Book Review
![handle is hein.journals/cardplp1 and id is 201 raw text is: LET US BE DONE WITH TOTALIZING
BLACK HISTORIES
E. Nathaniel Gates*
Race is not only real, but also illusory. Not only is it common sense, it is
common nonsense. Not only does it establish our identity; it also denies us
our identity.'
In the preface to his thought-provoking essay collection, Rebels in
the Law: Voices in History of Black Women Lauyers, J. Clay Smith Jr.
speaks of [the need for a collection of articles that included the voices
of black women in the law;2 a need which he believes is generated and
enhanced by the number of books and articles available today by con-
temporary black, white, and other [sic] women of color on law and
social policy, particularly those writing under the broad subjects of femi-
nist jurisprudence and critical race theory.3 Rebels in the Law, he in-
forms us, is intended not only to introduce new voices to [the] ongoing
scholarship on themes by women in the legal academy, but beyond, to
social and political scientists who have ignored the voices of black wo-
men lawyers.14 He suggests that it is ultimately an effort to strengthen
emerging critical disciplines and broaden our conception of United
States legal history by adding long-neglected black women's voices, re-
bellious strident voices in the law.5
The oversight which Smith seeks to correct is real enough, al-
though its existence hardly comes as a surprise. Like most social institu-
tions that purport to generate, classify, and disseminate knowledge,
the legal academy functions as a filtering mechanism. It facilitates and
bolsters certain forms of social control by enacting selected exclusions.
That is to say that it either denies the broader public access to certain
Professor of Law, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University.
l Howard Winant, Racial Dualism at Century's End, in THE HOUSE THAT RACE BUILT: BLACK
AMERICANS, U.S. TERRAIN 90 (Wahneema Lubano ed. 1997).
2 J. CLAY SMITH, JR., ed., REBELS IN THE LAW: VOICES IN THE LAW OF BLACK WOMEN LAW-
x'uRs xiii (1998)
3 Id at xiv.
4 Id
5 Id. at 7.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/cardplp1&div=10&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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