Discriminatory Dualism

This Article identifies and theorizes a significant butpreviously overlooked feature of structuraldiscrimination: it frequently develops into two seeminglyopposing, yet in fact mutually supportive practices. This“discriminatory dualism” occurs in multiple contexts,including policing, housing, and employment. Inpolicing, communities of color experience overpolicing(i.e., the aggressive overenforcement of petty crime) at thesame time as they experience underpolicing (i.e., thepersistent failure to address violent crime). In housing,redlining (i.e., the denial of credit to aspiringhomeowners based on race) combines with reverseredlining (i.e., the over-offering of credit on exploitativeterms) to suppress minority homeownership.

And inemployment, sexual harassment (i.e., unwanted sexualattention) combines with shunning (i.e., the refusal toengage with women workers at all) to deny equalopportunity in the workplace.While scholars working in these discrete fields havenoted each of these individual paradoxes, this Articleargues that these paradoxes are iterations of the samebroader phenomenon. Three critical insights flow fromthis recognition. First, understanding discriminatorydualism as a common technology of oppression allowspolicymakers to better anticipate its movements andidentify discriminatory dualism as it arises in othercontexts. Second, this frame diagnoses why previousreform mechanisms have failed.

Third, it surfaces the distinct harms caused by discriminatory dualism.Because each paradox is made up of two co-existing,contradictory strands that simultaneously deny andsupport each other’s existence, discriminatory dualismcreates destabilizing systems that confoundconceptualization and countermobilization efforts. Theconceptualization challenges create hermeneuticalinjustices, and the countermobilization challenges makediscriminatory dualism difficult to combat.Nevertheless, understanding the dynamic and systemicprocesses of discriminatory dualism offers tools to beginthe necessary work of dismantling it.