What is race? And how is race implicated in the justice system? This presentation provides an introduction to these complex questions by describing a methodology in legal scholarship—storytelling—and how that methodology can help us grapple with the significance of recent horrific incidents of racist police violence against Black and Indigenous people across North America. Far from being a distraction from proper legal analysis (as some conservative theorists have claimed), storytelling directly engages with how race, and racism, permeate our legal institutions.
