Unlike criticisms of multiculturalism, which worry about 'reverse discrimination' or the erosion of core Western cultural values, this book's focuses on the effects of multicultural rhetoric and multicultural rights on their beneficiaries. It argues that multicultural accounts of cultural difference do not describe the practices of social groups.

Preface vii PREAMBLE 1 Difference Discourse 4 Political Philosophy 5 Legal Scholarship 11 Legalism 13 Ideology 14 Lexicon 17 Overview of the Book 20 CHAPTER 1. DIFFERENCE DISCOURSE 23 A (Abridged) History of Difference 29 The Production of Group Difference as Common Knowledge 36 The "Repressive Hypothesis" 36 "Diversity": Difference Discourse as Corrupt Detente 42 Alan Bakke: Multiculturalist? 44 CHAPTER 2. IDENTITIES AS COLLECTIVE ACTION 59 Identity as Social Performance 61 Free Time 64 Recognition of Difference as Protective Custody 67 Rights as Public Policy 68 Rights-to-Difference Require an Official Account of Group Difference 70 Difference Discourse as Social Discipline: Delegitimation and Stereotyping 74 Cultural Reservations 78 Copyrights-to-Difference: Culture as Property 88 Identity Consciousness: Less Is More 90 Group Consciousness without Cultural Romanticism 91 Culture Distinguished from Status 93 Against "Racial Characteristics" 97 Status and Immutability 100 Intimacy and Identity 116 CHAPTER 3. "CULTURAL DISCRIMINATION" 125 Why "Cultural Bias" Is Like Death and Taxes 127 Background Rules as Cultural Discrimination 127 The Inevitability of Discriminatory Laws 130 Everyone Can Make a Difference: Difference Discourse as Cultural Zeitgeist 132 Difference as an Expensive Taste 139 Institutional Cultures 142 Institutions, Culture and Intergroup Conflict 148 Cosmopolitan Difference 156 The Cosmopolitan and the Province: An Ideological Reorientation 162 CHAPTER 4. THE ENDS OF ANTI-DISCRIMINATION LAW 169 Civil Rights as a Limited Mechanism of Social Justice 170 Anti-discrimination Law and Joint Costs 172 Doctrinal Reform 179 Disparate Treatment 181 Disparate Impact 183 Rogers Redux: Toward a Pragmatic Approach to Difference 195 Alternative Approaches to Group Conflict and Social Injustice 203 POSTSCRIPT: BEYOND DIFFERENCE 211 Notes 215 Index 227

"This book will shake things up. Racial Culture is elegant, clear, and argumentatively tough. It is a highly incisive intervention in an important domain of anti-discrimination law, social policy, social theory, legal theory, and racial politics."—Janet Halley, Harvard University"Racial Culture is a brave, disturbing, and important book by a first-class legal scholar. Richard Ford challenges every left and liberal shibboleth about racial justice in contemporary multicultural societies, while arguing relentlessly for racial justice. The final provocation is chilling and inspired, an incomparable articulation of the historical necessity and the historical damage of identity politics."—Wendy Brown, University of California, Berkeley"This is a race-conscious, anti-racist attack on racial identity politics. There is nothing else like it in the literature. It is provocative in the best sense—provocative of thought—and it opens a new approach to the tired "conversation about race." Certainly one of the most important contributions of the last ten years."—Duncan Kennedy, Harvard Law School

This book will shake things up. Racial Culture is elegant, clear, and argumentatively tough. It is a highly incisive intervention in an important domain of anti-discrimination law, social policy, social theory, legal theory, and racial politics. -- Janet Halley, Harvard University Racial Culture is a brave, disturbing, and important book by a first-class legal scholar. Richard Ford challenges every left and liberal shibboleth about racial justice in contemporary multicultural societies, while arguing relentlessly for racial justice. The final provocation is chilling and inspired, an incomparable articulation of the historical necessity and the historical damage of identity politics. -- Wendy Brown, University of California, Berkeley This is a race-conscious, anti-racist attack on racial identity politics. There is nothing else like it in the literature. It is provocative in the best sense--provocative of thought--and it opens a new approach to the tired "conversation about race." Certainly one of the most important contributions of the last ten years. -- Duncan Kennedy, Harvard Law School