White Supremacy __
and Racism
in the Post—Civil Rights Era
Eduardo Bonilla—Silva
2001
R F N N FR
U
2
What Is Racism? The Racialized
Social System Framework
W
hat is racism? For most people, the answer to this question is
very simple. Racism is prejudice, ignorance, or a disease that
afflicts some individuals and causes them to discriminate against others
just because of the way they look. This commonsense view on
racism is not much different than the definitions developed by social
scientists. For example, anthropologist Ruth F. Benedict, one of the
first scholars to formally use the notion of racism, defined it as “the
dogma that one ethnic group is condemned by nature to congenital
inferiority and another group is destined to congenital ~
Similarly, Pierre van den Berghe defined racism in his classic 1967
study as “any set of behefs that organic, geneticaRy transmitttd differences
(whether real or imagined) between human groups are
intrinsically associated with the presence or the absence of certain
socially relevant abilities or characteristics, hence that such differences
are a legitimate basis of invidious distinctions between groups
socially defined as races.”
2
Despite some refinements, current use of
the concept in the social sciences is similar to Benedict’s and van den
Berghe’s, Richard T. Schaefer in his popular textbook on race and
ethnicity defines racism as “a doctrine of racial supremacy, that one
race is superior.”
3
Hence, analysts as well as laypeople regard racism
as a phenomenon fundamentally rooted at the level of ideas.
I label this dominant perspective as idealist because, as idealist
philosophy, it assumes that ideas are the root of social action. From
21
22 White Supremacy & Racism In the Post—Civil Rights Era . What Is RacIsm? 23
the outset, however, I want to stress that my point is not that the
ideas that individuals hold on racial matters are irrelevant. Indeed, I
devote one chapter (Chapter 3) to a theoretical discussion of how
ideas help shape social action and another (Chapter 5) to the elucidation
of the ideology that helps shape racial dynamics in the contemporary
United States. My argument instead is that the narrow focus
on ideas has reduced the study of racism mostly to psychology,
which has produced a simplistic schematic view of the way racism
operates in society. First, racism is defined as a set of ideas or
beliefs. Second, those beliefs are regarded as having the potential of
leading individuals to develop prejudice, defined as attitudes toward
an entire group of people. Finally, these prejudiced attitudes may
induce individuals to real actions or discrimination against racial
minorities. This conceptual framework, graphically illustrated in
Table 1.1, prevails in the social sciences.
Table 1.1 Mainstream Conceptual Framework oil Racism
Components Examptes
Racism: beliefs about “races” Believing that blacks are oversexed
Prejudice: attitudes toward “races” Fearing black men as sexually crazed
Discrimination: actions against ‘races” Lynching a black male
In contrast to this idealist view, I advance in this chapter a materialist
interpretation of racism rooted in the fact that races in racialized
societies receive substantially different rewards. This material
reality is at the core of the phenomenon labeled as racism. Actors in
superordinate positions (dominant race) develop a set of social practices
(a racial praxis if you will) and an ideology to maintain the
advantages they receive based on their racial classification, that is,
they develop a structure to reproduce their systemic advantages.
Therefore the foundation of racism is not the ideas that Individuals
may have about others but the social edtfice erected over racial
inequality Eliminate racial inequality and the practtces that maintain
it and racism and even the division of people into raci4l categones
will disappear
Before elaborating my theory, however, I review a few of the
most significant critical perspectives on racism developed by U.S.
social scientists.
4
Because of the analytical relevance of these interpretations,
I offer below a short formal review of each of these per-
spectives.
Review of Critical Frameworks
Used to Interpret Racism
The Marxist Perspective
For Marxists class is the central explanatory variable of social life
and class struggle is viewed as the main societal dynamic. Hence,
Marxists regard other social divisions and possible sources of collective
action (e.g., gender- or race-based struggles) as “secondary contradictions”
or as derivations of the class structure.
5
Not surprisingly
then, the orthodox
6
Marxist position on race is simple and straightforward:
Racism is an ideology used by the bourgeoisie to divide
workers. For instance, Albert Szymanski defines racism as
[AJ legitimating ideology for an exploitative structure, Racist ideology
propagated in the media, educational system, and other institutions,
together with the actual distribution of relative petty
advantage withinthe working class, serves to disorganize the entire
working class including the ethnic majority, thereby allowing capital
to more effectively exploit most majority group workers.
7
One of the first Marxist-inspired analysts on racial matters was
black sociologist Oliver C. Cox. In his impressive Caste, Class, and
Race,8 Cox defined racism or race prejudice as “asocj~J~attitudç
propagatedilifiong the public by an exploiting class for the purpose
of stigmatizing some group as inferior so that the exploitatiqp.. of
either the group itself or its resources or both may be JustifLed ~This
sdãiàf âf6IÜde~ideology emerged in the fifteenth century as a practical
consequence of the labor needs of European imperialists. In
Cox’s words,
The socioeconomic matrix of racial atitagonism involved the commercialization
of human labor in the West Indies, the East Indies,
and in America, the intense competition among businessmen of
different western European cities for the capitalist exploitation of
the resources of this area, the development of nationalism and the
consolidation of European nations, and the decline of the influence
24 White Supremacy& Racism in the Post-Civil Rlgtits Era What Is Racism? 25
of the Roman Catholic Church with its mystical inhibitions to the
free exploitation of economic resources. Racial antagonism
attained full maturity during the latter half of the nineteenth century,
when the sun no longer set on British soil and the great nationalistic
powers of Europe began to justify their economic designs
upon weaker European peoples with subtle theories of racial superiority
and masterhood.’
0
Cox labels the antagonisms that emerged out of European imperialism
as “racial,” but does he view them as based in race? Does he recognize
that certain aspects of social structure are racial in nature?
Cox, as all Marxists, argues that race relations are not truly racial.
Thus, for Cox, European imperialists justified their exploitation of
the people and resources of the New World in racial terms but essentially
established “labor-capital profit relationships” or “proletarian
bourgeois relations.”ti Racial exploitation is viewed as a special
form of class exploitation. According to Cox, the racial component
of these class-based relations stems from the fact that blacks were
proletarianized in their entirety (as a people) in contrast to whites
who experienced a partial proletarianization. Given that the racial
aspect of societies is not deemed as real, Cox concludes Caste,
Class, and Race by suggesting that racial minorities should strive
toward assimilation, follow white working-class leadership, and ultimately
struggle for socialism alongside white workers, The lack of
any critical race viewpoint is amazing considei’ing that Cox, a black
writer, wrote this book at a time of great white working-class hostility
toward black and minority workers and that he himself suffered
the effects of racial caste in academia.
Another popular Marxist view on racism is Edna Bonacich’s
split labor market interpretation.
12
The twist in Bonacich’s approach
i~ffiuiTinst~doTIeg~WIin~racerelations and racism as fundamentally
orchestrated by the bourgeoisie, she suggests they are the product
of intra—working-class friction~j~ultiflgj~~oma labor market split
along racial lines. Bonacich argues that a split labor market exists
Whè~ihereis “a difference in the price of labor between two or more
6ii~Thfworkers holding constant their efficiency and productivi-
t~”
13
Aècordiii~i6 bñã~kh,the United States has had a split labor
market since slavery with blacks as the c~egp1ypricedlabor segtp.t.
After the abolition of slavery, Bonacich claims that black
laborers remained at the bottom of the labor market due to a “difference
in labor militance” compared to white workers. For Bonacich,
white workers—whether old stock or immigrants—had greater levels
of class consciousness than blacks. Although she is aware of the fact
“that a number of ‘white’ ~
others discd~inat~Th~or~Tovert1y,”she insists that the lesser degree
ofbli~FIhv~eifi~nfljflãbbi~jfionswas the reason for their utilizationascheafl5ö~ers~stsi~~Wodd
Wan pe-
niod.i
4
What about the well-documented history of white working-class
racism? Bonacich reinterprets this history as white workers’ resistance
to the “threats” (e.g., strike-breaking, displacement, and lowering
the wage rate) posed by blacks. In her view, this “resistance”li
involved the total exclusion Sf blacks from unions and caste-like
occupational &VThThñ~SI~nificantly,Bonacich has little to say about
the labor threats posed by the illions of .p~QJmmigr~j~
white U.S. workers. Although she believes that black and white
workers coalesced between 1940 and 1960, she argues that the counteroffensiveiauncliec1l~rdi_~lioii~thebourgpoisie(plant
relocation affd
automation in the past and downsizing today) extended the life of the
split labor market. And because blacks were very vulnerable at the
outset of the coalition period, the policies of the capitalists disproportionally
hurt blacks and contributed to the creation of a “class of
hard-core unemployed in the ghettos.”iC
The orthodox Marxist view on racial matters has many limita-
tions.
17
First, orthodox Marxists regard racism and racial antagonism
as products of class dynamics. Regardless of whether the antagonism
is viewed as fostered by the bourgeoisie (as Cox and Szymanski
would argue) or as the product of intra—working-class strife (as
Bonacich maintains), racial strife is yiewed as not having a real
racial foundation Second racial strife is conceived as emanating
frdhi false interests. Because the unity of the working class and the
impending socialist revolution are a priori Marxist axioms, racial (or
gender-based) struggle is not viewed as having its own material
basis, that is, as based on the different material interests of the actors
involved. Con~~entlyracis~JEega&aj9deologicjJ”5f9rra
tiànal” and the racial struJji~ThfblacksasivT~i7XIih~ugh
Bonacich views the conflict between black and white workers as
“rational,” she interprets the conflict as rational in class terms.)
Finally, given that racial phenomena are not deemed as independent,
most Marxists shiyitway from performing an in-depth analysis of the
politics and ideologies of race.
18
26 WhIte Supremacy & Racism inthe Post—Civil Rights Era What Is RacIsm? 27
The Instilnlionahs! Perspective
The institutionalist perspective emerged out of the struggle of racial
minorities in the United States in the l960s.
19
In contrast to the liberal
view on race relations, which blames the ills of racism on poor
whites, proponents of this viewpoint argue that racism is societal and
that it implicates all white Americans. According to Kwame Ture
(formerly known as Stokely Carmichael) and Charles Hamilton in
their book Black Power, racism is “the predications of decisions and
policies on considerations of race for the purpose of subordinating a
racial group and maintaining control over that group.”
2
n Furthermore,
they suggest that a distinction should be made between individual
racism, or the overtly racist acts committed by individuals,
and institutional racism, or the racial outcomes that result from the
normal operations of American institutions. Mark Chesler developed
the most succinct definition of racism produced by any author in this
tradition: the prejudice plusyower definition. In Chesler’s words,
racism is an ideology of explicit or implicit superiority or advantage
of one racial group_over~if6ib pusihe institutional power to
implement that ideology jn Iqp~tions.”
21
In its most radical
version (for example Ture and Hamilton’s work), institutionalists see
racism as an outgrowth of colonialism and institutional racism as the
contemporary expression of this historical event. Therefore, since
radical institutionalists argue that blacks are politically, economically,
and socially subordinated to whites, they advocate for blacks’
national liberation,
The institutionalist perspective has helped to dispel some of the
myths perpetuated by the dominant paradigm on racism. Researchers
inspired by this perspective have gathered data to show the systematic
disadvantages that blacks suffer in the economic, educational,
judicial, political, and even health systems. Their findings have
forcefully ~ evidence ol the pervasive
ness of racI~th.
21
M~reover,their assertion that all whites receive
advantages from the racial order and their forceful advocacy for
challenging all institutions politicized more than one generation of
activists and academicians to fight racism ~‘h~èvefiftha3ibè and in
whichevefforrif it 6~èit~7ThI
t~
j ivéiherèfore, heT~édto
~ abOut thce in academic and nonacademic circles
from the realm of people’s attitudes to the realm of institutions and
organizations.
Nevertheless, despite its valuable political contributions, this
perspective does not pose a serious theoretical challenge to the dominant
conception of racism held in the social sciences. Theoretically
this perspective is jtist a mélange in which everything can be interpreted
as racist 23 Moie significantly despite its institutional label
thTd~erspectivestill grounds racism at the ideological level, thus
failing to challenge the root problem of the dominant perspective.
Thisideological grounding of racism is evident in the following quo
tation from Ture and Hamilton s book
Institutional racism relies on the active and pervasive operation of
ant/-black attitudes ant/practices. A sense of superior groqpposition
prevails whites are better than blacks thercfore blacks
should he subordinated to whites. This is a racist attitude and it
permeates the society, on both the individual and institutional
level, covertly and overtly.
24
Although Ture and Flamilton argue that racism is an outgrowth of
colonial domination and suggest that its contemporary expression
has been institutionalized or embedded in the fabric of all institutions,
they do not develop an analysis of how this happens or how
this colonial relationship operates in practice, nor do they identify
the mechanisms whereby racism is produced and reproduced. Thus,
they are left with a mysterious almighty notion of racism “a racist
attitude’ that’~j3rn~èiuiësthe society on both the individual and insti
tutional level.”
Robert Miles has pointed out other limitations of this approach.
First, this perspective is intrinsically linked to a naive view of social
stratification wherein race is the sole basis of ~ocia~ diVisioh.
Sec3iid, its definition of racism is nclu~fv&jháiit loses its the~retical
usefuljiess.25 Thfrd its bisic blu~kT~vhitedivision exclud&
‘white groups (e g Irish
26
añdJ~s as phuii~T&eFacfalaclois who
have shared racializea experiences. Furth~rmore,tEi~biii~fyvi~w
~ racial minority
groups, notably Native_Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Chicanos. In
this vein, the cry for “black_power,” although understandable in the
struggkfor civil rights is an unnecessarily restrictive political coii
c~FiE~Fexcludesthe most likely political allies of blacks in th~
stThj1TuHT~EiIiTZuui~nshipFourth and as in the case of the
doi~fiiaiifperspectiveon racism, this perspective is ensnared in circularity.
Racism, which is or can be’~liiöeverythin~7~5~iiThy
28 White Supremacy & Racism In the Post-Civil Rights Era What Is Racism? 29
anything done (or not done) by whites. The analyst identifies the
existence of racism_because any action done by whites is Iabeled as
racist. Finally, for institutionalists such as Ture and Hamilton, all
whites are “racist” and thus there is little room for coalition-building
w~~i~pjg~essives.
27
If they truly believe this to be the case,
then the logical political option for blacks is (1) waiting until racial
minorities become the numerical majority in the United States or (2)
emigrating back to Africa. The nationalist uprisings or electoral politics
they advocate, given the demography and the nature of social
power in this country, would then be untenable and unwise.
28
The Infernal Colonialism Perspective
Another group of analysts, inspired by the civil rights movement,
postulates that racism is structured by the colonial status of racial
minorities in the United States.
29
As in the case of the institutionalist
perspective, proponents of the internal colonial framework argue that
racism
30
is institutionalized and based on a system in which the white
majority “raises its social position by exploiting, controlling, and
keeping down others who are categorized in racial or ethnic terms.”
3
i
Blauner, the foremost exponent of this perspective, explains the
emergence of modern racism in this way:
The association of race consciousness with social relations based
on the oppression of one group by another is the logical prerequisite
for the emergence of racism. The conquest of people of color
by white Westerners, the establishment of slavery as an institution
along color lines, and the consolidation of the racial principle of
economic exploitation in colonial societies led to the elaboration
and solidification of the racist potential of earlier modes of
thought.
32
After different third world peoples were forcefully moved to the
United States, a racial order was established with its own dynamics.
Central to the operation of such order is the maintenance of white
privilege. Although the racial order and the particular form of racial
oppression are viewed as changing throughout history, white prvilege
is considered a constant systemic fact. Blauner argues that
whites receive advantages at all levels but, unlike institutionalists, he
gives primacy to “the special advantage of the white population in
the labor market” since in “industrial capitalism economic institutions
are central, and occupational role is the major determinant of
social status and life style.”
33
This framework takes head-on many of the limitations of mainstream
approaches to race relations. While most of the perspectives
developed by s6óiiF~iënTiit~if&ahistoricaland postulate the existence
of race cyjes or common ~cat~criis 34 the internal
colonial model is historically contingent (as Mario Barrera argues)
andmfnrmecFb)ItlfeThii’ferencesbetwe~iithe expenences of white
ethnics and racial minorities. Moreover, the internal colonial perspëii~challenges
the purely psychological view of racism. First
and foremost, it challenges the dogma of conceiving of racism as the
virulent prejudice of some individuals by suggesting that prejudiced
individuals are not necessary for the existence of a racial order.
Racism, in Blauner’s view, has an objective reality “located in the
actual existence of domination and hierarchy.”
35
As with the institutionalist
perspective, this tradition regards racism or racial-colonial
oppression as systemic, comprehensive (all actors involved), and
rational (based on the interests of whites). Furthermore, by conceiving
racism as rational and material (as a social structure organized to
benefit whites), this tradition challenges the simplistic assertion of
social scientists and most whites that the cure for racism is education.
Instead, Blauner and writers in this tradition believe that the
abolition of racism, as is the case with other systems of exploitation,
requires social mobilization.
36
Although this perspective offers a clear improvement over the
institutionalist perspective and provides new insights for the study of
race relations, it still has some serious limitations. First, because it is
centered on the colonial nature of racial subordination, it assumes
unity among both the dominant and the subordinated “races” and
thus neglects the class:, and gender-, based divisions amonz them.
37
Secbiid by ~iressing the centrality of economic oppression as the
foundation for understanding white privilege, this approach misses
the process of economic marginalization and ~ that some
r~Eesthay experience at some historical junctures For instance how
would an analyst in this theoretical tradition interpret the contemporary
status of “underclass” African Americans or the almost complete
exclusion of American Indians to reservations?
38
Finally, neither
Blauner nor other writers in this tradition formulate the con-
30 While Supremacy & Racism in the Post—Civil Rights Era What is Racism? 31
ceptual tools or analysis needed for a truly structural understanding
of racism. Despite asserting that racism is systemic, Blauner does
not develop the theoretical apparatus to study how racism is systematized
and reproduced in societies. Notwithstanding these limitations,
I incorporate many of the insights developed by authors in
this tradition in the alternative framework that I develop in this
chapter.
Pie Racial Formation Perspective
The recent work of Howard Winant and Michael Omi represents a
theoretical breakthrough in the area of race relations. In their Racial
Formation in the United States, these authors provide a thorough critique
of previous theoretical approaches and suggest a new approach
for the study of racial phenomena: the racial formation perspective.
They define racial formation as the “process by which social, economic,
and political forces determine the content and importance of
racial categories, and by which they are in turn shaped by racial
meanings.”
39
The essence of this approach is the idea that race “is a
phenomenon whose meaning is contested throughout social life.”
4
°
The very ~
racialization~
2
th~xteiisio~ThI7aciameaningtoapreviously
unclassified reliiioisii~~~ia ~ [It] isan_ideoloji~i~IFbce~,iiThistoricallyspecific
one.”
41
In their view, race
shäüM be regarded asan orgiii[iiiig~rincip1eof social relationships
that, at the micro level, shapes the identity ~fTiiaI~idual actors and,
at the i ~lTiapesilFpliëf&oTëTaTliEXlihoujii racialioiT~f1ectsiTF
soci~flp eres, mianlflm’ant assign a primary
role to the political level,
42
particularly to the “racial state,” which
they r~ iFdastlleacor of col iilIiyri6iaEordei Hence,
ra&i~r~cJ,parlicii&l~1iflIjost&vi rig~itsera, is viewed as
playing itself out~t~hestate level.
Equipped with these c~i~&ies,Omi and Winant review the
recent history of racial formation in the United States. Of theoretical
interest is their claim that racial dynamics have been reframed in
recent times through the racial project (the active process of reorganization
of racial dynamics by a fraction of the dominant race) of
neocoriservatives and the New Right. These groups have pushed an
anti-statist, moral, and individual-rights agenda that, in fact, suggests
that the ills of America are deeply connected to liberal racial policies
going awry. Thus programs such as affirmative action have been
redefined as “reverse discrimin~~’and welfare am stem h~
e~~ople~anyofthemrnin~es) inpovert~
~M~irii~Iicalwriting on race in the l990s has been inspired by
Omi and Winant.
43
My own theory owes heavily to their work.
Nonetheless, the racial formation perspective still has some significant
limitations. First, Omi and Winant’s concepts of racial formation
and racialization give undue ~
Although both concepts are helpful ~
are formed and reorganized, they do not help analysts understand
how it is that racial orders are structured. Arguing that racial classifications
are permanently contested and malleable is a reaffirmation of
the old idea in the social sciences that race is a socially constructed
ca~Ory,
44
However, this affirmation does not make cléair whether or
not they believe that race is or can become an independent basis of
group association and action 45 Second althougf intheir bSok there
are hints of a conception of races as social collectivities with different
interests (e.g., “race is a concept which signifies and symbolizes
social conflicts and interests by referring to different types of human
bodies”
4
6), Omi and Winant stop short of making such a claim. By
failing to regard races as collectivities with different interests, their
analysis of~oliticalcontestation over racial projects seems to be
quarrels ov er ineanin&s rather thaq~psitionsin the racial order. Thus,
it is unclear why people fi ht over racial matters and why they
endorse or contest ~~cia1p~j~ts (see chapters 4 and 7 in 1994 e i-
tion).
47
Third, Omi and Winant’s analysis o’f the most recent rearticulation
of racial ideology in the United States leaves out a comprehensive
or systemic view o’f the process. The change is described as
singularly carried out by the right wing and neoconservatives instead
of reflecting a general change in the nature of U.S. racial structure.
In drdéiPii make the Giii~TeTiifiiiTOiii[ and Winant would have to
include the ag~pcjLofall the members of the dominant race—rather
than privileging spme 4ctqrs—and conceive the change as affecting
~ than privileging the
~-oIiiiEaTlevel. Finally, although I share with Om aiid Winant the id~ihãflãce
is “a fundamental organizing principle o’f social rela-
tionships,”
48
their theoretical framework comes close to race-reductionism
in many areas. For instance, their concep~alizationof the
state as the “racial state’qeaves out the capitalist—as well as the
patriarchal—character of the state.
49
52 WhIte Supremacy & Racism In the Post—Civil Rights Era What is Racism? 33
Racism as Societal Fl/asIc
The last theory I review here is that of Joe R. Feagin and Herndn
Vera in their celebrated book White Racism: The Basics, These
authors argue that racism is a “socially organized set of attitudes,
ideas, and practices that deny African Americans and other people of
color the dignity, opportunities, freedoms, and rewards that this
nation offers white Americans.”
50
Feagin and Vera suggest that
racism wastes human talent and energy and; hence, that broadly
viewed, it can be conceived as societal waste. Feagin and Vera operationalize
racism as rituals (the rites that accompany many racial practices),
discrimination, mythology (i.e., ideological constructions
taken on faith), a subjective component of “sincere fictions” developed
by the dominant race to feel good about themselves, and an
emotive component that they label as the “madness of racism.”
Joe R. Feagin has recently refined this view in his Racist America:
Roots, Current Realities, and Future Reparations. In this book
Feagin concentrates on making the case that racism is systemic and
rooted in real race relations. In language that fits nicely my own theorization,
Feagin writes,
Indeed, systematic racism is perpetuated by a broad social reproduction
process that generates not only recurring patterns of discrimination
within institutions and by individuals but also an alienating
racist relationship—on the one hand, the racially oppressed,
and on the other hand, the racial oppressors. These two groups are
created by the racist system, and thus have different group interests.
The former seeks to overthrow the system, while the latter
seeks to maintain it.5i
Feagin’s and Vera’s conceptualization of racism includes the core
arguments of the theorization I advance here. First, they emphasize,
as do the institutional and colonial positions, the systematic nature of
racism. Second, they focus on the relational or group nature of the
phenomenon. Finally, they point to the material (group interest)
foundation of racism.
The only limitation I find in their theorization is their claim that
racism produces “societal waste,” a claim that Feagin seems to have
dropped in his recent work. Although they are right in claiming that
societies would be collectively better off (less wasteful) if the energy
they spent to maintain racial hierarchy was used to increase the welfare
of humanity, the notion of waste conveys the idea that racism is
not “rational” (in the utilitarian sense of the word) for whites. In fact,
in the conclusion of White Racism, Feagin and Vera contend that
racism involves substantial material, moral and psychological costs
to whites. T~ clthms prublematic. Materially, racism provided
iii~ioundationfor the expansion of the world-system and accumulation
at a global scale for the West.
52
Although economists debate
today whether racism increases or decreases the rate of capital accumulation
and the welfare of white workers, I am persuaded by the
analysis of Steven Shulman,
53
who claims that racial stratification
benefits both capitalists and white workers. It is precisely this mateHal
foundation that Icontend helps keep racial stratification inplace.
Their claim that wh lave immorally whei they participate in
racist structures and experience poraldilemmaisimportan asa
polic tool but not as ananalytical one. Whites do not experience
moral dilemmasS
4
precisely because they develop what Feagin and
Vera label as “sincere fictions” that allow tiièi5i5ffl~liifri~mani~yof
racial stratification (see Chapters 3 and 5 in this book)
Finally, the psychok~icalcosts of racism to whites have not been
well documented or measured. Nevertheless, social psychologist
Tony R. Brown suggests in his recept work that if anything, whites
either benefit somewhat from racial stratification or at least do not
lose fro~55HenceJ~omTorldp~ctiveracismiswá~W
(ti~6~TItionof the world would be better off if racism didTiot
exist), but at the micro level (whites in the ~qrldiy~~em), it is and
has been highly profitabl~TDespite this limitation, the work of
Fé~jihand Vera is th~f~icall isticated, advances the core
arguments of a structural or systemjgj~flderstgfl~jflg~fjacism,and
provides an impressive documentation of gp~~jora~’racistpract~
in a variet of socials aces.
Limitations of Mainstream
and Critical Frameworks on Racism
I list below the main limitations of the idealist conception of racism.
Because not all limitations apply to the critical perspectives I review
above, I point out the ones that do apply and to what extent.
1. Racism is excluded from the foundation or structure of the
social system. When racism is regarded as a baseless ideology ulti-
34 White Supremacy & Racism it-i the Post—Civil Rights Era What Is Racism? 35
mately dependent on other, “real” forces in society, the structure of
the society itself is not classified as racist. The Marxist perspective is
particularly guilty of this shortcoming. Although Marxists have
addressed the question of the historical origin of racism, they explain
its reproduction in an idealist fashion. Racism, in their account, is an
ideology that emerged with chattel slavery and other forms of class
oppression to justify the exploitation of people of color and survives
as residue of the past.
Although the institutionalist, internal colonialism, and racial formation
perspectives regard racism as a structural phenomenon and
provide some useful ideas and concepts, none developed the theoretical
apparatus necessary to describe how this structure operates.
2. Racism is ultimately viewed as a psychological phenomenon
to be examined at the individual Ic-rd. The research agenda that follows
from this conceptualization is the examination of individuals’
attitudes to determine levels of racism in society.
56
Given that the
constructs used to measure racism are static—that is, that there are a
number of standard questions that do not change significantly over
time—this research usually finds that racism is declining in society.
57
This psychological understanding of racism is related to the limitation
I cited above. Ifracism is notregarded as society-wide but as a
property of individuals who are “racist” or “prejudiced,” then (I)
social institutions cannot be racist and (2) studying racism is simply
a matter of clinically surveying populations to assess the proportion
of “good” and “bad” individuals (those who do not hold racist beliefs
and those who do).
Orthodox Marxists and many neo-Marxists conceive of racism
as an ideology that affects many members of the working class.
Although the authors associated with the institutionalist, internal
colonialist, and racial formation perspectives focus on the ideological
character of racism, they all emphasize how this ideology
becomes embedded or institutionalized in organizations and social
practices.
3, Racism is treated as a staticphenomenon. Racism is viewed
as unchanging; that is, racism yesterday is like racism today. Thus,
when a society’s racial structure and its customary racial practices
are rearticulated, this rearticulation is characterized as a decline in
racism (as in Wilson’s works), a natural process in a cycle (as Robert
Park sees it), an example of increased assimilation,
58
or effective
“norm changes.”
59
This limitation, which applies particularly to
mainstream survey researchers on race and Marxist scholars, derives
from not conceiving racism as having an independent structural
foundation. If racism is merely a matter of ideas that have no material
basis in contemporary society, then those ideas should be similar
to their original configuration, whatever that was. The ideas may be
articulated in a different context, but most analysts essentially
believe that racist ideas remain the same. For this reason, with
notable exceptions,
60
attitudinal research is still based on responses
to questions developed in the 1940s, 1950s, and l960s.
4. Analysts defining racism in an idealist manner view rac,sm as
“incorrect” or “irrational thinking”; thus they label “racists” as
irrational and rigid. Because racism is conceived of as a belief with
no real social basis, it follows that those who hold racist views must
be irrational or stupid.
6
’ This view allows for a tactical distinction
between individuals with the “pathology” and social actors who are
“rational” and free of racism. The problem with this rationalistic
view is twofold. First, it misses the rational, material elements on
which racialized systems originally were built. Second, and more
important, it neglects the possibility that contemporary racism still
has a rational foundation. In this account, contemporary racists are
perceived as Archie Bunkers. Among the critical frameworks
reviewed here, only orthodox Marxism insists on the irrational and
imposed character of racism. Neo-Marxists and authors associated
with the institutionalist, internal colonialist, and racial formation perspectives
insist, to varying degrees, on the rationality of racism. NenMarxists
(e.g., Bonacich, Harold Wolpe, Stuart Hall) and Omi and
Winant acknowledge the short-term advantages that workers gain
from racism; the institutionalist and internal colonial paradigms
emphasize the systematic and long-term character of these advan-
tages.
5. Racism is understood as overt behavior Because the idealist
approach regards racism as “irrational” and “rigid,” its manifestations
should be quite evident, usually involving some degree of hostility.
This does not present serious analytical problems for the study
of certain periods in racialized societies when racial practices were
overt (e.g., slavery and apartheid), but does pose difficulty for the
analysis of racism in periods wherein racial practices are subtle, indirect,
or fluid. For instance, many analysts have suggested that in the
contemporary United States racial practices are manifested covertly
62
and racial attitudes tend to be symbolic.
63
Therefore, it is a waste of
36 White Supremacy & Racism In the Post-Civil Rights Era What Is Racism? 37
Racialized Social System Approach to Racismtime to attempt to detect “racism” by asking questions such as “How
strongly would you object if a member of your family wanted to
bring a Black friend home to dinner?”
64
Also, many such questions
were developed to measure the extent of racist attitudes in the population
during the Jim Crow era of race relations; they are not suitable
for the post-1960s period.
Furthermore, this emphasis on overt behavior limits the possibility
of analyzing racial phenomena in Latin American societies such
as Brazil, Cuba, and Puerto Rico where race relations do not have a
clear, overt character. The form of race relations—overt or covert—
depends on the pattern of racialization that structured a particular
society
55
and on how the process of racial contestation and other
social dynamics affected that pattern.
6. Contemporary racism is viewed as an expression of “original
sin”—as a remnant ofpast historical racial situations, In the case of
the United States, some analysts argue that racism preceded slavery
and capitalism.
66
Others, such as Nathan Glazer and Moynihan, view
it as the result of slavery.
67
Even in promising new avenues of
research, such as that presented by Roediger in The Wages of Whiteness,
contemporary racism is viewed as one of the “legacies of white
workerism.”
68
By considering racism as a legacy all these analysts
downplay the significance of its contemporary material foundation
and structure.
Again the Marxist perspective shares this limitation. Marxists
believe that racism developed in the fifteenth century and has been
used since then by capitalists or white workers to further their own
class interests, All other approaches recognize the historic significance
of this “discovery” but associate contemporary racial ideology
with contemporary racially based inequalities.
7. Racism is analyzed in a circular manner “If racism is defined
as the behavior that results from the belief, its discovery becomes
ensnared in a circularity—racism is a belief that produces behavior,
which is itself racism.”
69
Racism is established by racist behavior,
which itself is proved by the existence of racism. This circularity
results from not grounding racism in social relations among the
races. If racism, viewed as an ideology, were seen as possessing a
structural
70
foundation, its examination could be associated with
racial practices rather than with mere ideas and the problem of circularity
would be avoided.
In order to capture the society-wide, organized, and institutional
character of racism 1 build my ~
raciahzed social systems.
7
’ This term refers to societies in which
ec~homic,political, social, and ideological levels are partially structured
by the p±~~~icaLiici~i~i~’a~ç~~gprj~sorraces. Races
typically are identified by their pheno~ype,but (as we see later) the
selection oflom P~ ant tstodesigp~tearaca1~ro~pisalwgys
soclilily rather
‘these systems are structured partially by race because modem
social systems incorporate two or more forms of hierarchical patterns.
Although processes of racialization are always embedded in
other fonnso hierarchy, they acquire autonomy and have independent
social effects. This implies that the phenomenon that has been
conceived asa free-flóiiIng ideology in tact has its q~iniSrucwral
foundation.
Tiall racialized social systems the placement of actors in racial
categories involves some form of hierarchy
72
that produces definite
social relations among the races. The race placed i~th~iwvcripr
position tends to receive greater econ icem neratiori and access
to better 0ccupations and p~qsp~in the labor market, occupie a
primary position in the political system, is granted higher social esti
matlcm (e.g., is viewed as “smarter” or “better looking”), often has
the license to draw physical (segregation) as well as social (racial etiquette)
boundaries between itself and other races, and receives what
W.E.B. Du Bois called a “psychological wage.”
73
The totality of
these racialized social relations and practices constitutes the racial
structure of a society.
Although all racialized social systems are hierarchical, the particular
character of the hierarchy, and, thus, of the racial structure, is
variable. For example, the domination of blacks in the United States
was achieved through dictatorial means during slavery, but in the
post—civil rights period this domination has been hegemonic, that is
in the Gramscian sense of the term, achieved through consent_rather
than coercion.
74
Similarly, the form of securing domination and
white privilege is variable too. For instance, the racial practices and
mechanisms that kept blacks subordinated changed from overt and
eminently racist in the Jim Crow era to covert and indirectly racist in
38 White Supremacy & Rsclsm inthe Post-CM Rights Era What Is Racism? 39
the contemporary period (see Chapter 3). The unchanging element of
these systems is racial inequality—that the subordinated races’ life
chances are significantly lower than those of the dominant race. This
is the feature that ultimately distinguishes this form of hierarchical
social organization. Generally, the higher the level of racial inequality,
the more racialized the social system, and vice versa.
Because the races receive different social rewards at all levels,
they develop different interests, which can be detected in their struggles
to either transform or maintain a particular racial order. These
interests are collective rather than individual, are based on relations
among races rather than on particular group needs, and are practical;
that is, they are related to concrete struggles. Although one race’s
general interests may ultimately lie in the complete elimination of a
society’s racial structure, its array of alternatives may not include
that possibility. For instance, the historical struggle against chattel
slavery led not to the development of race-free societies but to the
establishment of social systems with a different kind of racialization.
Race-free societies were not among the available alternatives
because the nonslave populations had the capacity to preserve some
type of racial privilege. The historical “exceptions” occurred in
racialized societies in which the nonslaves’ power was almost completely
superseded by that of the slave population.
75
A simple criticism of the argument I have advanced so far is that
it ignores the internal divisions of the races along class and gender
lines. Such criticism, however, does not deal squarely with the issue
at hand. The fact that not all members of the dominant race receive
the same level of rewards and (conversely) that not all members of
the subordinate race or races are at the bottom of the social order
does not negate the fact that races, as social groups, are in either a
superordinate or a subordinate position in a social system. Historically
the racialization of social systems did not imply the exclusion
of other forms of oppression. In fact, racialization occurred in social
formations also structured by class and gender. Hence, in these societies,
the racialization of subjects is fragmented along class and gender
lines. The important question—Which interests move actors to
struggle?—is historically contingent and cannot be ascertained a pri-
ori.
76
Depending on the character of racialization in a social order,
class interests may take precedence over racial interests as in contemporary
Brazil, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. In other situations, racial
interests may take precedence over class interests as in the case of
blacks throughout most of U.S. history.
In general, the systemic salience of class in relation to race
increases when the econom olitical, and social inequality among
the races decreases substantially. Yet this broad argument generates
at least one warning: The narrowing of within-class differences
among racial actors usually causes more rather than less racial conflict,
at least in the short run, as the competition for resources
increases.
77
More significantly, even when class-based conflict
becomes more salient in a social order, this cannot be interpreted as
prima facie evidence that race has subsided as a social factor For
instince because of the way in which Latni kmertcan racial fotma
tions rearticulated race and racial discourse in the nineteenthcentury—post-emancipation
era,
78
these societies silenced from above
the political space for public racial contestation Yet more than 100
years after these so ic e developed the myth ofrmocracy,
they have more rather than less racial ir equ ality than countries such
as the United States.
79
Because racial actors are also classed and gendered (that is, they
belong to class and gender groups), analysts must control for class
and gender to ascertain the material advantages enjoyed by a dominant
race. In a racialized society such as the United States, the independent
effects of race are assessed by analyst who (I~compare
data between whites and nonwhites in the ,same class and gender
positions, (2) evaluate the propoition as well as the general character
ofthe races’ partic
1
ipkition in some domain of life, and (3) examine
racial dátà at all levels—iociàl, political economic, and ideologi
cal—to ascertain the general position of racial groups in a social
system.
Tbe first of these procedures has become standard practice in
sociology. No serious sociologist would present racial statistics without
controlling for gender and class (or at least the class of persons’
socioeconomic status). By doing this, analysts assume they can
measure the unadulterated effects of “discrimination” manifested in
unexplained “residuals.” Despite its usefulness, however, this technique
provides Only a partial account of the “race effect” because (1)
a significant amount of racial data cannot be retrieved through surveys
and (2) the technique of “controlling for” a variable neglects the
obvious—why a group is over- or underrepresented in certain cate-
40 WhIte Supremacy & Racism In the Post-Civil RIgS Era What Is Racism? 41
gories of the control variables in the first place.
50
Moreover, these
analysts presume that it is possible to analyze the amount of discrimination
in one domain (e.g., income, occupational status) “without
analyzing the extent to which discrimination also affects the factors
they hold constant.”
8t
Hence to evaluate “race effects” in any
domain, analysts must attempt to make sense of their findings in
relation to a race’s standing in other domains.
But what is the nature of races or, more properly, of racialized
social groups? Omi and Winant state that races are the outcome of
the racialization process, which they define as “the extension of
racial meaning to a previously racially unclassified relationship,
social practice, or group.”
82
Historically the classification of a people
in racial terms has been a highly political act associated with practices
such as conquest and colonization, enslavement, peonage,
indentured servitude, and, more recently, colonial and neocolonial
labor immigration, Categories such as “Indians” and “Negroes” were
invented in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to justify the conquest
and exploitation of various peoples.
83
The invention of such
categories entails a dialectical process of construction; that is, the
creation of the category “Other” involves the creation of a category
“Same.” If “Indians” are depicted as “savages,” Europeans are characterized
as “civilized”; if “blacks” are defined as natural candidates
for slavery, “whites” are defined as free subjects.
8
’ Yet although the
racialization of peoples was socially invented and did not override
previous forms of social distinction based on class or gender, it did
not lead to imaginary relations but generated new forms of human
association with definite status differences. After the process of
attaching meaning to a “people” is instituted, race becomes a real
category of group association and identity.
85
Because racial classifications partially organize and limit actors’
life chances, racial practices of opposition emerge. Regardless of the
form of racial interaction (overt, covert, or inert), races can be recognized
in the realm of racial relations and positions. Viewed in this
light, races are the effect of racial practices of opposition (“we” versus
“them”) at the economic, political, social, and ideological lev-
els.
86
Races, as most social scientists acknowledge, are not biologically
but socially determined categories of identity and group association.
Tin this regard, they ate analogous to class and gender.
87
kctors
in racial positions do not occupy those positions because they are of
X or Y race, butbecause X or Y has been socially defined as a race.
Actors’ phenotypic (i.e., biologically inherited) characteristics, such
as skin tone and hair color and texture, are usually, although not
always, used to denote racial distinctions.
88
For example, Jews in
many European nations and the Irish in England have been treated as
racial groups.
89
Also, Indians in the United States have been viewed
as one race despite the tremendous phenotypic and cultural variation
among nations. Because races are socially constructed, both the
meaning and the position assigned to races in the racial structure are
always contested. Who is to be black or white or Indian reflects and
affects the social, political, ideological, and economic struggles
among the races. The global effects of these struggles can change the
meaning of the racial categories as well as the position of a racialized
group in a social formation.
This latter point is illustrated clearly by the historical struggles
of several “white ethnic” groups in the United States in their efforts
to become ~ whites or “Americans.”
9
°Neither
light skinned nor for that matter dark skinned immigrants necessar
ily came to this country as members of X or Y race Light skinned
Europeans, after brief periods of “not-yet white,” became “white”
but did not lose their “ethnic” character.
9
’ Their struggle for inclusion
had specific implications: racial inclusion as members of the
white community allowed Americanization and class mobility. On
the other hand, among dark-skinned immigrants from Africa, Latin
America, and the Caribbean, the struggle was to avoid classification
as “black.” These immigrants challenged the reclassification of their
identity for a simple reason: In the United States “black” signified a
subordinate status in society. Hence many of these groups struggled
to keep their own ethnic or cultural identity, as denoted in expressions
such as “I am not black; I am Jamaican,” or “I am not black; I
am Senegalese.”
92
Yet eventually many of these groups resolved this
contradictory situation by accepting the duality of their situation: In
the United States, they were classified socially as black yet they
retained and nourished their own cultural or ethnic heritage—a heritage
deeply influenced by African traditions.
Although the content of racial categories changes over time
through manifold processes and struggles, race is not a secondary
category of group association. The meaning of black and white, the
“racial formation,” changes within the larger racial structure. This
does not mean that the racial structure is immutable and completely
42 White Supremacy & Racism in the Post-Civil Rights Era What IsRacism? 43
independent of the action of racialized actors. It means only that the
social relations among the races become institutionalized (form a
structure as well as a culture) and affect social life whether or not
individual members of the races want it to. In Frederick Barth’s
words, “Ethnic identity implies a series of constraints on the kinds of
roles an individual is allowed to play land) is similar to sex arid rank,
in that it constrains the incumbent in all his activities.”
93
For
instance, free blacks during the slavery period struggled to change
the meaning of “blackness,” specifically to dissociate it from slavery.
Yet they could not escape the larger racial structure that restricted
their life chances and their freedom.
94
The placement of a group of people in a racial category stemmed
initially
95
from the interests of powerful actors in the social system
(e.g., the capitalist class, the planter class, and colonizers). After
racial categories were employed to organize social relations in societies,
however, race became an independent element of the operation
of the social system. Here I depart from analysts such as Winthrop
Jordan, Cedric Robinson, and Robert Miles, who take the mere existence
of a racial discourse as manifesting the presence of a racial
order.
96
Such a position allows them to speak of racism in medieval
times (Jordan) and to classify the antipeasant views of French urbanites
(Miles) or the prejudices of the aristocracy against peasants in
the Middle Ages (Robinson) as expressions of racism. In my view,
we can speak of racialized orders only when a racial discourse is
accompanied by social relations of subordination and superordination
among the races. The available evidence suggests that the racialization
of the world-system emerged after the imperialist expansion
of Europe to the New World and Africa.
97
Furthermore, this racialization
led to the development of what Charles W. Mills calls global
white supremacy (racial orders structured along the axis of “white,”
or European, and “nonwhite,” or non-European) in the world-system.
What are the dynamics of racial issues in racialized systems?
Most important, after a social formation is racialized, its “normal”
dynamics always include a racial component. Societal struggles
based on class or gender contain a racial component because both of
these social categories are also racialized; that is, both class and gender
are constructed along racial lines. In 1922, for example, white
South African workers in the middle of a strike inspired by the
Russian revolution rallied under the slogan “Workers of the world
unite for a white South Africa.” One of the state’s “concessions” to
this “class” struggle was the passage of the Apprenticeship Act of
1922, “which prevented Black workers acquiring apprenticeships.”
98
In another example, the struggle of women in the United States to
attain their civil and human rights has always been plagued by deep
racial tensions.
99
Nonetheless, some of the strife that exists in a racialized social
formation has a distinct racial character; I call such strife racial contestation—the
struggle of racial groups for systemic changes regarding
their position at one or more levels. Such a struggle may be
social (Who can be here? Who belongs here?), political (Who can
vote? How much power should they have? Should they be citizens?),
economic (Who should work, and what should they do? They are
taking our jobs!), or ideological (Black is beautiful!).
Although much of this contestation is expressed at the individual
level and is disjointed, sometimes it becomes collective and general
and can effect meaningful systemic changes in a society’s racial
organization. The form of contestation may be relatively passive and
subtle (e.g., in situations of fundamental overt racial domination such
as slavery and apartheid) or more active and overt (e.g., in quasidemocratic
situations such as the contemporary United States). As a
rule, however, fundamental changes in racialized social systems are
accompanied by struggles that reach the point of overt protest.
10
°
This does not mean that a violent racially based revolution is the
only way of accomplishing effective changes in the relative position
of racial groups. lt is simply an extension of the argument that social
systems and their supporters must be “shaken” if fundamental transformations
are to take place)
0
’ On this structural foundation rests the
phenomenon labeled racism by social scientists.
I reserve the term racial ideology for the segment of the ideological
structure of a social system that crystallizes racial notions and
stereotypes. Racial ideology provides the rationalization for social,
political, and economic interactions among the races. Depending on
the particular character of a racialized social system and on the struggles
of the subordinated races, racial ideology may be developed
highly (as in apartheid) or loosely (as in slavery) and its content
expressed in overt or covert terms.
Although racial ideology originates in race relations, it acquires
relative autonomy in the social system and performs practical func-
tions.
102
In Paul Gilroy’s words, racial ideology “mediates the world
of agents and the structures which are created by their social prax-
44 White Supremacy & Racism in the Post—Civil Rights Era What Is Racism? 45
is.”103 Racism crystallizes the changing “dogma” on which actors in
the social system operate and becomes “common sense”; it provides
the rules for perceiving and dealing with the Other in a racialized
society. In the United States, for instance, because racial notions
about what blacks and whites are or ought to be pervade their
encounters, whites still have difficulty in dealing with black bankers,
lawyers, professors, and doctors.’°
4
Thus, although racist ideology is
ultimately false, it fulfills a practical role in racialized societies.
(Because of the centrality of racial ideology in the maintenance of
white supremacy, I dedicate Chapter 3 to a detailed discussion on
this matter.)
At this point it is possible to sketch the framework of the racialized
social system. First, racialized social systems are societies that
allocate differential economic, political, social, and even psychological
rewards to groups along racial lines, lin~sthat are socially constructed.
After a society becomes racialized, a set of social relations
and practices based on racial distinctions develops at all societal levels.
I designate the aggregate of those relations and practices as the
racial structure of a society. Second, races historically are constituted
according to the process of racialization; they become the effect of
relations of opposition among racialized groups at all levels of a
social formation. Third, on the basis of this structure, a racial ideology
develops. This ideology is not simply a “superstructural” phenomenon
(a mere reflection of the racialized system) but becomes
the organizational map that guides actions of racial actors in society.
It becomes as real as the racial relations it organizes. Fourth, most
struggles in a racialized social system contain a racial component,
but sometimes they acquire or exhibit a distinct racial character.
Racial contestation is the logical outcome of a society with a racial
hierarchy. A social formation that includes some form of racialization
will always exhibit some form of racial contestation. Finally, the
process of racial contestation reveals the different objective interests
of the races in a racialized social system.
Conclusion
My central argument in this chapter is that the commonsense understanding
of racism, which is not much different than the definition
developed by mainstream social scientists or even by many critical
analysts, does not provide ~.. adequat fieoretica ioundatjonjor
understanding racj~plwac,mcna. With notable exceptions,’°
5
analystsin
academ are sullentangled in ungrounded ideo
pretations of racism. Lackingastruc ura1,yj~,~,they tend to reduce
racial phen
6
mena to a deriyation of the class struc!ure ~as Marxist
interpreters do) or the result of an irrational ideoiqgy (ac mainsfream
social scientists do).
In the racialized social system framework, I suggest, as do Omi
and Winant, that racism should be studied from theyj~ointof
racialization. I contend that after a society becomes racialized, raciali~iionde~eopsa
life of its, own.
106
Although racism interacts with
class and gender structurations in~ocjety, it becomes an organizing
prmciple of social relation~1nitselt Race, as most analysts suggS,
is a social constrtiict but that construct like class and,,jencI~r,has
independent effects in social life. After racial stratification is established,
race becomes an independent criterion for vertical hierarchy
in society Therefore different races experience positions of sub rdi
nation and ~perorçlination in society and develop,, different interests.
This fr mework ha the foliov nga4v
of racism:
Racial phenomena are regarded as the “normal” outcome of
the racial structure of a society. Thus we can account ‘for all racial
manifestations. Instead of explaining racial phenomena as deriving
from other structures or from racism (conceived of as a free-floating
ideology), we can trace cultural political economic social
and even psychoiogjcaLr~si!Lpi~enomenato the racial organization
of that soci~y.
~t7~changing nature of what analysts label “racism” is
explained as the normal outcome of racial contestation in a racialized
social system. In this framework, changes in racism are
explained rather than described. Changes are due to specific struggles
at different levels among the_races, resulting from differences in
interests Such cha~g~srngy~ransfo~~~enature of racialization and
the global character of racial relations ih yst (the racial structure).
Therefore, chang~is viewed as a normal component of the
racialized system.
The racialized social system framework allows analysts to
46 White Supremacy & Racism in the Post—Civil Rights Era What Is Racism? 47
explain overt as well as covert racial behavior The covert or overt
nature of racial contacts depends on how the process of racialization
is manifested; this in turns depends on how ra inaH iulated
in a social formation and on_flue process of racialç,qgtestgtton
This point implies that rather than conçe ving of racismj,&aj~i~gsal
and uniformly orchestrated phenomenon, analysts should studj “his-
torically-specificracisrns.’”°
7
This insight is’ riot new: Robert Park,
Oliver Cox, Pierre van den Bergue, and Marvin Harris described varieties
of situations of race,,rela,tjons with distinct forms of racial
interaction.
Racially motivated behavior, whether or not the actors are conscious
of it, is regarded as “rational”—chat is, based on the given
race’s individual interests.
105
This framework accounts for Archie
Bunker—type racial behavior as well as for more “sophisticated” varieties
of racial conduct. Racial phenomena are viewed as systemic;
therefore all actors in the system participate in racial affairs. Some
members of the dominant racial group tend to exhibit less virulence
toward members of the subordinated races because they have’irea~er
control over the form and outcome of their racial interactions When
they cannot control that interaction—as in the case of revolts or
blacks moving into “their” neighborhood—they behave much like
other members of the dominant race.
The reproduction of racial phenomena in contemporary societies
is explained in this framework not by reference to a long-distant past
but in relation to its contemporary structure. Because racism is
viewed as systemic (possessing a racial structure) and as organized
around the races’ different interests, racial aspects of social systems
today are viewed as fundamentally related to hierarchical relations
among the races in those systems. Elimination of the racialized character
of a social system entails the end of racialization, and hence of
ra&i~’iftrig~’ther.This argument clashes with social scientists’ most
popular policy prescription for “curing” racism, namely education.
This “solution is the logical outcome of defining racism as a belief
Most analysts regard racism as a matter of indivi4p_Ql,~,~~~c1ibing,ip
aifTii-~iiionalview, thus the cure is educatin,g them to realize that
Fá~11thii wrong Education is also the choice pill prescribed by
Marxists for healing workers from racism The alternative the’&y
offered here implies that because the phenomenon has structural consequences
for the races, the only way to cure society of racism is by
eliminating its systemic roots. Whether this can be accomplished
democratically or only through revolutionary means is an open question,
and one that depends on the particular racial structure of the
society in question.
A racialization framework accounts for the ways in which racial
and ethnic stereotypes emerge, are transformed, and disappear
Racial stereotypes are crystallized at the ideological level of a social
system. These images ultimately indicate—although in distorted
ways—and justify the stereotyped group’s position in a society.
Stereotypes may’ originate out of (1) material realities or conditions
endured by the group, (2) genuine ignorance about the group, or (3)
rigid, distorted views on the group’s physical, cultural, or moral
nature. Once they emerge, however, stereotypes must relate—
although not necessarily fit perfectly—to the group’s true social
position in the racialized system if they are to perform their ideological
function. Stereotypes that do not tend to reflect a group’s situation
do not work and. are bound to disappear. For example, notions of
the Irish as stupid or of Jews as athletically talented have all but vanished
since the 1940s, as the Irish moved up the educational ladder
and Jews gained access to multiple routes of social mobility.
Generally, then, stereotypes are reproduced because they reflect a
group’s distinct position and status in society. As a corollary, racial
or ethnic notions about a group disappear only when the group’s status
mirrors that of the dominant racial or ethnic group in the society.
The framework of the racialized social system is not a universal
theory explaining racial phenomena in societies. lt is intended to
trigger a serious discussion of how race sha,pes social systems.
Moreover, the important question of how race interacts and intersects
witW’~5lás~and 2ender Gus not yet been addressed satisfactorily
Pro~ThionuilyI maintain thatanonfunctionalist reading of the concept
of social system may give us clues for com_prehending societies
structu~éd7ñ7Ohijnjz’,~touse Stuart Hall’s term. If societies are
vièWë issysiems that articulate different structures (organizing
principles ‘6n”which sets of social relations are systematically pat
terned), iH~ is~ibi~toclaim that race—as well as gender—ha,~both
individual and combined (interactive) effects in society.
To test the usefulness of the racialized social system framework
as a theoretical basis for research, we must perform comparative
48 White Supremacy & Racism in thePost—Civil Rights Era What Ii Racism? 49
work on racialization invarious societies. One of the main objectives
of this comparative work should be to determine the specific mechanisms,
practices, and social relations that produce and reproduce
racial inequality at all levels—that is, uncover the society’s racial
structure. Although this systematic comparative analysis is beyond
the scope of this book, I perform some of it in Chapter 4. In that
chapter, for example, I compare the racial structure of the Jim Crow
period with the one we have today. Unlike analysts who believe that
“racism” has withered away, I argue that the persistent inequality
experienced by blacks and other racial minorities in the United States
today is due to the continued albeit changed existence of a racial
structure. In contrast to race relations in the Jim Crow period, however,
racial practices that reproduce racial inequality in contemporary
America are (I) increasingly covert, (2) embedded in normal operations
of institutions, (3) void of direct racial terminology, and (4)
invisible to most whites.
In the next chapter I criticize the survey-based study of racial
matters, a perspective that is central to the analysis and understanding
of contemporary racial matters. Specifically, I argue that this tradition
is wedded to an individualistic view of racial actors and thus
~ I ~bnnig~mUhe
nbfion of racial ideology and provide practical g~ldanceon how it
can be used in research.
Notes
1. Ruth F. Benedict, Race and Racism (London: Routledge and Kegan
Paul, 1945),p. 85.
2. Pierre van den Berghe, Race and Racism: A Comparative Perspective
(New York: JohnWiley & Sons, 1967), p. 11.
3. Richard T. Schaefer, Racial and Ethnic Minorities (Glencoe, IL:
Scott/Foresman/Little Brown Higher Education, 1990), p. 16.
4. A review such as this one is necessarily incomplete. I leave out the
important work of European writers such as Paul Gilroy and Pierre A.
Taguieff as well as the work of Latin American writers such as Florestan
Femandes, Carlos Hansenbalg, and Nelson do Valle Silva.
5. Stanley Aronowitz, The Politics ofIdentity: Class, Culture, Social
Movements (New York: Routledge, 1992).
6, One of the best representatives of the orthodox Marxist view on
race and racism is Victor Perlo, Economics ofRacism U.S.A.:Roots of Black
Inequality (New York: International Publishers, 1975). But alongside this
orthodox view, some African American Marxists like WEB. Du Bois,
C.L.R, James, and, more recently, Manning Marable and Robin 0. Kelley
have questioned the simplistic analysis of racism of their white counterparts.
For particularly biting criticisms of the traditional Marxist view on racial
matters see James Boggs, Racism and the Class Struggle (New York:
Monthly Review Press, 1970); Robert L. Allen, Reluctant Reformers
(Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1974); and Harold Cruse,
Rebellion orRevolution (New York: William Morrow & Company, 1968).
7. Albert Szymanski, Class Structure: A Critical Perspective (New
York: Praeger Publishers, 1983), p.402.
8. Despite my multiple disagreements with Cox’s approach to race, I
regard his oeuvre as phenomenal, particularly considering that he did most
of his work under Jim Crow. In his Caste, Class, and Race (New Yost
Doubleday, 1948), Cox developed a competent class analysis of post—World
War II class matters in the United States and elsewhere. Although I disagree
with the essence of his racial analysis in this book, I agree with much of his
critique of Myrdal’s work, the caste-school of race relations, and think that
his analysis of lynching is brilliant. I also believe that he should receive
more credit forhis,world-system analysis. On this latter matter, see his The
Foundations of Capitalism (New York: Philosophical Library, 1959).
9. Cox, Caste, Class, and Race, 393.
10. Ibid., 330.
11. Ibid., 336.
12. Edna Bonacich, “A Theory of Ethnic Antagonism: The Split Labor
Market Approach,” American Sociological Review 37 (1980): 547—559. See
also her “Advanced Capitalism and Black/White Relations in the United
States: A Split Labor Market Interpretation,” in The Sociology of Race
Relations: Reflection and Reform, edited by T. Pettigrew (New York: Free
Press, 1980).
13. Bonacich, “ATheory of Ethnic Antagonism,” 343—344.
14. Ibid., 347. This argument strikes me as blaming the victim in disguise.
For two excellent altemative Marxist readings of why blacks did not
join unions with their “brothers and sisters,” see Philip Foner’s excellent
Organized Labor and the Black Worker, 1619-1981 (New York: International
Publishers, 1981) and David Roediger’s The Wages of Whiteness:
Race and the Making of the American Working Class (London and New
York: Verso, 1991). For a more recent book showing the racialized character
of working-class politics, see Michael Goldfield’s The Color of Politics:
Race and the Mainsprings ofAmerican Politics (New York: The New Press,
1997).
15, Bonacich, downplays interpretations of this “resistance” based on
racial prejudice against blacks. Therefore, she explains the race riots that
occurred in the 1919—1940 period as expressions of class protectionism
from whites facing “threats” from black workers. This interpretation naturalizes
the racist white view symbolized in the statement “they are taking our
50 White Supremacy & Racism in the Post—civil Rights Era What Is Racism? 51
jobs” and ignores the racial aspect of class formation (see Roediger’s The
Wages of Whiteness, 1992). On this point, black historian Carter 0.
Woodson, The Negro in Our History (Washington, DC,: The Associated
Publishers, 1947), commented a long time ago that
as Negroes in the North and West, therefore, were pitted against
the trades unions, they engendered much feeling between the races
by allying themselves with the capitalists to serve as strikebreakers.
In this case, however, the trades unions themselves were to be
blamed. The only time the Negroes could workunder such circumstance
was when the whites were striking, and it is not surprising
that some of them easily yielded then to the temptation. In those
unions inwhich the Negroes were recognized, they stood with their
white co-workers inevery instance of making a reasonable demand
of their employers. Some of these unions, however, accepted
Negroes merely as a subterfuge to prevent them from engaging in
strikebreaking. When the Negroes appealed for work, identifying
themselves as members of the union in control, they were tumed
away with the subterfuge that no vacancies existed, while at the
same timewhite men were gladly received. (My emphasis, 439)
16. Bonacich, “A Theory of Ethnic Antagonism,” 358. For a more
nuanced Marxist analysis of race post-l930s, seeJill Quadagno’s The Color
of Welfare: Flow Racism Undermined the War on Poverty (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1994).
17. A few European Marxists (e.g., John Solomos, Harold Wolpe,
Robert Miles, and Paul Gilroy), following the pivotal work of Stuart Hall,
have attempted to overcome the limitation of orthodox Marxism as it pertains
to racial matters. Yet, despite providing some honest indictments of the
class-reductionist reading of racial phenomena, these analysts share many of
the limitations of orthodox Marxists. For example, they still give primacy to
the class structure by conceiving the context of racialization as purely capitalist.
They also stress a priori class as the central organizing principle of
societies and, hence, regard race as a secondary element that fractures or
stratifies classes. Finally, they still interpret racism as a fundamentally ideological
phenomenon.
18. On this point, see Michael Omi and Howard Winant’s biting critique
in Racial Formation in the United States (New York and London:
Routledge, 1994).
19. Some of the premier authors in this tradition are Stokely
Cannichael and Charles Hamilton, Black Power: The Politics ofLiberation
in America (New York: Vintage Books, 1967); Louis Knowles and Kenneth
Prewitt, Institutional Racism in America (Patterson, NJ: Prentice Hall,
1969); Mark Chesler, “Contemporary Sociological Theories of Racism,” pp.
21—71 in Towards the Elimination of Racism, edited by Phyllis A. Katz
(New York: Pergamon, 1976); David Wellman, Portraits of White Racism
(Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1977); Rodolfo Alvarez,
Kenneth 0. Lutterman, and Associates, Discrimination i.n Organizations:
Using Social Indicators to Manage Social Change (San Francisco, CA:
Jossey-Bass, 1979).
20. Carmichael and Hamilton, Black Power, 3.
21. Chesler, “Contemporary Sociological Theories of Racism,” 22.
22. See, particularly, Knowles and Prewitt, Institutional Racism in
America.
23. This point has been raised by Miles, Racism (London and New
York: Routledge, 1989).
24. My emphasis. Ture and Hamilton, Black Power, 5.
25. Ifeverything is or can be conceived as “racist,” then the term has
no boundaries; phenomena of clearly class, gender, or pertaining to any
other form of social association are reduced to race. In political terms, the
assumption that all whites are racists led to a suicidal political strategy, particularly
for blacks in the United States, where coalition politics were basically
dismissed (see chapter 3 in Carmichael and Hamilton, 1967). Yet,
Miles goes too far here. Thisview didhelp blacks to mobilize, organize, and
rally behind the (ill-defined) notion of black power.
26. For an example of the negative racialization experienced by the
Irish in Ireland, see Theodore W. Allen, The Invention of the White Race
(London and New York: Verso, 1994).
27. This point has been raised by Omi and Winant, Racial Formation
in the Unised States.
28. Despite the radicalism of Carmichael and Hamilton’s approach,
their book is written within the pluralist view of power so popular among
political scientists. That is why they seem content with advocating for a
power-sharing nationalist electoral strategy as if this were possible in a
social formation where power is structurally based and organized around
racial, class, and gender group-level domination. For a fascinating critique
of myopic nationalist perspectives (whether Afrocentric, Islam-centered, or
elite-based), see Rod Bush, We Are Not What We Seem: Black Nationalism
and Class Struggle in the American Century (New York: New York
University Press, 1999). See also Wahneema Lnbiano, “Black Nationalism
and Black Common Sense,” pp. 232—252 in The House That Race Built,
edited by Wahneeman Lubiano (New York: Pantheon Books, 1997).
29. Joan W. Moore, “Colonialism: The Case of the MexicanAmericans,”
Social Problems 17 (1970): 463—472; Mario Barrera, Race and
Class in the Southwest: A Theory of Racial Inequality (Notre Dame, IN:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1979); Robert Blauner, Racial Oppression
in America (New York: Harper and Row, 1972).
30. Blauner advanced several definitions of racism in his book, The
most comprehensive regardedracism as “a principle of social domination by
which a group seen as inferior in alleged biological characteristics is
exploited, controlled, and oppressed socially and psychically by a superordinate
group.” Racial Oppression in America, 84.
31. Blauner, Racial Oppression in America, 22.
32. Ibid., 21,
52 White Supremacy & Racism in the Post—Civil Rights Era What Is Racism? 55
33. tbid., 23.
34. On race cycles, see Robert E. Park,Race and Culture(Glencoe, IL:
Free Press, 1950). On ethnic patterns, see Nathan Glazer and Daniel P.
Moynihan, Beyond the Melting Pot (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1970).
35. Blauner, Racial Oppression inAmerica, 10.
36. On this matterBlauner stated,
The liberal-humanist value that violence is the worst sin cannot be
defendedtoday if one is committedsquarely against racism and for
self-determination. Some violence is almost inevitable in the
decolonization process; unfortunately racism in America has been
so effective that the greatest power Afro-Americans wield today is
the power to disrupt. (Racial Oppression inAmerica, 104)
37. Blauner was very aware of this limitation and said so in the introduction
to his book. What was needed was a “new theoretical model
based on the combined existence of historical interaction and mutual interpenetration
of the colonial-racial and the capitalist class realities” given that
“America is clearly a mixed society that might be termed colonial capitalist
or racial capitalist.” Racial Oppression in America, 13. Barrera attempted to
deal with this limitation by suggesting that there is an interactive class and
race structure and that racial minorities constitute subordinated segments or
fractionsof all the classes in the structure. Race and Class inthe Southwest.
38. Omi and Winant, Racial Formation in the United States; Wilson,
The Truly Disadvantaged: The InnerCity, the Underclass, and Public Policy
(University of Chicago Press, 1987), and When Work Disappears (New
York: Vintage Books, 1996).
39. Omi and Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 61.
40. Ibid., 23.
41. ibid., 64.
42, In Winant’s recent book, Racial Conditions, the fundamentally
political character of racialization is attributed to the fact that “elites, popular
movements, state agencies, cultural and religious organizations, and
intellectuals of all types develop racial projects, which interpret and reinterpret
the meaning of race These projects are often explicitly, but always
implicitly, political” (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994), p.
24.
43. The other important theoretical spring of radical writings on race in
this periodhas been Stuart Hall.
44. One of the earliest statements on the constructionist character of
race is found in Max Weber, “Ethnic Groups,” in Economy and Society, edited
by Herbert Roth and Claus Wittich (Berkeley, CA: University of California
Press, 1978).
45. In Racial Conditions (1994), Winant comes close to enunciating a
structural conception of race. He criticizes the purely ideological conception
of race because itfails to (I) appreciate the significance that a construct can
acquire over a thousand years of existence and (2) recognize that race
shapes our identity and everyday experiences (16). However, Winant
eschews a truly structural reading of race because he thinks such a reading
would reify the category. As I argue in this chapter, an objective understandingof
race(similar to the case of class or gender) based upon the notion that
these social groups have different interests does not necessarily entail freezing
the content or meaning of the category itself.
46. Omi and Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 55.
47. Omi and Winant define racial projects as “simultaneously an interpretation,
representation, or explanation of racial dynamics, and an effort to
reorganize and redistribute resources along particular racial lines.” Racial
Formation in the United States, 56.
48. Ibid., 66.
49. This problem is partially addressed in Howard Winant’s Racial
Conditions through the Gramscian concept of hegemony, which he defines
as “a form of rule that operates by constructing its subjects and incorporating
contestation” (113). According to Winant, this form of rule prevails in
most “modern” socieiies and organizes, among other things, cleavages based
on class, race, and gender.
50. Joe R. Feagin and Hernan Vera, White Racism (New York and
London: Routledge, 1995), p. 7. Feagin and Vera’s emphasis.
51. Joe R. Feagin, Racist America (London: Routledge, 2000), p.6.
52. This is the argument of authors in the dependency and world-system
tradition. It is also the argument of Cedric Robinson in Black Marxism
(London: Zed Press, 1983) and of Charles Mills.
53. See his work in Steven Shulman and William Darity, Jr., The
Question of Discrimination: Racial Inequality in the U.S. Labor Market
(Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1989). For the opposite argument,
see Michael Reich, Racial Incquality: A Political-Economic Analysis
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981).
54. For a critique of the moral interpretation of racial matters, see
Lawrence Bobo, James Kluegel, and Ryan Smith, “Laissez-Faire Racism:
The Crystallization of a Kinder, Gentler, Antiblack Ideology,” pp. 15—42 in
Racial Attitudes in the l990s, edited by Steven A. Tuch and Jack K. Martin
(Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997).
55. See Tony Brown, “Being Black and Feeling Blue’: The Mental
Health Consequences of Racial Discrimination,” Race & Society 2, no. 2
(2000): 117—131.
56. Examples of this approach are Howard Schuman et al., Racial
Attitudes in America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997);
Paul Sniderman and Thomas Piazza, The Scare of Race (Cambridge, Mk:
Harvard University Press, 1993).
57. This is the, finding of analysts such as Sniderman in his various
books as well as that of Glenn Firehaugh and Kenneth E. Davis, “Trends in
Antiblack Prejudice, 1972—1984,” American Journal of Sociology 94
(1988): 251—274.
58. See John Rex, Race, Colonialism, and the City (London:
Routledge, 1973) and Race Relations in Sociological Theory (London:
Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1986).
54 White Supremacy & Racism In the Pout-Civil Rights Era What Is RacIsm? 55
59. This has been Howard Schuman’s argument for a long time, For
statements of this argument, see any of the editions of Racial Attitudes in
America.
60. There is now an explosion of survey-based authors fighting this
individualistic tradition, See, for example, Donald R. Kinder and Lynn
Sanders, Divided by Color (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996)
and most of the authors in Racialized Politics, edited by David 0. Sears, Jim
Sidanius, and Lawrence Bobo (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
2000).
61. This tradition is very old but was clearly stated in Theodore W.
Adorno et al., The Authoritarian Personality (New York: Harper and Row,
1950). See also Gordon W. Allport, The Nature ofPrejudice (New York:
Doubleday, 1958). For excellent critiques, see Blauner, Racial Oppression
inAmerica, and David Weliman, Portrait ofWhite Racism,
62, Roy Brooks, Rethinking the American Race Problem (Berkeley,
Los Angeles, and Oxford: University of California Press, 1990); Robert C.
Smith, Racism in the Post—Civil Rights Era (New York: State University of
New York Press, 1995).
63. For early statements of this view, see David 0. Sears and Donald
R. Kinder, “Racial Tensions and Voting in Los Angeles,” pp. 5 1—88 in Los
Angeles: Viability and Prospects for Metropolitan Leadership, edited by
Werner Z. Hirsch (New York: Praeger, 1971). For a mature review of the
symbolic racism tradition, see David 0. Sears, “Symbolic Racism,” pp.
53—84 in Eliminating Racism: Profiles in Controversy, edited by P. A. Katz
and D, A. Taylor (New York: Plenum, 1988). See also Pettigrew, The
Sociology ofRace Relations.
64. This question is used by the National Opinion Research Center
(NORC) and has been employed by Schuman et at., Racial Attitudes in
America, 66.
65, This point has been made by Oliver Cox, Caste, Class, and Race;
Marvin Harris, Patterns of Race Relations in the Americas (New York:
Walker, 1964); John Rex, RaceRelations in Sociological Theory; and Pierre
van den Berghe, Race and Racism: A Comparative Perspective (New York:
JohnWiley and Sons, 1967).
66. Winthrop Jordan, White over Black: American Attitudes Toward the
Negro (New York: W. W. Norton, 1968); Manning Marable, How Capitalism
Underdeveloped Black America (Boston: South End Press, 2000 [1983));
Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical
Tradition (London: Zed, 1983).
67. Glazer and Moynihan, Beyond the Melting Pot.
68. Roediger, The Wages ofWhiteness, 176.
69. This quote comes from Yehudi 0. Webster’s book The Racialization
ofAmerica (New York: St. Martin’s, 1992), p. 84.
70. By structure I mean, following Joseph Whitmeyer, “the networks
of (interactional) relationships among actors as well as the distributions of
socially meaningful characteristics of actors and aggregates of actors.”
“Why Actors Are Integral to Structural Analysis,” Sociological Theory 12
(1994): 153—163. For similar but more complex conceptions of the term,
which are relational and that incorporate the agency of actors, see Pierre
Bourdieu, Distinction (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984);
and William H. Sewell, Jr, “A Theory of Structure: Duality, Agency, and
Transfonnation,” American Journal ofSociology 98 (1992): 1—29. I reserve
the term material to refer to the economic, social, political, or ideological
rewards or penalties received by social actors for their participation
(whether willing, unwilling, or indifferent) in social structural arrangements.
71. All racialized social systems operate along white supremacistlines.
See Mills, Blackness Visible (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998).
72, 1 make a distinction between race and ethnicity. Ethnicity has a primarily
sociocultural foundation, and ethnic groups have exhibited tremendous
malleability in terms of who belongs. In contrast, racial ascriptions
(iniUally) are imposed externally to justify the collective exploitation of a
people and are maintained to preserve status differences. The distinction I
make was part of a debate that appeared recently in the American Sociological
Review. For specialists interested in this matter, see Bonilla-Silva,
“The Essential Social Fact of Race,” American Sociological Review 64, no.
6(1999): 899—906.
73. HerbertBlumer was one of the first analysts to makethis argument
about systematic rewards received by the races ascribed the primaryposition
in a racial order. See Herbert Blumer, “Reflections on Theory of Race
Relations,” pp. 3—21 in Race Relations in World Perspective, edited by
A. W. Lind (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 1955). Du Bois’s
argument about the psychological wages of whiteness has been used recently
by Manning Marable, How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America;
and by David Roediger, The WagesofWhiteness.
74. This point has been made by Omi and Winant, Racial Formation in
the United States; Winant, Racial Conditions,
75. I am referring to cases such as Haiti. Nonetheless, recent research
has suggested that even in such places, the abolition of slavery did not end
the racialized character of the social formation, See Michel-Rolph Troillot,
Haiti, State Against Nation: Origins and Legacy ofDuvalierism (New YorL
Monthly Review Press, 1990),
76. For a similar argument, see Floya Anthias and Nira Yuval-Davis,
Racialized Boundaries: Race, Nation, Gender, Colout; and the Anti-Racist
Struggle (London,England: Tavistock, 1992).
77. For an early statement on this matter, see Hubert M. Blalock, Jr~
Toward a Theory of Minority-Majority Gi’oup Relations (New York: John
Wiley and Sons, 1967). For a more recent statement, see Susan Olzack, The
Dynamics of Ethnic Competition and Conflict (Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press, 1992).
78. Nineteenth-century nation-building processes throughout Latin
America included the myth of racial democracy and color- or race-blindness.
This facilitated the struggles for independence and the maintenance of
white supremacy in societies wherein white elites were demographicaUy
insignificant. For discussions pertinent to this argument see the excellent
56 WhIte Supremacy & Racism in the Post-Civil Rights Era What IsRacIsm? 57
collection edited by Michael Hanchard, Racial Politics in Contemporary
Brazil (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1999).
79. See my “The Essential Social Fact of Race,” American Sociological
Review 64, no. 6 (December 1999): 899—906.
80. On this point, see WarrenWhatley and Gavin Wright, Race, Human
Capital, and Labor Markets in American History, Working Paper #7 (Ann
Arbor, MI: Center for Afroamerican and African Studies, University of
Michigan, 1994). For an incisive discussion, see Samuel L. Myers, Jr.,
“Measuring and Detecting Discrimination in the Post—Civil Rights Era,” pp.
172—197 in Race and Ethnicity in Research Methods, edited by John H.
Stanfield II and Rutledge M. Dennis (London: Sage Publications, 1993).
81. Michael Reich, “The Economics of Racism,” in Racial Conflict,
Discrimination, and Power: Historical and Contemporary Studies, edited by
William Barclay, Krsihma Kumar, and Ruth P. Simms (New York: AMS
Press, 1976), p. 224,
82. Omi and Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 64.
83. On the invention of the white race, see Theodore W, Allen, The
Invention of the White Race, Vol. 1 (London: Verso, 1994). On the invention
of the “Indian” race, see Robert E. Berkhoffer, The White Man’s Indian
(New York: Vintage, 1978). On the invention of the black and white races,
see Winthrop Jordan, White overBlack.
84. A classic book on the ideological binary construction of the races
in the United States is Thomas Gossett, Race: The History of an Idea in
America (Dallas, TX: Southern Methodist University Press, 1963). For an
analysis of the earlier period in the Americas, see Tzevetan Todorov, The
Conquest of America: The Question of the Other (New York: Harper
Colophon, 1984).
85. On this matter, I stated in my recent debate in the pages of the
American Sociological Review with Mara Loveman that “race,’ like ‘class’
or ‘gender,’ is always contingent but is also socially real. Race operates ‘as a
shuttle between socially constructed meanings and practices, between subjective
and lived, material reality’ (Hanchard 1994: 4).” (901). Michael G.
Hanchard, Orpheus and Power (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1994).
86. This last point is an extension of Poulantzas’s view on class.
Races—as classes—are not an “empirical thing”; they denote racialized
social relations or racial practices at all levels, Poulantzas, Political Power
and Social Classes (London: Verso, 1982), p. 67.
87. For a full discussion, see my “The Essential Social Fact of Race.”
For a similar argument, see TeresaAmott and Julie Matthaei, Race, Gender,
and Work: A Multicultural Economic History of Women in the United States
(Boston, MA: South End Press, 1996).
88. Frederick Barth, “Introduction,” pp. 9—38 in Ethnic Groups and
Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference, edited by F.
Barth (Bergen, Norway: Universitetsforlaget, 1969).
89. For the case of the Jews, see Miles, Racism and Racism After
“Race Relations” (London: Routledge, 1993). For the case of the Irish, see
Allen, The Invention ofthe White Race.
90. For a recent excellent discussion on ethnicity with many examples
from the United States, see Stephen Cornell and Douglas Hartmann,
Ethnicity and Race: Making Identities in a Changing World (London: Pine
Forge Press, 1998).
91. Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness. See also Noel Ignatiev, How
the Irish Became White (New York: Routledge, 1995).
92. For identity issues among Caribbean immigrants, see the excellent
edited collection by Constance R. Sutton and E. M. Chaney, CaribbeanLife
in New York City: Sociocultural Dimensions (New York: Center for
Migration Studies of New York, 1987).
93. Barth, “Introduction,” 17.
94. A few notable discussions on this matter are Ira Berlin, Slaves
Without Ma.sters.: The Free Negro in Antebellum South (New York:
Pantheon, 1975); John Hope Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom: A History
of the Negro Americans (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1974); August Meir and
Elliot Rudwick, From Plantation to Ghetto (New York: Hill and Wang,
1970).
95. The motivation for racializing human relations may have originated
in the interests of powerful actors, hut after social systems are racialized,
all members of the dominant race participate in defending and reproducing
the racial structure. This is the crucial reason why Marxist analysts (e.g.,
Cox, Reich) have not succeeded in successfully analyzing racism. They
have not been able to accept the fact that after the phenomenon originated
with the expansion of European capitalism into the New World, it acquired a
life of its own. The subjects who were racialized as belonging to the superior
race, whether or not they were members of the dominant class, became
zealous defenders of the racial order. For an interesting Marxist-inspired
treatment, see Bush, We Are Not What We Seem.
96. Jordan, White over Black; Robinson, Black Marxism; Miles,
Racism After “Race Relations.”
97. Bernard M. Magubane, The Political Economy ofRace and Class
in South America (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1990); Richard
Williams, Hierarchical Structures and Social Value (Cambridge, England:
Cambridge University Press, 1990). For two recent valuable contributions,
see Robin Blackburn, The Making ofNew World Slavery: From the Baroque
to the Modern, 1492—1800 (London: Verso, 1997); and Ian Hannaford,
Race: The History of an Idea in the West (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1996),
98. Hillel Ticktin, The Politics of Race: Discrimination in South
Africa (London: Pluto, 1991), p.26.
99. The classic book on this is Paula Giddings, When and Where 1
Enter: The Impact ofBlack Women on Race and Sex in America (New York:
Bantam, 1984). See also Nancy Caraway, Segregated Sisterhood: Racism
and the Politics of American Feminism (Knoxville, TN: University of
Tennessee Press, 1991).
100. This argument is not new. Analysts of the racial history of the
United States have always pointed out that most of the significant historical
changes in this country’s race relations were accompanied by some degree
58 White Supremacy & Racism in the Post—Civil Rights Era
of overt violence. See Harold Cruse, Rebellion or Revolution (New York:
William Morrow, 1968); Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom; and James W.
Button, Blacks and Social Change: Impact of the Civil Rights Movement in
Southern Communities (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989).
101. Thispoint is important in literature on revolutions and democracy.
On the role of violence in the establishment of bourgeois democracies, see
Barrington Moore, Jr., Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy
(Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1966). On the pivotal role of violence in social
movements, see Frances Fox Piven and RichardA. Cloward, Poor People’s
Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail (New York: Vintage, 1979).
102. The notion of relative autonomy comes from the work of
Poulantzas (Powerand Social Classes) and implies that the ideological and
political levels in a society are partially autonomous in relation to the economic
level; that is, they are not merely expressions of the economic level.
103. Paul Gilroy, “There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack”: The
Cultural Politics of Race and Nation (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago
Press, 1991), p. 17.
104. See Ellis Cose, 1’lie Rage of a Privileged Class: Why Are Black
Middle ClassAngry? Why ShouldAmerica Care? (New York: HarperCollins,
1993); Lawrence Oils-Graham, Member ofthe Club: Reflections on Life in a
Racially PolarizedWorld (New York: HarperCollins, 1993).
105. In addition to the work by Joe R. Feagin and Herndn Vera already
cited, see Lawrence Bobo, J. Kluegel, and R. Smith, “Laissez Faire Racism:
The Crystallization of a Kinder, Gentler, Antiblack Ideology,” and, particularly,
Mary R. Jackman, Velvet Glove: Paternalism and Conflict in Gender,
Class, and Race Relations (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press,
1994).
106. Curiously, historian Eugene Genovese made a similar argument in
his book Red and Black. Although he still regarded racism as an ideology,
he stated that once it “arises it alters profoundly the material reality and in
fact becomes a partially autonomous feature of that reality.”Red and Black:
Marxian Explorations in Southern and Afroamerican History (New York:
Pantheon, 1971), p.
340
.
107. HaIl, “Race Articulation and Societies Structured in Dominance,”
in Sociological Theories: Race and Colonialism, edited by UNESCO (Paris:
UNESCO, 1980), p.
336
.
108. Actions by the Ku Klux Klan have an unmistakably racial tone,
but many other actions (choosing to live in a suburban neighborhood, sending
one’s children to a private school, and opposing government intervention
in hiring policies) also have racial undertones.