Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1986

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Introduction

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Conclusion

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Part 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 2: “Racial Formation”

Part 2, Chapter 4 Summary: “The Theory of Racial Formation”

Race is a slippery concept. In fact, the authors assert that the “very act of defining racial groups is a process fraught with confusion, contradiction, and unintended consequences” (105). At the core, racism is a way of marking groups as the “other” (105), just like divisions by class, sexuality, gender, and age. None of these categories are “fixed, objective, social fact” (105). Even age can be socially constructed.

These categories are constantly being defined and fought by governments, the groups in power, and the groups being categorized. The authors argue that in the United States, race is a “master category,” meaning “something that stands above or apart from class, gender, or other axes of race, class, gender, and sexual orientation” (106). The origins of this master category can be traced to unique historical circumstances, such as the displacement of Native Americans and the use of enslaved African people in the American colonies. Race overlapped with other categories like gender, and race became a “template for the subordination and oppression of different social groups” (108).

Historically, race has been viewed as either “objective or illusory” (109). Objective views of race include scientific racism, which holds that humanity can be separated into different fixed racial groups. The other view, which has come to dominate in recent decades, is that race is irrational and an aberration. Instead, the authors argue that while race is a social construct, it is real in the sense that it has “definite social consequences” (110). The authors define race as “a concept that signifies and symbolizes social conflicts and interests by referring to different types of human bodies” (110). Racialization is the extension of race to other groups and social practices that were not considered through the lens of race in the past. However, the authors not only argue that race is a social construct, but they also reject the idea that racial thinking is something that is a permanent part of human nature.

As an example, the authors discuss at length Directive No. 15, which established the racial categories now used by the US federal government. The categories became the standard for government, private, nonprofit, and academic institutions, even though the categories are limited and only work in a strictly North American context. For example, Arab Americans under the system are categorized as white (123). Still, the categories have provided a basis for political activists representing minority groups. The authors describe race as “a ‘crossroads’ where social structure and cultural representation meet” (124). Race influences both politics and social structures. It also shapes everyday culture and social interactions, as people make assumptions about someone’s race, culture, language ability, athleticism, and intelligence based on their physical appearance.

The authors point out that the term “racism” was coined by Magnus Hirschfield, a German psychologist, in 1938. Definitions of racism have also changed over time and under historical circumstances. In the contemporary United States, racism has been narrowly defined to just “hate” (128). Instead, the authors argue for racism as a racial project that “creates or reproduces structures of domination based on racial significations and identities” (128). While white supremacy is still a force in the United States, anti-racist groups and activists are not without power. Racist conflict between minority groups can and does happen.

Still, the authors conclude that the United States has historically been—and in some ways still is—a “racial despotism” (130), where white people still dominate socially and politically. There have been efforts to transition the United States into a “racial democracy” (132), but these efforts have been incomplete and uneven.

Part 2, Chapter 5 Summary: “Racial Politics and the Racial State”

The authors assert that race dominates every aspect of life in the United States, from national politics to everyday life: “The racial regime is enforced and challenged in the schoolyard, on the dance floor, on talk radio, and in the classroom as much as it is in the Supreme Court, electoral politics, or on the battlefield of Helmand province” (137). Like class and gender, race is a “fully-fledged social fact” (137). The role of the state is that it maintains contradictions like “despotism and democracy, coercion and consent, formal equality and substantive inequality, identity and difference” (138).

Even though the way the state uses violence and the loss of freedom and property to enforce race has decreased in modern times, the state still oversees despotic practices, some of which did not exist in the past, such as the existence of immigration prisons. However, striving for racial democracy is also part of the history of the United States, especially with the Reconstruction era (1865-1877) and the modern civil rights movement (1948-1970).

The authors describe the earlier periods of American history as the “war of maneuver” (142), meaning a period where the state exercised despotic power over matters of race. Despite being founded on the principle of “all men are created equal,” the United States depended on enslavement and colonial expansion. Citizenship and voting rights were defined by race, with, for example, the Japanese only able to become citizens by 1952. The state claimed the exclusive right to define racial categories. In one extreme example, in 1854, the California Supreme Court ruled that Chinese migrants should be considered “Indians” and, like Native Americans, denied citizenship rights (142).

As minority groups began to gain enough political power to resist the state, this started an era the authors describe as the “war of position” (143). The reason race is so important in the modern era is that racism seeks to “control racially marked bodies” (145). The authors argue that this fits with the theorist Michel Foucault’s idea of “biopower” (144), which is how modern governments try to control their populations and their very bodies. The push for modern racial democracy is, in a way, part of a broader movement by people to reclaim the right to control their own bodies.

The authors argue that all of us are aware of the political and social forces surrounding us and that we develop strategies for navigating them. The state is also aware of, and able to react to, changing circumstances, which the authors describe as “self-reflective action” (146). Although there have been changes and victories for those pushing for greater racial democracy, the authors argue that the “U.S. state was born out of white supremacy and still maintains it to a significant degree” (147). When change does occur, it is the result of a “trajectory of racial politics” driven by the interactions and struggles between dominant and subordinate groups (149).

A major example of such a trajectory is the civil rights movement after World War II. This movement made a landmark achievement in expanding politics into social and everyday life, the “politicization of the social” (151). This politicization of the social was the result of both the arguments put forward by activists and the movement listening to the experiences and views of its own rank and file. Eventually, the authors argue, some of the achievements of this movement were contained by the spread of the idea of colorblindness, but the authors still describe it as a “Great Transformation” that created political resources and new identities, weakening white supremacy (153).

Part 2 Analysis

It is here that the authors introduce the concept of Race as a Master Category. As a category of identity and analysis, race has influenced other identity categories such as class, gender, sexuality, and others. The authors write, “We suggest that the establishment and reproduction of different regimes of domination, inequality, and difference in the United States have consciously drawn upon concepts of difference, hierarchy, and marginalization based on race” (106-07).

One example is how methods for exploiting low-wage Black workers after the US Civil War came to be applied to all workers regardless of their race. Race as a master category also suggests that race is a fundamental, driving force in United States history. Not only does race inform the politics, society, and culture of the United States from the beginning of colonialism to the present day, but, the authors argue, race as a master category also means that race has influenced how other minority populations are perceived and “othered.”

Part 2 also goes into more depth on the theme of The Role of Historical Trajectories. They further elaborate that the history of race in the United States constitutes a trajectory. Here, the authors describe the trajectory as spanning from an era early in United States history, where white supremacy had absolute control over politics, to the present era where the regime in power has incorporated and made terms with some elements of the opposition. The authors describe this as the transition from the war of maneuver to the war of position (140), which describes the position of anti-racist activists against white supremacist forces in government and society. During the war of maneuver, anti-racist activists had few resources and opportunities to assert themselves.

However, with the civil rights movement, the overall position and influence of anti-racist activists improved greatly, even though racism persisted and continued to have a pervasive influence throughout politics and society. Still, it is important to clarify that the authors do not believe there was ever a period in the history of the United States where anti-racism activists were completely powerless. Instead, they write, “Racially defined ‘others’—people of color—were always able to counterpose their own cultural traditions, their own forms of organization and identity, to the dehumanizing and enforced ‘invisibility’ imposed by the majority society” (142).

At the same time, the authors discuss their theories of what causes Historical Change and Activism. Namely, the history of race is shaped by the interplay of the forces in power and the activities of anti-racist social movements. The authors describe these as “the two central actors in the drama of contemporary racial politics—the racial state and anti-racist social movements” (149). It is this interplay that caused both the victories of the civil rights movement and the successful rise of the forces of reaction by the 1970s and into the present.

Likewise, it is the ability of people even without formal political or social power to affect historical change that opens up the possibility that historical trajectories may be altered for the better. At the very least, even in times of great oppression, activists, organizations, and individuals belonging to minorities can engage in “projects for collective self-definition” (146). They can resist the ways in which governments and other authorities try to define them through the law, politics, and social norms. By defining themselves, minority groups can help pave the way for actual legal and political rights in the future.