the shapes of those silences, part II
Esmerelda Thornhill so rocks. From a 1999 article:
To get through law school, excluded group students are
forced to engage in disconnected, disembodied discussions as though they are not black,
not aboriginal, not of Asian ancestry, not disabled, not female..., but rather colourless
neutered legal analysts. To get through law school, minority students must run the
gauntlet of objectification, subjectification, invisibility, alienation and isolation.
Current Canadian law school curricula and legal scholarship offer no safe harbour in
which minority students can anchor their own experiences, no solid moorings to which
they can ground their analyses. Narrowly constructed boundaries of classroom
decorum not only penalize analyses predicated on individual and collective factual
experiences, but also immunize law from serious criticism, unless the student dares to
strike out against the current and run the risk of being labelled "emotional,"
"hysterical," "irrational" and (heaven forbid) "un-lawyerlike."
Exactly exactly exactly.
I chose to read Gosselin v. Quebec for the conference, and the majority opinion is abstract to the point of insanity when it's not openly contemptuous towards poor people, young people, and people with mental illnesses. It's depressing as hell that this is the law.
To get through law school, excluded group students are
forced to engage in disconnected, disembodied discussions as though they are not black,
not aboriginal, not of Asian ancestry, not disabled, not female..., but rather colourless
neutered legal analysts. To get through law school, minority students must run the
gauntlet of objectification, subjectification, invisibility, alienation and isolation.
Current Canadian law school curricula and legal scholarship offer no safe harbour in
which minority students can anchor their own experiences, no solid moorings to which
they can ground their analyses. Narrowly constructed boundaries of classroom
decorum not only penalize analyses predicated on individual and collective factual
experiences, but also immunize law from serious criticism, unless the student dares to
strike out against the current and run the risk of being labelled "emotional,"
"hysterical," "irrational" and (heaven forbid) "un-lawyerlike."
Exactly exactly exactly.
I chose to read Gosselin v. Quebec for the conference, and the majority opinion is abstract to the point of insanity when it's not openly contemptuous towards poor people, young people, and people with mental illnesses. It's depressing as hell that this is the law.