Dean Spade Quotes About Racism

Quotes about: Racism

• Law reforms in the US, ostensibly enacted to prohibit racism, have proven ineffective because they focus on bad intentions of individuals and fail to comprehend population-level conditions.

  Dean Spade

  Law, Racism, Focus

  "On Normal Life". Interview with Natalie Oswin, societyandspace.org. January 15, 2014.

• Legal doctrine requiring a showing of evidence of racist intent and a narrow chain of causation has made it very difficult to prove in court that a person or group is experiencing racism because the standards are too narrow and too focused on individual intentions.

  Dean Spade

  Racism, Groups, Doctrine

  "On Normal Life". Interview with Natalie Oswin, societyandspace.org. January 15, 2014.

• "Oppression" or "systems of oppression" operate as a shorthand terms in much writing and speaking so that we do not have to list all these systems of meaning and control each time (i.e. racism, ableism, xenophobia, etc.). I needed a term like that, but "oppression" implies a kind of top-down understanding of power that is at odds with the Foucaultian model I rely on in my work.

  Dean Spade

  Xenophobia, Writing, Top Down

  "On Normal Life". Interview with Natalie Oswin, societyandspace.org. January 15, 2014.

• Many people who are drawn to work about racism and transphobia may be new to thinking deeply about colonialism and indigenous resistance in their North America.

  Dean Spade

  Thinking, America, Racism

  "On Normal Life". Interview with Natalie Oswin, societyandspace.org. January 15, 2014.

• Critical Race Theory offers of discrimination frameworks as ways of understanding and eradicating racism. The focus on "discrimination" as the way to understand racism in the US has meant that racism is considered a question of discriminatory intentions - whether or not somebody intentionally left someone out or did something harmful because of their biased feelings about a person's race. This focus on individual racists with bad ideas hides the reality that racism exists wherever conditions of racialized maldistribution exist.

  Dean Spade

  Reality, Race, Ideas

  "On Normal Life". Interview with Natalie Oswin, societyandspace.org. January 15, 2014.

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