Acting White?: Rethinking Race in "Post-Racial" America

In Acting White, two of America's leading scholars of race and the law, Devon Carbado and Mitu Gulati, argue that that racial judgments are based not just on phenotypic skin color differences but on performative differences-how a person conforms to behavior stereotypically associated with a certain race. In other words, we judge people based not only on the color of their skin but on the content of their identity performance. More specifically, we judge them on their racial performance: how they dress and style their hair, their institutional affiliations, who they date and/or marry, where they live, how they speak, and their overall mannerisms and demeanor. They close by proposing effective legal remedies for this pervasive and subtle prejudice, which plays a significant role in perpetuating racial inequality in America.

Devon W. Carbado is Professor of Law at University of California, Los Angeles. Mitu Gulati is Professor of Law at Duke University.