Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal Commentary Blogs -> Althouse

Legal Commentary

: Althouse

Lawprof Patricia Williams is giving a talk called "Moaning in America."

By Ann Althouse

Now, I'm at the feminism conference here at the University of Wisconsin Law School, and Pat Williams is giving the keynote speech. She begins with the image of a "twinning doll" ? an image she used in this column in The Nation.

She's looking at "3 narrative models": 1. the "neo-kumbayan moment" (denial, cynicism, Ward Connerly... "just stop talking about it"), 2. the "neo-biologizing moment, through the discourse of DNA," 3. economic choice ("I want to engage with the Law and Economics movement").

She's talking about the Democratic primary, the toxic identity politics. What can we do?

Pat is very interesting and funny talking about multiracial families: Angelina Jolie and her mixed race brood and a woman who is suing because a medical mix-up led to her giving birth to a partially black child.

What would Barack Obama look like if he were a woman? Would he look like Susan Estrich, Geraldine Ferraro, or Oprah Winfrey? When Oprah endorsed him, "race rushed in."

[THIS POST WILL BE GRADUALLY LENGTHENED.]

Full post as published by Althouse on March 14, 2008 (boomark / email).