Book contents
- Whitelash
- Whitelash
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction The Long Night of Déjà Vu
- 1 Electing Trump and Breaching Norms
- 2 The Exoneration of White Voters
- 3 White Voters and the Law of Alternative Facts
- 4 The Sirens of White Nationalism
- 5 Law as Pretext
- 6 Voting While White
- 7 Holding Candidates and Parties Accountable
- 8 We the People: Fashioning a Legal Remedy for Voter Whitelash
- Conclusion The Globalization of Whitelash
- Notes
- Index
5 - Law as Pretext
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 January 2020
- Whitelash
- Whitelash
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction The Long Night of Déjà Vu
- 1 Electing Trump and Breaching Norms
- 2 The Exoneration of White Voters
- 3 White Voters and the Law of Alternative Facts
- 4 The Sirens of White Nationalism
- 5 Law as Pretext
- 6 Voting While White
- 7 Holding Candidates and Parties Accountable
- 8 We the People: Fashioning a Legal Remedy for Voter Whitelash
- Conclusion The Globalization of Whitelash
- Notes
- Index
Summary
It is difficult to pinpoint when the latest round of judicial whitelash began, but the 1978 decision in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke is perhaps as good a starting place as any. In Bakke, Justice Powell, announcing the U.S. Supreme Court’s judgment, ignored the history of how various European immigrant groups—whether Jews, Irish, or Italians—have been absorbed into the white race regardless of their previous categorization. Justice Powell equated their history with that of African Americans and used this ahistorical comparison to invalidate an affirmative action program at the University of California School of Medicine at Davis. Save for the judicial trappings, there is little difference between Justice Powell’s views and the sentiment of a supermajority of Trump supporters in 2018 that “if blacks would only try harder they could be just as well off as whites.”.
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- Information
- WhitelashUnmasking White Grievance at the Ballot Box, pp. 87 - 112Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020