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Quote by Dean Spade

“In addition to encouraging us to participate in narratives of "deservingness" that cast large parts of our constituencies as "undeserving," legal reform strategies encourage us to valorize harmful systems that our movements should be seeking to dismantle.”

Quote by Dean Spade

Author

Dean Spade, born in 1977, is a writer whose work primarily focuses on social issues such as gender, race, and class, exploring their manifestation in law, politics, and social movements. more

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“We have seen the most well-funded gay and lesbian rights organizations valorize the US military in their work seeking inclusion in military service.”

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Author:Dean Spade

“Legal reform has significant dangers: changing only the window-dressing of harmful systems but leaving the violence of the systems in tact, failing to provide actual relief for those facing the worst conditions, and legitimizing or expanding systems of harm.”

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“I am not arguing that we should never use legal reform as a tactic. Instead, I argue that it should not be a goal.”

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Author:Dean Spade

“We should understand that in the context of the US, where our legal system is based in settler colonialism, capitalism and white supremacy, changing laws will never sufficiently change the conditions of harm and violence our movements seek to transform.”

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Author:Dean Spade

“We should interact with legal reform tactically, knowing that it will not meet our ultimate goals but asking whether there are ways that engaging with particular reforms might benefit our work and help reduce certain harms or dangers.”

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Author:Dean Spade

“When we approach legal reform work, we can ask questions like: Will this provide actual relief to people facing violence or harm or will it primarily be a symbolic change? Will this divide our constituency by offering relief only to people with certain privileged statuses (such as people with lawful immigration status, people with jobs, married people, etc.)?”

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Author:Dean Spade

“Music is a safe kind of high.”

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“We must experiment, fail, and try again, but beginning with a critique of legal reform and a commitment to center the most vulnerable moves us away from some of the most common, obvious pitfalls of neoliberal social movement strategies.”

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Author:Dean Spade

“Over the past decade I have watched many friends go through graduate school and write dissertations. Through that process, I have seen how they are guided by mentors to understand particular norms within their disciplines and to learn about what they can and cannot, should and should not say, and which ideas can go together and which cannot. I never went through this process.”

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Author:Dean Spade

“I went to law school which is a 3-year program in the US that is focused primarily on memorizing certain doctrines and taking exams that test whether you can apply those doctrines to help prepare for the bar exam. If you are lucky, you get a few classes where you are encouraged to think more critically and read critical texts rather than just casebooks, and perhaps write a paper that is not a legal memo or brief.”

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Author:Dean Spade