Professor Tanya Hernandez’s book Multiracials and Civil Rights: Mixed-Race Stories of Discrimination was reviewed in the New York Journal of Books.
In Multiracials and Civil Rights, Fordham law professor Tanya Hernandez demonstrates that discrimination perpetrated against blacks also targets mixed-race persons, called multiracials. Contrary to popular expectations, multiracialism has not alleviated racism. Deviations from the hundred-percent whiteness (a racial myth) continue to inform social constructions of race, racial awareness, discrimination, and the application of civil rights laws.
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The book examines a slew of civil rights cases, won and lost on grounds of racial discrimination. Most cases involve some degree of black ancestry. It is well known in legal circles that very few racial discrimination lawsuits bear fruit for the claimants. Losing is the norm. In each case, win or lose, the author argues that the claimant would not be better off if there were a distinct protected category of multiracials. However, agreeing with the author’s central thesis is unnecessary to learn from the cases analyzed with superb skill.
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The book offers sturdy understanding of many arguments supporting and disfavoring a separate category for multiracials. Even though Professor Hernandez argues her position fervently, the readers would enjoy the debate that she constructs with intellectual honesty.
The book is a reliable source for lawyers, judges, and law professors not familiar with the civil rights jurisprudence. General readers, with no initiation in law, will learn quite a bit about racial discrimination, civil rights laws, and how academics grapple with theoretical difficulties underlying race relations in the realm of law.
