What do you think?
Rate this book
Like a Loaded Weapon: The Rehnquist Court, Indian Rights, and the Legal History of Racism in America
Robert A. Williams Jr. boldly exposes the ongoing legal force of the racist language directed at Indians in American society. Fueled by well-known negative racial stereotypes of Indian savagery and cultural inferiority, this language, Williams contends, has functioned “like a loaded weapon” in the Supreme Court’s Indian law decisions.
Beginning with Chief Justice John Marshall’s foundational opinions in the early nineteenth century and continuing today in the judgments of the Rehnquist Court, Williams shows how undeniably racist language and precedent are still used in Indian law to justify the denial of important rights of property, self-government, and cultural survival to Indians. Building on the insights of Malcolm X, Thurgood Marshall, and Frantz Fanon, Williams argues that racist language has been employed by the courts to legalize a uniquely American form of racial dictatorship over Indian tribes by the U.S. government.
Williams concludes with a revolutionary proposal for reimagining the rights of American Indians in international law, as well as strategies for compelling the current Supreme Court to confront the racist origins of Indian law and for challenging bigoted ways of talking, thinking, and writing about American Indians.
Robert A. Williams Jr. is professor of law and American Indian studies at the James E. Rogers College of Law, University of Arizona. A member of the Lumbee Indian Tribe, he is author of The American Indian in Western Legal The Discourses of Conquest and coauthor of Federal Indian Law.
Beginning with Chief Justice John Marshall’s foundational opinions in the early nineteenth century and continuing today in the judgments of the Rehnquist Court, Williams shows how undeniably racist language and precedent are still used in Indian law to justify the denial of important rights of property, self-government, and cultural survival to Indians. Building on the insights of Malcolm X, Thurgood Marshall, and Frantz Fanon, Williams argues that racist language has been employed by the courts to legalize a uniquely American form of racial dictatorship over Indian tribes by the U.S. government.
Williams concludes with a revolutionary proposal for reimagining the rights of American Indians in international law, as well as strategies for compelling the current Supreme Court to confront the racist origins of Indian law and for challenging bigoted ways of talking, thinking, and writing about American Indians.
Robert A. Williams Jr. is professor of law and American Indian studies at the James E. Rogers College of Law, University of Arizona. A member of the Lumbee Indian Tribe, he is author of The American Indian in Western Legal The Discourses of Conquest and coauthor of Federal Indian Law.
312 pages, Paperback
First published November 10, 2005
12 people are currently reading
269 people want to read
About the author
Robert A. Williams Jr.
7 books15 followersRobert A. Williams Jr. (born 1955) is an American lawyer, author, and legal scholar. He works in the fields of federal Indian law, international law, indigenous peoples' rights, critical race and post-colonial theory.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 26, 2020
Robert Williams is a great social-legal scholar who highlights in this book the implicit stereotypical undertones found in America's founding documents and the explicit racist overtones, particularly in the recent Rehnquist Court and its numerous holdings, which has the cultural effect of propagating and legitimizing this type of thinking. Williams covers the doctrine of discovery and Congress' plenary powers that when used in combination formed a synergistic legal wedge to disenfranchise indigenous people with no constitutional standing. In short, Williams persuasively argues that not only is this juridical language inherently racist, but that it continues to contribute to the marginalization of a whole subset of people, namely indigenous people.
April 21, 2020
I would actually give this book a 4.5 rating because I do not agree with some of his extreme and, I believe, unfair examples. However, this book has a lot of research involved and Williams himself is an attorney and legal professor. I really enjoyed reading this book and learning about what Native Americans have been going through legally. It’s amazing that they are still being oppressed to this day. How sad! We have come so far in many areas of the law, but we are still very hesitant with granting Native Americans the rights they deserve. Give the Sequoias the Black Hills! They won that legal case. They deserve to have those lands back AND the money granted to them.
January 11, 2021
This is such an important read for everyone! This is history and explanation that we do not receive in the classroom. Without taking a course in Federal Indian Law, this book provides a brief history of Supreme Court Cases that have shaped Indian Country and the racist language that they are based on. As a public health professional I was hoping this book would provide some connection between the Supreme Court Cases and health inequities that persist today, however, I do acknowledge that was not the point of the book!
Read
December 9, 2021A helpful, case-study-specific introduction to legal racism in America, with one of the best endings to an academic book I’ve ever read
Read
February 25, 2023Here is a somewhat underwhelming analysis of the modern history of Indian Rights as treated by the Supreme Court from the early 19th century to the 21st. Williams' argument about the pervasive reliance on the doctrine of discovery is sound, as is his appeal for US scholars to turn more forcibly to contemporary international law regarding Indigenous Rights. My issues come from the text's split allegiance to legal history on one hand, and comparative racial analysis on the other hand. The text works best, to my mind, as an overview of significant cases on Indian Rights, as handled by various court eras.
So you get the Marshall court and Johnson v. McIntosh (1823), Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831), and Worcester v. Georgia (1832). You get the Taney court and United States v. Rogers (1846) and Ex parte Crow Dog (1883). When Williams moves to the post-Brown era, you get Tee-Hit-Ton v. United States (1955), Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe (1978), and United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians (1980). And finally, Nevada v. Hicks (2001) United States v. Lara (2004). It's a relatively ambitious treatment, and would have made for a fine book project in its own right.
But, of course, this is intended, or seems to be intended, as a somewhat strained attempt at comparative analysis with other examples of minority rights, with Williams touching briefly on the Dred Scott and Korematsu decisions to support his analysis of race and law. Unfortunately, the text doesn't end up offering much of interest on this note. The dips into cognitive theory and speculative musings as to how a judge would respond to accusations of racism aren't rewarding. Though perhaps they are interesting to a legal audience with (presumably, though I hope not) less reading on concepts of race and racism. Williams is right to note, when he does, that the treatment of minority rights in the US is qualitatively different from Indigenous Rights, but he doesn't go far enough into the distinctions. Which would be fine, but it makes for a confusing read when the introduction and conclusion seem more invested in this subtopic than the main chapters.
The idea of approaching a post-Brown persistence of racism in Supreme Court rulings is a very strong idea to work with. In particular, Williams wants to make an argument about the contrasting histories of post-Brown handlings of minority rights in America, but whatever argument in the author's mind doesn't get fully onto the page. That's why I appreciate it more as a history as well as brief sketch of the present, with regards to significant Indigenous Rights cases. I think it was intending to do a little more than that though, which is where my disappointment lies. Still, it was not a waste of time, and I may recommend it to anyone with interest in modern Supreme Court case history, especially concerning Indigenous Rights and the distinction between domestic wards vs. international sovereigns as treated by justices.
So you get the Marshall court and Johnson v. McIntosh (1823), Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831), and Worcester v. Georgia (1832). You get the Taney court and United States v. Rogers (1846) and Ex parte Crow Dog (1883). When Williams moves to the post-Brown era, you get Tee-Hit-Ton v. United States (1955), Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe (1978), and United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians (1980). And finally, Nevada v. Hicks (2001) United States v. Lara (2004). It's a relatively ambitious treatment, and would have made for a fine book project in its own right.
But, of course, this is intended, or seems to be intended, as a somewhat strained attempt at comparative analysis with other examples of minority rights, with Williams touching briefly on the Dred Scott and Korematsu decisions to support his analysis of race and law. Unfortunately, the text doesn't end up offering much of interest on this note. The dips into cognitive theory and speculative musings as to how a judge would respond to accusations of racism aren't rewarding. Though perhaps they are interesting to a legal audience with (presumably, though I hope not) less reading on concepts of race and racism. Williams is right to note, when he does, that the treatment of minority rights in the US is qualitatively different from Indigenous Rights, but he doesn't go far enough into the distinctions. Which would be fine, but it makes for a confusing read when the introduction and conclusion seem more invested in this subtopic than the main chapters.
The idea of approaching a post-Brown persistence of racism in Supreme Court rulings is a very strong idea to work with. In particular, Williams wants to make an argument about the contrasting histories of post-Brown handlings of minority rights in America, but whatever argument in the author's mind doesn't get fully onto the page. That's why I appreciate it more as a history as well as brief sketch of the present, with regards to significant Indigenous Rights cases. I think it was intending to do a little more than that though, which is where my disappointment lies. Still, it was not a waste of time, and I may recommend it to anyone with interest in modern Supreme Court case history, especially concerning Indigenous Rights and the distinction between domestic wards vs. international sovereigns as treated by justices.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews