The Rodrigo chronicles: conversations about America and race

TLDR

Richard Delgado is a leading voice in critical race theory, hailed by the New York Times as a pioneer whose work is shaping legal practice. The book seeks to argue that white crime, rather than black crime, is the most significant problem in modern American life. Delgado employs a storytelling format, framing conversations between a professor and the African‑American graduate Rodrigo to explore race, law, and economics in America. Delgado concludes that white crime poses the greatest threat to society.

Abstract

Richard Delgado is one of the most evocative and forceful voices writing on the subject of race and law in America today. The New York Times has described him as a pioneer of critical race theory, the bold and provocative movement that, according to the Times will be influencing the practice of law for years to come. In The Rodrigo Chronicles, Delgado, adopting his trademark storytelling approach, casts aside the dense, dry language so commonly associated with legal writing and offers up a series of incisive and compelling conversations about race in America. Rodrigo, a brash and brilliant African-American law graduate has been living in Italy and has just arrived in the office of a professor when we meet him. Through the course of the book, the professor and he discuss the American racial scene, touching on such issues as the role of minorities in an age of global markets and competition, the black left, the rise of the black right, black crime, feminism, law reform, and the economics of racial discrimination. Expanding on one of the central themes of the critical race movement, namely that the law has an overwhelmingly white voice, Delgado here presents a radical and stunning thesis: it is not black, but white, crime that poses the most significant problem in modern American life.