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KahlilWilliamsSecondPaper 3 - 12 May 2009 - Main.KahlilWilliams
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This is a revision of Jenai St. Hill's first paper. Aside from minor grammatical changes and added links, I put forth some options for Black lawyers should they choose to work for a law firm and value diversity. In addition, I used the Wilkins/Harris pieces in a slightly different way.
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< | Practicing law “meaningfully” is incredibly subjective. As our class discussions illustrate, all of us have unique notions of what “meaningful” practice entails: furthering important social goals, accumulating wealth, intellectual stimulation, or some combination of all or none of these things. Despite that variation, I think there is cohesion among groups of individuals, especially Blacks and other underrepresented minorities, because of several common threads that have shaped our experiences. | >
> | The “meaningful” practice of law depends upon a person's highly individualized values on advancing social justice, accumulating wealth, intellectual stimulation, personal fulfillment, etc. Despite that variation, I think there is cohesion among groups of individuals, especially Blacks and other underrepresented minorities, because of several common threads that have shaped our experiences. | | | | |
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< | Some of those experiences prompt us to seek wealth and status in a society that has fused race and economic domination, making White identity and whiteness sources of privilege and protection. Cheryl Harris, “Whiteness as Property”, 106 Harv. L. Rev. 1709. Practicing law at a large, predominantly white firm promises to bring us face-to-face with the ability to escape one form of economic domination, but may also force us to wrestle with the tradeoff between that freedom and injury to or loss of racial identity. Whether this tradeoff actually takes place depends on us thinking about how to use the license as an instrument to increase the value of diversity, either by strategic selection of law firms or through making changes at non-diverse firms using words. | >
> | Some of those experiences prompt us to seek wealth and status in a society that has fused race and economic domination, making White identity and whiteness sources of privilege and protection. Cheryl Harris, “Whiteness as Property”, 106 Harv. L. Rev. 1709. Practicing law at large, predominantly white firms offers the opportunity to escape one form of economic domination, but may also force us to wrestle with the tradeoff between that freedom and injury to or loss of racial identity. Whether this tradeoff actually takes place depends on how we view the balance of power between ourselves and law firms: the tradeoff would not be as stark if we recognized our collective ability to increase the value of diversity, either by strategic selection of law firms or through making changes at non-diverse firms using words. | | |
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