Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism

Derrick Bell reminds the reader that Geneva Crenshaw is a fictional figure he uses in previous work to create a more flexible approach to critiquing the effectiveness of legal precedent in addressing the failure of the law to counter racism. Racism is a permanent part of American law and society, but philosophers, activists, and ordinary citizens have given Bell hope that continued resistance despite this permanence is the best antidote for despair. Bell notes that many of the pieces in the book were teaching texts he used as a law professor and thanks those who helped him transform these texts into readable stories.

Bell provides a legal and philosophical approach to understanding the stories that follow. During his lifetime, people like him went from shame during childhood about enslaved ancestors to being more interested in that history during the 1960s. Diverse audiences came to understand that slavery existed but failed to understand that its ongoing aftermath required action in the present. White Americans grudgingly accepted that the most blatantly racist laws had to go after civil rights protesters forcefully made that point.

These changes notwithstanding, African Americans’ lives still show all the impacts of a racist legal structure that is just as harmful to freedom as the South African system of apartheid.