THE ROOSTERS EGG - WILLIAMS,PJ

In this book note, Jennifer Di Toro examines Patricia J. Williams' The Rooster's Egg, a compilation of essays in which Williams exposes the stereotypes about race, class, and gender that dominate American cultu re. Ms. Di Toro explores two aspects of Williams' challenge to cultura l stereotyping: her use of storytelling and her use of empirical evide nce. She claims that Williams persuasively argues that our political l egal, and social lives are increasingly pervaded by mass-produced gene ralities about people that substitute for substantive encounters betwe en them. But when she intervenes to expose the rhetoric behind empiric al assertions of truth with empirical evidence of her own, Ms. Di Toro argues, Williams is engaging in the same practice that she describes as corrupt. Ms. Di Toro suggests, therefore, that Williams' project is most successful when she remains primarily a dissenter from empirical discourse and forces readers to grapple with her own, unmediated subj ectivity.