![handle is hein.journals/usflr31 and id is 801 raw text is: The Colorblind Multiracial Dilemma:
Racial Categories Reconsidered
By john a. powell*
THIS PAPER WILL briefly touch on some of the ways we think about
race and, more particularly, racial categories. Despite our obsession with
race-which sometimes takes the form of race aversion-our national dis-
course is disturbingly confused, charged, and often unproductive. Our lan-
guage often seems wooden and rehearsed, and the way that we discuss race
is frequently in conflict with our stated ideals.1 I focus on racial categories
not just because of their general interest and importance, but because Trina
was very interested in them-both professionally and experientially.2 The
concept of race is hotly contested and deconstructed in literature, law, and
politics. Currently, there are several competing theories about race and its
meaning and application in the United States. I will focus on two sets of
claims about racial categories. I will explore the limitations of these posi-
tions and posit some alternative ways to think about racial categories.
The two positions on which I will focus seem to point in opposite
directions.3 The first, the colorblind position, calls for the end of racial cate-
gories. The second, the multiracial position, calls for the proliferation of
racial categories, with particular attention to expanding multiracial
categories.
* Professor of Law, University of Minnesota; Executive Director of the Institute on Race
and Poverty. I would like to thank the University of Minnesota Law Library staff for their wonder-
ful support and the University of San Francisco Law Review for doing this issue for Trina. I
appreciate the research assistance of Bonniee Mookherjee. I would like to dedicate this article to
Trina Grillo, her children Jeffrey and Luisa, and my children Fon and Saneta. Trina will always
inhabit my heart and mind. I miss you.
1. See john a. powell, The Racing of American Society: Race Functioning as a Verb
Before Signifying as a Noun, 15 LAW & INEQ. J. 99, 99-118 (1997) [hereinafter powell, Rac-
ing]. I will focus on the United States experience of race and racism in this article. I recognize
that in other societies and even in the United States, how we discuss race changes both at different
historical times and in different sites in our lives.
2. See Trina Grillo, Anti-Essentialism and Intersectionality: Tools to Dismantle the
Master's House, 10 BERKELEY WoMEN's L.J. 16, 16-19 (1995).
3. I will try to show in this paper that they in fact make similar mistakes and, more impor-
tantly, neither position seriously challenges racism.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/usflr31&div=33
&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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