Black Culture Turn

Their claims about the absolute destruction of African culture

are factually incorrect, contemporary African-American culture
can be traced back to Central African Bantu survivals that were
retained during slavery.
Holloway 1990 [Joseph E., Professor of Pan-African Studies at CSU Northridge, The Origins of AfricanAmerican Culture, Africanisms in American Culture ed. by Joseph E. Holloway p. 17]
Many other enslaved Africans were employed as field slaves. This occupation, in fact, was engaged in by the

it was among the field slaves that much of AfricanAmerican culture and language evolved. These field slaves were mainly Central
Africans who, unlike the Senegambians, brought a homogenous culture identifiable as
Bantu. The cultural homogeneity of the Bantu is indicated by a common language. Once the Bantu
reached America they were able to retain much of their cultural identity. Enforced
isolation of these Africans by plantation owners allowed them to retain their religion,
philosophy, culture, folklore, folkways, folk beliefs, folk tales, storytelling, naming
practices, home economics, arts, kinship, and music. These Africanisms were shared
and adopted by the various African ethnic groups of the field slave community, and
they gradually developed into African-American cooking (soul food), music (jazz, blues,
spirituals, gospels), language, religion, philosophy, customs, and arts.
majority of Africans, suggesting that

Their assertion of the anthropological off-the-mapness of black

subjectivity mirrors white racist anthropologists and linguists
who defended the idea that slavery represented an absolute
break with African culture.
Asante 1990 [Molefi Kete, Professor and Chair of the Department of African-American Studies at Temple
University, African Elements in African-American English, Africanisms in American Culture ed. by Joseph E.
Holloway p. 19-20]

A considerable intellectual meanness had to be combated by the initial cadre of

communicationists who examined the continuity of black language behaviors from
Africa to America. The racist assumption that black pidgin reflected innate inability
of Africans to learn English was current at one time . In fact, as Herskovits pointed out, the
linguists who studied pidgin often had no knowledge of African languages and therefore could not make informed

linguists who
were quick to give assurance that there were no African survivals among black
Americans. Only with the work of Mervyn Alleyne and other sociolinguists did we begin to get a clearer picture
interpretations. Lorenzo Turner augmented this position by exposing inaccuracies in the work of

of the African contribution to English. Alleyne particularly demonstrated continuity in the West Indies. Earlier,
Ambros Gonzales, like many white American linguists, misunderstood the Gullah language and arrived at the wrong
conclusion. In 1922 he cited a list of words that were purported to be of African origin. Most of the words are either
English words misspelled or African words interpreted as English words that blacks could not pronounce. Gonzales
was thoroughly confused about what he was studying, as Turner pointed out: Many other words in Gonzales
glossary which, because of his lack of acquaintance with the vocabulary of certain African languages, he interprets
as English, are in reality African words. Among other Gullah words which he or other American writers have
interpreted as English, but which are African, are the Mende suwangc, to be proud (explained by Gonzales as a
corruption of the English swagger): the Wolof lir, small (taken by Gonzales to be an abbreviated form of the English
little, in spite of the fact that the Gullah also uses little when he wishes to): the Wolof benj, tooth (explained by the
Americans as a corruption of bone): The Twi fa, to take (explained by Americans as a corruption of the English for)

white American linguists refused to consider the

possibility that blacks used African words in their vocabularies . In fact, the evidence
. The point made by Turner is that

whites unfamiliar with either African languages or Gullah made

expansive generalizations that tended to support their preconceived motions about
black speech habits. Writing in the American Mercury in 1924, George Krapp said that it is
reasonably safe to say that not a single detail of Negro pronunciation or Negro
syntax can be proved to have other than English origins. Other writers who voiced
nearly the same judgment regarding the presence of African survivals in black
American speech supported the notion of an absolute break with African culture. It
was inconceivable to them that either phonological, morphological, or semantic
interference could have existed where Africans retained their language behavior in
connection with English.
demonstrates that

The survival of African religion also disproves the idea that

black culture has no ontological reach since it was a key
element of slave uprisings and revolts.
Mulira 1990 [Jessie Gaston, Associate Professor of History and Ethnic Studies at CSU Sacramento,
peaches, The Case of Voodoo in New Orleans, Africanisms in American Culture ed. by Joseph E. Holloway p. 37]
It is more difficult to measure and evaluate the persistence of African culture elsewhere, especially in the United
States, outside the core areas of New Orleans and the Sea Islands. In many pocket areas in the southern states

in cities and towns through the United States, remnants of African culture
abound: in language patterns and vocabulary, in literature, in techniques of storytelling,
in folktales such as Breb Rabbit and Tar Baby, in music and dance forms, singing , and rhythm, in
foods, and in ways of eating certain foods. The extended-family concept and respect for elders in many
and

rural areas were African transplants. Africanisms are of course most prevalent among black southerners because
the South was the heart of the slavery system in the United States. These people took their traditions outside the

The most dominant and intact African survival in the black

diaspora has proved to be the religion voodoo. The survival of African religious and
magical systems is directly linked to their importance in everyday life . In addition, their
South once they migrated.

ability to accommodate and be associated with various facets of other established religions strengthened their
chances of survival. Ancient deities in the African pantheon were often given Catholic saints names. The most
tenacious African religious retentions in the United States are found where Catholicism has been particularly strong,
including New Orleans. By appealing to traditional deities and mystical forces, the slaves were able to keep alive
their link with Africa. During the early stages of slavery the link was reinforced by voodoo priests and root doctors
who continued to be represented among the newly arrived slaves. The priests in particular led the crusade for the
survival of their religious practices by identifying African deities with Catholic saints in Haiti and Brazil. And African
concepts of good and evil found counterparts in the Christians belief in heaven and hell and Christ and Satan. Since
the beginning of the twentieth century, the root doctors have been more visible in practicing their craft than the
priests. From its beginning, voodoo encompassed certain elements such as divination, manipulation, and herbalism
that gave it the appearance of a magical rather than a religious system. In the early days of slavery, magic was
often the strongest element because of the suppression of voodoo as a religion by the authorities and slave owners.
These antivoodooists managed to limit the number of voodoo meetings among slaves, but they found it impossible
to stop the making of voodoo and hoodoo objects in the slaves cabins. (Hoodoo is the negative component of

Magic helped the slaves to cope with their daily situations , to win the affection of the
Its main value
was and continues to be psychological . Magic is intimately related to voodoo, as it is to most
voodoo.)

ones they desired, to cause harm to their enemies, and to feel protected from harm themselves.

religions, but is not its essence. Voodoo contains some elements of magic, and magic receives much of its strength

African religious and magical systems also survived

because of the organizational role they played in slave revolts throughout the New
World but particularly in Haiti and Brazil. Revolutionary protest appears to have been
engraved in voodoo upon its arrival in the Americas. Revolts in the early period of
slavery were largely the work of African priests and medicine men. In conducting
insurrectional meetings disguised as religious ceremonies, voodoo leaders often
from the voodoo deities and rituals.

promised the gods support for any rebellion the slaves decided to engage in. The
assurance of supernatural support to both leaders and followers and the priests promise that the
ancestors were aiding the struggle for freedom gave the slaves the necessary
inspiration, courage, and determination . Various charms, gris-gris, potions, and small parcels
containing bits of paper, bones, or potions hung around the necks of the fighting men provided protection and good

The slave insurrection in New York in 1712 was led by a conjurer

who convinced the fighters they were invulnerable. A leader in the 1822 insurrection in North
Carolina, Gullah Jack, also was a conjurer and root doctor; his charms, chiefly of animal claws,
luck by warding off bullets.

were designed to make the insurrectionists invulnerable. Voodoo priests also helped suicide victims by telling them
what to do to ensure their return after death to their homeland in Africa.

Culture is an indispensable resource for collective struggle

against anti-black oppression that posits blackness as absent
of culture and identity. Identifying a usable past is the raw
material for the creative self-making and in turn selfdetermination of Afro-Diasporic peoples that exists as a
transnational architecture for effective combat against global
white supremacy. Identification with African culture is the best
means of scaffolding rhetorical devices and points of affinity
and solidarity that translate into actual social mobilization and
change.
Singh 2004 [Simboonath, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, peaches,
Resistance, Essentialism, and Empowerment in Black Nationalist Discourse in the African Diaspora: A Comparison
of the Back to Africa, Black Power, and Rastafari Movements, Journal of African American Studies, Vol. 8, No. 3]
The resurgence of black consciousness and pride in the Caribbean a la the Rastafari and Black Power movements

The
construction and reconstruction of history and culture to redefine the meaning of
ethnicity is an important aspect of ethnic movements. All three movements initiated
a cultural reconstruction process by substituting dominant oppressive symbols
(colonialism, domination, exploitation, subjugation, and European cultural imperialism and hegemony) for more
positive and liberating African symbols. This cultural inversion marked an important
departure from the acculturation approach, in that both the Rastafari and the Black Power
illustrates the power of activism to inspire individual and collective ethnic pride and consciousness.

advocates attempted to reverse the dominant structure that has characterized the Caribbean region--one based on
colonial dominance and control, resistance to slavery, indenture ship, and plantation society--to an emphasis on the
positive and resilient character of the oppressed, i.e. the descendants of former slaves, namely, Afro-Caribbean
peoples. The centrality of black diasporic culture in all of the movements points to the relevance of historical
struggles in shaping and reshaping identities. Black diasporic culture, then, is concerned with struggles to be
different. An awareness of shared histories of enslavement, racist subordination, cultural survival, resistance and
political rebellion is the core of the black Diaspora (Clifford, 1994). The term Diaspora encompasses not only notions
of transnationality and movement, but political struggles aimed at defining self and community in historical
contexts of displacement. Diasporic cultures with their emphasis on displacement and a desire to return to an
original homeland, be it real or symbolic, can be placed in the context of the Rastafari, Black Power, and Back to

By recasting the cultural material of the past in innovative ways,

ethnic movements reforge their own culture and history and, as a result, reinvent
themselves (Nagel, 1994). In constructing an ethnic identity, a look backward in time, or what Dag Blanck
(1989) calls a "usable past," acts as an essential ingredient in the identity creation
process. Anthony Cohen (1985, p. 99) writes, "in constructing culture the past is a resource used
by groups in the collective quest for meaning and community ." Rick Fantasia (1988) describes a
Africa movements.

"culture of solidarity" that arises out of activism. "'Culture of solidarity" is defined as the emergence of a collective
consciousness and shared meanings that result from participating in collective action. From this perspective, it can

ethnic movements are the embodiments of cultures of solidarity because

they challenge negative hegemonic images and institutions by : (i) redefining the
meaning of ethnicity in appealing ways; and (ii) using cultural symbols to effectively
dramatize grievances and demands (Nagel, 1994, p. 166). Ethnic groups engage in the
construction of culture by using particular aspects of their culture and history in
order to create common meanings, build solidarity and ultimately launch social
movements. Joane Nagel's (1994, p. 164) shopping cart metaphor to describe the dynamic character of ethnic
be argued that

culture is instructive here: "we construct culture by picking and choosing items from the shelves of the past and

Culture and history, therefore, are essential aspects of ethnicity, and in the
context of social movements they have been specifically employed as mobilization
strategies to redefine and reconstruct identity and culture. The Rastafari, Back to
Africa, and Black Power movements used culture and history to define a common
purpose, create common meanings, build ethnic solidarity, and lay claims to selfdetermination. The manipulation of ethnic symbols, culture and history in these movements supports the idea
present."

that culture, ethnic identity and customs are not "fixed." Indeed, the black cultural nationalists and Black Arts
proponents, in conceding that blacks were assimilated enough to engage in acts of self-hatred, such as modifying
their looks to conform to white standards, were implicitly acknowledging that black culture in the Diaspora was
essentially hybrid (Robinson, 2001). In other words, the idea that identity and culture are fixed and natural
phenomena is a romantic and essentialist conception. Hybridity, then, becomes a remedy for essentialist
subjectivity (Hall, 1994). Cultural renewal and transformations are, therefore, important aspects of ethnic

Activists use cultural icons, imagery, symbols and claims as part of the
mobilization process (Nagel, 1994, p.165). David Snow et al. (1986) contend that social movement
activists utilize culture such as specific types of rhetorical devices, and cultural themes and cultural
discourses as a way of recruiting members, gaining political currency and achieving
movement goals. Similarly (Gamson, 1988) illustrates the relationship between culture and ethnic
movements.

mobilization by showing how cultural symbols and themes are used to serve movement ends. Protest, therefore,
becomes a crucible of culture. These movements created a New World nationalist consciousness in which notions of
"Africa," "black ethnicity," "black pride," and "black nationalism," instilled a strong sense of deep cultural resonance
among diasporic Africans. By subscribing to the idealization of Africa perspective in which Africa represents a
symbol of identity and home, the Rastafari, Garvey, and Black Power movements represent a symbolic
confrontation of the status quo in their respective societies (Chevannes, 1998). This was expressed in the symbols
they employed: religion, dress, hair, drugs and music. Both movements represented symbolic attempts at
restructuring reality--an ideal concept of reality in which social change and social action were manifested in more
symbolic rather than concrete forms.

FW
Interpretation: the affirmative should win if the hypothetical
implementation of a topical plan is better than the status quo
or competitive policy options.
Prefer our Interpretation,

A. Predictability critical negation forces the aff to bring a

knife to a gun fight differing literature bases make for
unpredictable research burdens for the aff and avoids
literature clash
B. ground - Hypothetical implementation is key to aff ground
and offensive strategy their interp moots 8 mins of 1AC offense
we should get to weigh the aff against the alternative
C. Policy Education Using state actors to mitigate the harms
of the squo is necessary to generate real world progress - the
alternative fails by ceding the discussion of politics to the
elites
Mouffe 9 (Chantal Mouffe is Professor of Political Theory at the Centre for the
Study of Democracy, University of Westminster, The Importance of Engaging the
State, What is Radical Politics Today?, Edited by Jonathan Pugh, pp. 233-7)
According to Hardt and Negri, and Virno, radical politics in the past was dominated by the notion of the people.
This was, according to them, a unity, acting with one will. And this unity is linked to the existence of the state. The
Multitude, on the contrary, shuns political unity. It is not representable because it is an active self-organising agent
that can never achieve the status of a juridical personage. It can never converge in a general will, because the
present globalisation of capital and workers struggles will not permit this. It is anti-state and anti-popular. Hardt
and Negri claim that the Multitude cannot be conceived any more in terms of a sovereign authority that is

They therefore argue that new forms of politics, which are nonrepresentative, are needed. They advocate a withdrawal from existing institutions.
This is something which characterises much of radical politics today. The emphasis
is not upon challenging the state. Radical politics today is often characterised by a
mood, a sense and a feeling, that the state itself is inherently the problem. Critique as
representative of the people.

engagement I will now turn to presenting the way I envisage the form of social criticism best suited to radical
politics today. I agree with Hardt and Negri that it is important to understand the transition from Fordism to postFordism. But I consider that the dynamics of this transition is better apprehended within the framework of the
approach outlined in the book Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics (Laclau and
Mouffe, 2001). What I want to stress is that many factors have contributed to this transition from Fordism to postFordism, and that it is necessary to recognise its complex nature. My problem with Hardt and Negris view is that,
by putting so much emphasis on the workers struggles, they tend to see this transition as if it was driven by one
single logic: the workers resistance to the forces of capitalism in the post-Fordist era. They put too much emphasis
upon immaterial labour. In their view, capitalism can only be reactive and they refuse to accept the creative role
played both by capital and by labour. To put it another way, they deny the positive role of political struggle. In
Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics we use the word hegemony to describe
the way in which meaning is given to institutions or practices: for example, the way in which a given institution or
practice is defined as oppressive to women, racist or environmentally destructive. We also point out that every
hegemonic order is therefore susceptible to being challenged by counter-hegemonic practices feminist, anti-racist,
environmentalist, for example. This is illustrated by the plethora of new social movements which presently exist in
radical politics today (Christian, anti-war, counter-globalisation, Muslim, and so on). Clearly not all of these are
workers struggles. In their various ways they have nevertheless attempted to influence and have influenced a new
hegemonic order. This means that when we talk about the political, we do not lose sight of the ever present
possibility of heterogeneity and antagonism within society. There are many different ways of being antagonistic to a

dominant order in a heterogeneous society it need not only refer to the workers struggles. I submit that it is
necessary to introduce this hegemonic dimension when one envisages the transition from Fordism to post-Fordism.
This means abandoning the view that a single logic (workers struggles) is at work in the evolution of the work
process; as well as acknowledging the pro-active role played by capital. In order to do this we can find interesting

Boltanski and Eve Chiapello who, in their book The New Spirit of Capitalism
(2005), bring to light the way in which capitalists manage to use the demands for
autonomy of the new movements that developed in the 1960s, harnessing them in
the development of the post-Fordist networked economy and transforming them
into new forms of control. They use the term artistic critique to refer to how the
strategies of the counter-culture (the search for authenticity, the ideal of selfmanagement and the antihierarchical exigency) were used to promote the conditions required by the new mode of
capitalist regulation, replacing the disciplinary framework characteristic of the
Fordist period. From my point of view, what is interesting in this approach is that it shows how an
important dimension of the transition from Fordism to post- Fordism involves rearticulating
existing discourses and practices in new ways. It allows us to visualise the transition from Fordism to
insights in the work of Luc

post- Fordism in terms of a hegemonic intervention. To be sure, Boltanski and Chiapello never use this vocabulary,
but their analysis is a clear example of what Gramsci called hegemony

through neutralisation or
passive revolution. This refers to a situation where demands which challenge the
hegemonic order are recuperated by the existing system, which is achieved by
satisfying them in a way that neutralises their subversive potential . When we apprehend
the transition from Fordism to post- Fordism within such a framework, we can understand it as a hegemonic move
by capital to re-establish its leading role and restore its challenged legitimacy. We did not witness a revolution, in
Marxs sense of the term. Rather, there have been many different interventions, challenging dominant hegemonic

once we envisage social reality in terms of hegemonic and

counter-hegemonic practices, radical politics is not about withdrawing
completely from existing institutions . Rather, we have no other choice but to
engage with hegemonic practices, in order to challenge them . This is crucial;
otherwise we will be faced with a chaotic situation . Moreover, if we do not engage with
and challenge the existing order, if we instead choose to simply escape the state completely, we
leave the door open for others to take control of systems of authority and
regulation. Indeed there are many historical (and not so historical) examples of this. When
the Left shows little interest, Right-wing and authoritarian groups are
only too happy to take over the state . The strategy of exodus could be seen as the
practices. It is clear that,

reformulation of the idea of communism, as it was found in Marx. There are many points in common between the
two perspectives. To be sure, for Hardt and Negri it is no longer the proletariat, but the Multitude which is the

in both cases the state is seen as a monolithic apparatus of domination that

has to wither away in order to leave room for a reconciled
society beyond law, power and sovereignty. In reality, as Ive already noted, others are often
perfectly willing to take control . If my approach supporting new social movements and
counterhegemonic practices has been called post-Marxist by many, it is precisely
because I have challenged the very possibility of such a reconciled society. To
acknowledge the ever present possibility of antagonism to the existing order implies recognising
that heterogeneity cannot be eliminated. As far as politics is concerned, this means
the need to envisage it in terms of a hegemonic struggle between conflicting hegemonic
projects attempting to incarnate the universal and to define the symbolic
parameters of social life. A successful hegemony fixes the meaning of institutions and social practices and
privileged political subject. But
cannot be transformed. It

defines the common sense through which a given conception of reality is established. However, such a result is
always contingent, precarious and susceptible to being challenged by counter-hegemonic interventions. Politics
always takes place in a field criss-crossed by antagonisms. A

properly political intervention is always

one that engages with a certain aspect of the existing hegemony. It can never be merely
oppositional or conceived as desertion, because it aims to challenge the existing
order, so that it may reidentify and feel more comfortable with that order. Another
important aspect of a hegemonic politics lies in establishing linkages between various
demands (such as environmentalists, feminists, anti-racist groups), so as to transform them into
claims that will challenge the existing structure of power relations . This is a further reason
why critique involves engagement, rather than disengagement . It is clear that the different
demands that exist in our societies are often in conflict with each other. This is why they need to
be articulated politically, which obviously involves the creation of a collective will, a
we. This, in turn, requires the determination of a them. This obvious and simple point is missed
by the various advocates of the Multitude. For they seem to believe that the Multitude possesses a natural unity
which does not need political articulation. Hardt and Negri see the People as homogeneous and expressed in a

Counter-hegemonic practices, by
contrast, do not eliminate differences. Rather, they are what could be called an ensemble of
differences, all coming together, only at a given moment, against a common adversary. Such as when different
unitary general will, rather than divided by different political conflicts.

groups from many backgrounds come together to protest against a war perpetuated by a state, or when
environmentalists, feminists, anti-racists and others come together to challenge dominant models of development

the adversary cannot be defined in broad general terms like

Empire, or for that matter Capitalism. It is instead contingent upon the particular
circumstances in question the specific states, international institutions or governmental
practices that are to be challenged. Put another way, the construction of political demands
is dependent upon the specific relations of power that need to be targeted and
transformed, in order to create the conditions for a new hegemony. This is clearly not an exodus from
politics. It is not critique as withdrawal, but critique as engagement. It is a war of position
that needs to be launched, often across a range of sites, involving the coming together of a range
of interests. This can only be done by establishing links between social
movements, political parties and trade unions , for example. The aim is to create a
and progress. In these cases,

common bond and collective will, engaging with a wide range of sites, and often institutions, with the aim of
transforming them. This, in my view, is how we should conceive the nature of radical politics.

D. Our argument is true in the context of surveillance the

government will use intel-gathering against dissenters to
silence their opinion
Boghosian, 13 (Heidi, August 23, 2013; executive director of the National Lawyers Guild, a
publishing organization on the history of government laws and policies, She received her JD from Temple Law School
where she was editor-in-chief of the Temple Political & Civil Rights Law Review, she is admitted in New York to be on
the Supreme Court, and published the book Spying on Democracy; Freedom Cannot Exist Alongside a Massive
Surveillance Industrial Complex: They Are Incompatible, http://www.truth-out.org/progressive-picks/item/18356freedom-cannot-exist-alongside-a-massive-surveillance-industrial-complex-they-are-incompatible, SS.)
Historically, successful government spies are acclaimed as heroes, while those caught spying for the other side face
harsh punishment, including execution. The lauded ones were masters of deception, betraying trusts and
confidences to gain invaluable intelligence. In similar fashion ,

government and corporate authorities

abuse trusting Americans by monitoring them around the clock and amassing their
personal data . The more an individual draws attention to a corporate or
government misdeed, the more that person is subject to intrusive
observation . This book documents the way relentless surveillance makes people in the United States less
free. As government agencies shift from investigating criminal activity to

preempting it, they have forged close relationships with corporations

honing surveillance and intelligence-gathering techniques for use against
Americans. By claiming that anyone who questions authority or engages in
undesired political speech is a potential terrorist threat, this governmentcorporate partnership makes a mockery of civil liberties . The examples in these pages show
how a free press, our legal system, activists, and other pillars of a democratic societyand even childrensuffer as

As the assault by an alignment of consumer marketing and militarized

policing grows, each single act of individual expression or resistance assumes
greater importance. As individuals and communities, we need to dismantle this
system if we are to restore and protect our civil liberties.

a consequence.

Alt
1. The alt doesnt solve for X reasons
a. First they have no alternative to solve for their impacts,
their warren 15 card, quote Thus we have no
alternative.
b. Their alternative is understanding the racial dichotomy
and analyzing it, what exactly does that do, there is no
call for action, nor is there a proposed plan to solve for
their counter hegemonic struggle.
c. Their last Wilderson card provides some form of an
alternative that is just a reject the affirmative alt.
Vague Alts is bad and a voting issue
a. Moving target- vagueness allows them to clarify their
intent once they have heard our arguments
b. Ground the vague nature of the alt destroys aff
ground- we lose the ability to an concrete perms or
solvency indites because re-clarification could spike out
c. Kills education- how can we learn about the K when we
dont know what it does
d. All of the above are voting issues to ensure competitive
equity and education and a reason to reject the team
d. This Alt still doesnt solve for their impacts because even
rejecting the AFF still allows for the hegemonic structure of
the USFG to exist.
E. Based on all their impacts the only real way to solve for
their impacts is to remove all hegemonic institutions in the
status quo, this would involve destroying anything related to
the USFG.

Impacts
Totalizing rejection of the law sacrifices the immediate needs
of those suffering from violence. Using the law for its strategic
effects while recognizing its inherent limitations allows us to
have short-term legal strategies that are not mutually
exclusive with the alt
Smith, UC Riverside media and cultural studies professor, 2013
(Andrea, The Moral Limits of the Law: Settler Colonialism and the Anti-Violence
Movement, Settler Colonial Studies, Taylor and Francis)

At the same time, violence against Native women is at epidemic rates. The 1999 Bureau of Justice Statistics report, American Indians and Crime, finds that sexual assault among Native
Americans is 3.5 times higher than for all other races living in the US. Unlike other racial groupings, the majority of sexual assaults committed against Native American women are interracial.3 In particular, the majority of people who perpetrate sexual assault against Native women are white. Because of the complex jurisdictional issues involving tribal lands, the
majority of sexual assaults against Native women are committed with impunity. Depending on the tribe, non-Native perpetrators of sexual assault on Indian reservations may fall out of
state, federal and tribal jurisdiction. And tribes themselves have not developed effective means for addressing violence in their communities. The intersections of gender violence and
colonialism in Native womens lives force Native anti-violence advocates to operate through numerous contradictions. First, they must work within a federal justice system that is
premised on the continued colonisation of Native nations. Second, they must work with tribal governments that often engage in gender oppressive practices. In addition, as Native
studies scholar Jennifer Denetdale argues, many tribal governments act as neo-colonial formations that support tribal elites at the expense of the community.4 Third, they must also
address women who need immediate services, even if those services may come from a colonising federal government or a tribal government that may perpetuate gender oppression.
Given the logics of settler colonialism, it may seem to be a hopeless contradiction to work within the US legal system at all. In fact , many social justice advocates eschew engaging in

we are often presented with two dichotomous choices: shortterm legal reform that addresses immediate needs but further invests us in the
current colonial system or long-term anti-colonial organising that attempts to avoid
the political contradictions of short-term strategies but does not necessarily focus
on immediate needs. This essay will explore possibilities for rethinking this
dichotomous approach by rethinking the role of legal reform in general
legal reform for this reason. Consequently,

. The essay foregrounds alternative approaches

using a Native feminist analytic towards engaging legal reform that may have a greater potential to undo the logics of settler colonialism from within. As I have argued elsewhere, Native feminism as well as Native studies is not limited in its object of analysis.5 Rather, in its interest in addressing the
intersecting logics of heteropatriarchy and settler colonialism, it is free to engage with diverse materials. In looking then towards alternative strategies for undoing settler colonialism through the law, I contend that it is important to engage important work that might not seem to be directly about Native
peoples or settler colonialism if this work helps provide new resources for how we could strategically engage the law. Consequently, I engage the work of legal scholars and activists that address very different areas of law as a means to challenge some of the current assumptions that undergird both reformist
and revolutionary approaches to the law. DECOLONIAL REALISM Critical race theorist Derrick Bell challenged the presupposition of much racial justice legal reform strategies when he argued that racism is a permanent feature of society. While his work is generally cited as a critical race theoretical approach, I
would contend that his work implicitly suggests a settler colonial framework for understanding legal reform. That is, many of the heirs of Derrick Bell do not follow the logical consequences of his work and argue for an approach to race and the law that seeks racial representation in the law.6 However, Bells
analysis points to the inherent contradictions to such an approach. Rather than seeking representation, Bell calls on Black peoples to acknowledge the permanence of our subordinate status.7 Espousing the framework of racial realism, Bell disavows any possibility of transcendent change.8 To the contrary,
he argues that [i]t is time we concede that a commitment to racial equality merely perpetuates our disempowerment.9 The alternative he advocates is resistance for its own sake living to harass white folks or short-term pragmatic strategies that focus less on eliminating racism and more on simply
ensuring that we do not worsen conditions for those we are trying to help.10 While Bell does not elaborate on what those strategies may be, he points to a different kind of reasoning that could be utilised for legal reform. In his famous story, Space Traders, aliens come to planet Earth promising to solve the
worlds problems if world leaders will simply give up Black people to the aliens. This story narratively illustrates how thin white liberal commitments to social justice are. First, the white people of course do give up Black people to the aliens without much thought. But what more dramatically illustrates this
point is that the reader knows that, almost without a doubt, if this were to happen in real life, of course Black people would be given up. Within this story, however, is a little-commented scene that speaks to perhaps a different way to approach legal reform within the context of white supremacy. Gleason
Golightly, a conservative black economics professor who serves as an informal cabinet member for the President, becomes embroiled in a fight with the civil rights legal establishment about the best means to oppose the proposed trade. Golightly had previously pleaded with the President and his cabinet to
reject it. When his pleas are not heard, he begins to reflect on how his support for conservative racial policies in the interests of attaining greater political power had been to no avail. He realises the strategy behind his appeal to the President was doomed to fail. In retrospect, though [his] arguments were
based on morality [] [i]nstead of outsmarting them, Golightly had done what he so frequently criticised civil rights spokespersons for doing: he had tried to get whites to do right by black people because it was right that they do so. Crazy! he commented when civil rights people did it. Crazy! he mumbled
to himself, at himself.11 Realising the error of his ways, Golightly interrupts this civil rights meeting in which activists plan to organise a moral crusade to convince white Americans to reject the space traders proposal. Instead, he suggests that they should tell white people that they cannot wait to go on the
ship because they have learned they are being transported to a land of milk and honey. White people, argues Golightly, so oppose policies that benefit Black people, even if they benefit white people, that they will start litigating to stop the space traders proposed plan.12 The civil rights establishment rejects
this strategy as a moral outrage and begins a racial justice campaign, ultimately to no avail. What this story troubles is social justice movements investment in the morality of the law. Despite the US legal systems complicity in settler colonialism, patriarchy, capitalism and white supremacy since its inception,
they advocate strategies for change that rest on the presupposition that the law can somehow be made to support the end of sexism, racism and classism. Historically, as more radical racial and social justice organisations were either crushed or co-opted by the US governments during the 1970s, these
movements shifted from a focus on a radical restructuring of the political and economic system to a focus on articulating identity based claims that did not necessarily challenge the prevailing power structure.13 If groups were not going to directly challenge the state, they could then call on the state to
recognise their claims to equality and redress from harms perpetrated by other social actors. Ironically, then, the same US government that codified slavery, segregation, anti-immigrant racism, and the genocide of indigenous peoples, now becomes the body that will protect people of colour from racism. The

Bell suggests that it may be possible to engage

in legal reform in the midst of these contradictions if one foregoes the fantasy that
the law is morally benevolent or even neutral. In doing so, more possibilities for
strategic engagement emerge. For instance, in the Racial Preference Licensing Act, Bell suggests that rather than criminalise racial discrimination,
fact that the US itself could not exist without the past and continuing genocide of indigenous peoples in particular does not strike liberal legal reformists as a contradiction.

the government should allow discrimination, but tax it. Taxes accrued from this discrimination would then go into an equality fund that would support the educational and economic
interests of African-Americans.14 As I have argued elsewhere, the law enforcement approach has been similarly limited in addressing the issues of gender violence when the majority of
men do, or express willingness to engage in, it.15 As a result, criminalisation has not actually led to a decrease in violence against women.16 Anti-violence activists and scholars have
widely critiqued the supposed efficacy of criminalisation.17 As I will discuss later in this essay, Native women in particular have struggled with the contradictions of engaging the legal
system to address the legacies of colonial gender violence. While there is growing critique around criminalisation as the primary strategy for addressing gender violence, there has not
been attention to what other frameworks could be utilised for addressing gender violence. In particular, what would happen if we pursued legal strategies based on their strategic effects
rather than based on the moral statements they propose to make? DISTRUSTING THE LAW Aside from Derrick Bell, because racial and gender justice legal advocates are so invested in
the morality of the law, there has not been sustained strategising on what other possible frameworks may be used. Bell provides some possibilities, but does not specifically engage
alternative strategies in a sustained fashion. Thus, it may be helpful to look for new possibilities in an unexpected place, the work of anti-trust legal scholar Christopher Leslie. Again, the
work of Leslie may seem quite remote from scholars and activists organizing against the logics of settler colonialism. But it may be the fact that Leslie is not directly engaging in social

to disinvest in the morality of the law in a manner which is often

difficult for those who are directly engaged in social justice work to do. This
disinvestment, I contend is critical for those who wish to dismantle settler
colonialism to rethink their legal strategies.
justice work that allows him

In Trust, Distrust, and Anti-Trust, Christopher Leslie explains that while the economic impact of cartels is incalculable, cartels are also unstable.18

Because cartel members cannot develop formal relationships with each other, they must develop partnerships based on informal trust mechanisms in order to overcome the famous prisoners dilemma. The prisoners dilemma, as described by Leslie, is one in which two prisoners are arrested and questioned
separately with no opportunity for communication between them. There is enough evidence to convict both of minor crimes for a one year sentence but not enough for a more substantive sentence. The police offer both prisoners the following deal: if you confess and implicate your partner, and your partner
does not confess, you will be set free and your partner will receive a ten-year sentence. If you confess, and he does as well, then you will both receive a five-year sentence. In this scenario, it becomes the rational choice for both to confess because if the first person does not confess and the second person
does, the first person will receive a ten-year sentence. Ironically, however, while both will confess, it would have been in both of their interests not to confess. Similarly, Leslie argues, cartels face the prisoners dilemma. If all cartel members agree to fix a price, and abide by this price fixing, then all will benefit.
However, individual cartel members are faced with the dilemma of whether or not they should join the cartel and then cheat by lowering prices. They fear that if they do not cheat, someone else will and drive them out of business. At the same time, by cheating, they disrupt the cartel that would have enabled
them to all profit with higher prices. In addition, they face a second dilemma when faced with anti-trust legislation. Should they confess in exchange for immunity or take the chance that no one else will confess and implicate them? Cartel members can develop mechanisms to circumvent pressures. Such
mechanisms include the development of personal relationships, frequent communication, goodwill gestures, etc. In the absence of trust, cartels may employ trust substitutes such as informal contracts and monitoring mechanisms. When these trust and trust substitute mechanisms break down, the cartel
members will start to cheat, thus causing the cartel to disintegrate. Thus, Leslie proposes, anti-trust legislation should focus on laws that will strategically disrupt trust mechanisms. Unlike racial or gender justice advocates who focus on making moral statements through the law, Leslie proposes using the law
for strategic ends, even if the law makes a morally suspect statement. For instance, in his article, Anti-Trust Amnesty, Game Theory, and Cartel Stability, Leslie critiques the federal Anti-Trusts 1993 Corporate Lenience Policy that provided greater incentives for cartel partners to report on cartel activity. This
policy provided automatic amnesty for the first cartel member to confess, and decreasing leniency for subsequent confessors in the order to which they confessed. Leslie notes that this amnesty led to an increase of amnesty applications.19 However, Leslie notes that the effectiveness of this reform is
hindered by the fact that the ringleader of the cartel is not eligible for amnesty. This policy seems morally sound. Why would we want the ringleader, the person who most profited from the cartel, to be eligible for amnesty? The problem, however, with attempting to make a moral statement through the law is
that it is counter-productive if the goal is to actually break up cartels. If the ringleader is never eligible for amnesty, the ringleader becomes inherently trustworthy because he has no incentive to ever report on his partners. Through his inherent trustworthiness, the cartel can build its trust mechanisms. Thus,
argues Leslie, the most effective way to destroy cartels is to render all members untrustworthy by granting all the possibility of immunity. While Leslies analysis is directed towards policy, it also suggests an alternative framework for pursuing social justice through the law, to employ it for its strategic effects
rather than through the moral statements it purports to make. It is ironic that an anti-trust scholar such as Leslie displays less trust in the law than do many anti-racist/anti-colonial activists and scholars who work through legal reform.20 It also indicates that it is possible to engage legal reform more
strategically if one no longer trusts it. As Beth Richie notes, the anti-violence movements primary strategy for addressing gender violence was to articulate it as a crime.21 Because it is presumed that the best way to address a social ill is to call it a crime, this strategy is then deemed the correct moral
strategy. When this strategy backfires and does not end violence, and in many cases increases violence against women, it becomes difficult to argue against this strategy because it has been articulated in moral terms. If, however, we were to focus on legal reforms chosen for their strategic effects, it would be
easier to change the strategy should our calculus of its strategic effects suggest so. We would also be less complacent about the legal reforms we advocate as has happened with most of the laws that have been passed on gender violence. Advocates presume that because they helped pass a moral law, then
their job is done. If, however, the criteria for legal reforms are their strategic effects, we would then be continually monitoring the operation of these laws to see if they were having the desired effects. For instance, since the primary reason women do not leave battering relationships is because they do not
have another home to go, what if our legal strategies shifted from criminalising domestic violence to advocating affordable housing? While the shift from criminalisation may seem immoral, women are often removed from public housing under one strike laws in which they lose access to public housing if a
crime (including domestic violence) happens in their residence, whether or not they are the perpetrator. If our goal was actually to keep women safe, we might need to creatively rethink what legal reforms would actually increase safety. REVOLUTIONARY REFORMS As mentioned previously, there has been

insufficient evaluation of the strategic effects of legal strategies opposing gender violence. However, the work of Native anti-violence scholar and activist, Sarah Deer, points to possible new directions in engaging legal reform for the purpose of decolonisation. Deer notes that the issues of gender violence
cannot be separated from the project of decolonisation. For instance, currently, tribal governments are restricted to sentencing tribal members to three years in tribal prison for even major crimes such as rape. Much of the focus of the anti-violence movement has been on increasing the number of years tribal
governments can incarcerate members. Because of this effort, the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010 increased the length of sentences from one to three years. However, Deer notes that prior to colonisation, violence against women was virtually unheard of, even though tribes did not have prisons.22 Instead,
tribes utilised a number of social mechanisms to ensure safety for women and children, and none of these mechanisms are prohibited by federal legislation. Because the federal government restricts the amount of prison time allowed for sexual offenders, tribes primarily call on the federal government to
expand tribes ability to incarcerate. However, as a variety of scholars have noted, expanded sentencing has not actually led to decreased violence.23 Thus, rather than focusing their attention simply on incarceration, Deer suggests that tribes look to pre-colonial measures for addressing violence and begin to
adapt those for contemporary circumstances.24 At the same time, Deer notes that it is not necessarily a simple process to adapt pre-colonial measures for addressing violence. Unfortunately, many of the alternatives to incarceration that are promoted under the restorative justice model have not developed
sufficient safety mechanisms for survivors of domestic/sexual violence. Restorative justice is an umbrella term that describes a wide range of programs that attempt to address crime from a restorative and reconciliatory rather than a punitive framework. As restorative justice frameworks involve all parties
(perpetrators, victims, and community members) in determining the appropriate response to a crime in an effort to restore the community to wholeness, restorative justice is opposed to the US criminal justice system, which focuses solely on punishing the perpetrator and removing him (or her) from society
through incarceration. These models are well developed in many Native communities, especially in Canada, where the legal status of Native nations allows an opportunity to develop community-based justice programs. In one program, for example, when a crime is reported, the working team that deals with
sexual/domestic violence talks to the perpetrator and gives him the option of participating in the program. The perpetrator must first confess his guilt and then follow a healing contract, or go to jail. The perpetrator is free to decline to participate in the program and go through the criminal justice system. In
the restorative justice model, everyone (victim, perpetrator, family, friends, and the working team) is involved in developing the healing contract. Everyone is also assigned an advocate through the process. Everyone is also responsible for holding the perpetrator accountable to his contract. One Tlingit man
noted that this approach was often more difficult than going to jail: First one must deal with the shock and then the dismay on your neighbors faces. One must live with the daily humiliation, and at the same time seek forgiveness not just from victims, but from the community as a whole []. [A prison
sentence] removes the offender from the daily accountability, and may not do anything towards rehabilitation, and for many may actually be an easier disposition than staying in the community.25 These models have greater potential for dealing with crime effectively because, if we want people who
perpetuate violence to live in society peaceably, it makes sense to develop justice models in which the community is involved in holding him/her accountable. Under the current incarceration model, perpetrators are taken away from their community and are further hindered from developing ethical
relationships within a community context. However, the problem with these models is that they work only when the community unites in holding perpetrators accountable. In cases of sexual and domestic violence, the community often sides with the perpetrator rather than the victim. As Deer argues, in many
Native communities, these models are often pushed on domestic violence survivors in order to pressure them to reconcile with their families and restore the community without sufficient concern for their personal safety.26 In addition, Native advocates have sometime critiqued the uncritical use of
traditional forms of governance for addressing domestic violence. They argue that Native communities have been pressured to adopt circle sentencing because it is supposed to be an indigenous traditional practice. However, some advocates contend that there is no such traditional practice in their
communities. Moreover, they are concerned that the process of diverting cases outside the court system can be dangerous for survivors. In one example, Bishop Hubert OConnor (a white man) was found guilty of multiple cases of sexual abuse but his punishment under the restorative justice model was to
participate in a healing circle with his victims. Because his crimes were against Aboriginal women, he was able to opt for an Aboriginal approach an approach, many argue, that did little to provide real healing for the survivors and accountability for the perpetrator. Deer complains that there is a tendency to
romanticise and homogenise traditional alternatives to incarceration. First, she notes traditional approaches might, in fact, be harsher than incarceration. Many Native people presume that traditional modes of justice focus on conflict resolution. In fact, Deer argues, penalties for societal infractions were not
lenient they entailed banishment, shaming, reparations, physical punishment and sometimes death. Deer notes that revising tribal codes by reincorporating traditional practices is not a simple process. It is sometimes difficult to determine what these practices were or how they could be made useful today.
For example, some practices, such as banishment, would not have the same impact today. Prior to colonisation, Native communities were so close-knit and interdependent that banishment was often the equivalent of a death sentence. Today, however, banished perpetrators could simply leave home and join
the dominant society. While tribes now have the opportunity to divest from the US colonial system, many Native women remain under violent attack. They may need to use the federal system until such time that more advanced decolonisation becomes possible. Thus Deer advocates a two-fold strategy: 1) The
short-term strategy of holding the federal government accountable for prosecuting rape cases; and 2) encouraging tribes to hold perpetrators accountable directly so that they will eventually not need to rely on federal interference. This approach can be misread as a simple formula for reform. However, it is
important to remember that the project of prison abolition is a positive rather than a negative project. The goal is not to tell survivors that they can never call the police or engage the criminal justice system. The question is not, should a survivor call the police? The question is: why have we given survivors no
other option but to call the police? Deer is suggesting that it is not inconsistent to reform federal justice systems while at the same time building tribal infrastructures for accountability that will eventually replace the federal system. If we focus simply on community accountability without a larger critique of
the state, we often fall back on framing community accountability as simply an add-on to the criminal justice system. Because anti-violence work has focused simply on advocacy, we have not developed strategies for due process, leaving that to the state. When our political imaginaries are captured by the
state, we can then presume that the state should be left to administer justice while communities will serve simply as a supplement to this regime. To do so, however, recapitulates the fundamental injustice of a settler state that is founded on slavery, genocide and the exploitation of immigrant labour.
Further, we are unable to imagine new visions for liberatory nationhood that are not structured on hierarchical logics, violence and domination. We face a dilemma: on the one hand, the incarceration approach for addressing sexual/domestic violence promotes the repression of communities of colour without
really providing safety for survivors. On the other hand, restorative justice models often promote community silence and denial under the rhetoric of community restoration without concern for the safety of survivors. Thus, our challenge is to develop community-based models that respond to gender violence
in ways that hold perpetrators accountable. Unfortunately, in this discussion advocates often assume only two possibilities: the criminal justice system or restorative justice. When anyone finds faults with the restorative justice model, it is assumed that the traditional criminal justice approach must be the
back-up strategy. Deers approach, by contrast, is to work with the criminal justice system while continuing to develop effective strategies for addressing violence. These will eventually eliminate the need to rely on the criminal justice system. Of course, the trap of pursuing reforms is that they can create
investment in the current US legal system and detract from building new systems of governance that are not based on violence, domination and control. At the same time, we are not going to go from where we are now to revolution tomorrow. Thus, it becomes important to strategise around what may be
called revolutionary reforms. Other abolitionists have argued that the only reforms that should be supported are those that diminish the criminal justice apparatus. Other abolitions have argued that this approach leaves people vulnerable to the crimes of the powerful, such as rape and domestic violence.27
It is in this context that we can understand Deers current projects. She has worked on building tribal infrastructure by encouraging and assisting tribes to develop tribal civil protection orders. Her strategy is not so much based on the rationale that civil protection orders will in themselves provide protection for
women. Rather, by developing these orders, tribes gain the practice of developing their own systems for addressing violence. Deer notes that this is one area that is not likely to be interfered with by the US federal government. At the same time, it is not an approach that is directly tied with investing tribes in
the project of incarceration. Thus, it becomes a reform that tribal communities may adopt now as they develop creative responses for addressing violence. The reason for this suggested reform is that many tribal governments incorrectly think that the federal government is already adequately addressing
gender violence and do not take initiative to address it themselves.28 In the end, the importance of Deers recommendation is not so much an investment in that particular strategy, but the manner in which it encourages us to think of short-term strategies that are not simply based on increased incarceration,
strategies that will more likely fall under the federal radar screen so that tribal communities have more time to practice new ways of supporting accountability for violence. This will encourage communities to develop better decolonial practices in the future. As Deer notes, a long-term vision for radical change
requires both immediate measures to address sexual violence and a forward-looking effort to dismantle the culture of rape that has infiltrated tribal nations.29 At the same time, many other Native activists are engaging community accountability strategies that do not work with the current system at all.
These strategies are not broadly advertised because these activists do not want to gain the attention of federal authorities. Yet, many communities have developed informal strategies for addressing authorities. For instance, one man who assaulted a relative was banished from his community. As he was
simply able to move to the city, tribal members would follow him to various work places, carrying signs that described him as a rapist. Again, this may be a strategy that we may or may not support. But the point is that it is important to engage the experimental and jazzy approaches for developing

Those who call for

decolonisation often do not effectively engage in any short-term reformist
strategy, even though they may save the lives of indigenous peoples who
are currently under immediate attack. As a result, the immediate needs of
people often get sacrificed in favour of articulating seemingly politicallypure ideals.

community-based accountability strategies.30 In his recent book X-Marks, Scott Lyons engages with Native activists and scholars who call for decolonisation as a central focus for organising.31

Conversely, those who do engage in short-term reform strategies often decry the goal of decolonisation as unrealistic. In doing so, they do not critique the manner in which these strategies often retrench rather than challenge the colonial status quo. Lyons

affirms the need for decolonisation, but notes that decolonization happens with pre-existing materials and institutions. He calls on Native peoples to think creatively about these institutions and about the ways in which they can be deployed not just for short-term gains but for a long-term vision of liberation.
BEYOND SHAMING THE SYSTEM Legal reformists who often focus on shaping the law to reflect their moral values and those who focus on extra-legal revolutionary strategies often share the same goal. Often the presumed radical strategy adopted by social justice groups is to engage in civil disobedience.
While these groups ostensibly break the law, they often do so in rather ceremonial fashion; they essentially want to shame the system. People are supposed to get arrested, and those in power are supposed to be so shamed by the fact that an unjust system required people to break the law. The expectation is
that they will then change the laws. Acts of civil disobedience often are not targeted toward changing a policy directly or building alternative systems to the current one. Many Native groups in the southwest US, however, have developed an alternative framework for extra-legal social change. Rather than
breaking the law to change the system, they propose to make Native communities ungovernable. For instance, during the passage of SB1070, Native groups with the Taala Hooghan Infoshop, Oodham Solidarity Across Borders, and others occupied the Border Patrol Office.32 However, rather than engaging in
the occupation with the expectation of getting arrested, they chained themselves to the building so that the office could not perform its work. This approach has continued with their efforts to stop the US governments desecration of the San Francisco Peaks through the construction of a ski resort. While they
have not eschewed legal strategies for stopping this desecration, they have focused on preventing tourists from visiting the area so that the ski resort will no longer be economically viable. According to their promotional material on TrueSnow.org: For the last decade defenders of the peaks have used every
legitimate way they could think of to try to stop the US Forest Service from allowing treated sewage effluent to be sprayed on the Peaks to make snow. More than 20,000 people took part in the Forest Service Environmental Impact Statement process with letters and appeals asking them not to spray treated
sewage effluent on the peaks to make snow. Thousands of us went to Flagstaff City Council meetings to voice our opposition to the sale of treated sewer water for the project. Yet still they approved it before even an environmental impact statement was done. They were the most clueless of all. Currently the
Hopi tribe is seeking lawsuit against the city because of this treated sewage effluent sale. A group of tribes and environmental and social justice organizations took a lawsuit all the way to the steps of the Supreme Court. The lawsuits have only called into question the legitimacy of what is loosely termed the
justice system. For it seems there is no justice in this system. It is just us, IN this system. There is also yet another lawsuit in play which I have termed Save the Peaks Coalition vs The Snowbowl Movement which may have the possibility of stopping this project in the long term. But if we wait for a verdict, all
the trees will be cut and the pipeline installed. This has not stopped the politically connected ski area from going ahead with their project right now and they have already clear-cut 100,000 trees (or more) and have already buried a few miles of pipeline along Snowbowl road. If they lose in court they would be
expected to repair the damages. How do you get back 400 year old trees? Greed and hatred seems to be Snowbowl's only motivation []. But isn't there some way to stop it? Well we could hit them where it hurts! In the pocketbook. If you live in the Fort Valley area of Flagstaff you must see by now how little
Arizona Snowbowl really cares about the economic benefits it brings our fair town. I know some of us had a good deal of trouble even going to work when the snow was good and Snowbowl was busy. The traffic jam was incredible. Stretching more than 15 miles. They took our livelihood away and hope to
make that a daily occurrence by having a predictable ski season using sewer water to make snow. This jam up gave us an idea! Why don't we do the same thing? Arizona Snowbowl does not own the mountain, and it is perfectly legal to drive up to the area for any permitted public lands use. This means
hiking, camping, praying, skiing, sitting, loving, mushroom hunting, etc. So what do I do? It is time to stop waiting for a government entity, an environmental group, or any of the people you have come to expect to save the peaks for us. The time has come to show them how much power the people have! And
believe me, you are the most powerful people in all of the world! You! Yep you! You can do it! All summer the Arizona Snowbowl is open Friday, Saturday, and Sunday for scenic skyrides, food, and alcohol. They do get a pretty good business up there and it would have an impact if the mountain was just too
busy with people doing all the other things our Public Forests are for. There is nothing illegal about it and it would send a clear message to the forest service that we don't need Snowbowl to recreate on the mountain. Heck, we don't even need a ski area up there to ski! In essence, take a vacation. Just do it
up on the peaks and don't use Snowbowl. Our government officials are forgetting what all power to the people really means. You cannot wait any longer for someone else to save the peaks for you. It will take of all us together to do this. So what are you waiting for? Pack a lunch this Saturday morning and
Converge on the Peaks!33 What these activists suggest is to divest our moral investment in the law. This will affect not only what legal reforms we may pursue, but what revolutionary strategies we might engage in. Rather than engaging in civil disobedience to force legislators to change laws to conform to
our moral principles, we might be free to engage creatively in strategies that build political and economic power directly. CONCLUSION In the debates prevalent within Native sovereignty and racial justice movements, we are often presented with two seemingly orthogonal positions long-term revolutionary
extra-legal movements or shortterm reformist legalist strategies. Short-term legal strategies are accused of investing activists within a white supremacist and settler colonial system that is incapable of significant change . Meanwhile, revolutionaries are accused of sacrificing the immediate needs of vulnerable

. Native womens lives are at stake

now they cannot wait for the revolution to achieve some sort of safety. At the same time, the short-term strategies often

populations for the sake of an endlessly deferred revolution. The reality of gender violence in Native communities highlights the untenability of these positions

adopted to address gender violence have often increased violence in Native womens lives by buttressing the prison industrial complex and its violent logics. While this reformist versus
revolutionary dichotomy suggests two radically different positions, in reality they share a common assumption: that the only way to pursue legal reform is to fight for laws that that
reinforce the appropriate moral statement (for instance, that the only way to address violence against Native women is through the law and to make this violence a crime). Because the
US legal system is inherently immoral and colonial, however, attempts to moralise the law generally fail. It is not surprising that the response to these failures is to simply give up on
pursuing legal strategies. However, the works of Derrick Bell, Christopher Leslie, and Sarah Deer, while working in completely different areas of the law, point to a different approach.

We can challenge the assumption that the law will reflect our morals and
instead seek to use the law for its strategic effects . In doing so, we might
advocate for laws that might in fact contradict some of our morals because we
recognize that the law cannot mirror our morals anyway. We might then be free
to engage in a relationship with the law which would free us to change
our strategies as we assess its strategic effects. At the same time, by divesting from
the morality of the law, we then will also simultaneously be free to invest
in building our own forms of community accountability and justice outside
the legal system. Our extra-legal strategies would go beyond ceremonial civil disobedience tactics designed to shame a system that is not capable of shame.
Rather, we might focus on actually building the political power to create an alternative system to the heteropatriarchal, white supremacist, settler colonial state.

Try or die for racial optimismmultiple historical events

demonstrate that progress is possible, and hope is necessary to
achieve change
Kennedy, Harvard law professor, 2014

(Randall, Black America's Promised Land: Why I Am Still a Racial Optimist,

http://prospect.org/article/black-americas-promised-land-why-i-am-still-racialoptimist)

Pessimists
posit that the United States will not overcome its tragic racial past. They
maintain that blacks are not and cannot become members of the American family
They believe that the United States is a white nation that will
always be governed on behalf of white folk. For pessimists
Beneath the malaise is a deep current of racial pessimism that has a long history in American and African American thought.

believe that racial harmony predicated on fairness is not part of the

American future. They

(even

with a black family occupying the White House).

, the Obama presidency is no sign of racial transcendence; to the

contrary, it is a demonstration of the intractability of American pigmentocracy. For them, the Obama ascendancy shows that in order to rise to the top of American politics, a black politician must be willing to forgo substantively
challenging the racial status quo (though he is allowed to cavil about it rhetorically). For them, the Obama administration simply mirrors the racial diversification of an existing order in which a relatively small sector of upper-crust

Obama era is littered with

bitter incongruity: While a black man is commander-in-chief, Michael Brown and
thousands like him are stalked, harassed, brutalized, and occasionally killed in
Ferguson-like locales across America. The pedigree of black racial pessimism is
impressive
blacks prosper while the condition of the black masses stagnates or deterioratesthe consequence of a misbegotten theory of racial trickle-down. For them, the

. In its ranks one finds such figures as Henry McNeal Turner, Marcus Garvey, Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, Randall Robinson, and the extraordinary W.E.B. Du Bois. One encounters

Frederick Douglass declaring in 1847, I cannot have any love for this country or for its Constitution. I desire to see its overthrow as speedily as possible, and its Constitution shriveled in a thousand fragments. In that tradition,
one also finds Derrick Bell, professor of law at Harvard, teaching in the 1990s that the United States is irredeemably imprisoned by its past, that racism is an integral, permanent, and indestructible component of this society, and
that black people will never gain full equality in this country. Garvey, Muhammad, Du Bois, Malcolm X: Library of Congress; Bell: David Shankbone THE PESSIMISTS: Henry McNeal Turner, Marcus Garvey, Elijah Muhammad, W.E.B.
Du Bois, Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, Randall Robinson, and Derrick Bell The tradition of black racial pessimism has its white counterpart. According to Thomas Jefferson, The two races, equally free, cannot live in the same
government. Alexis de Tocqueville doubted that the white and black races will ever live in any country upon an equal footing, but believed the difficulty to be still greater in the United States than elsewhere. According to
Abraham Lincoln, differences between blacks and whites will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. But the pessimists, black and white,have not been the only influence on American
thought about the prospects for racial progress. Arrayed against them are optimists who contend that blacks are (or can become) members of the American family and insist that racial harmony bottomed on fairness is
attainable. This, in fact, has been the predominant tradition among blacks. Its adherents include Booker T. Washington, Thurgood Marshall, Roy Wilkins, Mary McLeod Bethune, Jesse Jackson, and John Lewis (joined by whites such as
the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton). The most memorable spokesman for the optimistic tradition was Martin Luther King Jr. On April 3, 1968,
the night before he was assassinated, he told his followers to take heart because he knew that, eventually, they would overcome the obstacles they faced. He knew this because he had been to the mountaintop and glimpsed the
Promised Land, though he might not make it there himself. King was vague, however, about the Promised Lands boundaries and topography. He had famously spoken of a nation where individuals will be judged not by the color of
their skin but by the content of their character. Yet that formulation is popular partly because it is open to contending interpretations. Is it a condemnation of all racial distinctions? Or is it a condemnation only of invidious racial
distinctions? Is it meant to posit a rule of non-discrimination that should go into effect immediately even at the cost of barring efforts to rectify past racial wrongdoing? Or is it meant to posit a rule of nondiscrimination that should go
into effect only after the consequences of past wrongdoings have been ameliorated? Bethune, Marshall, Wilkins, Jackson, King: Library of Congress THE OPTIMISTS: Booker T. Washington, Mary McLeod Bethune, Thurgood Marshall,
Roy Wilkins, Jesse Jackson, John Lewis, Martin Luther King Jr., and Barack Obama These questions underlie the debate that has been raging for decades over competing conceptions of the racial Promised Land. In one conception, the
Promised Land is a society henceforth substantially free of intentional racial discrimination in major domains of the public sphere. In this society, no effort is made to rectify the oppressive consequences of past racial misconduct
because, it is argued, trying to do so is futile, unfair to those innocent of past wrongdoing, and conducive to the perpetuation of race-mindedness. This view has been propounded vigorously in the legal writings of Justices Clarence
Thomas and Antonin Scalia, mainly in critiques of affirmative action. Chief Justice John Roberts, also a champion of this view, expressed it epigrammatically when, abjuring a race-conscious plan for school integration, he quipped that
the best way to stop racial discrimination is to stop racially discriminatingno matter whether the aim is to assist or oppress a vulnerable group. Under this conception, we enter the racial Promised Land when racial discrimination is
a negligible feature of social life, even if the vestiges of racial subordination in the past are evident and consequential. Lets call this model of racial justice the conservative conception of the racial Promised Land. Today, one can go
into a hospital, visit the ward for newborns, and make accurate estimates about the babies varying life trajectories on the basis of their racial identities. The progressive conception of the racial Promised Land is more ambitious. It
envisions two essential landmarks. The first is the requirement of the conservatives that invidious racial discrimination be reduced to a negligible influence. The second condition is that the vestiges of past discriminationthe racial
gaps that so dramatically scar the social landscapebe erased. Pursuant to the progressive perspective, we will reach the racial Promised Land when blackness is no longer a uniform that, holding other variables steady, signals that
its wearer bears a notably higher risk than whites of premature death, impoverishment, unemployment, incarceration, victimization by criminality, homelessness, police harassment, and similar afflictions. Today, one can go into a
hospital, visit the ward for newborns, and make accurate estimates about the babies varying life trajectories on the basis of their racial identities. When accurate estimates of this sort are no longer possible, progressives contend,
we will have reached the racial Promised Land. Some observers insist that what I have dubbed the conservative model of the racial Promised Land is at hand or at least nearby. They maintain that, for the most part, we have
overcome. They proclaim Mission Accomplished or at least mission near-accomplished. This is mistaken. Intentional invidious racial discrimination constitutes a force in American life that is far from negligible. It is a substantial
headwind that blacks and other racial minorities face in many key areas, including housing, finance, employment, criminal justice, electoral politics, and markets for romance and marriage. There is a library of empirical literature
establishing this fact beyond sensible controversystudies based on similarly situated but racially disparate testers who meet different fates when they seek to buy automobiles, rent housing, get jobs, or obtain loans. And then there
are the lessons of everyday life that suggest forcefully that in crucial interactions with police officers, prosecutors, judges, and other authorities armed with discretion, outcomes differ, all too often, depending on the race of the
person being assessed. It is difficult to imagine that the dismal train of events surrounding the deaths of Trayvon Martin or Michael Brown would have been identical had they been white. Even more distant is the progressive
conception of the racial Promised Land. In practically every key index of well-being, a chasm separates the circumstances in which whites and blacks typically find themselves. The income gap separating blacks and whites widened
from about $19,000 in the late 1960s to about $27,000 in 2011. The wealth gap increased from $75,000 in 1984 to $85,000 in 2011. Blacks are nearly three times more likely to live in deep poverty than whites. Black men are six
times as likely as white men to be incarcerated. And on. And on. And on. We have failed to reach the racial Promised Land in either its conservative or its progressive definition. With respect to both of these destinations, our society

Still, I put myself in the optimistic camp. I am hopeful first and foremost
because of the predominant trajectory of African Americans
remains far afield.

a history that John Hope Franklin framed with the apt title From

Slavery to Freedom. In 1860, four million African Americans were enslaved while another half-million were free but devoid of fundamental rights in many of the jurisdictions where they lived. In 1860, the very term African American
was something of an oxymoron because the Supreme Court had ruled in Dred Scott v. Sandford that no black, free or enslaved, could be a citizen of the United States. But within a decade, the Thirteenth Amendment (1865)
abolished slavery, the Fourteenth Amendment (1868) established birthright citizenship and required all states to accord all persons due process and equal protection of the laws, and the Fifteenth Amendment (1870) prohibited states
from withholding the right to vote on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. People who had been sold on the auction block as youngsters helped to govern their locales as public officials when they were adults. In
1861, Jefferson Davis of Mississippi resigned from the United States Senate to join the Confederate States of America, which he led as president. In 1870, Hiram Revels, the first black member of Congress, occupied the seat that
Davis abandoned. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel) Duane Merrells walks with an upside down flag in a protest Monday, August 18, 2014, for the killing of Michael Brown, who was shot by police August 9 in Ferguson, Missouri. Brown's

The First Reconstruction was overwhelmed by a

devastating white supremacist reaction. But the most fundamental reforms it
established proved resilient, providing the basis for a Second Reconstruction from
the 1950s to the 1970s.
shooting in the middle of a street sparked a more than week of protests in the St. Louis suburb.

During that period, too, the distance traveled by blacks was astonishing. In 1950, segregation was deemed to be consistent with federal constitutional equal

protection. No federal law prevented proprietors of hotels, restaurants, and other privately owned public accommodations from engaging in racial discrimination. No federal law prohibited private employers from discriminating on a
racial basis against applicants for jobs or current employees. No federal law effectively counteracted racial disenfranchisement. No federal law outlawed racial discrimination in private housing transactions. In contrast, by 1970

The 1964 Civil Rights Act forbade racial discrimination

in privately owned places of public accommodation and many areas of private
employment. The 1965 Voting Rights Act provided the basis for strong prophylactic
action against racial exclusion at the ballot box. The 1968 Fair Housing Act
addressed racial exclusion in a market that had been zealously insulated against
federal regulation. None of these interventions were wholly successful. All were
compromised. All occasioned backlash. But the racial situation in 1970 and
afterwards was dramatically better than what it had been in 1950 and
before. Today, at a moment when progress has stalled, we need to recall
how dramatically and unexpectedly conditions sometimes change.
federal constitutional law thoroughly repudiated the lie of separate but equal.

Until recently whod-a

thunk it possible for the president to be an African American? In the 1980s, I used to ask law students how long affirmative action programs ought to last. Champions of such programs, seeking to ensure their longevity, would say
that affirmative action would be needed until the country elected a black president. That reply would elicit appreciative laughter as listeners supposed that that formula would preserve affirmative action for at least a century. But
then along came Barack Obama and with him the remark that soon became a clich: I never thought that Id live to see a black president. Obamas election is much more than a monument to one politicians talent and good

Hard facts may give

plausibility to the pessimistic tradition, but they make the optimistic
tradition compelling. Despite the many wrongs that remain to be righted,
blacks in America confront fewer racist impediments now than ever before
in the history of the United States.

fortune. Changes in public attitudes, law, and custom have clearly elevated the fortunes of African Americans as individuals and black America as a collectivity.

The courage, intelligence, persistence, idealism, and sacrifice of Fannie Lou Hamer and Rosa Parks, Julian Bond and Bob

Moses, Medgar Evers and Bayard Rustin, Viola Liuzzo and Vernon Dahmerand countless other tribunes for racial justicehave not been expended for naught. The facts of day-to-day life allow blacks to sing more confidently than
ever before James Weldon Johnsons magnificent hymn Lift Every Voice and Sing, often referred to as the Black National Anthem: The belief that we can overcome makes more realistic the possibility that we shall overcome.

My optimism involves more than a sociological

prediction. I am also swayed by my intuition regarding which of these hypotheses
the pessimistic or the optimisticwill do the most good. Hope is a vital nutrient for
effort; without it, there is no prospect for achievement. The belief that we can
overcome makes more realistic the possibility that we shall overcome. Optimism
gives buoyancy to thinking that might otherwise degenerate into nihilism,
encourages solidarity in those who might otherwise be satisfied by purely selfish
indulgence, invites strategic planning that can usefully harness what might
otherwise be impotent indignation, and inspires efforts that might otherwise be
avoided due to fatalism.
Optimism gives buoyancy to thinking that might otherwise degenerate into nihilism

On Election Day 1996, exit polling showed General Colin Powell beating President Bill Clinton by a comfortable margin. But Powell was not Clintons opponent.

Senator Bob Dole was. Powell had considered seeking the Republican Party nomination but declined in the end to do so. Before he made that decision, polls suggested that he could win the nomination and the general election, but
friends were skeptical. Powell recalls that Earl Graves, the publisher of Black Enterprise magazine, told him, Look, man [w]hen [white voters] go in that booth, they aint going to vote for you. Maybe Graves was correct. Real
voting might have produced different results from the polls. Furthermore, whereas the actual candidates had suffered a year of merciless scrutiny on the campaign trail, Powell on Election Day was a mere hypothetical candidate who
suffered from none of the wear and tear that a presidential contest exacts. At the end of a campaign, the general might not have remained so attractive. Still, Powells apparent popularity does provide a basis for conjecturing that
Americas readiness to elect a black president had been an unrecognized part of the political landscape for longer than many had appreciated. Powell may well have denied himself the opportunity to make a successful historic leap
by being self-defeatingly pessimistic. A major fear of many blacks is that acknowledging progress will prompt underestimation of racial obstacles that blacks at every socioeconomic level continue to face. When Americans are polled
about their perceptions of racial affairs, whites are typically more upbeat than blacks. The more affluent they are, the more upbeat white observers tend to be. Inordinately impressed by progress, they all too often prematurely
declare victory over racism. Although complacency nourished by an overly rosy view of racial affairs is a real danger, I stand by my conviction that a clear-eyed assessment favors black optimism. Who, after all, have been the figures
most beneficial to blacks? Was it the Martin Delany who decamped for Africa, thinking America to be irremediably racist? Or was it the Martin Delany who returned, recruited blacks for the Union, and participated significantly in
Southern politics during Reconstruction? Was it the pre-1966 Stokely Carmichael who sang We Shall Overcome in the splendid early days of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)? Or was it the post-1966 Stokely
Carmichael (later renamed Kwame Ture) whose impatient bitterness helped to destroy the SNCC and rationalize an indulgent exile to Guinea that squandered a substantial talent? Was it my long-time colleague of blessed memory,
Derrick Bell, who posited the permanence of racist white dominance? Or was it a student who rightly admired Professor Bell but eschewed his pessimism and followed a different path, a black student who, years later, put Bells
hypothesis to a test by seeking the highest elected office in the land under the slogan Yes We Can!? WGBH - video screen shot A young Barack Obama introduces Professor Derrick Bell at a 1991 demonstration for diversity at
Harvard Law School. That student, of course, was Barack Obama, and his presidency has been the setting for much debate between pessimists and optimists. Some detractors, perhaps the angriest, started from a position of raised
expectations. They thought that Obama embodied the audacity of hope and that he would somehow bring about sweeping changes. Disappointed, they have expressed themselves in the angry, accusatory rhetoric of betrayal.
Obama, Cornel West charges, posed as a progressive and turned out to be counterfeit. Others condemn Obama but without disappointment. They see their low expectations as having been validated. Certain pessimists have
maintained that Obamas election indicated little in terms of real racial progress. They even discount the symbolic significance of his ascendancy, stressing his exceptionality. Although he calls himself black, Obama is the offspring
of a black African father and a white American mother and is thus distinguished genealogically from most African Americans. Much was made of his Muslim-sounding name. But some observers maintain that popular acceptance of
that, too, should be viewed skeptically. It would have signaled more, they argue, had America elected a black person raised in, say, Detroit with a name such as Tyrone Washington or Jamal Jefferson. Pessimists argue that,
substantively, the Obama presidency has delivered no more to blacks than would have been delivered by any other centrist-liberal Democrat (say, Hillary Clinton), and that in certain respects the Obama presidency delivered less
because Obama sought excessively to prove that he was a president for all Americans and not merely black Americans. They contend that Obamas blackness was an asset that he used for personal marketing and that the white
establishment seized upon for advertising, The United States cannot sensibly be accused of practicing or condoning racism! It just elected a black president! Pessimists will now also enlist the horrifying events in Ferguson,
Missouri, to reinforce their claim that despite the civil rights movement, antidiscrimination legislation, affirmative action, and the election of Obama, the narrative of race relations in America is a doleful talenot a march upward
from slavery to freedom, but a trek sideways from plantation to ghetto. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy) President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama welcome President Hu Jintao of China at the North
Portico of the White House for the State Dinner, January 19, 2011. What is an optimist in the waning years of the Obama presidency to say in the face of this challenge? Obamas election signaled a dramatic, substantive change in
racial beliefs and attitudes. In 1960, his victory would have been impossible: Too many whites would have been unwilling to vote for a black candidateany black candidatebecause of doubts about the capacities of anyone of black
African ancestry. Recall that there were no black cabinet officers until Johnson appointed Robert Weaver as secretary of housing and urban development in 1966, and no black Supreme Court justices until Johnson nominated
Thurgood Marshall in 1967. The specter of black intellectual and characterological deficiency stunted the careers of many talented blacks, and still does. That Obama was able to win the presidencytwiceis a sign that rumors of
racial inferiority, while still extant, are much diminished in influence. That a black man has been the master of the White House for the past six years does indeed reflect and reinforce a remarkable socio-psychological transformation
in the American racial scene. If that is tokenism, give us more of it. In thinking about the meaning of Obama, it is important, too, to focus on the special status of the presidency. The person who occupies that office is not only the
head of the executive branch of the federal government, the person who nominates all federal judges, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and thus a person with the wherewithal to destroy most, if not all, of humankind.
The president is also the nations mourner-in-chief, booster-in-chief, spouse-in-chief, and parent-in-chief. That a black man has been the master of the White House for the past six years does indeed reflect and reinforce a remarkable
socio-psychological transformation in the American racial scene. If that is tokenism, give us more of it. I have emphasized progress that blacks have made in absolute terms: where they stood 50 years ago and where they stand
today. But what about the position of blacks relative to whitesthose yawning gaps in wealth, income, educational attainment, and risk of imprisonment that have remained unclosed and that have, in some ways, widened even

There is no use denying that reality. America remains racially stratified

and will continue to be
Negrophobia in America
is, alas, all too present. But it pales in comparison with the prejudice against racial,
ethnic, religious, and national minorities in many countries around the globe. As bad
as the American racial problem is, as urgently as it calls for concentrated attention,
its condition is less dire and more encouraging than might be gleaned from an
analysis that views the American situation in isolation, divorced from international
comparisons. There is also no good purpose served by ignoring manifestations of
progress that display themselves even in heartrending crises. Consider the events
in Ferguson.
further during Obamas tenure?

long after the Obama presidency. There is also no use, however, in denying other facets of the American racial reality. One is a comparative view. In considering the

appropriate attitude to adopt toward Americaallegiance, for example, or dis-affiliationit is sensible to compare the United States to other divided societies.

The killing of the unarmed teenager, the callous inattentiveness to his body, the militarized police response to protest, and the dubious investigation by local authorities of this tragic death display

much of what is terrible in American race relations: an atavistic fear of young black men; quick resort to excessive force against African Americans; racial residential separation; black powerlessness that foments resentment; white

But the events in Ferguson have also revealed other

responses. The federal government took note of what happened and actively
involved itself via the president, attorney general, and the director of the FBI. The
Ferguson tragedy became the leading news story all over the country. Blacks have
not been the only ones calling the police to account and demanding reform. Whites
from various walks of life, including right-wing politicians like Rand Paul, have also
dominance that encourages contempt; an utter lack of mutual trust.

been doing so. Never in American history, in analogous circumstances, has there
been a higher level of interracial empathy. Overcoming the racial burdens
individual, communal, institutionalthat encumber us will take unremitting effort,
major deployments of intelligence and imagination, daunting amounts of time, huge
expenditures of money, and the resolute conviction that Americas racial affairs can
and will improve. Is the uncertain prospect of a better future worth that investment?
The lessons of American history and a comparison of our society with others around
the world impel me to say yes. I am a racial optimist. Only time will tell whether my
faith is wise.

The affirmative is a project of infiltrationuniversalist

prescriptions that isolate ourselves from the institutions that
exercise power militates against revolutionary movements
becoming acquainted with the methods of American racist
Kangaroo justice is specifically key to develop tactics and
strategies for bringing about the end of the world
Williams 69 [Summer 1969, Robert F. Williams was a civil rights leader and author, best known for serving
as president of the Monroe, North Carolina chapter of the NAACP in the 1950s and early 1960s. Black Panther Party
founder Huey Newton cited Williamss Negroes with Guns as a major inspiration, peaches,The Deprived: Rebellion
in the Streets, The Crusader, Volume 10, Number 02,
http://freedomarchives.org/Documents/Finder/DOC513_scans/Robert_F_Williams/513.Crusader.Vol.10.2.Summer.196
9.pdf]

INFILTRATE THE MANS INSTITUTIONS : Black youth should not commit the
catastrophic error of seeing things simply in black and white . That is, of seeing
things as all good or all bad. It is erroneous to think that one can isolate
oneself completely from the institutions of a social and political system
that exercises power over the environment in which he resides. Self-imposed
and pre- mature isolation, initiated by the oppressed against the organs of a
tyrannical establishment, militates against revolutionary move- ments
dedicated to radical change . It is a grave error for militant and just-minded
youth to reject struggle-serving opportunities to join the mans government
services, police forces, armed forces, peace corps and vital organs of the power
structure. Militants should become acquainted with the methods of the
oppressor. Meaningful change can be more thoroughly effectuated by militant
pressure from within as well as without. We can obtain invaluable know-how
from the oppressor . Struggle is not all violence . Effective struggle requires
tactics, plans, analysis and a highly sophisti- cated application of mental
aptness . The forces of oppression and tyranny have perfected a highly articulate
system of infiltration for undermining and frustrating the efforts of the oppressed in
trying to upset the unjust status quo. To a great extent, the power structure keeps itself informed
as to the revolutionary activity of freedom fighters. With the threat of
extermination looming menacingly before Black Americans, it is
pressingly imperative that our people enter the vital organs of the

establishment . FIGHT KANGAROOISM: Inasmuch as the kangaroo court system

constitutes a powerful defense arm of tyranny, extensive and vigorous educational
work must be done among our people so that when they serve on jury duty they will
not become tools of a legal system dedicated to railroading our people to
concentration camps disguised as prisons . The kangaroo court system is being widely
used to rid racist America of black militants, non-conformists and effective
ghetto leadership . These so-called courts are not protecting the human and
civil rights of our people ; they are not dis- pensing even-handed justice, but
are long-standing instruments of terror and intimidation. Black Americans must be
inspired to display the same determination in safeguarding the human and
civil rights of our oppressed people as white racists are to legally lynch us. No matter how much
rigmarole is dished out about black capitalism and minority enterprise, the hard cold fact remains that
it is as difficult for a Black American militant to receive justice in America's
tyrannical courts as it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. Black people must be
brought to see their duty as jurors as an opportunity to right legal wrongs not to
perpetrate shameful obeisance to tyranny and racism . Youth should
mount a campaign relative to this social evil that will by far ex- ceed the campaign of voter
registration.

Perm- Do both
Combining multiple strategies is the best approach to
overcoming the contingency of identity and political
commitments which fractures coalitions to solve oppression.
Roithmayr, Illinois law professor, 2001
(Daria, ARTICLE: Left (Over) Rights, 5 LTC 407, lexis)

This essay has proposed that rights talk might yet be rhetorically useful for
communities of color, either as a mode of strategic action, or as transgressive
performance. This contingent and instrumental use of rights talk may help to make a broader point about an ad hoc,
contingency-oriented approach to social action that elsewhere I have described a radical or postmodern
pragmatism. (Roithmayr 1998) Postmodern pragmatism looks quite different from the (neo) pragmatism of Rorty or Fish or
Radin, or, farther back, the pragmatisms of Pierce and Dewey. n29 Pragmatism in either form has defined
"truth" as those practices that collectively proved useful for a particular society or
community--something that has some sort of cash value for a community--in contrast to the more conventional definitions of
truth that anchor their foundation in logic, moral imperatives or some other sort of objective sounding meta-discourse. (Rorty 1989:
5) Critical race theory appears to adopt a slightly modified version of neo-pragmatism, one which is based on the relationship
between usefulness and identity. Like the neo-pragmatists, CRT anchors pragmatic strategies in the needs of a community, but CRT
focuses on the needs of a particular identity-based subset of the community. CRT scholar Mari Matsuda has argued that "the
perspective from the bottom"--from outsider communities who are at the bottom of the economic, social and political ladder-should

But regardless of whether the common

thread is disempowerment or cultural [*441] practices, truth for CRT scholars
appears to be that which is useful for communities of color. (Powell 1997: 789; Yamamot 1997:
drive pragmatic strategies for social change. (Matsuda 1987)

821) In contrast to both neo-pragmatism and CRT pragmatism, postmodern pragmatism explicitly abandons the CRT notion that it is
possible to pinpoint some common identity to unite communities of color, or that policymakers can derive notions of usefulness from

radical pragmatism also abandons the neo-pragmatist idea

that usefulness can be determinately defined apart from specific questions about
history, geography, community identity and a whole host of other factors . Instead,
postmodern pragmatism adopts a contingent, non universalist conception of both usefulness and
identity. First, many purportedly collective answers about usefulness--both at the
general level and for communities of color--contain the potential for disruption,
suppressed dissent, alternative interpretations, pockets of resistance, or deviant
and unruly meanings.. (Laclau 1996: 60-61) Moreover, this potential for disruption is structured at least partly on
whatever that identity may be. But

identity-based lines. As Richard Rorty points out, usefulness is a socially-constructed, wholly situated and inevitably contingent

When one says a strategy is useful, one must also ask, "useful for
whom?" Second, and by the same token, as Kennedy highlighted earlier, the idea of community identity is
similarly a contested concept that contains suppressed dissent and pockets of
resistance. Not only do group members and non-group members often disagree about what
constitutes the group's defining features at any particular point in time but communities of color
also contain fractured and intersecting sub-communities with conflicting perspectives , as Crenshaw's
theory of inter-sectionality illustrates. (Crenshaw 1991: 1241) Moreover, even if common experiences (like
the experience of racialized oppression) or cultural practices could define the
identity of a particular community, those experiences and investments do not necessarily
dictate the kinds of political commitments that such [*442] a community would find useful . Thus,
the concept of community is too contingent to completely determine usefulness,
concept (Rorty 1989: 48).

and usefulness is equally unable to serve as the foundation for definitions of

community. Postmodern pragmatism embraces this contingency and conflict, to make the following claim: Truth is that
which advances contingently defined purposes or political commitments for
contingently defined communities of color at a particular time and place (also
contingently defined) and for a contingently defined period of time . In this definition, not only
are the concepts of identity contingent, but more importantly, they partly reflect and partly constitute one another at the same time.

That is, a community is defined at a particular moment in time by a whole host of

factors, which includes the set of political commitments that a group finds useful.
n30 By the same token, the political commitments that a group finds useful are
constructed by a whole host of factors, one of which is the community's pre-existing
identity. Of course, in particular circumstances, community identity might itself be understood, like rights discourse, as a
rhetorical strategy designed to advance particular political commitments. Ian Haney Lopez has urged Latino/as to embrace an
explicitly racialized identity as opposed to an identity based on ethnicity, nationality or culture, because such an identity will
advance shared political commitments to anti-subordination. (Haney-Lopez 1998: 1154) In his view, an identity framed in racial
terms will draw critical attention to the way in which Latino/as have been oppressed on the basis of the same sort of racialized
assumptions about intelligence, virtue and productivity that blacks and other racialized groups have suffered. (1154) Haney Lopez's
vision of identity is neither naturalized nor essentialized, but explicitly political, in that it relies on shared political commitments to

But a political commitment to anti-subordination may mean many

different things to different groups of Latino/as, depending [*443] on their
nationality, their gender, their sexual orientation, the color of their skin, their
history, their age. Adopting a racialized identity for anti-subordination purposes may have far more appeal for darkanti-subordination.

skinned Mexican-Americans of indigenous descent than for light-skinned Cubans, who may think of themselves as white and may

Thus, although political

commitments, identity and notions of usefulness can all contribute to the pragmatic
value of a particular strategy, none can serve as the foundation because each is
contingently shaped by the other, and by interaction with many other factors . (Scott
1991: 773) This essay advocates using rights discourse as a mode of strategic action or transgressive performance. Although
outcomes cannot be guaranteed in advance, because contingency often precludes
closure in advance, that fact should not foreclose engaged activity . To that end, people of color
consider anti-subordination primarily in terms of political resistance to Fidel Castro.

should engage, as Charles Taylor advises, in an "inspired ad hoccery," "regarding each situation of crisis as an opportunity for

People of color should, from their unstable positions within

language and history, generate as many different species of transgressive and strategic
performances as possible, using whatever tools we might have at our disposal, to advance our vision
of social change.
improvisation." (Taylor 1989: 121)

1. Perm double bind. Either the alt is strong enough to

overcome the residual link aff or they cant solve alt
causes in the status quo.