About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline

LOG IN
LOG IN


14 J.L. & Soc'y 119 (1987)
Racism and the Innocence of Law

handle is hein.journals/jlsocty14 and id is 129 raw text is: JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY VOLUME 14, NUMBER I, SPRING 1987 0263-323X $3.00 Racism and the Innocence of Law PETER FITZPATRICK* ... with us there is nothing more consistent than a:racist humanism since the European has only been able to become a man through creating slaves and monsters.' INTRODUCTION In liberal views of the world, law is manifestly incompatible with racism. Where racist practice infects law that can only be something aberrant and remediable. Exploring the British situation as a case, I will argue that on the contrary racism is compatible with and even integral to law. I try to show that the very foundational principles of law as liberal legality import racism into law, those principles of equality and universality which stand in their terms opposed to racism. The aim is not to dismiss law, nor to expose liberal legality as a sham. But nor is it to retrieve law and add to the list of obviously desirable variants on how to combat racism through law, such as recent left strategies.2 The point is, rather, to make such acts, gestures, discourses which ... had seemed to go without saying become problematic, difficult, dangerous.3 A note on the term racism: I will use it in an extended way to cover both belief and practice. LIBERAL CAPITALISM AND THE SPECIFICITY OF RACISM Initially, I will set the argument in contrary Marxist views of racism. One, usually attributed to Marx, sees a fundamental incompatibility between racism and capitalism of a developed, liberal variety. With its integral assertions of equality and universalist morality, such a capitalism stands opposed to racist divisions and this for good economic reasons.4 Far from seeing such capitalism and racism as opposed, the alternative Marxist tradition finds them compatiable, even symbiotic. In economic terms racism operates to provide cheap labour and to constitute a sector of 'the reserve army of labour'. Politically, racism divides the working class and counters the transformative potential of that class. There are numerous dimensions to this. *Darwin College, The University, Canterbury, Kent, CT2 7NY, England. Thanks to Fiona Kinsman, Lydia Pepple, Guy Smith and staff of the Central Office of the Industrial Tribunals for a lot of help with the cases. Thanks to Dave Reason for much else.