Vampires Anonymous and Critical Race Practice

Authors

Robert A. Williams Jr., University of ArizonaFollow

Abstract

I can only explain what Vampires Anonymous has done for me by telling my story. I know, stories, particularly autobiographical stories, are currently being dissed by some law professors. Raised in an overly obsessive, objectively neutralized cultural style, they are plain and simple Storyhaters. Their middle to upper class parents had money, a home in the burbs, and nice kids who were going to go on from their fancy grade schools and college preparatory gigs to Harvard/Stanford/Yale - all those types of pricey places where law professors usually come from. These kids were raised to be objective, neutral, neutered, fair, etc., right from the get-go. That's why they're Storyhaters, and that's why they became law professors. It's basically all they could ever hope to be. A common problem with so many of these kids who grow up to be law professors is that all they ever get to know about stories is what they heard from the Bible, or what their parents read to them for bedtime. You know, the type of stuff you find in Cat in the Hat books; like "red fish, blue fish," "Sam I am," things like that. No wonder these kids hate stories when they grow up to be law professors. After the bogus and silly stuff their parents fed them years ago, a diet of 400 footnotes in law review articles about things like the mailbox rule must seem deliciously stimulating. For them, it's like capturing the taste of a higher, objective truth and reality.

Recommended Citation

Robert A. Williams Jr., Vampires Anonymous and Critical Race Practice, 95 Mich. L. Rev. 741 (1997).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol95/iss4/3