The Spiritual Movement towards Justice Symposium on Race Consciousness and Legal Scholarship 1992 University of Illinois Law Review 1992

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1992 U. Ill. L. Rev. 1007 (1992)
The Spiritual Movement towards Justice

handle is hein.journals/unilllr1992 and id is 1017 raw text is: THE SPIRITUAL MOVEMENT
TOWARDS JUSTICEt
Anthony E. Cook*
Critical Race Theory is the latest addition to the postrealist smor-
gasbord of jurisprudence. As its number of advocates, adherents and ad-
mirers grows, it is slowly moving from the appetizer to the entree section
of jurisprudential offerings in many law schools. Eagerly consumed and
digested by some, it is quickly rejected by others who prefer the cold
leftovers of process theory, warmed over republicanism, and the much
craved law and economics.
When fully developed, Critical Race Theory offers a unique oppor-
tunity to synthesize many of the currents of postrealist thought, such as
critical and feminist legal studies, law and literature, and even, I believe,
a more communitarian version of process theory. This opportunity exists
because Critical Race Theory is a microcosm of a vast spectrum of the
American experience to which postrealist frameworks have generally re-
sponded. All of the problems examined by other frames are indigenous
to Critical Race Theory. Feminist theory's examination of voice and
domination are given added depth and dimension in Kim Crenshaw's
exploration of race and gender in the experiences of Black women.1 Crit-
ical Legal Studies's critique of liberalism is explored in Gary Peller's ex-
amination of the tension between Black nationalism and liberalism.2 The
Marxist critique of class relations is explored in the materialist accounts
of Kendall Thomas that focus particularly on the intersection of race and
class.' My own work attempts to negotiate an uneasy tension between
religiously inspired moral visions and secular analyses of oppression that
remain hostile, with good reason in many cases, to overarching moral
discourses.4
t Speech delivered at the Race Consciousness and Legal Scholarship Conference at the
University of Illinois College of Law on February 22, 1992.
* Associate Professor of Law, Georgetown Law Center. B.A. 1982, Princeton Univ.; J.D. 1986,
Yale.
1. See, e.g., Kimberle Crenshaw, Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black
Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics, 1989 U.
CHL LEGAL F. 139.
2. See, e.g., Gary Peller, Frontier of Legal Thought III: Race Consciousness, 1990 DUKE L.J.
758.
3. E.g., Kendall Thomas, Comments at Panel on Critical Race Theory, Conference on Fron-
tiers of Legal Thought, Duke Law School (Jan. 26, 1990).
4. See, e.g., Anthony E. Cook, Beyond Critical Legal Studies: The Reconstructive Theology of
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., 103 HARV. L. REv. 985 (1990).