Queer as black folk?

Wisconsin Law Review

Volumn 2007, Issue 2, 2007, Pages 379-407

  Smith, Catherine ^a,b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF DENVER   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA   (United States)

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EID: 38049110834     PISSN: 0043650X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (184)

1. In my father's era, black men were often targeted for violence based on sexual stereotypes. One need only recall the lynching of Emmett Till, a Chicago boy beaten and murdered on August 28, 1955, for whistling at a white woman in Money, Mississippi. See Dana Williams, Emmett Till: Justice Too Long Delayed, TOLERANCE.ORG, Aug. 25, 2005, http://www.tolerance.org/ news/article_tol.jsp?id=1275;
2. see also Margaret M. Russell, Reopening the Emmett Till Case: Lessons and Challenges for Critical Race Practice, 73 FORDHAM L. REV. 2101 (2005).
3. See generally Frank Rudy Cooper, Against Bipolar Black Masculinity: Intersectionality, Assimilation, Identity Performance, and Hierarchy, 39 U.C. DAVIS L. REV. 853, 857 (2006) (describing the racist image of the Bad Black Man);
4. Sherrilyn Ifill, Creating a Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Lynching, 21 LAW & INEQ. 263 (2003) (providing a history of the lynching violence against black men). While these types of violent experiences may be less frequent, black men continue to be targets.
5. See Kevin R. Johnson, Taking the "Garbage Out in Tulia: The Taboo on Black-White Romance and Racial Profiling in the "War on Drugs," 2007 WIS. L. REV. 283.
6. Cf. Emma Coleman Jordan, Crossing the River of Blood Between Us: Lynching, Violence, Beauty, and the Paradox of Feminist History, 3 J. GENDER RACE & JUST. 545, 563 (2000) (stating that the direct memory of lynching "has been processed in the form of healthy racial survival training given to virtually every black male child").
7. My partner, Jennifer, experiences racist incidents based on the assumption that she is a white woman in a relationship with a black man. For example, Jennifer and our daughter, Zoe, who is black, were in an Applebee's restaurant in Denver one evening. Zoe had a typical "I am almost two" tantrum while they were eating. As Jennifer and Zoe were leaving the restaurant, a white man sitting at a table widi a white woman and two adolescent white girls, said to her "You need to keep your niglet under control." In that moment, I believe that he spoke to her - white man to white woman - to send a message to Jennifer, and the white woman and girls with whom he sat, that she was a race traitor.
8. The experiences for black heterosexual women in interracial relationships are also different than those of black lesbians and black men in interracial relationships. See Camille Nelson, Lovin' the Man: Examining the Nexus of Irony, Hypocrisy and Curiosity, 2007 WIS. L. REV. 543.
9. It does this in several ways. First, it marginalizes the racism and sexism that black women experience by assuming that the experiences of black heterosexual men are somehow worse than the experiences of black women, gay or straight. Second, it reinforces sexism and heterosexism by assuming that once a woman loves another woman, she becomes somehow male, or at least puts herself in the shoes of a man. See generally SUZANNE PHARR, HOMOPHOBIA: A WEAPON OF SEXISM 31-32 (1988) ("A stereotype is created: lesbians are masculine, wear short hair and men's clothes, are aggressive, seek non-traditional jobs, and "come on" sexually to heterosexual women. . . . [L]ike all stereotypes, this one misses the myriad of differences among lesbians . . . .").
10. Darren Lenard Hutchinson, "Gay Rights" for "Gay Whites"?: Race, Sexual Identity and Equal Protection Discourse, 85 CORNELL L. REV. 1358, 1362-68 (2000) (explaining intersectionality, advancing the concept of multidimensionality, and theorizing "multilayered subordination and identity as universal phenomena"). The concept of multidimensionality means that as a black woman I can experience racial discrimination at some times, yet at other times exercise my own professional privilege or engage in subtle biases against persons with disabilities.
11. I will discuss this issue from a black-white paradigm, but recognize the criticisms of this approach. See generally, e.g., Juan Perea, The Black/White Binary Paradigm of Race: The "Normal Science" of American Racial Thought, 85 CAL. L. REV. 1213 (1997).
12. 388 U.S. 1 (1967).
13. Chinta Strausberg, King Seeks to End Gay Bias, CHI. DEFENDER, Apr. 1, 1998, at 1 ("Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood . . . . This sets the stage for further repression and violence that spread all too easily to victimize the next minority group." (quoting Coretta Scott King));
14. see also David S. Buckel, Government Affixes a Label of Inferiority on Same-Sex Couples When It Imposes Civil Unions & Denies Access to Marriage, 16 STAN. L. & POL'Y REV. 73, 82 (2005) (explaining that offering gays and lesbians civil unions results in their second-class citizenship and label of inferiority).
15. I recognize the criticisms of the gay and lesbian platform for marriage as assimilationist or replicating gender roles. I do not, however, directly address these arguments in this Article. For an analysis of these arguments see Katherine M. Franke, The Politics of Same-Sex Marriage Politics, 15 COLUM. J. GENDER & L. 236 (2006);
16. Craig Willse & Dean Spade, Freedom in a Regulatory State?: Lawrence, Marriage and Biopolitics, 11 WIDENER L. REV. 309 (2005) ("[W]hat . . . is lacking both in Lawrence [v. Texas] and the analyses of those who celebrate it [is] a commitment to radical political change that challenges, rather than accommodates, the perpetuation of equality.");
17. Lynne Huffer, A Contrarian View: Same-Sex Marriage? No Thanks, OUTSMART, Aug. 2004 ("Missing entirely from the mainstream debate is a political analysis of the institution of marriage itself. Same-sex marriage will do nothing to undo the discriminatory effects of an institution that ties basic rights like health care to whether or not the government sanctifies the forms of our loving relationships.").
18. For an explanation for why African-Americans did not focus on the eradication of antimiscegenation laws, see RANDALL KENNEDY, INTERRACIAL INTIMACIES: SEX, MARRIAGE, IDENTITY, AND ADOPTION 247 (2004).
19. For a discussion of legal arguments in the Colorado Amendment 2 cases, see Margaret M. Russell, Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Rights and "The Civil Rights Agenda," 1 AFR.-AM. L. & POL'Y REP. 33, 53-71 (1994); see also Goodrich v. Dept. of Pub. Health, 798 N.E.2d 941, 958 (Mass. 2003) (comparing the prohibition of same-sex marriage to the prohibition of interracial marriage); Tentative Decision on Applications for Writ of Mandate and Motions for Summary Judgment at 9, Marriage Cases, No. 4365 (Cal. Super. Ct. 2005) (comparing the ban on same-sex marriage to the racial segregation struck down in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1952)).
20. See generally Josephine Ross, The Sexualization of Difference: A Comparison of Mixed-Race and Same-Gender Marriage, 37 HARV. C.R.-C.L. L. REV. 255 (2002).
21. For an analysis of how such legal analogies are unpersuasive, see David Orgon Coolidge, Playing the Loving Card: Same-Sex Marriage and the Politics of Analogy, 12 BYU J. PUB. L. 201 (1998).
22. I am not equating the types of sameness arguments that I critique in this Article to those made in feminist discourse. See, e.g., Catharine A. MacKinnon, Difference and Dominance: On Sex Discrimination, in THE MORAL FOUNDATIONS OF CIVIL RIGHTS 145 (1986);
23. Joan C. Williams, Dissolving the Sameness/Difference Debate: A Post Modern Path Beyond Essentialism in Feminist and Critical Race Theory, 1991 DUKE L.J. 296.
24. For an interesting analysis of the pitfalls of the sameness-difference dichotomy in gay and lesbian cases, see Donna Thompson-Schneider, The Arc of History: Or, the Resurrection of Feminism's Sameness/Difference Dichotomy in the Gay and Lesbian Marriage Debate, 7 LAW & SEXUALITY 1 (1997).
25. There could certainly be other reasons. See, e.g., Kate Kendell, Race, Same-Sex Marriage, and White Privilege: The Problem with Civil Rights Analogies, 17 YALE J.L. & FEMINISM 133, 135 (2005) ("I think the reason for these comparisons may have been a failure to appreciate our own history as queer people in this country, or perhaps a fear that our own history would not resonate enough with the rest of America.").
26. Cf. Kimberlé Crenshaw, Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color, 43 STAN. L. REV. 1241, 1242 (1991) (explaining that women of color are at the intersection of race and gender oppression).
27. See, e.g, NICOLAS RAY, NATIONAL GAY AND LESBIAN TASK FORCE, INC., FALSE PROMISES: HOW THE RIGHT DEPLOYS HOMOPHOBIA AND WINS SUPPORT FROM AFRICAN AMERICANS (2006).
28. See Michael A. Hogg & Dominic Abrams, Social Identity and Social Cognition: Historical Background and Current Trends, in SOCIAL IDENTITY AND SOCIAL COGNITION 1, 11 (Michael A. Hogg & Dominic Abrams eds., 1999)
29. See generally, e.g., PHARR, supra note 5.
30. Cathy J. Cohen, Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens: The Radical Potential of Queer Politics?, 3 J. LESBIAN AND GAY STUD. 437, 457 (1997) ("[O]ne of the greatest failings of queer theory and especially queer politics has been their inability to incorporate into analysis of the world and strategies for political mobilization the roles that race, class, and gender play in defining people's differing relations to dominant and normalizing power."); Kendell, supra note 13, at 137 ("Linkages and alliances are essential to the liberation of all queers.");
31. Francisco Valdes, Sex and Race in Queer Legal Culture: Ruminations on Identities & Inter-Connectivities, 5 S. CAL. REV. L. & WOMEN'S STUD. 25, 36 (1995) ("[T]he negative power of sexist and racist legacies leaves no room for complacency regarding sex, race and other problematized constructs in sexual minority discourse and politics.").
32. Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, 2 (1967); see also Robert A. Pratt, Crossing the Color Line: A Historical Assessment and Personal Narrative of Loving v. Virginia, 41 HOW. L.J. 229, 230 (1998).
33. See Loving, 388 U.S. at 2-3. The statute provided as follows: If any white person and colored person shall go out of this State, for the purpose of being married, and with the intention of returning, and be married out of it, and afterwards return to and reside in it, cohabiting as man and wife, they shall be punished as provided in § 20-59, and the marriage shall be governed by the same law as if it had been solemnized in this State. The fact of their cohabitation here as man and wife shall be evidence of their marriage. VA. CODE ANN. § 20-58 (1960 Repl. Vol.); see also id. § 20-57 ("All marriages between a white person and a colored person shall be absolutely void without any decree of divorce or other legal process.").
34. See Loving, 388 U.S. at 3.
35. See id. at 12.
36. Id. at 11 (footnote omitted); see also Reginald Oh, Regulating White Desire, 2007 WIS. L. REV. 463.
37. See Loving, 388 U.S. at 11-12.
38. Randall Kennedy, Marriage and the Struggle for Gay, Lesbian, and Black Liberation, 2005 UTAH L. REV. 781, 787;
39. see also Adele Morrison, Same-Sex Loving: Subverting White Supremacy Through Same-Sex Marriage, 13 MICH. J. RACE & L. (forthcoming fall 2007).
40. For an explanation of how Loving's principle of subjugation is denied based on immigrant status, see Jennifer Chacon, Loving Across Borders: Immigration Law and the Limits of Loving, 2007 WIS. L. REV. 345.
41. See, e.g., Hutchinson, supra note 6, at 1360; David Orgon Coolidge, Playing the Loving Card: Same-Sex Marriage and Politics of Analogy, 12 BYU J. PUB. L. 201, 204-05 & fn. 7 (1998).
42. Herbert A. Sample, For Many Blacks, Gay Fight Isn't Theirs, SACRAMENTO BEE, Mar. 16, 2004 (discussing a poll that found that the majority of blacks favored a constitutional gay-marriage ban);
43. Brian DeBose, Black Caucus Resists Comparison of Gay "Marriage" to Civil Rights, WASH. TIMES, March 15, 2004.
44. See, e.g., Keithboykin.com, http://www.keithboykin.com/ (Dec. 1, 2005, 12:41) ("The point is it doesn't matter which group is most oppressed or which was first oppressed or whether they are identically oppressed. What matters is that no group of people should be oppressed. But the more we focus on the hierarchy of difference, the less we focus on the actual oppression.").
45. See, e.g., Hutchinson, supra note 6, at 1360 ("[T]he comparative approach marginalizes (or treats as nonexistent) gays and lesbians of color, leading to a narrow construction of the gay and lesbian community as largely upper-class and white.").
46. Others have expressed similar sentiments. See, e.g., Tobias Barrington Wolf, Different Battle, Same Struggle, L.A. TIMES Mar. 16, 2005, at B13 ("I cringe when gay people, rightly outraged at the discrimination that they face, take the extra step and say, 'Excluding us from the right to marry is like telling us that we're three-fifths of a person.'").
47. See, e.g., Russell, supra note 11; TRINA GRILLO & STEPHANIE WILDMAN, The Implication of Making Comparisons Between Racism and Secism (or Other - Isms), in PRIVILEGE REVEALED: HOW INVISIBLE PREFERENCE UNDERMINES AMERICA 85 (1996);
48. Devon W. Carbado, Black Rights, Gay Rights, Civil Rights, 47 UCLA L. REV. 1467, 1474 (2000); Hutchinson, supra note 6, at 1362-68; Willse & Spade, supra note 10.
49. GRILLO & WILDMAN, supra note 32 at 411.
50. Id. at 401.
51. See, e.g., Hutchinson, supra note 6, at 1362-68; see also ALAIN DANG & SOMJEN FRAZER, NAT'L GAY & LESBIAN TASK FORCE POLICY INST. & NAT'L BLACK JUSTICE COAL., BLACK SAME-SEX HOUSEHOLDS IN THE UNITED STATES 5 (2d ed. 2005).
52. See GRILLO & WILDMAN, supra note 32; Russell, supra note 11. For an insightful comparison see Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Undercover Other, 94 CAL. L. REV. 873 (2006).
53. See generally Jane S. Schacter, The Gay Civil Rights Debate in the States: Decoding the Discourse of Equivalents, 29 HARV. CR.-CL. L. REV. 283, 314-15 (1994).
54. See Nancy Ehrenreich, Subordination and Symbiosis: Mechanisms of Mutual Support Between Subordinating Systems, 71 UMKC L. REV. 251, 280 (2002) (explaining the ways in which systems of subordination support each other).
55. See Trina Grillo, Anti-Essentialism and Intersectionality: Tools to Dismantle the Master's House, 10 BERKELEY WOMEN'S L.J. 16, 17 (1995) ("Some categories such as race, gender, class, and sexual orientation are important most of the time. Others are rarely important. When something or someone highlights one of her categories and brings it to the fore, she may be a dominant person, an oppressor of others. Other times, even most of the time, she may be oppressed herself."); Hutchinson, supra note 6, at 1368 ("Multidimensionality seeks to reveal the 'host of interlocking sources of advantage and disadvantage' that sustain the 'various institutions of oppression' and corresponding identity categories."); Ehrenreich, supra note 38, at 280 (explaining compensatory subordination as "a sort of unconscious pact with the devil, singly burdened individuals or groups come to accept their oppressed position along one axis in exchange for the privilege they experience along another").
56. See generally Kennedy, supra note 25, at 789-99; Stephen Clark, Same-Sex But Equal: Reformulating the Miscegenation Analogy, 34 RUTGERS L.J. 107 (2002);
57. John G. Culhane, Uprooting the Arguments Against Same-Sex Marriage, 20 CARDOZO L. REV. 1119, 1171-75 (1999).
58. "We have spent a lot of time arguing over whose pain is greater. That time would be better used trying to understand the complex ways that race, gender, sexual orientation, and class (among other things) are related." Grillo, supra note 39, at 27.
59. See Darren Lenard Hutchinson, Ignoring the Sexualization of Race: Heteronormativity, Critical Race Theory and Anti-Racist Politics, 47 BUFF. L. REV. 1, 42-44 (1999) ("[C]laims by white gays and lesbians that they are 'the same' as blacks masks the operation of racial privilege in white gay and lesbian experience.").
60. See generally Peggy McIntosh, White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, INDEP. SCH., Winter 1990, at 31;
61. BARBARA J. FLAGG, WAS BLIND BUT NOW I SEE: WHITE RACE CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE LAW (1998);
62. STEPHANIE M. WILDMAN, PRIVILEGE REVEALED: HOW INVISIBLE PREFERENCE UNDERMINES AMERICA (1996).
63. See McIntosh, supra note 43, at 31; see also Jane Aiken, Striving to Teach "Justice, Fairness, and Morality," 4 CLINICAL L. REV. 1, 14 (1997). Some blacks may view the white LGBT person as racist for even making the comparison.
64. GRILLO & WILDMAN, supra note 32, at 398.
65. I recognize the classism and professional elitism that may be built into my own reaction to the question posed about the job for which I was applying. I struggle with the contradiction. I must struggle with whether racism, gender, and class prompted the question, while at the same time question my own reaction to being categorized as a secretary instead of an attorney.
66. These comments are always present in a person of color's life. People learn to develop some coping mechanism, but bias is always lurking at some level. And even if the statement is not the result of some bias, as a person of color, you still have to ask the question of whether or not it was driven by race. Examples of white noise include the following: people often state that you are articulate (I have even had someone ask me if one of my parents is white) or you speak good English, the checkout person at more upscale stores asks how you can afford your merchandise, women grab their purses when you get on the elevator, people are shocked that you can swim, you are carded even when the white person in front of you is not, people you do not know feel perfectly comfortable touching your hair or asking if they can touch your hair. The only thing remotely soothing about this type of white noise is if you can attribute it to the social construction of race and whiteness and not internalize it and assume that something is inherently
67. wrong with you as a person. So, when these experiences are taking place in your day-to-day interactions, you do not make it about your own self-image but about racism and white privilege. The problem is that many people of color do not make that connection until the damage to their self-image is already done. See, e.g., Camille Nelson, Of Eggshells and Thin-Skulls: A Consideration of Racism-Related Mental Illness Impacting Black Women, 29 INT'L J. OF L. AND PSYCH. 112, 112 (2006);
68. Peggy C. Davis, Law as Microaggressions, 98 YALE L.J. 1559, 1559 (1989).
69. In fairness to the organization, I did get the job offer, but I turned it down to go into teaching. My story is not unique nor particularly egregious, relatively speaking. There are countless stories of racism in the white gay community. See, e.g., URVASHI VAID, VIRTUAL EQUALITY:THE MAINSTREAMING OF GAY AND LESBIAN LIBERATION 275 (1996) (describing how a wealthy gay white donor expressed dismay about the author's selection as Executive Director of NGLTF and asked how the organization could choose such a radical woman "who's practically a nigger").
70. Darren Lenard Hutchinson, Out Yet Unseen: A Racial Critique of Gay and Lesbian Legal Theory and Political Discourse, 29 CONN. L. REV. 561, 631-32 (1997) (stating that racism and homophobia analogies "ignore the legacy of racial and class hierarchy").
71. See GRILLO & WILDMAN, supra note 32, at 409 ("[I]f these [white] women could show that sexism was worse than racism, then ('hallelujah!') they believed their reason to worry about racism had vanished. The women thought that they understood racism by virtue of their experiences with sexism and they were working on something more important.").
72. See id.
73. See Hutchinson, supra note 6, at 1375-78 (discussing the homophobia of many antiracists); Angela Gilmore, They're Just Funny That Way: Lesbians, Gay Men and African-American Communities as Viewed Through the Privacy Prism, 38 HOW. L. J. 231 (1994) (discussing the complicated relationships between black LGBT people and black heterosexuals in black communities).
74. This statement also implies that black people, by virtue of life experiences, can immediately recognize homophobia.
75. I later discovered that these individuals had no idea during the interview that I was a lesbian, even though my resume reflected that I was at least sympathetic to LGBT issues because it listed my membership in an LGBT organization in law school.
76. Black heterosexuals can be homophobic and at the same time be sexually marginalized by white heterosexual identities. For an analysis of "sexualized racism, centered around heterosexual identity and practice," see Hutchinson, supra note 6, at 1366-67.
77. See Kendell, supra note 13, at 135 ("[G]iven that our movement exists, with our collusion, in the popular consciousness as largely white and economically privileged, the response [to civil rights analogies during San Francisco marriage protests] among many progressive African Americans in this country was irritation at a minimum. Among far right and conservative blacks the reaction was outright hostility and anger." (footnote omitted)).
78. See, e.g., Cohen, supra note 18, at 441 ("It is my contention that queer activists who evoke a single-oppression framework misrepresent the distribution of power within and outside of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered communities, and therefore limit the comprehensive and transformational character of queer politics."); Diane Finnerty, An Open Letter to My White Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Sisters and Brothers, at 3 (Oct. 13, 2004), available at http://lbgtrc.msu.edu/docs/ finnerty.doc ("While being leaders on issues of sexual identity, [white LGBT activists] need to understand our work as part of a broader agenda for social justice and allow our efforts to inform, as well as be informed, by the struggles of others.").
79. See, e.g., Victor C. Romero, Rethinking Minority Coalition Building: Valuing Self-Sacrifice, Stewardship and Anti-Subordination, 50 VILL. L. REV. 823 (2005);
80. Kevin R. Johnson, The Struggle for Civil Rights: The Need for, and Impediments to, Political Coalitions Among and Within Minority Groups, 63 LA. L. REV. 759 (2003);
81. Adrien Katherine Wing, Civil Rights in the Post 9-11 World: Critical Race Praxis, Coalition Building, and the War on Terrorism, 63 LA. L. REV. 717 (2003);
82. Richard Delgado, Linking Arms: Recent Books on Interracial Coalition as an Avenue of Social Reform, 88 CORNELL L. REV. 855 (2003) (book review);
83. LANI GUINIER & GERALD TORRES, THE MINER'S CANARY: ENLISTING RACE, RESISTING POWER, TRANSFORMING DEMOCRACY (2002);
84. K.L. Broad, Critical Borderlands & Interdisciplinary, Intersectional Coalitions, 78 DENV. U. L. REV. 1141 (2001);
85. Mary Romero, Historicizing and Symbolizing a Racial Ethnic Identity: Lessons for Coalition Building with a Social Justice Agenda, 33 U.C. DAVIS L. REV. 1599 (2000);
86. Francisco Valdes, Outside Scholars, Legal Theory & Outcrit Perspectivity: Postsubordination Vision as Jurisprudential Method, 49 DEPAUL L. REV. 831, 832 (2000);
87. Elizabeth M. Iglesias, Identity, Democracy, Communicative Power, Inter/National Labor Rights and the Evolution of LatCrit Theory and Community, 53 U. MIAMI L. REV. 575 (1999);
88. Taunya Lovell Banks, Both Edges of the Margin: Blacks and Asians in Mississippi Masala, Barriers to Coalition Building, 5 ASIAN L.J. 7 (1998);
89. Charles R. Lawrence III, Race, Multiculturalism, and the Jurisprudence of Transformation, 47 STAN. L. REV. 819, 828-29 (1995);
90. Eric K. Yamamoto, Rethinking Alliances: Agency, Responsibility and Interracial Justice, 3 ASIAN PAC. AM. L.J. 33 (1995);
91. Valdes, supra note 18, at 65-71; Haunani-Kay Trask, Coalition Building Between Natives and Non-Natives, 43 STAN. L. REV. 1197 (1991);
92. Mari J. Matsuda, Beside My Sister, Facing the Enemy: Legal Theory Out of Coalition, 43 STAN. L. REV. 1183 (1991);
93. Clark Freshman, Whatever Happened to Anti-Semitism? How Social Science Theories Identify Discrimination and Promote Coalition Between "Different" Minorities, 85 CORNELL L. REV. 313 (2000).
94. See Francisco Valdes, Queers, Sissies, Dykes, and Tomboys: Deconstructing the Conflation of "Sex," "Gender," and "Sexual Orientation" in Euro-American Law and Society, 83 CAL. L. REV. 1, 364-72 (1995) (offering eight strategies for queer legal theory, including linking social science and legal knowledge).
95. John C. Turner, Towards a Cognitive Redefinition of the Social Group, in ATTITUDES, BEHAVIOR, AND SOCIAL CONTEXT: THE ROLES OF NORMS AND GROUP MEMBERSHIP 15, 28-30 (Deborah J. Terry & Michael A. Hogg eds., 1982).
96. Catherine E. Smith, The Group Dangers of Race-Based Conspiracies, 59 RUTGERS L. REV. 55 (2006).
97. The social-identity process is one of the most comprehensive explanations for a wide range of dynamics that are unique to intra- and intergroup relations, such as group loyalty, persuasion, conformity, and polarization. See Michael A. Hogg & Dominic Abrams, Social Identity and Social Cognition: Historical Background and Current Trends, in SOCIAL IDENTITY AND SOCIAL COGNITION 1, 11 (Michael A. Hogg & Dominic Abrams eds., 1999);
98. Neal Kumar Katyal, Conspiracy Theory, 112 YALE L.J. 1307, 1312 (2003) ("Advances in psychology over the past thirty years have demonstrated that groups cultivate a special social identity. This identity often encourages risky behavior, leads individuals to behave against their self-interest, solidifies loyalty, and facilitates harm against nonmembers.").
99. See, e.g., Don Operario & Susan T. Fiske, Integrating Social Identity and Social Cognition: A Framework for Bridging Diverse Perspectives, in SOCIAL IDENTITY AND SOCIAL COGNITION, supra note 16, at 26, 40-41;
100. Kenneth L. Bettenhausen, Five Years of Groups Research: What We Have Learned and What Needs to Be Addressed, 17 J. MGMT. 345, 347 (1991) ("Besides being a reality of social existence, groups exert an enormous influence on their members."); Katyal, supra note 62, at 1316 ("A wide body of psychological research over the last century reveals that people tend to act different in groups than they do as individuals.").
101. See Michael A. Hogg, Social Identity and Misuse of Power: The Dark Side of Leadership, 70 BROOK. L. REV. 1239, 1243 (2005) ("The social-identity approach has become well established in social psychology and enjoys substantial empirical support.");
102. JIM SIDANIUS & FELICIA PRATTO, SOCIAL DOMINANCE: AN INTERGROUP THEORY OF SOCIAL HIERARCHY AND OPPRESSION 19 (1999) ("This general theory has now become the most influential theory of intergroup relations among social psychologists.");
103. Margaret Wetherell, Group Conflict and the Social Psychology of Racism, in SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY: IDENTTTIES, GROUPS AND SOCIAL ISSUES 175, 216 (Margaret Wetherell ed., 1996) ("Social identity is perhaps the best known attempt to explain the social psychological basis of group conflict.").
104. See Turner, supra note 60, at 18.
105. See id. at 19.
106. See id. at 18 (citation omitted); Hedy Brown, Themes in Experimental Research on Groups from the 1930s to the 1990s, in SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY: IDENTITIES, GROUPS AND SOCIAL ISSUES, supra note 66, at 9, 33 ("In many situations we react to others in terms of our identity as a unique individual with a particular personality, known likes and dislikes, skills and talents, attitudes and opinions. This definition of ourselves in terms of our personal characteristics can continue into group situations and may be particularly salient when we strongly disagree with a group.").
107. See Turner, supra note 60, at 18.
108. Marilynn B. Brewer, The Social Self: On Being the Same and Different at the Same Time, in INTERGROUP RELATIONS: ESSENTIAL READINGS 245, 246 (Michael Hogg & Dominic Abrams eds., 2001) (emphasis omitted).
109. Turner, supra note 60, at 18-19 ("By analogy with an orchestra we can think of its musical technology and basic instrumentation as the cognitive structure and the actual sounds it makes as the varying self-images.").
110. See id. at 21 ("[S]ocial identity is the cognitive mechanism which makes group behaviour possible."); Michelle Adams, Intergroup Rivalry, Anti-Competitive Conduct and Affirmative Action, 82 B.U. L. REV. 1089, 1093 ("Thus, the social science scholarship has recognized that discriminatory behaviors are not just the result of personal, individual cognitive-process distortions, but are a problem of collective action.").
111. See Turner, supra note 60, at 17; see also Michael A. Hogg & John C. Turner, Intergroup Behaviour, Self-Stereotyping and the Salience of Social Categories, 26 BRIT. J. SOC. PSYCH. 325, 326 (1987).
112. See Turner, supra note 60, at 17-18.
113. Turner, supra note 60, at 18; see also Hogg, supra note 64, at 1241-43.
114. Cf. Hogg, supra note 64, at 1242 ("Social-identity effects occur when, in a particular context, a specific social categorization becomes the salient basis for social perception and self-conception.").
115. Brewer, supra note 69, at 247 ("Individuals may recognize that they belong to any number of social groups without adopting those classifications as social identities. Social identities are selected from the various bases for self-categorization available to an individual at a particular time. And specific social identities may be activated at some times and not at others.").
116. Adams, supra note 71, at 1101 ("Social comparison was the ability to discern among groups differences that are grounded in social reality . . . .").
117. See Brown, supra note 67, at 34.
118. See Dominic Abrams et al., Knowing What to Think by Knowing Who You Are: Self-Categorization and the Nature of Norm Formation, Conformity and Group Polarization, 29 BRIT. J. SOC. PSYCH. 97, 109 (1990) ("[I]n-group members may be seen as more correct, while out-group members are seen as less likely to be correct, when group membership is salient.");
119. Daan Van Knippenberg, Social Identity and Persuasion: Reconsidering the Role of Group Membership, in SOCIAL IDENTITY AND SOCIAL COGNITION, supra note 16, at 315, 317-18; see also Katyal, supra note 62, at 1321-22.
120. See Adams, supra note 79, at 1102 (quoting Hogg & Abrams, supra note 16, at 10); Hogg, supra note 64, at 1242 ("Since the groups and categories we belong to furnish us with a social identity that defines and evaluates who we are, we struggle to promote and protect the distinctiveness and evaluative positivity of our own group relative to other groups.").
121. See Turner, supra note 60, at 19, 22; Brown, supra note 67, at 33-34 ("The transition from personal identity to social identity is clearest when considering large-scale groupings . . . .").
122. See Margaret Wetherell, Group Conflict and the Social Psychology of Racism, in IDENTITIES, GROUPS AND SOCIAL ISSUES 175, 216 (Margaret Wetherell ed., 1996) ("Tajfel argued that cognitively and perceptually, group labels like 'black', 'white', 'English', 'Afro-Caribbean', 'Australian' operate like the 'A' and 'B' attached to the lines except that in the social world, values and social histories are also attached.").
123. See id. at 207 ("Real life intergroup situations such as those characteristic of racism involve . . . many more layers of complexity, including power, structural inequities in access to resources, and histories of contact and dominance.").
124. Turner, supra note 60, at 33; see also Wetherell, supra note 64, at 207.
125. Ian F. Haney López, The Social Construction of Race: Some Observations on Illusion, Fabrication, and Choice, 29 HARV. C.R.-C.L. L. REV. 1 (1994);
126. Christopher A. Ford, Administering Identity: The Determination of "Race" in Race-Conscious Law, 82 CAL. L. REV. 1231 (1994).
127. For race construction of whiteness, see IAN HANEY LÓPEZ, WHITE BY LAW: THE LEGAL CONSTRUCTION OF RACE (10th anniversary ed. 2006);
128. BARBARA FLAGG, WAS BLIND, BUT NOW I SEE: WHITE RACE CONSCIOUSNESS & THE LAW (1998);
129. CRITICAL WHITE STUDIES: LOOKING BEHIND THE MIRROR (Richard Delgado & Jean Stefancic eds., 1997);
130. RUTH FRANKENBERG, WHITE WOMEN, RACE MATTERS: THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF WHITENESS (1993);
131. Martha R. Mahoney, Class and Status in American Law: Race, Interest, and the Anti-Transformation Cases, 76 S. CAL. L. REV. 799 (2003);
132. Martha R. Mahoney, Segregation, Whiteness, and Transformation, 143 U. PA. L. REV. 1659 (1995) [hereinafter Mahoney, Segregation];
133. Cheryl I. Harris, Whiteness as Property, 106 HARV. L. REV. 1709 (1993).
134. A recent example is Senator Joe Biden's comments about African-American presidential candidate, Senator Barack Obama as "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy." See, e.g., Rachel L. Swarns, Obama's Challenge: Woo
135. See The Price of Acting White, WASH. POST, June 5, 2005, at B5.
136. See FRANKENBERG, supra note 85.
137. See, e.g., Beverly A. Greene, Heterosexism and Internalized Racism Among African Americans: The Connections and Considerations for African American Lesbians and Bisexual Women: A Clinical Psychology Perspective, 54 RUTGERS L. REV. 931, 942 ("Some of these questionable beliefs are that lesbians either want to be, or naturally look like, men, are unattractive or less attractive than heterosexual women, are less extroverted, are unable to get men, or have had traumatic experiences with men that presumably 'turned' them against men, or are simply defective females.").
138. See Turner, supra note 60, at 28 ("[A] s category memberships become salient, there will be a tendency to exaggerate the differences on criterial dimensions between individuals falling into distinct categories, and to minimize these differences within each of these categories."); Operario & Fiske, supra note 63, at 43 ("Cognitive processes exacerbate the perception of group boundaries, such as the 'meta-contrast' principle, which is the tendency for individuals to minimize the perceived variance among members of the same group and maximize the variance between members of different groups. The outgroup homogeneity effect soon takes hold, blurring distinctions among outgroup members.").
139. Cf. Isabelle R. Gunning, Stories from Home: Tales from the Intersection of Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation, 5 S. CAL. REV. L. & WOMEN'S STUD. 143, 146 (1995).
140. See A Mighty Army, INTELLIGENCE REPORT, Spring 2005, at 23.
141. H. Alexander Robinson, Forward to DANG & FRAZER, supra note 35, at 2 ("Traditionally, discussions about African-American families exclude any consideration of African-American lesbian and gay families. In fact African-American educators, scholars, activists and leaders often approach Black gay people as "them" not "us." Continued failure to recognize our families, leaves African-Americans thinking that gay people are wealthy and White, not our own brothers and sisters.").
142. As Diane Finnerty stated, "While being leaders on issues of sexual identity, [white LGBT activists] need to understand our work as part of a broader agenda for social justice and allow our efforts to inform, as well as be informed, by the struggles of others." Finnerty, supra note 32, at 3.
143. Muzafer Sherif, Superordinate Goals in the Reduction of Intergroup Conflict, 63 AM. J. SOC. 349, 349-50 (1958).
144. Id. at 352-55; see Wetherell, supra note 64, at 204-05.
145. Id. The boys did not know that they were part of a social experiment. See Wetherell, supra note 64, at 204. The researchers played the roles of camp counselors, team leaders, and support staff. See id.
146. Sherif, supra note 95, at 352-55; see Wetherell, supra note 64, at 205.
147. Sherif, supra note 95, at 352-55; see Wetherell, supra note 64, at 205.
148. Wetherell, supra note 64, at 205.
149. Id.
150. Id. In the competitive stage, the boys fell into inter-group behavior. Id. at 208.
151. Sherif, supra note 95, at 355-56.
152. See Wetherell, supra note 64, at 207.
153. Id.
154. See id.
155. See id.
156. Id.
157. While I do not like the idea that the only way to motivate some people is to play on their self-interest, I do not think that we have the luxury to ignore what may be a reality. There are other responses to this reality, such as working within your own in-group for social justice. See Delgado, supra note 58, at 884; Trask, supra note 58, at 1209. The idea of superordinate goals could be viewed in another way that has long been articulated as interest convergence. In 1980, discussing Brown v. Board of Education decision, Derrick Bell argued that "the interests of blacks in achieving racial equality will be accommodated only when it converges with the interests of whites." Derrick A. Bell, Jr., Brown v. Board of Education and the Interest-Convergence Dilemma, 93 HARV. L. REV. 518, 523 (1980).
158. For an enlightening discussion of viewing interest convergene as a coalition-building tool, see Sheryll Cashin, Shall We Overcome? Transcending Race, Class, and Ideology Through Interest Convergence, 79 ST. JOHN'S L. REV. 253, 272-75 (2005).
159. RAY, supra note 15, at 38 ("Only five conservative senators scored even 15 percent on the NAACP voting index, while again almost half scored 100 percent from the Family Research Council. Among them were . . . high-profile leaders in the Republican caucus and vocal proponents of the idea that the Republican Party is the 'natural home' for African-American voters.").
160. Elizabeth Cole, Beyond Interaction Effects: The Theory, Practice and Politics of Intersectionality 25-26 (2007) (unpublished manuscript, on file with The Wisconsin Law Review) ("Coalition building strategies developed by activists proceed from three realizations: Because small groups can't afford to be exclusionary, shared identity cannot provide a solid foundation for political work; it is not diversity within a group that is divisive, but failure to recognize diversity; and the diversity within a group represents an opportunity to reach across perceived boundaries to find sites of commonality with other communities.").
161. See Kendell, supra note 13, at 136 ("Gay liberation - including the right to marry - will remain illusory unless white queers actively challenge and combat the rich, white stereotype. Given the culture we live in, the image is seductive, but it is inaccurate and ultimately unhelpful."); Carbado, supra note 32, at 1474; Hutchinson, supra note 6, at 1362-68.
162. DANG & FRAZER, supra note 35, at 2.
163. Id. at 22.
164. See, e.g., Julie A. Nice, The Emerging Third Strand in Equal Protection Jurisprudence: Recognizing the Co-Constitutive Nature of Rights and Classes, 1999 U. ILL. L. REV. 1209.
165. PRWORA eliminated AFDC as a federal entitlement and created Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), a block grant that gives states more discretion in providing assistance. See Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act §§ 401-19, 42 U.S.C. §§ 601-619 (2000).
166. See CONTRACT WITH AMERICA: THE BOLD PLAN BY REP. NEWT GINGRICH, REP. DICK ARMEY, AND THE HOUSE REPUBLICANS TO CHANGE THE NATION 66-71, 86-90 (Ed Gillespie & Bob Schellhas eds., 1994) [hereinafter CONTRACT WITH AMERICA];
167. see also Parvin R. Huda, Singled Out: A Critique of the Representation of Single Motherhood in Welfare Discourse, 7 WM. & MARY J. WOMEN & L. 341, 342-50 (2001);
168. Judith E. Koons, Motherhood, Marriage, and Morality: The Pro-Marriage Moral Discourse of American Welfare Policy, 19 WIS. WOMEN'S L.J. 1, 6-15 (2004). See generally Pub. L. No. 104-193, 110 Stat. 2105.
169. CONTRACT WITH AMERICA, supra note 116, at 66-71, 86-90; Huda, supra note 116, at 342-50; Koons, supra note 116, at 6-15.
170. See, e.g., Martha L. Fineman, Images of Mothers in Poverty Discourse, 1991 DUKE L.J. 274, 277-93; Koons, supra note 117, at 38-41; Huda, supra note 117;
171. Kara S. Suffredini & Madeleine V. Findley, Speak Now: Progressive Considerations on the Advent of Civil Marriage for Same-Sex Couples, 45 B.C. L. REV. 595, 603-05 (2004).
172. See generally Martha L.A. Fineman, Masking Dependency: The Political Role of Family Rhetoric, 81 VA. L. REV. 2181, 2182 (1995).
173. See SEAN CAHILL & KENNETH T. JONES, NAT'L GAY & LESBIAN TASK FORCE, LEAVING OUR CHILDREN BEHIND: WELFARE REFORM AND THE GAY, LESBIAN, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENDER COMMUNITY 4 (2001) (explaining how welfare-reform benefits married couples);
174. Why Welfare Is a Queer Issue, 26 N.Y.U. REV. L. & SOC. CHANGE 201, 202 (2000) (discussing how Republican platforms that offer family tax relief harm poor and queer people);
175. Nancy D. Polikoff, This Child Does Have Two Mothers: Redefining Parenthood to Meet the Needs of Children in Lesbian-Mother and Other Nontraditional Families, 78 GEO. L.J. 459, 459 (1990).
176. See CAHILL & JONES, supra note 119, at 1 ("Welfare reform poses fundamental threats to the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) people. It poses particular threats to GLBT youth, GLBT elders, lesbian and gay parents, and the children of same-sex partners."). For an explanation of tax disparities among white and black married couples based on income, and federal tax laws that favor single-wage-earner households, see Dorothy A. Brown, The Marriage Penalty/Bonus Debate in Black and White, 16 N.Y.L. SCH. J. HUM. RTS. 168 (1999).
177. See CAHILL & JONES, supra note 119, at 2 ("Welfare reform is . . . fundamentally about family policy - about promoting and privileging particular kinds of families, and about penalizing and stigmatizing others."); Suffredini & Findley, supra note 118, at 1 (exploring the subordinating effects that marriage laws may have on women, people of color, and the poor); see also Jane S. Schacter, Taking the InterSEXional Imperative Seriously: Sexual Orientation and Marriage Reform, 75 DENV. U. L. REV. 1255 (1998).
178. For a discussion of how the white, heterosexual, middle-class model is represented as the "beneficial family," see Lucille M. Ponte & Jennifer L. Gillan, From Our Family to Yours: Rethinking the "Beneficial Family" and Marriage-Centric Corporate Benefit Programs, 14 COLUM. J. GENDER & L. 1 (2005). For examples of coalition building based on self-interest, see Cashin, supra note 109, at 272-90.
179. See VAID, supra note 48, at 271 ("We are far less passionate about raising the minimum wage, welfare reform, AFDC programs, free school lunches, immigration, poverty, and other issues that affect gay and lesbian families and individuals - but do not affect the middle-class people who are most involved in our movement.").
180. Jennifer Holladay & Catherine Smith, Stop the Hate. Educate., OUTSMART, http://www.outsmartmagazine.com/issue/i09-00/byrd. html.
181. Id.
182. See id.
183. Valdes, supra note 18, at 35.
184. See Russell, supra note 11; GRILLO & WILDMAN, supra note 32, at 410; see also, Ross, supra note 11.