Race-ing Justice, En-gendering Power: Essays on Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas, and the Construction of Social Reality

It was perhaps the most wretchedly aspersive race and gender scandal of recent times: the dramatic testimony of Anita Hill at the Senate hearings on the confirmation of Clarence Thomas as Supreme Court Justice. Yet even as the televised proceedings shocked and galvanized viewers not only in this country but the world over, they cast a long shadow on essential issues that define America.

In Race-ing Justice, En-gendering Power, Toni Morrison contributes an introduction and brings together eighteen provocative essays, all but one written especially for this book, by prominent and distinguished academicians—black and white, male and female. These writings powerfully elucidate not only the racial and sexual but also the historical, political, cultural, legal, psychological, and linguistic aspects of a signal and revelatory moment in American history.

With contributions by:
Homi K. Bhabha, Margaret A. Burnham, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Paula Giddings, A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr., Claudia Brodsky Lacour, Wahneema Lubiano, Manning Marable, Nellie Y. McKay, Toni Morrison, Nell Irvin Painter, Gayle Pemberton, Andrew Ross, Christine Stansell, Carol M. Swain, Michael Thelwell, Kendall Thomas, Cornel West, Patricia J. Williams

Published to coincide with the first anniversary of the most wretchedly aspersive racial and gender scandal of recent times--Thomas' Senate confirmation hearings--these seventeen provocative essays by prominent and distinguished academicians--black, white, male, and female--discuss the historical, political, cultural, personal, legal, sexual, and linguistic ramifications of the Thomas/Hill affair.

It was perhaps the most wretchedly aspersive race and gender scandal of recent times: the dramatic testimony of Anita Hill at the Senate hearings on the confirmation of Clarence Thomas as Supreme Court Justice. Yet even as the televised proceedings shocked and galvanized viewers not only in this country but the world over, they cast a long shadow on essential issues that define America.

In Race-ing Justice, En-gendering Power, Toni Morrison contributes an introduction and brings together eighteen provocative essays, all but one written especially for this book, by prominent and distinguished academicians—black and white, male and female. These writings powerfully elucidate not only the racial and sexual but also the historical, political, cultural, legal, psychological, and linguistic aspects of a signal and revelatory moment in American history.

With contributions by:
Homi K. Bhabha, Margaret A. Burnham, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Paula Giddings, A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr., Claudia Brodsky Lacour, Wahneema Lubiano, Manning Marable, Nellie Y. McKay, Toni Morrison, Nell Irvin Painter, Gayle Pemberton, Andrew Ross, Christine Stansell, Carol M. Swain, Michael Thelwell, Kendall Thomas, Cornel West, Patricia J. Williams

Publishers Weekly

As Morrison (Jazz) writes in her pointed opening essay, the Thomas controversy last year both raised and buried issues of profound national significance. This collection of 19 essays, mostly by academics, powerfully advances the debate, though Thomas's defenders will find little solace. Most telling is federal judge A. Leon Higgonbotham's open letter to Thomas, cordially but relentlessly laying out the legal history of the civil rights movement and showing how Thomas's own public and private life has benefited. Manning Marable, describing the crisis in the response by black organizations, skillfully skewers the neoaccommodationist support of Thomas among black liberals. Gayle Pemberton writes that Hill exemplifies James Baldwin's observation that white Americans don't know how to deal with a black who falls outside of their expectations. Christine Stansell notes Catharine MacKinnon's initial embrace of Thomas for his life experience while ignoring his ideas as an example of how even militant feminists can be snookered when the issue is racial identity. Some essays cover the same ground, and a few are jargon-heavy, but the collection remains valuable. (Oct.)

Few contemporary novelists have achieved the venerated status of Toni Morrison. She has written adored modern classics like Beloved and Song of Solomon that daringly blend the supernatural and the natural with an uncommonly poetic eloquence. She is a recipient of both the Pulitzer Prize and the Noble Prize for Literature, and is truly one of America s most gifted storytellers.