“Race Trouble”: Competing Accounts in a Trial About Anti-White Racism

Abstract

To understand one type of race trouble, this study examines a federal civil trial brought by a white employee suing her African American supervisor for creating a racially hostile work environment. After explaining race trouble and its connection to talk about racism, background is provided on civil trials and this particular trial. Events about which competing accounts were offered in the trial included assignment of office space, meeting conduct, and use of the N-word and African American language. For each event I show how anti-white racism was argued for and how that argument was resisted. In the conclusion, I consider what this trial illuminates about twenty-first century U.S. race relations.