Prawfsblawg had a vigorous discussion of Kenji Yoshino’s fascinating book, Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights, earlier this year, graced by the presence of the author himself. For those who remain interested in Covering and the important issues it raises, I have posted a draft copy of my review of Covering on SSRN. It is titled “Uncovering Identity,” and is forthcoming in the Michigan Law Review. (Please note that the version I have posted is slightly longer than the eventual published version, which the estimable folks at Michigan are helping to condense a little, will be.) It’s available here. Here’s the abstract, with apologies for the longer-than-usual length of this post. Readers and detractors are welcome.
Kenji Yoshino’s book, Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights, offers an instructive and intimate look at the many claims that society makes upon the self. In discussing “covering” – the demand that one “tone down a disfavored identity to fit into the mainstream” – it promises to open a productive debate about the shape and future of civil rights law. Its argument that we should move away from an equality-based approach to civil rights law, and toward a liberty-based approach, is especially interesting. Nevertheless, it builds on a shaky foundation. This book review focuses on Yoshino’s treatment of identity, authenticity, and the self in Covering. Yoshino describes the book as a defense of the “True Self” against demands for conformity and/or identity performance. He writes that we are all engaged in an act of “self-elaboration,” a “search for authenticity” that “is the most important work we can do.” I make three basic points about Yoshino’s placement of authenticity and the “True Self” at the heart of his project. First, drawing primarily on the work of Charles Taylor, I argue that it is not clear that the search for authenticity is “the most important work we can do” as human beings. But even it were, such a project cannot depend only on acts of “self-elaboration.” Our truest, most authentic selves are often those we forge in moments of dialogue and interaction with others. Second, Yoshino’s focus on covering as an act of coerced assimilation fails to fully capture the extent to which one’s identity, and one’s uses of identity, may be fluid and intentional. Third, I argue that another essential identity trait is present throughout Yoshino’s book, but is not adequately acknowledged and examined: class. My criticisms of Yoshino’s foundational treatment of authenticity and the self have three broader implications for his project. First, I suggest that generalizing from the formation of gay identity to other forms of identity may be trickier than the book suggests. Second, I call into question Yoshino’s attempt to refigure civil rights as a matter of liberty rather than equality. Third, and more generally, I argue that before we can hold the “reason-forcing conversations” that Yoshino recommends, we need to reach a firmer understanding of the self, its connection to the broader social world, and the occasions on which we are willing to call certain identity demands reasonable or unreasonable.
Posted by Paul Horwitz on August 25, 2006 at 02:53 PM