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Connecting Critical Race Theory with Second Generation Legal Consciousness Work in Obasogie's Blinded by Sight

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Laura E. Gómez
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Abstract

Sociologist and legal scholar Osagie Obasogie's study of how blind people “see” race reveals the usually invisible, taken-for-granted mechanisms that reproduce racism. In Blinded by Sight, he distinguishes racial consciousness from legal consciousness, though he notes their common emphases on studying how cumulative social practices and interactions produce commonsense understandings. I argue that there is much to be gained from connecting these two fields, one emanating primarily out of critical race theory and the other out of law and society scholarship. Legal consciousness offers an important avenue for bridging macro studies of race making with micro studies such as Obasogie's, which focus on individuals' experiences and practices of constructing race and learning racism.

Type
Review Essay
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 41 , Issue 4 , Fall 2016 , pp. 1069 - 1077
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 2016 

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