Image taken from: Harvard Law School Center for the Legal Profession
Question: How can we use the power we have as lawyers and policy experts to dismantle anti-blackness on a systemic level?
For example, becoming a prosecutor, or another government lawyer, can be a popular career track for many Asian American lawyers. If we make the assumption that prosecution may have its place in criminal justice systemic reform (heavily debatable, let’s talk more about this!), Asian Americans are tasked with the responsibility of exercising their prosecutorial discretion (if such a concept even exists) fairly, especially in counties like Harris, Dallas, Hidalgo, and Bexar, with large minority defendant populations. This is a position of power, and we have to collectively strategize about how to use that power to advance justice. Many AsIan American seek to challenge prosecutorial administrations through their work as defense attorneys and usually as public defenders, such as the brilliant work of the late Jeff Adachi with the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office.
Policy and the Role of South Asians
Policy demands are structural changes that can be made in many different ways. If laws are the rules of society, then policy is the way we play the game. Policy change is one tool in a change maker’s toolbox - it is an important avenue for change, but it does not stand alone. It can determine the flow of resources. It can ban, regulate, or place consequences on certain actions. But it cannot take the place of organizing, which is done by grassroots activists in their homes, schools, workplaces, etc. It also cannot take the place of culture change work (done by artists, writers, musicians, etc. It is one piece of the social change puzzle.
Ideally, we would have laws and policy that is guided by a vision for justice. The importance of South Asians, in tandem with the presence of Black, Indigenous, and people of color, in the policy field cannot be understated. For example, currently the Department of Homeland Security Some enforces some disastrous policies like Zero Tolerance and family separation, which result when the people the policy will affect are not in the room.
South Asians have a unique responsibility in policy, especially if we are helping to draft policy, and not just advocating for it.
The Need for a Feminist Lens
A feminist perspective is always needed, but not always sought in law and policy work. A feminist lens is constructive, guiding, and steeped in principles of equity and encompassment. In both law and policy, feminist legal theory and lawmaking are playing a bigger part than ever before. Feminist legal theory and lawmaking is a concept that has been studied before, but in many cases, only through a white feminist perspective. Black feminism is a guiding principle of a lot of the transnational feminist work that we do at SAYHU; this is why it is important for us at SAYHU to empower participants in our summer institutes to understand feminisms, especially in regards to different fields that you will go on to pursue.
Feminist lawmaking has paved the way for several constitutional challenges that have successfully got women and nonbinary people rights, but the struggle continues. Bodily autonomy, gender affirmation, and the policing of Black women continues to be attacked in courts throughout the nation, but especially the southern United States. From this, the need for feminist lawyering is more evident than ever.
