Race, Wrongs, and Remedies: Group Justice in the 21st Century

by Amy L. Wax

Overview

Black Americans continue to lag behind on many measures of social and economic well-being. Conventional wisdom holds that these inequalities can only be eliminated by eradicating racism and providing well-funded social programs. In Race, Wrongs, and Remedies, Amy L. Wax applies concepts from the law of remedies to show that the conventional wisdom is mistaken. She argues that effectively addressing today's persistent racial disparities requires dispelling the confusion surrounding blacks' own role in achieving equality.

The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that discrimination against blacks has dramatically abated. The most important factors now impeding black progress are behavioral: low educational attainment, poor socialization and work habits, drug use, criminality, paternal abandonment, and non-marital childbearing. Although these maladaptive patterns are largely the outgrowth of past discrimination and oppression, they now largely resist correction by government programs or outside interventions. Wax asserts that the black community must solve these problems from within. Self-help, changed habits, and a new cultural outlook are, in fact, the only effective tactics for eliminating the present vestiges of our nation's racist past.

Published in cooperation with the Hoover Institution

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780742562868
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	07/16/2009
Series:	Hoover Studies in Politics, Economics, and Society
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	196
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Amy L. Wax is Robert Mundheim Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where she teaches courses on procedure, remedies, and social welfare. From 1988 to 1994, she was an Assistant Solicitor General at the U.S. Department of Justice and has argued fifteen cases before the United States Supreme Court. She lives with her husband and three children in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction
Chapter 2 Chapter 1. The Remedial Ideal and the Demand for Racial Justice
Chapter 3 Chapter 2. Group Disadvantage and the Case of Race
Chapter 4 Chapter 3. Racial Disparities and Human Capital Deficits
Chapter 5 Chapter 4. The Psychology of Victimization
Chapter 6 Is Self-Help Possible?
Chapter 7 Reparations, Affirmative Action, and the Relationship of Race and Class
Chapter 8 Notes
Chapter 9 Index

Editorial Reviews

Amy L. Wax combines conceptual insights from the law of torts and remedies with a thorough reading of the scholarship on racial disparities to bring much-needed clarity to the discussion of the black man's burden.

Claremont Review of Books

Wax combines conceptual insights from the law of torts and remedies with a thorough reading of the scholarship on racial disparities to bring much-needed clarity to the discussion of the black man's burden.

The Claremont Review Of Books

Every officer in the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs should read this book. Indeed, every federal or state public servant delivering services to, and/or making policy for Aborigines should think deeply about the applicability to Aborigines of Amy Wax's insights into the plight of black Americans.

Public Administration

Professor Wax's book is the quintessence of cool, clean, and unassailable good sense. One is to be pardoned for wondering whether the most important book on race of the year could be one by a white female law professor. Well, one need wonder no more—it is.

The New Republic

(Amy Wax) reviews a great deal of social science data showing the pallid or perverse effects of policies aimed at teenage pregnancy, education, job training, prison rehabilitation, and many more.

American Lawyer

Amy Wax's Race, Wrongs, and Remedies is a provocative discussion of policies to close the race gap in America. Using the insightful legal distinction between liability and remedy, she shows that self-help can be a powerful force for remediating social wrongs. This book will help change the dialogue of race in America from a discussion about passive victims, guilt, and reparations to a more active embrace of individual responsibility and human agency. Its message is bold and clear.

James J. Heckman

Wax combines conceptual insights from the law of torts and remedies with a thorough reading of the scholarship on racial disparities to bring much-needed clarity to the discussion of the black man's burden.

From the Publisher

Amy L. Wax combines conceptual insights from the law of torts and remedies with a thorough reading of the scholarship on racial disparities to bring much-needed clarity to the discussion of the black man's burden.

Claremont Review Of Books

Wax combines conceptual insights from the law of torts and remedies with a thorough reading of the scholarship on racial disparities to bring much-needed clarity to the discussion of the black man's burden.

The Claremont Review of Books