Whiteness is not property: deconstructing critical race theory

This is a long post, in part because I do not have time to write a short one. It is a response to a 1993 Harvard Law Review essay by Cheryl L. Harris arguing for the notion of whiteness as property. I not only critique that claim, doing so gives me an opportunity to demonstrate the problems with the treatment of "race" by the critical race theory/intersectionalism/identity/diversity streams of thought that the essay is an example of.

Normally, when I discover a Law Review article on a matter I am concerned with, I am pleased. Law Review articles tend to be thorough, strongly evidence-based, with careful interrogation of key concepts, being thus very useful. The Columbia Law Review article “Polygamy, Prostitution and the Federalization of Immigration Law” (pdf) on immigration bars on Chinese entry, for example, epitomises these virtues.

A climate change election, just not in the intended way ...

Based on a comment I made here.

In its dynamics, the 2019 Australian federal election was 1993 re-run: an Opposition expected to win pre-releases an extensive policy manifesto which a "small target" "devil you know" Government is able to run a scare campaign on the awkward bits.

But it also seems to have turned out to be the climate change election, just not the way the fashionable folk thought. The regional/provincial working class is beginning to not only realise that the inner city elites want to sacrifice regional/provincial working class jobs on the altar of climate change, but to also vote accordingly.

Nothing Australia could do on climate change can make a lick of difference (at about 1% of world GDP, we are not a big enough economy and no one pays attention to what we do[, beyond the odd headline grab]) so the politics of "climate emergency" is sin-and-salvation politics, not practical trade-off politics.

The sacking of a star (Pacific Islander origins) rugby league player (Israel Folau) for quoting a biblical verse on social media probably did not help either. When the diversity totalitarians start coming for sporting heroes, folk you would not otherwise expect are likely to take notice.