Customer Reviews

White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race (Critical America (New York University Paperback))

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Some writers are passionate, but not well researched. Others are well researched, but make for a boring read. Fortunately, Ian F. Haney Lopez is both passionate and thoughtful. Best of all, he writes in such a way that arouses passion and thought in his audience. Another strength of this book is that it provides a good balance between teaching us about the historical context of "whiteness" and a well-articulated argument about why such a historical understanding is important to us today. This book is so impressive that my training partners and I now quote from it as part of our anti-racism training program.

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."

Mr. Lopez does a great service for those white people who have a genuine interest in examining the sources of their color based privileges. Lopez 's depth analysis of the tacit forms of knowledge that sustain the social relationships between the oppressor and the oppressed; the dominant and subordinate cultures, gives the reader enough insight and direction to begin their own self examination. It's a must read for those who want to develop an alternative to a world permeated with racism

White By Law: is the best account, that I have encountered, that explains the formulation of racial ideologies into law. It is well-written, flows easily, goes by quickly, and ellucidates the way which American legal institutions have constructed race. This should be a "must-read" for all persons in this country.

How is "white" defined in the U.S.? The definition varies tremendously. Lopez concerns himself mainly with immigration issues and how East Asians, South Asians, Latinos, Armenians, Arabs and others made legal efforts to prove themselves "white" in order to gain U.S. citizenship.

Legal History of the Color Line: The Rise And Triumph of the One-drop Rule

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.

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.(...)