Reviewed by Jennifer L. Hochschild, Department of Politics,
Princeton University.
Eric Yamamoto makes five central points in this book, two of
which I agree with, one of which seems correct but potentially problematic, and
two of which I find deeply problematic.
However, all of his arguments are made with such clarity, elegance, and
force that the reader has a much better chance of figuring out where he or she
stands on these complicated and emotionally fraught issues after reading this
book. For that clarity, as well as for
the contents of the arguments and evidence themselves, the author deserves
great praise.
Yamamoto's starting point is that we must pay much more
attention than heretofore to relations among groups of color, and not just to
relations between a given group and whites. Thus the book begins with a
narrative of a dispute between African Americans and Vietnamese immigrants, and
focuses throughout on the relations between Asian Americans in Hawai'i and
Native Hawaiians. This claim is exactly
right, for both empirical and theoretical reasons. Empirically, the nonwhite and nonblack populations in the U.S.
are growing at a very fast rate, and are beginning to make their presence felt
in urban politics, neighborhood interactions, job competition, national policy-making,
and other arenas. Since nonwhite groups
typically live near each other, and since whites are increasingly moving into
disproportionately white states and regions, complicated intergroup
interactions are expanding exponentially.
The theoretical reasons for attending to relations among
groups of color are just as compelling. Most Hispanics are "white" by
traditional definitions, but many are neither treated as white nor think of
themselves as culturally white (read "Anglo"). Asian Americans are neither black nor white. In some circumstances they can become
"honorary whites" (in Andrew Hacker's phrase), whereas in other
circumstances they suffer the discrimination usually accorded to blacks. Also, as Yamamoto points out, the
categories of "Hispanic" and "Asian
American" are themselves artificial and often obscure more than they
clarify. For these reasons and more
(e.g., how should we think about dark-skinned Afro-Caribbeans?), analysts as
well as activists need to move out of the outgrown black-white binary. In Yamamoto's terms, the "traditional
civil rights approach is markedly limited in post-civil rights America"
(p. 38).
Yamamoto's second crucial point is that interracial justice must be forward-looking and broadly systemic, rather than focusing on past grievances and narrow redress of particular individual grievances. This is a challenge to lawyers, and to the legal system more generally, and here too, in my view, he is exactly right. We cannot
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understand how apparently small instances of
misunderstanding or lack of respect can mushroom into major protests, nor can
the political and legal systems make any headway in solving such problems,
unless we attend to the underlying dynamics between groups and to the
structures within which individuals operate.
Thus, for example, he dissects case studies of African American boycotts
of Asian-owned stores in order to show how white domination of blacks and
immigrants' anxiety about their place in American society get played out in
daily interactions. In the process, he
provides an excellent gloss on postcolonial theory to show how it expands conventional
theories of power and stratification.
Yamamoto's third point is essential to his argument but
potentially worrisome. In his words,
"interracial justice embraces. RACE PRAXIS.[in order] to integrate
conceptual inquiries into power and representation with frontline struggles for
racial justice.. In short, it seeks to avoid the scholarly penchant for 'theory
[that] begets no practice, only more theory'" (p. 10). All of us who have waded through
impenetrable analyses of race and power - whether couched in the language of
the law, postmodernism, neoclassical economics, or political philosophy -- must
be grateful to someone who argues that the purpose of scholarship should be
more than to persuade a few other scholars who speak the same language.
Yamamoto goes on to present "four praxis dimensions of combined inquiry
and action" - recognition, responsibility, reconstruction, and reparation
- and provides an extended analysis of just how these should work in concrete
cases. I am made slightly nervous about
this point only because it makes it too easy for scholars to become pure
advocates, and not to attend to the weaknesses of their own views or legitimate
concerns of their opponents. Yamamoto
mostly does not fall into this trap; in fact many of his strongest passages are
those in which he responds to likely disagreement with his own position.
Nevertheless, I find Yamamoto's fourth and fifth points very
worrisome. His understanding of interracial justice is an essentially
therapeutic one - its purpose is primarily "the establishment of 'right
relationships, the healing of broken relationships' " (p. 10). He speaks frequently of racial wounds, of
the pain of experiencing injustice, and of the need to care for those who are
psychically damaged by racial injustice.
He draws extensively and explicitly from "the disciplines of law,
theology, social psychology,
ethics, and peace studies and from indigenous
practices" (p. 10) - but not at all from economics or policy analysis and
very little from political science. For my taste, this is too soft. People have interests as well as feelings, they
gain or lose materially as well as psychically from individual mistreatment and
structural biases, they like to win as well as to feel better. It is particularly puzzling that Yamamoto's
prescriptions for interracial justice are almost entirely psychological and
spiritual given his excellent analysis of power dynamics and oppression in
racially structured societies. Somehow
there is a disjunction between his scholarly understanding and his proposed
praxis, so ironically I find myself asking for a closer connection rather than
more analytic distance in this case.
Finally, Yamamoto accepts without question the close
association - almost identity - between race and culture. He frequently depicts a racial group as a
singular phenomenon, such that he speaks continually and unconsciously of "a racial group's choices" (e.g.,
p. 187) or "a racial group's framework for understanding itself
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and guiding its relations with others" (e.g., p. 94). There is a methodological issue here as well as normative and
empirical issues. Particularly given Yamamoto's sophisticated discussion of
permeable boundaries and social fluidity, does a racial group even exist such
that it can have a singular view or choice?
How should we analyze people within
the group who have preferences or interests that differ from
those of the majority of the group?
Empirically, given that class differences are growing among African
Americans and other nonwhite groups, how should we think about potential
conflicts between racial concerns and material interests? Do women always have the same interests and
preferences as men within a given group?
Normatively, should we aspire to maintain a tight link between culture
and racial identity (or, stronger, between culture and racial labels), or
should our goal be to enable people to choose how and how much their
"race" shapes their lives? Is
it necessarily conservative (cf. p. 139) to seek some space between culture and
race (which is a separate question from whether the current Supreme Court's
hostility to antidiscrimination laws is appropriate)? Yamamoto is uncharacteristically unselfconscious in using race
and culture almost synonymously, but perhaps one ultimate purpose of
interracial justice is to loosen up racial structures enough to enable people
to create a little space between the two concepts.
The fact that this review is more a response to Yamamoto's arguments
than a narrative of them suggests the value of this book - it makes one think
hard about issues that are as important as they are difficult. However, I
should not close without simply pointing out the structure of the book. Yamamoto starts with depictions of incidents
of interracial injustice and efforts to overcome it through formal public
apologies of one group or nation to another. He moves on to analyze the various
concepts used in the empirical
and descriptive section, including issues of agency, power,
and praxis. In the third section, which
he describes as the heart of the book, Yamamoto develops the various facets of
interracial justice. Finally, he
returns to concrete cases, using the fully developed idea of interracial
justice to show how apologies, reparations, and truth and reconciliation
commissions go part - but not all - of the way toward healing the wounds of
racial harm. Overall, it is a provocative and intriguing book.
Copyright 2000 by the author, Jennifer Hochschild