IS “BLACK LAWYER” A MISNOMER

September 23, 2009
By Larry Delano Coleman, Esq.


Given the undeniable white supremacist history of these United States of America, as embodied in its constitution, supreme court decisions, legislation, customs, and practices, the term “black lawyer,” came to symbolize, that oxymoronic paradox wherein and whereby certain of these oppressed and repressed subjects and objects of American law came to morph into those who utilize said law’s interstices and blandishments in liberating themselves, and their nation, from its nadir of jurisprudential hypocrisy, and state-sponsored or state-sanctioned domestic terrorism.

Black lawyers, historically, were central to this process of transformation. Are they yet such? Is the term “black lawyer” now a misnomer? Are black lawyers still the “social engineers” envisioned by the late, great Charles Hamilton Houston, former Dean of the Howard University School of Law? Do they in fact conform to the definition above written? Need they?

Or, has that era of the so-called “black lawyer” passed quietly into history with the implosion of the mythical doctrine of “separate but equal,” whose utter destruction was Houston’s crowning achievement, albeit posthumously, in the Brown v. Board of Education, et. al. decisions?

Is the war for equality over? Has “victory” been won? In short, is the term “black lawyer” a misnomer, rendered moot/mute by its own success?

Few and far between are the lawyers of African descent who represent individual civil rights plaintiffs on any level, federal or state, presently, in any kind of case. This is tough work, where the lawyer is unappreciated, if respected by the client, and frequently viewed with enmity by the courts. There are other forms of work, which are far more lucrative and far less stressful.

With the judicial and legislative victories arising from the Civil Rights and Black Power movements of the 1960’s, as a tumultuous tailwind, the nation sailed into the 1970’s and 1980’s on the force of yesteryear’s momentum. The goal now became full-fledged and unabashed assimilation into that American mainstream into which blacks had long sought admission.

Black lawyers have successfully pursued professional options in so many realms of endeavor, as individuals, there is hardly a field where they are not to be found. Some black lawyers even mutated to the point they were able to thrive during, and from, the Ronald Reagan years, well into the Bush years, when racial “quotas” were eliminated (assuming they ever really “existed”) and “Affirmative Action” was vilified and proscribed.

This brings us to the present day, in which the President of the United States, Barack Obama, as well as the Attorney General, Eric Holder, and First Lady, Michele Obama, are black lawyers, all inconceivable “firsts” just a few short years ago.

Latent in this analysis and in this transition has been the capacity of certain black lawyers to eliminate the adjective “black” and to simply be lawyers. For a few, however, “Black Lawyer” remains a proper name and noun.

What is true for black lawyers has also been true for black people. Robert Johnson, Oprah Winfrey and many other wealthy persons in business and entertainment, even in the realm of religion, exemplify this capacity daily.

All civil rights are necessarily individual and personal. One cannot speak for another, neither should one suffer for the conduct of another, nor be rewarded for the work of another. Group-think, group-speak, group-act alternate between beneficial and detrimental, dependent upon prevailing circumstances. Right now, what appears to be most conducive to “the advancement of colored people” is self-assertion as individuals poised and prepared for productivity.

Adjectives are by definition modifiers of nouns. “Expressio unius est exclusio alterius,” goes the Latin maxim, which means to state one thing is to exclude another. Why limit one’s self, by an adjective such as “black”, when the goal is, and has always been, to free one’s self?

“Black” like “White” are states of mind, yes. But, more so, these social constructs were political devices meant to predetermine and to manipulate decision making over and in one’s life. They are forms of mental programming, reinforced by the reward and retribution dichotomy imposed and enforced by law, custom, and heritable values. Both blacks and whites are and/or have been afflicted by these constructs’ its pervasive power. But, their noon day has passed, and the gloaming now appears. Objective conditions have changed, so the myth cannot be maintained.

Stated directly, “black lawyer” is a misnomer, an inappropriate term which does not fit. Any lawyer of any color can and does practice human rights law. Similarly, lawyers of all colors sit in judgment of their endeavors.

So, yes, “black lawyer” (and “white lawyer”) are misnomers. There are only lawyers, just like there is only law.

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