January 10, 2008

Professor Randall Kennedy

In a recent interview on the NPR show “Tell Me More,” Harvard Law School Professor Randall Kennedy discussed his latest book, “Sellout: The Politics of Race Betrayal,” which deals with the tendency of some members of the black community to label other black people as disloyal.

Kennedy gave examples such as Clarence Thomas and Barack Obama, who have sometimes been called traitors by others in the black community. “Any successful black person will have to face suspicion within his or her own community about his or her loyalty to other blacks,” Kennedy said.

Kennedy, the Michael R. Klein Professor of Law, is well-known for his ground-breaking work about race relations in the U.S. He is the author of “Interracial Intimacies: Sex, Marriage, Identity and Adoption” and “Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word.”

Click here to listen to the interview.

Kennedy will speak about his new book on March 5 at 5 p.m. in Ames Courtroom on the HLS campus. For more information about the event, click here.