Alchemy of Race and Rights Quotes

“Such statements, however, about the relative utility of needs over rights discourse overlook that blacks have been describing their needs for generations. They overlook a long history of legislation against the self-described needs of black people. While it is no longer against the law to teach black people to read, there is still within the national psyche a deep, self-replicating strain of denial of the urgent need for a literate black population. ('They're not intellectual,' 'They can't...') In housing, in employment, in public and private life, it is the same story: the undesired needs of black people transform them into those-without-desire. ('They're lazy,' 'They don't want to...')

For blacks, describing needs has been a dismal failure as political activity. It has succeeded only as a literary achievement. They history of our need is certainly moving enough to have been called poetry, oratory, epic entertainment - but it has never been treated by white institutions as the statement of a political priority. (I don't mean to undervalue the liberating power for blacks of such poetry, oratory, and epic; my concern is the degree to which it has been compartmentalized by the larger culture as something other than political expression.) Some of our greatest politicians have been forced to become ministers or blues singers. Even white descriptions of 'the blues' tend to remove the daily hunger and hurt from need and abstract it into a mood. And whoever would legislate against depression? Particularly something as rich, soulful, and sonorously productive as black depression.”
― Patricia J. Williams, Alchemy of Race and Rights: Diary of a Law Professor

“Such statements, however, about the relative utility of needs over rights discourse overlook that blacks have been describing their needs for generations. They overlook a long history of legislation against the self-described needs of black people. While it is no longer against the law to teach black people to read, there is still within the national psyche a deep, self-replicating strain of denial of the urgent need for a literate black population. ('They're not intellectual,' 'They can't...') In housing, in employment, in public and private life, it is the same story: the undesired neeeds of black people transform them into those-without-desire. ('They're lazy,' 'They don't want to...')

For blacks, describing needs has been a dismal failure as political activity. It has succeeded only as a literary achievement. They history of our need is certainly moving enough to have been called poetry, oratory, epic entertainment - but it has never been treated by white institutions as the statement of a political priority. (I don't mean to undervalue the liberating power for blacks of such poetry, oratory, and epic; my concern is the degree to which it has been compartmentalized by the larger culture as something other than political expression.) Some of our greatest politicians have been forced to become ministers or blues singers. Even white descriptions of 'the blues' tend to remove the daily hunger and hurt from need and abstract it into a mood. And whoever would legislate against depression? Particularly something as rich, soulful, and sonorously productive as black depression.”
― Patricia J. Williams, Alchemy of Race and Rights: Diary of a Law Professor

“Cradled in this community whose currency was relational ethics, my stock in myself soared. My value depended on the glorious intangibility, the eloquence invisibility, of my just being part of the collective—and in direct response I grew spacious and happy and gentle.”
― Patricia J. Williams, Alchemy of Race and Rights: Diary of a Law Professor