Whitelash
Unmasking White Grievance at the Ballot Box

Questions if voters would vote differently if it were illegal to discriminate in voting? How can courts enforce such a prohibition?

Terry Smith (Author)

9781108426725, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 21 January 2020

300 pages, 7 tables
23.5 x 15.7 x 2 cm, 0.55 kg

'… Whitelash is a provocative read… both novices to the study of race and the law, as well as seasoned veterans, will find much to engage. Read Whitelash to understand how the phenomena of racial backlash is not confined to the US.' Matthew W. Hughey, Ethnic and Racial Studies

If postmortems of the 2016 US presidential election tell us anything, it's that many voters discriminate on the basis of race, which raises an important question: in a society that outlaws racial discrimination in employment, housing, and jury selections, should voters be permitted to racially discriminate in selecting a candidate for public office? In Whitelash, Terry Smith argues that such racialized decision-making is unlawful and that remedies exist to deter this reactionary behavior. Using evidence of race-based voting in the 2016 presidential election, Smith deploys legal analogies to demonstrate how courts can decipher when groups of voters have been impermissibly influenced by race, and impose appropriate remedies. This groundbreaking work should be read by anyone interested in how the legal system can re-direct American democracy away from the ongoing electoral scourge that many feared 2016 portended.

Introduction: the long night of déjà vu
1. Electing Trump and breaching norms
2. The exoneration of white voters
3. White voters and the law of alternative facts
4. The sirens of white nationalism
5. Law as pretext
6. Voting while white
7. Holding candidates and parties accountable
8. We the people: fashioning a legal remedy for voter whitelash
Conclusion: the globalization of whitelash.

Subject Areas: Government powers [LNDH], Constitution: government & the state [JPHC], Politics & government [JP], Sociology [JHB], History of the Americas [HBJK], African history [HBJH]