Racial Culture: A Critique Paperback - 2006

First line

Plaintiff is a black woman who seeks $ 10,000 damages, injunctive, and declaratory relief against enforcement of a grooming policy of the defendant American Airlines that prohibits employees in certain employment categories from wearing an all-braided hairstyle. . . . She alleges that the policy violates her rights under the Thirteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act . . . in that it discriminates against her as a woman, and more specifically as a black woman . . . plaintiff assert[s] that the "corn row" style has a special significance for black women.

From the jacket flap

"This book will shake things up. "Racial Culture is elegant, clear, and argumentatively tough. It is a highly incisive intervention in an important domain of anti-discrimination law, social policy, social theory, legal theory, and racial politics."--Janet Halley, Harvard University

""Racial Culture" is a brave, disturbing, and important book by a first-class legal scholar. Richard Ford challenges every left and liberal shibboleth about racial justice in contemporary multicultural societies, while arguing relentlessly for racial justice. The final provocation is chilling and inspired, an incomparable articulation of the historical necessity and the historical damage of identity politics."--Wendy Brown, University of California, Berkeley

"This is a race-conscious, anti-racist attack on racial identity politics. There is nothing else like it in the literature. It is provocative in the best sense--provocative of thought--and it opens a new approach to the tired "conversation about race." Certainly one of the most important contributions of the last ten years."--Duncan Kennedy, Harvard Law School