idea that the US were to blame for the rupture in the relationships between both countries. Still today not many people know about the darkest years of the revolution, a good example is that Ernesto"che" Guevara is still considered by many as a modern Quixote, a romanticized revolutionary that fought the imperialism in order to built a better world, when in reality he was nothing but a selfish murderer who committed all kind of atrocities, mostly in my country, and played a leading role in the process that turned the revolution into that aberrant regime that has ruled the country for more than four decades. So what I found negative about this book is that not giving a fair and balanced analysis on this part of the Cuban history affects the credibility of what was said about the rest of it. A good book for those who would like to read a least detailed but very fair analysis is" journey to the heart of Cuba" by Carlos A. Montaner.
Not entirely accurate.......2002-08-05
The trouble with scholars and academics is their middle-class presumption that the world is middle-class. This book suffers from this presumption.
I married a Cuban, have been to Cuba five times, and know that there are both rich and poor in that country--just as there are in the U.S. There are Cubans in government and baseball stars and artists with access to dollars who are chauffered in their Benzes, live in gated mansions with electric fences, and swim in their backyard pools. In the meantime, my relatives live without running water or a phone. They have an extension cord leading from the neighbor's house to get electricity. When the annual hurricane hits, they live in the local secondary school's gymnasium, along with everyone else in their neighborhood in Cerro who lives in a plywood house.
Let's decide not to idealize the Revolution.
I'm not on the side of the anti-Castro supporters in Miami (I'm not Cuban)--I think free quality healthcare and education is an amazing achievement. And despite the last ten years of intense lack of material help since the Soviet Union dissolved, Cubans have an amazing stamina and love of life that gives them the hope to survive.
But let's not--especially for the academics who travel to Cuba and see only the middle class Cubans living there--idealize the country. Reader: check out "Afro-Cuban Voices" to get another side of the story.
Coca-Colony of the Caribbean.......2002-06-15
Professor Perez has done another outstanding job of exploring the complexities of U.S.-Cuban relations. Again he has shown that the Revolution of 1959 didn't happen just because Castro read Marxist books while in college. Professor Perez explains why Castro's generation were reading the Marxist books in the first place.
There are some things in the critique of U.S. culture which are disturbing, to a North American, not so much in Professor Perez' presentation as in the chauvinistic attitude of some Cubans quoted here, expecially regarding language. All languages borrow from each other. English is full of loan words, from French, Latin, etc., and are considered normal parts of speech. This can be accepted without a sense of victimization. The "I Love Lucy" episodes referred to were not as bad as portrayed; "Ricky" was not a buffoon and corrected Lucy's miscomprehensions about Cuba more than once.
That said, this book is still good stuff. Yanquis (including Yanquified Miami "Cubans")should read it before they reconquer Cuba in the next decade.
Average customer rating:
|
Psychology and Law for the Helping Professions
Leland C. Swenson
Manufacturer: Wadsworth Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 Ethics & Professional Responsibility
| Law
| Subjects
| Books
Labor & Employment
| Business
| Law
| Subjects
| Books
Social Security & Welfare
| English Law
| Law
| Subjects
| Books
Citizenship
| English Law
| Law
| Subjects
| Books
Ethics & Morality
| Philosophy
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Social Work
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Sociology
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Compulsive Behavior
| Mental Health
| Health, Mind & Body
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Counseling
| Psychology & Counseling
| Health, Mind & Body
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Psychology & Counseling
| Health, Mind & Body
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Psychiatry
| Specialties
| Medicine
| Subjects
| Books
Ethics & Professional Responsibility
| Law
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Psychiatry
| Internal Medicine
| Medicine
| Medical
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Psychology
| Social Sciences
| New & Used Textbooks
| Stores
| Books
General
| Law
| New & Used Textbooks
| Stores
| Books
Criminal
| Law
| New & Used Textbooks
| Stores
| Books
General
| Medicine
| New & Used Textbooks
| Stores
| Books
All Titles
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
Medicine
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
Nonfiction
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
Professional
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
Similar Items:
-
Issues and Ethics in the Helping Professions
-
Professional Conduct And Discipline In Psychology
-
Groups: Process and Practice (with InfoTrac)
-
Casebook in Child and Adolescent Treatment: Cultural and Familial Contexts
-
Counseling Children and Adolescents, Third Edition
ASIN: 053434285X |
Book Description
In his prepublication reviews, Dempster said, "Swenson not only discusses how the system opperates, he gives ver plausible and undertandable reasons why it operates the way it does. He succeeds in demystifying the legal world and summarizing its history in an understandable format. . . . Books like Swenson's help level the playing field for mental health professionals who all to often have felt victimized by the court process and have misunderstood the legal process of 'truth finding.'" In this Second Edition of his comprehensive, well respected text, Swenson emphasizes what people in the helping professions need to know about the law so they can avoid, as he puts it, the "land mines" and understand how their treatment decisions are likely to have legal consequences.
Customer Reviews:
Great working reference.......2003-09-19
I had the pleasure of reading this text in Dr. Swenson, Esq.'s course on the subject. Even after receiving my bachelor degree in psychology and becoming and attorney, I still occasionally reach for this book for a practice pointer or two. Were I practicing family law, I suspect I would do this more often.
This wonderful guidebook is written in plain English and does not require legal training or even a psychology degree to understand, but at the same time is not so remedial that working professionals (in law or psychology) should skip it.
This book deals with a great number of issues in an intelligent manner, and I highly recommend it as good reading.
Book Description
Riveting stories of our last frontier and the acts of God and man upon it
Even if we live within sight of the sea, it is easy to forget that our world is an ocean world. The open ocean--that vast expanse of international waters--begins just a few miles out and spreads across three-fourths of the globe. It is a place of storms and danger, both natural and manmade. And at a time when every last patch of land is claimed by one government or another, it is a place that remains radically free.
With typically understated lyricism, William Langewiesche explores this ocean world and the enterprises--licit and illicit--that flourish in the privacy afforded by its horizons. Forty-three thousand gargantuan ships ply the open ocean, carrying nearly all the raw materials and products on which our lives are built. Many are owned or managed by one-ship companies so ghostly that they exist only on paper. They are the embodiment of modern global capital and the most independent objects on earth--many of them without allegiances of any kind, changing identity and nationality at will. Here is free enterprise at its freest, opportunity taken to extremes. But its efficiencies are accompanied by global problems--shipwrecks and pollution, the hard lives and deaths of the crews, and the growth of two perfectly adapted pathogens: a modern and sophisticated strain of piracy and its close cousin, the maritime form of the new stateless terrorism.
This is the outlaw sea--perennially defiant and untamable--that Langewiesche brings startlingly into view. The ocean is our world, he reminds us, and it is wild.
Customer Reviews:
Wow I want a floating Army.......2007-05-27
I cant wait for the great wars of the sea. This book was a great read about the current state of the sea. Can't help but make me think its the place for me. Sound like a fun game of cat and mouse. I wounder what its like to be a repo man of the sea.
Good Stories and New Perspective on the maritime World few of us get to witness.......2007-01-28
The book as a whole provides a detailed and engaging sense of the lawlessness and disorder that takes place on the ocean and near its coasts. The stories are based on current events and add a great deal of drama to his investigative writing. Its the kind of book I was eager to discuss with my friends and family after reading each chapter. As an ocean lover, but not a frequent sailor, its a great find and gives a rarely told perspective on what actually takes place with the world's ships. The threats of terrorism, piracy, the difficulties of scrapping ships, and the contrast of the way governments try to regulate the ocean with the practical realities of the ocean are thought provoking and fascinating. What a pleasure this book was!
Interesting stories but loosely connected.......2006-11-19
This book reads like 4 or 5 magazine articles that have been strung together. Each article focuses on some sort of disaster involving the seas - ship wreck due to poor maintenance, oil spills, piracy, loss of life in a ferry disaster, and the tear down of old ships in India. There is a loose connection between the articles involving chaos on the seas (mostly man-made but also natural) but not enough to make a coherent book. There are times when I wondered what the point of the book was besides passing on some interesting stories. In the introduction he tried to link the "outlaw sea" to terrorism but that idea was never reintroduced or significantly supported.
Read the book if you're interested in maritime disasters. Skip the chapters that don't interest you because none are essential. (The Estonia ferry disaster drags on for over a hundred pages and I was never quite sure what the point was.)
The Outlaw Sea.......2006-11-09
I come from a commercial fishing background and I'm always looking for a good sea story. This one happens to be true, terrifyingly so. It inspired the plot for my first thriller, Blindfold Game.
A Book Of Grime, Crime and Slime .......2005-05-12
Some of the reviewers here have detailed some of the books short comings and I do not think they are being unfair. My review is going to be focus only on the positive, because I not only like this author, but I found the book extremely enjoyable. The author talks to us about some different aspects of the current state of ocean shipping across the world. He covers areas from recent ship wreaks to pirate encounters. He even takes the reader into the world of ship breaking where these massive structures are reduced to bite sized bits of steel. The book is fast paced and very interesting.
Sure, over half of the book focuses on one car ferry sinking in the mid 90's, but unless you are familiar with the story, it is interesting. I kept wondering how he got so much detail. He covers the sinking in his somewhat off center style. If you read his other book about the World Trade Center then you can appreciate it. He just looks at the world with a bit of sly humor and an odd angle that makes his story telling that much more interesting.
Overall I thought the book was great. The stories were interesting and somewhat unique. He injected just the right amount of drama and detail to make the reader hurry to the next page. Could he have spent more time on any one section of the book, probably, but he is writing as much for the readers enjoyment as to tell a story. You may want this or that changed with the book, but at the end of the day it is an interesting, and at times exciting, book that is well written.
Average customer rating:
- words and bullets
- Are words really equivalent to physical assault?
- Change the way you view law and politics
- Great Book to Open Eyes of Those who Care but Are Not Aware
- EXCELLENT INTRO BOOK TO CRT- MUST HAVE
|
Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement
Kimberle Crenshaw ,
Neil Gotanda , and
Garry Peller
Manufacturer: New Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
20th Century
| British
| World Literature
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Race Relations
| Sociology
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Sociology
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Cultural
| Anthropology
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Civil Procedure
| Procedures & Litigation
| Law
| Subjects
| Books
Reference
| Law Practice
| Law
| Subjects
| Books
Social Security & Welfare
| English Law
| Law
| Subjects
| Books
Reference
| Law Practice
| Law
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
Civil Procedure
| Procedures & Litigation
| Law
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Reference
| Subjects
| Books
All Titles
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
Literature & Fiction
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
Nonfiction
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
Professional
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
Reference
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
Similar Items:
-
Critical Race Theory: An Introduction
-
Critical Race Theory 2Nd Ed Pb
-
Alchemy of Race and Rights
-
Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism
-
Critical Race Feminism: A Reader (Critical America Series)
ASIN: 1565842715 |
Book Description
In the past few years, a new generation of progressive intellectuals has dramatically transformed how law, race, and racial power are understood and discussed in America. Questioning the old assumptions of both liberals and conservatives with respect to the goals and the means of traditional civil rights reform, critical race theorists have presented new paradigms for understanding racial injustice and new ways of seeing the links between race, gender, sexual orientation, and class. This reader, edited by the principal founders and leading theoreticians of the critical race theory movement, gathers together for the first time the movement's most important essays.
Customer Reviews:
words and bullets.......2004-12-04
when your boss, all the media you read or watch, most of your teachers, and some of your own family members tell you using words, or hint through their actions, that you are no good because you are [fill in the blank]. After a million iterations, you'd lose any confidence you might have and you'd live your life allowing [fill in the blank] persons to step all over you. While an insult is less harmful than a bullet, a few hundred insults has roughly the same effect as holding a gun to someone's head because you're basically saying, "obey or die of lonliness and starvation." Now, to fill in the blank, the mobs making these silent threats for the last 300 years has been predominantly (not always) white, male, and wealthy. The people receiving this has been women, people of color, and the poor, not to mention short and fat people.
Are words really equivalent to physical assault?.......2002-02-19
One of the key points of this book is that words can be as harmful as physical assault, which is why the authors believe that the law should suppress both.
But if the two are equivalent, if hateful words are equivalent to bullets, then logically one can respond to words with bullets. Is that the view the authors really believe in and wish to promote? I sure hope not. But then the entire premise of the book is undermined.
Change the way you view law and politics.......2001-06-18
This collection of insightful essays will change the way that you view law and politics in America. The authors deconstruct the racial, gender, and class dynamics that shape our instutions, particularly our courts. It not surprising that the featured authors launched such a tremendous movement as Critical Race Theory.
Great Book to Open Eyes of Those who Care but Are Not Aware.......2001-05-20
This book is incredible. As a highschool student, I never really realized all of the barriers set up against people of color in the law. I coudldn't figure out why my black friends still didn't have the respect if laws are "neutral." Dorothy Roberts article in this book about the prosecution of drug-addicted pregnant women addresses many touchy issues and brings the problems with the law directly to light. And the introduction to this book clarifies CRT in a very helpful way. An excellent read.
EXCELLENT INTRO BOOK TO CRT- MUST HAVE.......2001-01-07
I have had this reader for some time now- and have since had a chance to fully appreciate all that it offers. The title couldn't be more accurate- these are the key writings that shaped the Critical Race Theory (CRT) movement. This is a must have for any law student who is looking to explore the scholarship of persons of color who have largely been ignored or excluded in the legal discussions involving civil rights. It is also a great starter book for anyone interested in exploring CRT.
Book Description
Words, like sticks and stones, can assault; they can injure; they can exclude. In this important book, four prominent legal scholars from the tradition of critical race theory draw on the experience of injury from racist hate speech to develop a first amendment interpretation that recognizes such injuries. In their critique of "first amendment orthodoxy," the authors argue that only a history of racism can explain why defamation, invasion of privacy, and fraud are exempt from free-speech guarantees while racist and sexist verbal assaults are not.
Customer Reviews:
thoughtful writing on critical race theory and the law.......2000-03-10
this book examines how free speech in this country intersects with assaultive speech.it challenges the thought that all speech should be protected, and engages you to examine the intent behind many words that we take for granted.
matsuda is known as a constitutional scholar and passionate inquisitor into the blurry intersection of race, gender, the law, and language. whether you agree with her views or not, this book and the ideas put forth will challenge you to examine your own beliefs and expectations of what your civil rights are.
Books:
- Why Parties?: The Origin and Transformation of Political Parties in America (American Politics and Political Economy Series)
- A History of the Federal Reserve, Vol. 1: 1913-1951
- America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It
- America Beyond Capitalism: Reclaiming Our wealth, Our Liberty and Our Democracy
- America Beyond Capitalism: Reclaiming Our wealth, Our Liberty and Our Democracy
- America the Unusual
- American Government and Politics Today: The Essentials 2006-2007 Edition (American Government and Politics Today)
- American Government: Brief Version, Seventh Edition
- American Government: Continuity and Change, 2006 Texas Edition (3rd Edition)
- Armed America: The Remarkable Story of How and Why Guns Became as American as Apple Pie
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- Handbook of Industrial Engineering: Technology and Operations Management
- All New Square Foot Gardening
- The Thief's Journal
- Safari Style
- The Wisdom of Wilderness: Experiencing the Healing Power of Nature
- Always the Bridesmaid
- Wildlife Warrior: Steve Irwin: 1962 - 2006, a Man Who Changed the World
- Yu-Gi-Oh! Capsule Monster Coliseum
- Spreadsheet Acctg for the Micro Using Mi
- Me and My Boyfriend
Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s (Critical Social Thought)
The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class, Revised and Expanded Edition (Haymarket)
The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics
White Women, Race Matters: The Social Construction of Whiteness
Critical White Studies Pb
