Critical Coalitions: Theory and Praxis

Abstract

Why are progressive law professors so often absent from the in-the-trenches legal struggles of communities of color - where trial courts, community halls, city councils, churches, corporate-accountability campaigns, government bureaucracies, and state initiatives are the terrain for race controversies? And why are political lawyers so often missing from gatherings of progressive academics - where critiques of race, culture, and law provide critical insight into the limitations and possibilities of contemporary civil-rights practice in pursuit of racial justice? Of course, progressive scholars and political lawyers do interact. But in our estimation, not nearly enough.

For both of us, an important question is, 'What might Critical Race Theory offer to and learn from groups engaged in forging alliances and building coalitions?' In framing this question we are implicitly making several assertions about the development of critical coalition theory. Theory development should be forward-looking - that is, it should explore how race-theory insights illuminate and aid ongoing and future coalition-building efforts. Developments should integrate theory and action - reflecting our belief that theory-building both shapes and is shaped by coalitional practice and that theory solely for its own sake is of limited efficacy in progressive social-change work. Issues of gender, class, sexual orientation, disability, and multiracialism are crucial to the dynamics of racial coalition-building in a political climate that is hostile to the civil rights of subordinated peoples. And finally, we are asserting that among coalition partners, intergroup healing and reconciliation are sometimes a necessary first step to, and always and ongoing process in, forging lasting alliances.