CRT Chapter Three Textbook Notes

Vocabulary flashcards covering the concepts, court cases, and key legal theorists of Legal Storytelling and Narrative Analysis in Critical Race Theory.

Legal Storytelling and Narrative Analysis

A movement within Critical Race Theory that uses parables, autobiographies, counterstories, and narrative analysis to examine how perspective, viewpoint, and social construction shape legal doctrine and society's understanding of race.

Judge Leon Higginbotham's Recusal Argument

Federal Judge Leon Higginbotham's reasoning in rejecting a motion to disqualify himself from a case based on his race, asserting that requiring Black judges to refrain from discussing race applies a rigid double standard analogous to slave masters claiming only they could judge the fairness of slavery.

Commonwealth v. Local Union 542, International Union of Operating Engineers

A 1974 federal court case (388 F. Supp. 155, 165 [E.D. Pa. 1974]) in which Federal Judge Leon Higginbotham issued a key opinion refusing to disqualify himself from hearing a legal matter based on his race.

Double Consciousness

A concept formulated by W. E. B. Du Bois describing the dual perspective and self-awareness experienced by nonwhite individuals living within a dominant racial culture.

Interest Convergence

A principle articulated by Critical Race Theory scholar Derrick Bell stating that people tend to adopt and hold racial beliefs that align with and advance their own personal or group interests.

Nomos

A concept in literary and narrative theory referring to an individual's normative universe or worldview from which they are not easily dislodged.

State v. Buggs (1998)

A Minnesota Supreme Court decision (581 N.W. 2d 329, 344) holding that race is an issue in a case regardless of whether a juror is a member of a racial minority, because the problems of race belong to everyone.

Counterstorytelling

A legal and literary method used to challenge, displace, or mock embedded cultural preconceptions, stock stories, and received wisdoms that marginalize nonwhite groups.

Mindset (in Legal Discourse)

The bundle of received wisdoms, stock stories, and suppositions that allocate suspicion, place the burden of proof, and determine how legal decision-makers interpret ambiguous evidence.

The Differend

A concept from philosopher Jean-François Lyotard occurring when a concept such as justice holds conflicting meanings for two groups, leaving the subordinate group lacking the recognized language to articulate how they have been wronged.

Applied Critical Race Theory

A term used critically by legal commentator Jeffrey Rosen to describe Johnnie Cochran's narrative defense of O. J. Simpson as an explicit manipulation of racial perspectives in court.