Tue 30 Jun 2009
Wed 24 Jun 2009
I joined a reading group this summer at the law school that is about issues of diversity and all that fun stuff. Its pretty cool so far because its not only law school professors but staff and staff and faculty from elsewhere in the university as well. We are meeting 3 times and will read two articles and watch a film.
This first article we read was called “whiteness as Property” (I will post the link to the article later as I am currently writing from the bus). It made an interesting argument that through varios legal decisions and social systemic factors that “whiteness” has become a form of property.
It was an interesting article and after discussing it with the group I am certainly going to have to read it again to get a better grasp on all the arguments.
There were a couple of things that stood out for me. One was how she explained that during slavery, if you were considered black then you could be a slave. They even changed the laws to state that the child was of the race of the mother. This brought up a couple of questions for me. 1) I wonder how I am classified on my birth certificate. And 2) if I am legally “white” does that mean I get access to white privilage? This makes me more interested in looking at the intersection between mixed heritage and white privilage in those who are mixed white/other.
Thu 18 Jun 2009
