Like the canary's distress, which alerted miners to poison in the air, issues of race point to conditions in American society that endanger us all. In THE MINER’S CANARY: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy (Harvard University Press / February 15, 2002 / $27.95 / £ 19.50), Lani Guinier and Gerald Torres provide a critical analysis of race and democracy (critical race theory) and a call to action to progressives for a cross-racial coalition bent on transforming political structures and voting (proportional representation). They warn us that we ignore race at our peril, and propose a dramatic, hopeful shift in the way we think about race and put it to political use.

Guiner and Torres see racism as central to the problems of justice and equality-holding that racism allows for inequalities in distribution to be seen as fair and natural, resulting from the individual character of the poor. Ignoring racial differences, or color blindness, has failed, they argue. Race and power intertwine at every level of social interaction, from classrooms to courtrooms to congressional districts. Only cross-racial coalitions can expose these embedded hierarchies of privilege and-through innovative power-sharing and democratic engagement-demolish them. The authors call this concept of enlisting race to resist power political race. This alternative vision locates the continuing problems of social, political, and economic equality in structures and relationships of power. They see the critical problem in our system of justice as its reliance on the concept of the individual (his or her rights and responsibilities) as the key element of analysis. They critique the conventional patterns of the liberal approach to social change for emphasizing the role of "individual" representation within the power elite, claiming that the new "insiders" success or elevation does little to foreword the empowerment of the group as a whole.

THE MINER’S CANARY tells many illuminating stories of political race in action-among black workers in a North Carolina pork plant, among Hispanic organizers in a Chicago mayoral race, among privileged private school students in Boston, and among a coalition of education reformers in Texas. Seamlessly weaving narrative with theory, Guinier and Torres reveal the implications of political race for affirmative action, racial profiling, the war on drugs, livable wages, the education budget, voting reform, and many other current debates. The aim of political race is not just to remedy racial injustices. It is to empower people of all races to struggle together, at the grassroots level, to improve the life chances of everyone who has been "raced" black, regardless of skin color. In a book that is ultimately both aspirational and inspirational, Guinier and Torres envision a recommitment to social justice that promises not only to revitalize the civil rights movement in America but to transform democracy. They look to racial literacy and a growth in collective consciousness across a broad racial coalition as a means for not only rethinking systems of power in this country, but also transforming political systems, most particularly political representation.

About the Authors