(no subject)
in ref to chapter 8 of patricia william's The alchemy of Race and Rights
she is a black female law professor at harvard.
The pain word of bondage Kathleen Tucker
On page 149 Williams says that ‘ones sense of empowerment defines ones relation to the law, in terms of trust/distrust, formality/informality, or rights/no-rights;” then further on says that rights may be instable and indeterminate.
How might rights be unstable and indeterminate?
For whom?
Why?
How does ones sense of empowerment have anything to do with ones relation to the law?
What does this tell us about law in our social structure?
Rights are theoretical entitlement, the validity relies on enforcement of the person’s freedom which in this country is assumed to be synonymous with equal-rights for all persons. Therefore ‘rights’ might be unstable if one persons rights are enforced and another’s are not. Thereby creating unfair advantage by which the outcome has varying degrees of ramifications. Indeterminate because it’s very vagueness is in it’s subjective execution.
the “whom?” Anyone the dominate culture decides to exclude, there are of course generic laws in which words like “all men”, “every person”, “equality for all” are used but regardless of the inclusive wording (the “why?”) the enforcement and reading of these words is done by subjective persons. This needs to be said in order to understand the fallibility of the law and the possibility of its being enforced for one and not another.
While on the subject of enforcement one might use the word in an actively harmful sense as well, throughout the book Williams finds and quotes numerous examples of black people being actively sought out for discrimination. So this word ‘enforcement’ does not merely speak for the situation a black man or woman might have from losing an advantage or perk but also speaks loudly for those black persons who are done harm in the name of the law-enforcement.
Empowerment is directly tied to ones relation to the law because the hold power among others you must identify yourself within that social structure. Anarchists may not believe in democracy or capitalism but they are in it regardless. So if that structure dismisses you or openly harms you what ground can you stand on to claim other ‘powers’ if you’re harm came because of something you cannot change- skin color. You can either passively accept the role and internalize it and begin to believe that any power you deserve should come at denying yourself. Or you can fulfill the title that you had before even entering the discussion: a trouble-maker, dissident, possibly dangerous and irrational person.
This tells us specifically that we may not accept our laws as truth but must pursue equality and truth and force our laws to evolve based on our progress and not to laminate dated doctrines at the expense of progress.