Authorized scholar Cheryl Harris’s groundbreaking 1993 article, “Whiteness as Property,” argues that whiteness has traditionally been handled as a type of property in the US, conferring tangible and intangible advantages to those that possess it. Like different types of property, whiteness has been constructed, outlined, and guarded by the regulation, enabling its house owners to manage, switch, and profit from its worth. This idea manifests in numerous historic and modern examples, together with redlining, racially restrictive covenants, and disparities in entry to schooling, healthcare, and employment alternatives.
Harris’s evaluation offers a important framework for understanding how racial inequality is just not merely a product of particular person prejudice however is deeply embedded in authorized buildings and social establishments. Her work highlights how the authorized system has traditionally performed a pivotal function in creating and perpetuating racial disparities by affording authorized protections and benefits to whiteness. Understanding this framework is essential for addressing systemic racism and dealing in the direction of a extra equitable society. The idea offers a robust lens via which to investigate the persistence of racial inequality and the challenges in attaining true racial justice.
