Infinite Queerness and American Settler Colonialism

Authors

• Jeremiah A. Ho, Saint Louis University School of LawFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2024

Abstract

In Silent Covenants: Brown v. Board of Education and the Unfulfilled Hopes For Racial Reform, the late Derrick Bell refined his theory of racial progress in the United States by merging his interest convergence and racial sacrifice theses into a theoretical “two-sided coin” he called “racial fortuity.”¹  Bell’s original interest convergence thesis posited that racial progress for Blacks would only occur if their interests in obtaining equality for themselves and the interests of the dominant White establishment in granting such equality “converged.”²  This theory famously underpinned Bell’s interpretation of Brown and the Supreme Court’s eagerness to overturn Plessy v. Ferguson’s “separate but equal” ruling in favor of desegregating schools.³  According to Bell, the Court was not motivated solely by the interests in desegregation but also by what desegregation could do to stoke the image of the United States as an emblem of post–World War II democratic order on the world stage.⁴

Recommended Citation

Ho, Jeremiah A., Infinite Queerness and American Settler Colonialism (January 01, 2024). Saint Louis U. Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2024-15, 31 Wm. & Mary J. Race, Gender & Soc. Just. (2024).