Huang-Blog 2

 In the second half of her paper “Whiteness as Property,”  Harris argues that the law and the Courts have continued to protect and uphold whiteness as a property interest, and she begins with the Supreme Court Case Brown v. Board of Education. Although this case is monumental for making the conclusion that separate I inherently unequal, Harris argues that it has failed to undo inequality and therefore continued to uphold whiteness as a property interest. She argues that because the court case conclusions “implicitly assumed that the problem of segregation would be eradicated by desegregation” (1754), 

However, her argument expects far more significant, tangible impacts from the results of Brown than is entirely reasonable for three reasons. First, the conclusions from Brown were not decided, written, and published for the purpose of defeating racial inequality as a whole. Instead, its purpose in face of the courts was to address the problem at hand with the context of the public school system at hands. Schools and other public services that had separate versions for white and black folks then were deemed unjust. Overall,the courts held that segregation was unlawful under the Equal Protections Law. Thus, the results from Brown were meant to address segregation and  not necessarily inequality as a whole, so holding an expectation and burden on this court case is unreasonable. 

Second, Brown is a Supreme Court case, and via the idea of checks and balances in the Constitution, even though the courts can conclude that some laws are unconstitutional or that at some has acted in a way that is in violation to the Constitution, the courts and justices themselves cannot actually litigate new laws. As such, even if court justices wanted to pass more laws in an attempt to fight racial inequality in America, their hands would be tied per the Constitution. 

Instead of presenting this court case for its lack of adequacy in fulfilling its potential, Harris’ argument could have benefitted from showing how Brown has laid the foundation for the possibility for other unjust laws to continue to pass and execute. Although I am less aware of the exact happenings of the 1990s, there is a fairly high chance that many of the problems we see in racial inequality today also plagued America then as well. This might include the racism in the criminal justice system, police violence, access to health care, redlining, amongst many others. What other forms of racial segregation do we see present today that highlight that the conclusions from Brown have not been passed into law? How do you think using the law as opposed to court cases could have also added to make Harris’ argument more effective?