The Derrick Bell Reader

An authoritative collection of writings from a prominent public intellectual.

An authoritative collection of writings from a prominent public intellectual.

_________________ 'Timely and profound' - The Observer 'A concise, beautifully written guide to the true good life, written by man of true principles and morals' - James McBride _________________ A timely look at how morals and ethics are overlooked when we try to succeed in this world, by the renowned lecturer Derrick Bell Who will YOU have to become to succeed? Most of us believe that we must compromise our integrity to get ahead in life. With material success now our overarching social goal, the pressure to succeed is stronger than it's ever been. But what does this mean for our convictions, our morals, our ideals? In his book, Derrick Bell demonstrates that it is possible to attain success and not compromise our values by practising what he describes as Ethical Ambition. Setting out seven rules with which to conduct our lives, he places ethics as central to our ambition, so we can simultaneously honour our values and our needs. Ethical Ambition will force you to re-examine your beliefs and motivate you to change your life. It is an important book for our times.

This Element explores Critical Race Theory (CRT) and its potential application to the field of public administration. It proposes specific areas within the field where a CRT framework would help to uncover and rectify structural and institutional racism. This is paramount given the high priority that the field places on social equity, the third pillar of public administration. If there is a desire to achieve social equity and justice, systematic, structural racism needs to be addressed and confronted directly. The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement is one example of the urgency and significance of applying theories from a variety of disciplines to the study of racism in public administration.

The groundbreaking, "eerily prophetic, almost haunting" work on American racism and the struggle for racial justice (Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow). In Faces at the Bottom of the Well, civil rights activist and legal scholar Derrick Bell uses allegory and historical example—including the classic story "The Space Traders"—to argue that racism is an integral and permanent part of American society. African American struggles for equality are doomed to fail, he writes, so long as the majority of whites do not see their own well-being threatened by the status quo. Bell calls on African Americans to face up to this unhappy truth and abandon a misplaced faith in inevitable progress. Only then will blacks, and those whites who join with them, be in a position to create viable strategies to alleviate the burdens of racism. Now with a new foreword by Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow, this classic book was a pioneering contribution to critical race theory scholarship, and it remains urgent and essential reading on the problem of racism in America.

When the landmark Supreme Court case of Brown vs. Board of Education was handed down in 1954, many civil rights advocates believed that the decision, which declared public school segregation unconstitutional, would become the Holy Grail of racial justice. Fifty years later, despite its legal irrelevance and the racially separate and educationally ineffective state of public schooling for most black children, Brown is still viewed by many as the perfect precedent. Here, Derrick Bell shatters the shining image of this celebrated ruling. He notes that, despite the onerous burdens of segregation, many black schools functioned well and racial bigotry had not rendered blacks a damaged race. He maintains that, given what we now know about the pervasive nature of racism, the Court should have determined instead to rigorously enforce the "equal" component of the "separate but equal" standard. Racial policy, Bell maintains, is made through silent covenants--unspoken convergences of interest and involuntary sacrifices of rights--that ensure that policies conform to priorities set by policy-makers. Blacks and whites are the fortuitous winners or losers in these unspoken agreements. The experience with Brown, Bell urges, should teach us that meaningful progress in the quest for racial justice requires more than the assertion of harms. Strategies must recognize and utilize the interest-convergence factors that strongly influence racial policy decisions. In Silent Covenants, Bell condenses more than four decades of thought and action into a powerful and eye-opening book.

A compact introduction to the field of racial discrimination law that explains the origins, principal themes, leading voices, and new directions of this important movement in legal thought. This revised edition includes material on key issues such as colorblind jurisprudence, Latino-critical scholarship, immigration, and the rollback of affirmative action.

A distinguished legal scholar and civil rights activist employs a series of dramatic fables and dialogues to probe the foundations of America’s racial attitudes and raise disturbing questions about the nature of our society.