Justice at War

Civil Liberties and Civil Rights During Times of Crisis

Richard Delgado

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Year: 2005
• ISBN:
  9780814744055
• Topic: Derecho
• Subtopic: Derecho civil

The status of civil rights in the United States today is as volatile an issue as ever, with many Americans wondering if new laws, implemented after the events of September 11, restrict more people than they protect. How will efforts to eradicate racism, sexism, and xenophobia be affected by the measures our government takes in the name of protecting its citizens?

Richard Delgado, one of the founding figures in the Critical Race Theory movement, addresses these problems with his latest book in the award-winning Rodrigo Chronicles. Employing the narrative device he and other Critical Race theorists made famous, Delgado assembles a cast of characters to discuss such urgent and timely topics as race, terrorism, hate speech, interracial relationships, freedom of speech, and new theories on civil rights stemming from the most recent war.

In the course of this new narrative, Delgado provides analytical breakthroughs, offering new civil rights theories, new approaches to interracial romance and solidarity, and a fresh analysis of how whiteness and white privilege figure into the debate on affirmative action. The characters also discuss the black/white binary paradigm of race and show why it persists even at a time when the country's population is rapidly diversifying.

PART I
TEN MONTHS

1
Introducing Rodrigo

IN WHICH RODRIGO AND I MEET IN AN UNLIKELY SETTING AND RESOLVE TO DISCUSS POSTDIVERSITY RACIAL REMEDIES

“Professor, is that you?”

The familiar voice from behind gave me quite a start. Wheeling around so suddenly that my cart almost collided with that of an oncoming shopper, a young woman who smiled at me indulgently, I sputtered, “Rodrigo! What are you doing here?”

The tall, smiling youth strode out from behind his own cart, shook my hand warmly, and said, “Giannina and I are in town for a few days, staying with her mother, who has a time-share condo here. She uses it every summer to get away from the Florida heat. The two of them are making plans for when the baby comes, then in about a week we’re heading for Mexico for a few days’ vacation. We tried calling you, but the law school says your voice mail has been down.”

“I never much cared for the new technology,” I said, then motioned toward his supermarket basket, which was piled high. “Looks like you’re stocking up.”

“Giannina’s mom has to start over every time she comes to town, because the previous tenants are required to clean everything out. She gave me quite a shopping list.”

“I’ve got a long one myself,” I said, easing my basket along the aisle and motioning him to follow. “What a nice surprise. We must get together before the two of you take off.”

“Giannina made me promise to set something up. I was going to drop by your office on the way home and leave a note if I didn’t find you. Mrs. Pellegrini said we should invite you over for tea. She’s interested in meeting you. Oh, here are the anchovies.” Rodrigo took a small tin and added it to his already overflowing basket.

“I’d be honored,” I said. “How is Giannina doing these days?”

“Fine, except that she has these strange cravings. Just the other day, she wanted a peanut butter sandwich with anchovies on the side.”

I smiled, remembering the time, many years ago, when my late wife had been pregnant with my own two daughters. “And what is her mom like?”

“You’ll like her,” Rodrigo said. “She’s an ardent environmentalist. In fact, she’s at a meeting of the local wildlife federation right now.”

“Then I know just the present for her,” I said, reaching for a long, narrow box of transparent sandwich wrap that I used to pack my lunches for work. Then, after a pause to allow a pair of fast-moving teenagers with baskets speeding down the aisle to clear us, I said, “And what are you working on these days?”

“Oh,” replied Rodrigo, frowning and peering closely at two pricing labels for almost identical-looking packages of crackers. “Let’s see, this one looks like it’s . . . twenty-four cents an ounce, while this other one . . . okay, I’ll take this one. . . . Oh, what am I working on? Well, I’ve got my vacation reading right out in the car, as a matter of fact—four books on the current racial scene. An advance copy of the National Urban League’s State of Black America, ¹ Terry Eastland’s diatribe against affirmative action,² Bowen and Bok’s The Shape of the River, ³ and The Good Black.”⁴

“That’s quite an assortment,” I said, slowing down to round the corner of the aisle and head down the next. “What made you select those four?”

“Just keeping up on my reading.” Rodrigo paused a moment at the meat counter to scrutinize some pink-looking filets of salmon. “Mmmm. Those look good. Giannina and her mother love salmon. But, as I was saying, after reading three of them and nearly finishing the fourth, a hypothesis occurred to me. I was just starting to talk it over with Giannina when an old friend stopped by to drop off a baby present, so we had to put it on hold. Maybe we can discuss it when you come for tea.”

“Sounds good to me,” I said. “I’ve read Eastland, which struck me as a particularly remorseless dissection of affirmative action, as cold and uncaring as I’ve seen. And of course I’ve read Bowen and Bok, which everybody has been talking about—even the tables and charts. I asked the librarian to get me The Good Black the other day. But I haven’t seen the latest from the Urban League.”

“I can lend it to you when we get outside,” Rodrigo said, fishing his credit card out of his wallet and holding it in his teeth as he slid a heavy bottle of water onto the lower shelf of his shopping cart. “Giannina’s mom drinks only the bottled kind. She said we would too, if we saw A Civil Action. ⁵ Oh good, there’s not much of a line.”

As we waited for the checker to finish ringing up the purchases of the shopper ahead of us, I asked Rodrigo, “Where in Mexico are the two of you going?”

“A little fishing village in Baja California,” Rodrigo replied. “One of my colleagues told me about it. It’s not too touristy, and the prices are lower than in the big resorts. We decided to go before Giannina gets too uncomfortable to travel.”

“Send me a postcard,” I said. “I’ll be down there myself on my semester off. But that won’t be ‘til a few months later. I’m afraid we won’t cross paths.”

Rodrigo paused as our cashier rang up the final items and handed him the bill. He examined it quickly, then handed the cashier his credit card. “My mother-in-law said to give you these coupons,” he said.

Minutes later, we were wheeling our baskets through the supermarket’s huge parking lot. “Hey, you parked practically next to me,” Rodrigo said. He opened the hatchback of his little car, and I helped him stow his groceries inside.

“Thanks,” Rodrigo said, opening up the back passenger-side door and reaching inside. “Here’s the National Urban League book. Now, let me help you with your stuff.”

He did, and after exchanging phone numbers and promising to get together soon, we drove off to our respective destinations. Rodrigo was true to his word. When I returned to my apartment, I heard Giannina’s familiar voice on my answering machine inviting me to her mom’s place the following Thursday for tea and thanking me for making sure that Rodrigo got all the food items she wanted—especially the anchovies.

IN WHICH RODRIGO, GIANNINA, MRS. PELLEGRINI, AND I DISCUSS RECENT BOOKS DEALING WITH AMERICA’S RACIAL PREDICAMENT

“Good afternoon,” I said. “Are you Mrs. Pellegrini?”

The handsome, white-haired woman standing at the doorway took my hand, smiled warmly, and invited me inside. “You must be the Professor. Welcome. Giannina has told me so much about you. It looks like you brought something.”

“It’s for you,” I said, handing over a package I had wrapped myself. “Open it now, if you like.”

After ushering me into the attractive, sunlit condominium, Mrs. Pellegrini tilted her head and looked at my rectangular, flat package with interest. “It must be a stuffed animal,” she laughed.

As she began removing the wrapping paper, I said, “I hope you don’t already have one. Rodrigo told me you’re an environmentalist.”

“Oh, an animal clock!” she exclaimed, clapping her hands together. “A friend of mine has the bird kind that plays songs every hour on the hour. I’ve always wanted one like this.” Looking at it closely, she said, “I’ve got the perfect place for it.” As she picked it up and motioned me to follow her in the direction of the kitchen, I heard the sound of familiar voices and noted to myself the resemblance between mother and daughter.

An attractive woman—maybe after the young ones head off to Mexico, I’ll ask her to lunch. I hope Giannina won’t be scandalized, I thought, and cautioned myself not to be too forward. Perhaps a sedate invitation to a lecture at my university, followed by a bite to eat at a campus restaurant. Surely the young people could not object; she is, after all, about the age my late wife would have been had she lived. And I had been wanting to learn more about environmentalism, especially the new environmental justice movement. But I warned myself to proceed discreetly, remembering how the young often did not like to think of their elders as having any sort of social life and not wanting to jeopardize the fine relationship I enjoyed with Rodrigo and Giannina.

“Oh, there you are,” Giannina said, looking up from some two-person cooking project with which she and Rodrigo were busily engaged. “We hope you like Italian soup. We’re making it for later, in case we get hungry after tea and cookies. What do you have there, Mom?”

Mrs. Pellegrini showed the two young people her present, which brought much laughter and exclamations as she plugged it in and turned the hands to the various animal positions.

“There’s a way to turn it off at night, if you want,” I said. “The instructions are in that plastic bag over there. The warranty, too.”

Rodrigo covered the large pot, adjusted the heat to low simmer, and took off his white chef’s apron. “Come on out,” he said. “Everything’s ready.”

We followed Giannina as she carried the tea and cookies on a tray to the dining area adjacent to the kitchen and placed them down on the table, which I noticed was nicely set. A far cry from my bachelor simplicity, I thought, stealing another glance at Mrs. Pellegrini, who was adjusting a spray of yellow flowers in a glass bowl on the table.

“Have a seat, Professor. Why don’t you sit over here next to me? That way, we can keep an eye on the young people and make sure they don’t get into trouble.”

I laughed and pulled the chair out for her. She smiled, thanked me, then said, “I know Rodrigo and Giannina have been waiting all week to talk to you about some books they’ve been poring over. Go ahead and don’t worry about me. I taught at the community college before I retired, including classes in government and U.S. history. I know next to nothing about law, but I’m willing to make the effort.”

Rodrigo thanked her and immediately got up and brought some familiar-looking books from the hutch nearby and set them next to him on the table. They were the same ones he and I had discussed in the supermarket the other afternoon.

“May I offer you a refill, Professor, before my son-in-law gets started?” Mrs. Pellegrini asked. “By the way, you can call me Teresa.”

As Rodrigo looked up expectantly, I took the bait: “And so, Rodrigo, you have a hypothesis of some sort. Something that occurred to you on reading those four books?”

“I do,” Rodrigo said, smiling. (He’s never at a loss for an intriguing theory. Their baby is going to be really something, I thought, catching a glimpse of Giannina’s mother out of the corner of my eye as she reached to pass around a plate of some sort of homemade cookies.)

But instead of pursuing Rodrigo’s theory right away, I said, “Before you jump into that, maybe we should take turns summarizing the four books. Your mother-in-law may not have read them all.”

As Mrs. Pellegrini smiled appreciatively, Rodrigo looked up at Giannina and said, “Why don’t you start?”

NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE, THE STATE OF BLACK AMERICA

“I read the first book, The State of Black America, ⁶ the other afternoon, while waiting for a baby shower to start. It almost ruined the event for me. The editors of this annual volume, published yearly since 1976, commissioned nine authors to write essays on the African American condition. The general tenor is measured, even upbeat at times. Yet I was struck by how far this country has to go to make good on its civil rights promises. In one way or another, most of the chapters deal with barriers to upward mobility. Essays on building community⁷ and the racial asset gap⁸ focus on economics and the dire need to provide development and jobs to a community whose lower end, at least, seems to be slipping further and further behind. Community revitalization programs are fighting a losing battle⁹ as the nature of the workplace changes and jobs leave the inner city for the suburbs.”¹⁰

“Or even abroad,” Rodrigo pointed out.

“Indeed,” Giannina continued. “Periodic economic expansions have not helped African Americans, because they create jobs mainly in information technology and computers, sectors containing few blacks. And when a contraction sets in, they’re the first fired. Recent reforms force welfare recipients into part-time jobs that go nowhere, instead of providing full-time jobs with a future.”¹¹

“One essay points out that neighborhood joblessness is in some respects worse than poverty,”¹² Rodrigo chimed in. “Employment provides an anchor of disciplined habits, along with a cluster of hopes and attitudes. These are passed on to children, who see their parents getting ready for work in the morning, depositing a paycheck, giving them their allowance, and discussing their hopes for a promotion. With technology and the suburbanization of jobs, more advantaged or stable families leave the inner city, accelerating the decline in essential services. Over time, conditions deteriorate to the point where employers will not hire anyone from inner-city neighborhoods, a sort of statistical discrimination.”¹³

“Another problem the authors point out has to do with schools,”¹⁴ Giannina went on. “Two chapters warn that creation of new state and national standards for school achievement will do little good without better teaching, curriculum, textbooks, and buildings. The reduction in number of low-skilled jobs means that education is even more necessary than ever. But spending disparities ensure that schools in poor neighborhoods, the ones most in need of the best teachers and computers, possess few of either. Tracking assigns African Americans and Hispanics to low- level, dead-end classes, while suburban kids learn computer programming and how to navigate the internet.”¹⁵

When Giannina paused as though to remember a final chapter, Rodrigo jumped in: “Which brings us to politics. Even modest electoral gains by African Americans, due to federal intervention and the increase in numbers reaching voting age, have done little to improve the quality of life in the black community. Coalition- building has been a problem—black politicians need to court whites, thereby diluting programs and political strength.”

“Right,” Giannina said. “Colin Powell raised the hopes of African Americans but, unfortunately, his presidential campaign went nowhere. He now seems content to play second fiddle—although he does that very well. The book closes with appendices on African American demographics and vital statistics on education and earnings, including the disconcerting news that the racial gap in col...