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132 Harv. L. Rev. F. 1 (2018-2019)

handle is hein.journals/forharoc132 and id is 1 raw text is: OCTOBER 2018 HARVARD LAW REVIEW FORUM I ( 2018 by The Harvard Law Review Association RESPONSE HIDDEN LAWS OF THE TIME OF FERGUSONt Monica C. Bell* Every society is really governed by hidden laws, by unspoken but profound assumptions on the part of the people, and ours is no exception. It is up to the American writer to find out what these laws and assump- tions are. In a society much given to smashing taboos without thereby managing to be liberated from them, it will be no easy matter - James Baldwin, Nobody Knows My Name' I begin with James Baldwin, as does Professor Fred 0. Smith, Jr. in his innovative and important article, Abstention in the Time of Ferguson. Smith quotes Baldwin to introduce the concept of economic victimiza- tion but never exactly explains how readers should interpret his refer- ence to Baldwin, nor his references to A Raisin in the Sun or I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Contemporary black writers and scholars perpetually rely on Baldwin not because his words remain persuasive and relevant to current social conditions - though they do - but because of what Baldwin repre- sents: a stunningly free black truth-teller, unafraid to express himself, directly and damningly, about the American racial hierarchy. When Baldwin writes about poverty, he is also writing about race. When Baldwin writes of the hidden laws structuring American society, one can surmise that white supremacy is one of them. We who invoke Baldwin are reminding ourselves and signaling to others that we are not naive. Pulitzer Prize-winning essayist Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah explains as much in a recent piece, part of the Baldwin- referent anthology The Fire This Time: t Responding to Fred 0. Smith, Jr., Abstention in the Time of Ferguson, 131 HARV. L. REV. 2283 (2018). * Associate Professor, Yale Law School. Thanks to Asad L. Asad and Yaseen Eldik for feedback. 1 JAMES BALDWIN, The Discovery of What It Means to Be an American, in NOBODY KNOWS MY NAME 3, II (1961). I VOLUME 132 NUMBER 1

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