Settler Colonialism, Race, and the Law

Abstract

Settler Colonialism, Race, and the Law begins from the premise that the United States is neither postracial nor postcolonial. Using the lens of settler colonial theory, it attributes the origins and persistence of racialized inequities in the United States to the prerogatives asserted by its predominantly Angloamerican founders to appropriate Indigenous lands and resources, to profit from the labor of voluntary and involuntary migrants, and to ensure that all people of color remain “in their place.” This book assesses the experiences of American Indians, African Americans, Latina/os, and Asian Americans to the present day in terms of the strategies utilized by the settlers to accomplish these ends. By providing a functional analysis that links disparate forms of oppression, it makes the case for the oft-cited proposition that racial justice is indivisible, focusing particularly on the importance of acknowledging and contesting the continued colonization of Indigenous peoples and lands. It concludes that we will more effectively dismantle structural racism not by relying on promises of formal equality but by envisioning what the right of all peoples to self-determination means in a settler colonial state.