Unloving
![handle is hein.journals/ilr80 and id is 159 raw text is: Unloving
Jim Chen*
I. A SAN FRANCISCO BAY CHRONICLE
When Robert S. Chang declared the Asian American Moment in
legal scholarship,' I pondered whether his simultaneous announcement of
new responsibilities for Asian American legal scholars2 had any impact
on me. Professor Chang's piece reverberated with the rhetoric of a
secessionist manifesto, and I reflexively recoiled. As a son of Georgia, I
imagined that better wisdom, justice, and moderation had obliterated the
allure of racial segregation.' What respectable American today would fight
under a banner that beckons to one race alone?4 And as a citizen of
Minnesota,5 I follow the same Star of the North that guided passengers on
the Underground Railroad to freedom.6 From this patch of free academic
soil I nevertheless perceive the need for self-defense,7 for eternal vigilance
is the price that many a professor pays for the liberty not to think the way
he or she looks-or more accurately, for the courage to proclaim that
there is no such thing as thinking white, black, brown, red, or yellow.
The problem with Chang's announcement, as I perceived it, arose
from the convergence of the following facts:
* Associate Professor of Law, University of Minnesota Law School.
I thank Betsy Bartholet, Steve Bradbury, Karen Burke, Ann Burkhart, Dan Farber, Phil
Frickey, Dan Gifford, Victor Kramer, Bob Levy, John McGinnis, Michael Stokes Paulsen,
Suzanna Sherry, Susan Wolf, and Judith Younger for helpful suggestions. Steffen Johnson
provided able research assistance. All scriptural references are to the KingJames version.
1. See Robert S. Chang, Toward an Asian American Legal Scholarship: Critical Race
Theory, Post-Structuralism, and Narrative Space, 81 Cal. L. Rev. 1243, 1245-46, 1314 (1993).
2. Id. at 1246.
3. Ga. Code Ann. § 50-3-2 (1994) (adopting a pledge of allegiance to the Georgia flag
and the principles for which it stands: Wisdom, Justice, and Moderation).
4. But cf id. § 50-3-1 (The flag of the State of Georgia shall [contain] ... the flag of
the Confederate States as approved and cited in Statutes at Large of the Confederate States
Congress, ... such [flag] being popularly known as the Battle Flag of the Confederacy.).
5. See U.S. Const amend. XIV, § 1 (All persons born or naturalized in the United
States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State
herein they re-id&) (emphasis added).
6. See Minn. Stat. § 1.135(3) (f) (1) (1992) (adopting the motto L'Etoile du Nord,
meaning the Star of the North).
7. SeeDred Scottv. Sanford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393, 431 (1854) (describing Dred Scott's
removal to Fort Snelling, a military post in the free territory that eventually became
Minnesota); cf State v. Wanrow, 559 P.2d 548, 555-56 (Wash. 1977) (holding that a legally
objective definition of self-defense must nevertheless account for the individual defendant's
perception of danger).](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/ilr80&div=13&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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