![handle is hein.journals/afamlpol20 and id is 1 raw text is:
Derrick Bell's Dilemma
Brandon Hogan*
INTRODUCTION
The scholarship of Derrick Bell, acclaimed critical race theorist and
constitutional law scholar, continues to animate discussions outside and inside
of legal academia. Cornel West, for example, recently criticized Ta-Nehisi
Coates' pessimism about racial progress, arguing that Coates' approach lacks the
appeal to black struggle that is present in Bell's work.' Furthermore, many
critical race theorists take Bell's interest convergence principle and racial realism
thesis as starting points for their scholarship.2 Law professor Paul Butler, for
example, draws on both of Bell's theories to explain the persistence of racism in
American policing.3 Legal scholar Justin Driver, on the other hand, views Bell's
theories as problematically pessimistic about the prospect of true racial justice in
the United States.4 I argue that Bell's approach to racial justice is viable and
instructive, but that it must be modified if it is to overcome several serious
theoretical problems. The interest convergence principle entails that groups are
largely amoral, while the racial realism thesis includes the claim that black
Americans should act on moral reasons. Thus, the principle and the thesis, taken
together, entail a contradiction.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15779/Z387S7HS60
*. Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Howard University. J.D., Harvard Law School;
Ph.D. in Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh.
1. Comel West, Ta-Nehisi Coates is the Neoliberal Face of the Black Freedom Struggle,
THE GUARDIAN (Dec. 17, 2017, 5:00 PM),
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/17/ta-nehisi-coates-neoliberal-black-
struggle-cornel-west [https://perma.cc/5ZEG-QCDP].
2. See, e.g., Patience A. Crowder, Interest Convergence as Transaction?, 75 U. PITT. L.
REV. 693 (2014); Tommy J. Curry, Shut Your Mouth When You're Talking to Me: Silencing the
Idealist School of Critical Race Theory through a Culturalogical Turn in Jurisprudence, 3 GEO. J.
L. & MOD. CRITICAL RACE PERSP. 1 (2011); Richard Delgado, Law's Violence: Derrick Bell's Next
Article, 75 U. PITT. L. REV. 435 (2014); Lahny R. Silva, Ringing the Bell: The Right to Counsel and
the Interest Convergence Dilemma, 82 Mo. L. REV. 132 (2017).
3. PAUL BUTLER, CHOKE HOLD: POLICING BLACK MEN 76, 185 (2017).
4. Justin Driver, Rethinking the Interest-Convergence Thesis, 105 NW. U. L. REV. 149,
188 (2011).
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