THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF

RACE AND ETHNICITY

 
THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF
RACE AND ETHNICITY


EDITED BY
MARIA KRYSAN AND AMANDA E. LEWIS

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The changing terrain of race and ethnicity / edited by Maria Krysan and Amanda E. Lewis.
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 CONTENTS


Contributors ix
Acknowledgments xi

Chapter 1 Introduction: Assessing Changes in the

Meaning and Significance of Race and Ethnicity 1
Amanda E. Lewis, Maria Krysan,
and Nakisha Harris

PART I THE CHANGING MANIFESTATIONS OF

RACE IN ATTITUDES AND INSTITUTIONS

Chapter 2 Inequalities That Endure? Racial Ideology,

American Politics, and the Peculiar Role
of the Social Sciences 13
Lawrence D. Bobo
Chapter 3 Color-Blind Racism and Racial Indifference:
The Role of Racial Apathy in Facilitating
Enduring Inequalities 43
Tyrone A. Forman
Chapter 4 Institutional Patterns and Transformations:
Race and Ethnicity in Housing, Education,
Labor Markets, Religion, and Criminal Justice 67
Amanda E. Lewis, Maria Krysan, Sharon M. Collins,
Korie Edwards, and Geoff Ward
VIII CONTENTS

PART II CHANGES IN RACIAL CATEGORIES AND BOUNDARIES

Chapter 5 Identifying with Multiple Races:

A Social Movement That Succeeded but Failed? 123
Reynolds Farley
Chapter 6 “We Are All Americans”: The Latin
Americanization of Race Relations
in the United States 149
Eduardo Bonilla-Silva and Karen S. Glover

PART III THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS IN THE

CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

Chapter 7 Race, Gender, and Unequal Citizenship in

the United States 187
Evelyn Nakano Glenn
Chapter 8 Toward an Integrated Theory of Systemic Racism 203
Joe R. Feagin
Chapter 9 The Political and Theoretical Contexts of the
Changing Racial Terrain 224
Manning Marable
Chapter 10 Racial Exploitation and the Wages of Whiteness 235
Charles W. Mills

Index 263
 CONTRIBUTORS


MARIA KRYSAN is associate professor of sociology at the University of Illinois

at Chicago and fellow at its Institute for Research on Race and Public
Policy.

AMANDA E. LEWIS is associate professor of sociology and African American

studies and fellow at the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy at
the University of Illinois at Chicago.

LAWRENCE D. BOBO is Martin Luther King Jr. Centennial Professor of

Sociology and director of the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and
Ethnicity and Program in African and African American Studies at Stanford
University.

EDUARDO BONILLA-SILVA is research professor of sociology at Duke University.

SHARON M. COLLINS is associate professor of sociology at the University of

Illinois at Chicago.

KORIE EDWARDS is assistant professor of sociology at The Ohio State

University.

REYNOLDS FARLEY is senior research scientist at the Population Studies

Center of the University of Michigan.

JOE R. FEAGIN is the Ella C. McFadden Professor of Liberal Arts at Texas

A&M University.
X CONTRIBUTORS

TYRONE A. FORMAN is associate professor of sociology and African American

studies, faculty fellow at the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy,
and faculty affiliate at the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the
University of Illinois at Chicago.

EVELYN NAKANO GLENN is professor of women’s studies and ethnic studies

and founding director of the Center for Race and Gender at the University
of California at Berkeley.

KAREN S. GLOVER is a doctoral student in sociology at Texas A&M

University.

NAKISHA HARRIS is a graduate student in sociology at the University of

Illinois at Chicago.

MANNING MARABLE is professor of public affairs, political science, and

history at Columbia University, director of Columbia’s Center for
Contemporary Black History, and founding director of the Institute for
Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University.

CHARLES W. MILLS is professor of philosophy at the University of Illinois at

Chicago.

GEOFF WARD is assistant professor in the College of Criminal Justice at

Northeastern University and faculty fellow at its Institute on Race and
Justice.
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


THIS BOOK EMERGES from a set of conversations that began in the fall of 2000
with colleagues at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). During these
conversations, we discussed and debated what were the most pressing ques-
tions facing those trying to understand present day race relations and racial
inequality. That group, initially convened by Bill Bridges and Phillip
Bowman, and including ourselves, Maria Krysan and Amanda Lewis, along
with Sharon Collins, Tyrone Forman, Cedric Herring, and Steve Warner,
eventually transformed into a planning committee for a conference—“The
Changing Terrain of Race and Ethnicity: Theory, Methods, and Public
Policy.” This conference ultimately brought together nearly three hundred
fifty scholars from around the country for two days of lively and thought-
provoking discussions. We need to begin by thanking all those involved in
planning and carrying out that conference, which includes the aforemen-
tioned steering committee, the many participants, and those who provided
financial and institutional support.
In addition to those on the steering committee, all of whom worked hard
to plan and organize the event as well as participate as panelists or presiders, a
number of other UIC colleagues contributed considerable time and scholar-
ship to the conference. They include Richard Barrett, Bill Bridges, Constance
Dallas, Leon Fink, Nilda Flores-Gonzalez, Rachel Gordon, Elena Gutierrez,
Darnell Hawkins, Valerie Johnson, Jack Knott, Dwight McBride, Charles
Mills, Suzanne Oboler, Tony Orum, Alice Palmer, David Perry, Pam Popielarz,
Barbara Ransby, Beth Richie, Andrew Rojecki, Laurie Schaffner, and David
Stovall. A number of other colleagues traveled to the conference to participate
as panelists and plenary speakers, including Lawrence Bobo, Eduardo Bonilla-
Silva, Bernardine Dohrn, Michael Emerson, Reynolds Farley, Joe Feagin,
Philip Garcia, Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Greg Jao, Manning Marable, Omar
XII ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

McRoberts, Aldon Morris, Robert L. Nelson, Mary Pattillo, Adolph Reed,

Dorothy Roberts, Ellen Scott, Arlene Sanchez Walsh, and Geoffrey Ward. A
number of staff and students provided critical administrative support, includ-
ing Gary Miller, Jane Whitener, Natalie Henry, and Olga Padilla. We are very
grateful to the contingent of UIC sociology graduate students who helped en-
sure that the conference proceeded smoothly. Finally, thanks to the efforts of
Cedric Herring, the video of the proceedings of this conference can be viewed
at http://www.uic.edu/depts/soci/.
We need to offer special thanks to two people without whom the confer-
ence would never have happened. First, Nakisha Harris, who, as a first year
graduate student, worked tirelessly and contributed her extensive knowledge
about the inner workings of UIC to make the conference happen and hap-
pen smoothly. She is a terrific young sociologist from whom we expect great
things in the future. Second, Phillip Bowman, director of UIC’s Institute for
Research on Race and Public Policy (IRRPP) contributed his vision, energy,
and the Institute’s resources to bring the conference to reality. He also sup-
ported both of us at key moments with fellow positions to give us additional
time to work on the conference and this volume. As he has for hundreds of
other scholars in the academy, Phil has been an amazing mentor and sup-
porter to us both.
The administration at UIC also generously supported the conference
financially, and both Chancellor Sylvia Manning and Dean Stanley Fish of-
fered opening remarks. In addition to IRRPP, the Departments of Sociology
and African American Studies, the Institute for Government and Public Affairs,
Great Cities Institute, and College of Liberal Arts and Sciences provided inter-
nal financial and administrative support. Early seed money was provided by the
American Sociological Association’s Fund for the Advancement of the
Discipline, and a generous grant from the Russell Sage Foundation (RSF) pro-
vided the key resources for both the conference and the edited volume. We are
especially grateful to Eric Wanner and his staff for their support and would
like to offer a special thanks to Stephanie Platz who early on shared our vision
of what the conference could be, and Suzanne Nichols who pushed us to make
this book happen.
It took some time to convert a diverse and compelling collection of talks
into a coherent volume, and we received a great deal of help along the way.
Thanks to graduate students Nakisha Harris and Vickey Velazquez for their
willingness to help us with both the intellectual and mundane tasks involved.
Thanks also to the anonymous reviewers for their insightful feedback, and es-
pecially to those at the Russell Sage Foundation who have been working with
us on the volume, including Suzanne Nichols, David Haproff, Cindy Buck,
and Genna Patacsil.
Finally, we would like to offer a brief but very heartfelt thanks to our
friends and family who continue to support us despite the strange hours that
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS XIII

academic life sometimes requires and the mood swings it occasionally gen-
erates. Without them, our work would not be possible—nor would it be as
rewarding or enjoyable. These include many friends (especially our game
night comrades, Sharon and Ellen); our parents, Robert and Barbara Lewis
and Jim and Carole Krysan; our siblings and nieces and nephews, Josh, Lisa,
Becky, Chris, Charlie, Joey, Patrick, Bernadette, Damian, Sharon, Sarah and
Mark; and our partners, Max and Tyrone. Collectively they keep us honest,
grounded, and sane.
 1
INTRODUCTION: ASSESSING CHANGES IN
THE MEANING AND SIGNIFICANCE OF
RACE AND ETHNICITY


Amanda E. Lewis, Maria Krysan,

and Nakisha Harris

THE MEANING AND significance of race and ethnicity in the United States have
been of enduring interest inside and outside the halls of academia. Early social
scientific work focused on such concerns as dismantling notions of biological
determinism, identifying the deleterious consequences of legal segregation and
blatant racial prejudice for individuals, communities, and nations, and under-
standing the demographic patterns associated with the migration of African
Americans from the South to the North (McKee 1993).
As we begin the twenty-first century, it is difficult to survey the landscape of
race and ethnicity—both the research and the reality—without recognizing that
its meaning and significance have fundamentally shifted. These shifts include
changes in the demographics of the nation, in the meaning and boundaries of
racial categories, and in how race and racism operate in the social world. Although
the vestiges of earlier patterns and systems undoubtedly persist, we are now con-
fronted with more subtle and complex causes and consequences associated with
racial stratification, discrimination, and prejudice. This becomes apparent in the
diverse areas where researchers direct their attention: some examine the patterns
and causes of racial inequality across a range of social institutions, while others
focus on how people perceive and understand racial and ethnic groups, while still
others seek to understand race and ethnicity as a feature of identity and group for-
mation. And these discussions are being shaped by and are reflective of a neces-
sary shift from the “black-white” model that characterizes most earlier work to
what is better described as a “prism” (Zubrinsky and Bobo 1996) in light of the
increasing immigration from Asia and from Central and South America.
2 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

Spanning virtually all domains of interest to scholars who focus on race and
ethnicity are the common themes of transition and change. Those studying
racial attitudes have observed a shift from the blatant “Jim Crow” racism of the
past to more subtle forms (see, for example, Bobo, Kluegel, and Smith 1997;
Bonilla-Silva and Forman 2000; Forman 2001; Kinder and Sanders 1996;
Sears 1988). Scholars who focus on structural and behavioral patterns and their
manifestations in social institutions point to new forms of racial segmentation
in the workplace (Anderson 1999; Collins 1989, 1993, 1997a, 1997b), new
kinds of statistical and indirect discrimination, unconscious stereotyping
(Forman, Williams, and Jackson 1997; Neckerman and Kirschenman 1991;
Reskin 2000), and more subtle employment and housing discrimination prac-
tices (Forman and Harris 1995; Myers 1993; Turner, Fix, and Struyk 1991;
Yinger 1995).
The boundaries of race and ethnicity themselves and the very terrain upon
which racial struggles take place are also changing. Witness the social scientific
and political struggles associated with the U.S. government’s attempts to assess
racial identity in the 2000 decennial census, including the political and social
struggles around the creation of multiracial categories and Arab American and
Hawaiian attempts to be reclassified into different categories (Wright 1994).
Not surprisingly, all of these changes have shifted the policy landscape, as
controversies about racial profiling, zero-tolerance school policies, discrimina-
tion lawsuits, immigration policy, and anti–affirmative action referenda read-
ily attest. It is essential for scholars not only to track these changes that have
taken place in the real world but also to understand what is happening now and
where we are headed (McKee 1993; Steinberg 1995).
In October 2001, a national conference convened at the University of
Illinois at Chicago brought together prominent scholars to engage these issues
directly. The conference, The Changing Terrain of Race and Ethnicity, as-
sembled researchers who individually approach these issues from different
angles but collectively push the boundaries of research on race and ethnicity.
This volume grew out of that conference. As suggested by its title, the com-
mon thread across all of the chapters is an attempt to grapple with and push
forward scholarship on race and ethnicity in this changing context. In part I
(chapters 2 through 4), this takes the form of figuring out how to understand,
measure, and interpret phenomena that have in many cases become more sub-
tle and slippery. Chapters 2 and 3 focus on changes in racial attitudes, racial
ideology, and racial politics, while chapter 4 reviews how race and ethnicity
operate across a range of other social institutions. The two chapters in part II
are the most explicit on the implications of the increasingly multiracial and
multiethnic population of the United States. Both of these chapters call into
question the very categories that are used to describe race and the boundaries
that shape racial and ethnic identity. The four chapters in part III take a broader
perspective and tackle the theoretical implications of contemporary racial and
 INTRODUCTION 3

ethnic patterns and transformations. Taken together, they provide a road map
for conceptualizing future research on race and ethnicity.

PART I: THE CHANGING MANIFESTATIONS OF

RACE IN ATTITUDES AND INSTITUTIONS
When racial attitudes were first measured in the 1940s, researchers focused on
the important questions of the time: Do whites believe segregation should con-
tinue? Do whites believe blacks are innately inferior? At the time, explicitly—
and often legally—sanctioned practices of exclusion restricted the opportunities
of racial and ethnic minorities across a range of social institutions. These served
to maintain strict patterns of segregation and ensured unfair and discrimina-
tory treatment toward people of color. Researchers at the time were intent on
measuring levels of support for or dissent from such policies and practices. By
the beginning of the twenty-first century, many of the laws and statutes that
created de jure segregation had been overturned and few Americans endorsed
the blatant prejudices of the 1940s. Despite this seeming progress toward racial
equality, racial attitude surveys and investigations of social institutions still
highlight the continuing significance of race and the continuing presence of
negative racial attitudes. For example, despite evidence of persistent discrimi-
nation across a number of different social arenas, the majority of whites believe
that racial discrimination has ceased to be a problem and that racial inequality
comes from a lack of motivation among nonwhites. In addition, though many
whites support basic principles of racial equality, their support for race-targeted
policies that would facilitate progress toward racial equality is much weaker
(Herring and Amissah 1997; Schuman et al. 1997; Steeh and Krysan 1996;
Williams et al. 1999).
Several new theoretical perspectives seek to explain these divergent patterns
within racial attitudes, challenging our existing conceptions of racial attitudes and
responding to changes in U.S. racial norms over the past half-century. Both
Lawrence Bobo (chapter 2) and Tyrone Forman (chapter 3) argue, in essence,
that the decrease in traditional prejudice does not mean that racial prejudice has
disappeared. Rather, its form and expression have changed. Both of these chap-
ters offer theories that challenge traditional notions of racial prejudice, offer a
framework for understanding contemporary forms of prejudice, and draw atten-
tion to important methodological (Forman) and real-world implications (Bobo).
Bobo argues that we must attend to three key points if we are to understand
race and attitudes in the contemporary United States. The first is a recognition
of the crystallization of a new type of racism—laissez-faire racism. This form of
racism operates in less formal structures than Jim Crow racism, but it repro-
duces, sustains, and rationalizes black-white inequality in much the same way
that the Jim Crow laws of the twentieth century did. Second, race and racism
remain powerful levers in American national politics, both in terms of their role
4 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

in campaigns and in their impact on the likely success of a candidate depend-

ing on his or her racial background. In short, race and politics are deeply inter-
twined. Bobo then shines the spotlight on academia itself, arguing that scholars
on both the left and the right have contributed to the problem of “race” by fail-
ing to come to grips—both theoretically and methodologically—with the con-
ditions of embedded white privilege and the importance of black agency.
While Bobo takes on politics and the academy, Forman’s perspective is so-
cial psychological. He begins with a discussion of color-blind racism. Intended
to capture the pattern of many whites expressing their racial views in non-racial
language, the term “color-blind racism” describes popular color-blind claims
that are not accompanied by the alleviation of persisting racial inequality.
Public officials, politicians, and average citizens often draw on the language of
the civil rights movement when they declare that they no longer see color and
simultaneously declare that discrimination is all but gone in the world at large.
This claim allows them to regard themselves as not prejudiced, even as they en-
dorse the currently unequal status quo. Forman uses color-blind racism as a the-
oretical lens but develops a new construct, racial apathy, which he argues is an
especially good way to capture one manifestation of racial prejudice in the
post–civil rights era. Racial apathy refers to indifference toward societal racial
and ethnic inequality and a lack of engagement with race-related social issues.
Drawing on survey-based data, Forman shows the increase in whites’ in-
difference about racial matters generally and argues that those interested in
understanding contemporary racial attitudes must grapple with whites’ pas-
sive support for the racially unequal status quo. Labeling whites’ indifference
“racial apathy,” he argues that by ignoring the social reality of race in a racial-
ized social system, whites and others sustain a system of inequality that restricts
opportunities for many racial and ethnic minorities.
In chapter 4, Amanda Lewis, Maria Krysan, Sharon Collins, Korie Edwards,
and Geoffrey Ward shift the focus away from attitudes and ideology specifically
and examine how race is shaping social institutions. In particular, they empha-
size the impact of race on opportunities and outcomes in these social institu-
tions, changes in the mechanisms by which race operates in them, and what the
future holds. They consider five key social institutions: housing, education,
labor markets, criminal justice, and religion. Throughout the discussion of each
of these institutions, we see the impact of the changing demographics of the
United States and the increasingly subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) ways
in which race and ethnicity are played out in contemporary American society.

PART II: CHANGES IN RACIAL CATEGORIES

AND BOUNDARIES
Whereas chapter 4 highlights how the growing presence of racial and ethnic
minorities is reshaping various institutions, both chapters in part II explore the
 INTRODUCTION 5

shifts in the very definitions of existing racial categories and their boundaries—
in both official racial designations and in the larger understanding of the racial
system in the United States. Population dynamics over the past generation—
including but not limited to immigration and intermarriage—have pro-
foundly affected the racial topography of the United States. Whereas a generation
ago racial boundaries in the United States were largely drawn along a dichot-
omized “black-white” axis—where “black” was understood fundamentally
as “not white”—today the rapidly growing presence of Latino or Hispanic and
Asian immigrants and the resurgence of Native American identification have
greatly complicated cultural and official racial mapping. It is now possible for
Americans to identify themselves—and indeed, to be classified by some offi-
cial entities—as neither white nor black. Official boundaries and categoriza-
tions are being contested almost continuously now: some groups argue to be
shifted from one category to another (for example, Native Hawaiians want to
be included with “Native American” rather than “Asian or Pacific Islander”),
and some argue for more options (for example, multiracial categories).
Some Latinos or Hispanics—whom the U.S. census classifies in a separate
“ethnicity” item but not as a “racial” group—have pushed for a racial classifi-
cation that would uniquely identify them.
In chapter 5, Reynolds Farley uses the history of collecting racial data in the
United States and the official racial designations as a vantage point from which
to view the changes in racial identity and categorization. The complexity of
racial and ethnic identity is highlighted by the social movement, which he de-
scribes in detail, that led to the most recent substantial change in how the cen-
sus collects racial data: the multiracial movement of the 1990s. These efforts
resulted in a new race question for the 2000 census that allowed people to in-
dicate that they identified with more than one racial group. Farley connects
this discussion of racial categorization in federal statistics to the larger context
of race and ethnicity when he notes that the earliest racial data were collected
to help maintain segregation and to disadvantage minorities, but that after the
1960s the data were used to help overcome traditional segregation practices.
The move in the 1990s to permit Americans to identify themselves as multi-
racial represents a major shift in the collection of racial data that complicates
the collection and analysis of data but also has the potential to shape how we
as a society think about race. Farley then conducts a demographic analysis that
answers the question: who marked all categories that applied? Based on these
findings, Farley argues that while the multiracial movement has been success-
ful in changing the way the government collects racial data, it is not clear that
it has shifted how people think about race or how racial data are actually used.
But this substantial change in how government agencies gather data on dif-
ferent racial groups may have significant consequences for the ability to under-
stand, define, and characterize the experiences of different racial and ethnic
groups in the United States.
6 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

Moving away from statistical agencies and self-reports of racial identity,

Eduardo Bonilla-Silva and Karen Glover focus in chapter 6 on the larger racial
stratification system. They ask critical questions about how Latino and Asian
immigration challenge the centuries-old understanding of race in the United
States and argue that the racial system in America is moving from a biracial to
a more complex triracial system because of demographic changes, specifically
the fact that most new immigrants are people of color. Bonilla-Silva and
Glover argue that the triracial system will place “whites” (Euro-Americans,
new whites, assimilated Latinos) at the top, “honorary whites” (white middle-
class Latinos, Japanese Americans, Korean Americans, Asian Indians, Arab
Americans) in the middle, and “collective blacks” (Filipinos, Vietnamese, dark-
skinned poor Latinos, blacks, African immigrants, and reservation-bound Native
Americans) at the bottom. America is headed in this direction, they suggest, be-
cause (1) an intermediate group is needed to buffer racial conflict; (2) with
some newcomers labeled white, whites will retain their majority status; and
(3) if most new immigrants are labeled “black,” they will be unable to enjoy
the full benefits of American citizenship.

PART III: THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS IN THE

CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY
Spanning several academic disciplines, the authors of the four chapters in
part III highlight three key issues—citizenship, structural racism, and white
privilege—that are only briefly referenced in the earlier chapters in the volume.
Each chapter offers a general theoretical perspective on race and ethnicity by
identifying concepts and ideas that are important in the new landscape of race
and ethnicity but are, as yet, underdeveloped or underacknowledged.
In chapter 7, Evelyn Nakano Glenn argues that we can understand how
race relations have been constituted and contested in the United States by
examining citizenship rights, defined broadly. In our exploration of these is-
sues, she maintains, we cannot speak simply of race and ethnicity but must
pay attention to the way race and ethnicity are gendered phenomenon that
have quite different impacts on different race and gender groups. Glenn’s
central thesis is that citizenship has been used to draw boundaries between
those included as members of the community (often defined along race and
gender lines) and therefore entitled to respect, protection, and rights and
those who are excluded and thus denied recognition and rights. Key to her
argument is the idea that ultimately it is subtle everyday practices that re-
inforce exclusion more than the formal structures that have been put in place
to delineate citizenship. She calls for a more sociological conception of citi-
zenship as a product of both rhetorical and material practices, the latter in-
cluding the everyday interactions that enforce and contest the boundaries of
community.
 INTRODUCTION 7

The remaining three chapters in part III emphasize two key concepts that
are in need of additional theoretical and empirical attention—the structural
components of racism and white privilege. Joe R. Feagin and Manning
Marable draw attention to the often-neglected material conditions that help
to shape—and are shaped by—racism. Charles Mills argues that to fully under-
stand racism in the United States, not only must we examine the manifestations
and nuances of the oppression of people of color and the experiences of the
subordinate groups, but we must turn this question on its head and give equal
attention to the nuances and manifestations of white privilege.
In chapter 8, Feagin argues that past theorizing about racial and ethnic mat-
ters in the United States has placed too much emphasis on the ideological
construction of racial meanings. He argues that racism is not just about the
construction of images and identities but is centrally about the creation, de-
velopment, and maintenance of white privilege and power. As such, theoriz-
ing about race must account for the material, social, educational, and political
dimensions of racism. In developing his ideas, Feagin introduces several key
concepts: systemic racism, exploitation, unjust enrichment and impoverish-
ment, the social reproduction of enrichment and impoverishment, rationaliz-
ing oppression in racist ideology, and resistance to racism.
Focusing on a similar set of ideas but taking a slightly different approach,
Manning Marable argues in chapter 9 that the central problem of the next cen-
tury will be the problem of “structural racism,” which he defines as the deeply
entrenched patterns of inequality that are coded by race and justified by racist
stereotypes in both public and private discourse. He uses the vast disparities
in material resources and property between racial groups as evidence of struc-
tural racism. Marable attributes the existence of structural racism to the cu-
mulative effects of four hundred years of white privilege. He develops this
concept, reviews how African Americans have responded to the evolving do-
mains of structural racism, and then suggests what can be done to challenge
it. Among these suggestions are developing a richer theoretical and historically
grounded understanding of diversity, establishing resistance organizations,
and engaging issues related to the intersection of race, gender, sexuality, and
class. Finally, Marable emphasizes the need to understand the global context
of racism so that we can understand what is happening in the United States
and gain perspective on how the U.S. system influences—and is influenced
by—other systems around the world.
The themes of material conditions and white privilege emerge once again
in chapter 10, where Charles Mills takes on what he labels “liberal” tenden-
cies in both philosophy and other disciplines. Specifically, mainstream so-
cial and political theorizing about race has constructed racism as an anomaly.
But this is an inappropriate characterization, Mills argues. Rather, we need a the-
ory of race that properly captures the systemic and material components of
racism—a subject on which mainstream American disciplines have heretofore
8 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

remained silent. To do this successfully, a conceptual framework that is better

formed and historically contextualized is necessary. Among other tasks, analysts
must retrieve and build on the concept of white supremacy and develop an
understanding of specifically racial forms of exploitation.
The ten chapters of this volume lay out a set of pressing challenges for those
studying racial dynamics in the United States in the years to come. All of the
authors are concerned with persisting racial inequalities and the social dy-
namics that are either exacerbating or mitigating these patterns. The research
agenda that emerges reminds us to remain attentive to changes in social orga-
nization and social processes (to recognize, for instance, when innovation in
methodological strategies is required) while also being cognizant of the social
and historical contexts within which such changes are taking place. Without
such contextual awareness, analyses can provide only attenuated understand-
ings of social problems. All of these authors also remind us to recognize the
interplay between racial ideologies, attitudes and understandings, and real life
outcomes.
Although much of the volume is focused on racial dynamics in the United
States, we recognize that there is much to be learned by expanding our com-
parisons to other nations. This is evidenced not only in Marable’s reminder
that globalization is as much a racial phenomenon as a class one but also in
Bonilla-Silva and Glover’s characterization of race in the United States as
Latin Americanized. Still, racial dynamics vary considerably across different
national racial landscapes (to the extent that they are still bound by national
borders), and the United States presents us with abundant challenges to address
and understand.
One of the key messages of this volume to all of us (policymakers, scholars,
and citizens) is that racial dynamics continue to change but change does not
always mean progress toward greater racial equality. In fact, some of the
contributors—among whom are scholars who have been studying these issues
for upward of three decades—express pessimism about what the immediate
future holds. Whether our overall trajectory is good or bad—or perhaps more
accurately, whether it reflects progress on some fronts and retrenchment on
others—the point to stress is that if we are to assess the situation with accu-
racy, we must be attentive to shifting demographics and meanings.
The chapters that follow remind us that in everything from our research
designs to our public policy recommendations we must be attentive to how
racism is manifested structurally; to the intersections of race with other as-
criptive categories (such as gender); to new and often subtle expressions of
racial antipathy; to the role of whites as racial actors and the role of white priv-
ilege in shaping life outcomes; to the importance of indifference or apathy as
an affective dimension of prejudice; and to the powerful effects of these issues
on people’s everyday lives. We hope that this volume inspires new research and
reinvigorates existing efforts.
 INTRODUCTION 9

REFERENCES
Anderson, Elijah. 1999. “The Social Situation of the Black Executive.” In The
Cultural Territories of Race, edited by Michele Lamont. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press.
Bobo, Lawrence, James Kluegel, and Ryan Smith. 1997. “Laissez-Faire Racism:
The Crystallization of a Kinder, Gentler, Antiblack Ideology.” In Racial
Attitudes in the 1990s: Continuity and Change, edited by Steven A. Tuch and
Jack Martin. Westport, Conn.: Praeger.
Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo, and Tyrone Forman. 2000. “ ‘I’m Not a Racist, but
. . .’: Mapping White College Students’ Racial Ideology in the USA.” Dis-
course and Society 11(1): 50–85.
Collins, Sharon M. 1989. “The Marginalization of Black Executives.” Social
Problems 36(4): 317–31.
———. 1993. “Blacks on the Bubble: The Vulnerability of Black Executives
in White Corporations.” Sociological Quarterly 34(3): 429– 47.
———. 1997a. “Black Mobility in White Corporations: Up the Corporate
Ladder but Out on a Limb.” Social Problems 44(l): 55–67.
———. 1997b. Black Corporate Executives: The Making and Breaking of the
Black Middle Class. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Forman, Tyrone. 2001. “The Social Determinants of White Youths’ Racial
Attitudes.” Sociological Studies of Children and Youth 8: 173–207.
Forman, Tyrone, and Kirk Harris. 1995. “Color-conscious or Color-blind?
Employers’ Hiring Decisions in Contemporary Urban Labor Markets.”
Paper presented to the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Social
Problems. Washington (August 18–20).
Forman, Tyrone, David R. Williams, and James S. Jackson. 1997. “Race,
Place, and Discrimination.” Perspectives on Social Problems 9: 231–61.
Herring, Cedric, and Charles Amissah. 1997. “Advance and Retreat: Racially
Based Attitudes and Public Policy.” In Race and Public Policy, edited by
Steven Tuch. New York: Praeger.
Kinder, Donald, and Lynn Sanders. 1996. Divided by Color: Racial Politics
and Democratic Ideals. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
McKee, James B. 1993. Sociology and the Race Problem: The Failure of a
Perspective. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Myers, Samuel L. 1993. “Measuring and Detecting Discrimination in the
Post–Civil Rights Era.” In Race and Ethnicity in Research Methods, edited by
John H. Stanfield II and Rutledge M. Dennis. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage.
Neckerman, Kathryn, and Joleen Kirschenman. 1991. “Hiring Strategies,
Racial Bias, and Inner-City Workers.” Social Problems 38(4): 801–15.
Reskin, Barbara. 2000. “Re-theorizing Employment Discrimination.”
Invited lecture, Department of Sociology, University of Illinois at Chicago
(October 30).
10 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

Schuman, Howard, Charlotte Steeh, Lawrence Bobo, and Maria Krysan. 1997.
Racial Attitudes in America: Trends and Interpretations, 2nd ed. Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Sears, David O. 1988. “Symbolic Racism.” In Eliminating Racism: Profiles in
Controversy, edited by Phyllis A. Katz and Dalmas A. Taylor. New York:
Plenum Press.
Steeh, Charlotte, and Maria Krysan. 1996. “Trends: Affirmative Action and
the Public, 1970–1995.” Public Opinion Quarterly 60: 128–58.
Steinberg, Stephen. 1995. Turning Back: The Retreat from Racial Justice in
American Thought and Policy. Boston: Beacon.
Turner, Margery Austin, Michael Fix, and Raymond J. Struyk. 1991. Oppor-
tunities Denied, Opportunities Diminished: Racial Discrimination in Hiring.
Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute.
Williams, David R., James Jackson, Tony Brown, Myriam Torres, Tyrone
Forman, and Kendrick Brown. 1999. “Traditional and Contemporary
Prejudice and Urban Whites’ Support for Affirmative Action and
Government Help.” Social Problems 46(4): 503–27.
Wright, Lawrence 1994. “One Drop of Blood.” The New Yorker, July 25, 46–55.
Yinger, John. 1995. Closed Doors, Opportunities Lost: The Continuing Costs of
Housing Discrimination. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Zubrinsky, Camille, and Lawrence Bobo. 1996. “Prismatic Metropolis: Race
and Residential Segregation in the City of Angels.” Social Science Research
25: 335–74.
 PART I


THE CHANGING MANIFESTATIONS OF

RACE IN ATTITUDES AND INSTITUTIONS
 2
INEQUALITIES THAT ENDURE?
RACIAL IDEOLOGY,AMERICAN POLITICS, AND THE
PECULIAR ROLE OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES


Lawrence D. Bobo

AS PART OF research on the intersection of poverty, crime, and race, I con-

ducted two focus groups in a major eastern city in early September 2001, just
prior to the tragic events of September 11. The dynamics of the two groups,
one with nine white participants and another with nine black participants,
drove home for me very powerfully just how deep but also just how sophis-
ticated, elusive, and enduring a race problem the United States still con-
fronts. An example from each group begins to make the point that the very
nature of this problem and our vocabularies for discussing it have grown
very slippery, very difficult to grasp, and therefore extremely difficult to name
and to fight.
First let’s consider the white focus group. In response to the moderator’s early
question, “What’s the biggest problem facing your community?” a young
working-class white male eagerly and immediately chimed in, “Section 8 hous-
ing.” “It’s a terrible system,” he said. The racial implications hung heavy in the
room until a middle-aged white bartender tried to leaven things a bit by saying:

All right. If you have people of a very low economic group who have a low stan-
dard of living who cannot properly feed and clothe their children, whose speech
patterns are not as good as ours [and] are [therefore] looked down upon as a low
class. Where I live most of those people happen to be black. So it’s generally per-
ceived that blacks are inferior to whites for that reason.

The bartender went on to explain: “It’s not that way at all. It’s a class issue,
which in many ways is economically driven. From my perspective, it’s not a
14 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

racial issue at all. I’m a bartender. I’ll serve anybody if they’re a class [act].” At
this, the group erupted in laughter, but the young working-class male was not
finished. He asserted, a bit more vigorously:

Why should somebody get to live in my neighborhood that hasn’t earned that
right? I’d like to live [in a more affluent area], but I can’t afford to live there so
I don’t. . . . So why should somebody get put in there by the government that
didn’t earn that right?

And then the underlying hostility and stereotyping came out more directly
when he said: “And most of the people on that program are trashy, and they
don’t know how to behave in a working neighborhood. It’s not fair. I call it
unfair housing laws.”
Toward the end of the session, when discussing why the jails are so dis-
proportionately filled with blacks and Hispanics, this same young man said:
“Blacks and Hispanics are more violent than white people. I think they are
more likely to shoot somebody over a fender bender than a couple of white guys
are. They have shorter fuses, and they are more emotional than white people.”
In fairness, some members of the white group criticized antiblack prejudice.
Some members of the group tried to point out misdeeds done by whites as
well. But even the most liberal of the white participants never pushed the
point, rarely moved beyond abstract observations or declarations against prej-
udice, and sometimes validated the racial stereotypes more overtly embraced
by others. In an era when everyone supposedly knows what to say and what
not to say and is artful about avoiding overt bigotry, this group discussion still
quickly turned to racial topics and quickly elicited unabashed negative stereo-
typing and antiblack hostility.1
When asked the same question about the “biggest problem facing your
community,” the black group almost in unison said, “Crime and drugs,” and
a few voices chimed in, “Racism.”2 One middle-aged black woman reported:
“I was thinking more so on the lines of myself because my house was burglar-
ized three times. Twice while I was at work and one time when I returned from
church, I caught the person in there.”
The racial thread to her story became clearer when she later explained ex-
actly what happened in terms of general police behavior in her community:

The first two robberies that I had, the elderly couple that lived next door to me,
they called the police. I was at work when the first two robberies occurred. They
called the police two or three times. The police never even showed up. When
I came in from work, I had to go . . . file a police report. My neighbors went
with me, and they had called the police several times and they never came. Now,
on that Sunday when I returned from church and caught him in my house, and
 INEQUALITIES THAT ENDURE? 15

the guy that I caught in my house lives around the corner, he has a case history,
he has been in trouble since doomsday. When I told [the police] I had knocked
him unconscious, oh yeah, they were there in a hurry. Guns drawn. And I didn’t
have a weapon except for the baseball bat, [and] I wound up face down on my
living room floor, and they placed handcuffs on me.

The moderator, incredulous, asked: “Well, excuse me, but they locked you
and him up?” “They locked me up and took him to the hospital.”
Indeed, the situation was so dire, the woman explained, that had a black
police officer who lived in the neighborhood not shown up to help after the
patrol car arrived with sirens blaring, she felt certain the two white police of-
ficers who arrived, guns drawn, would probably have shot her. As it was, she
was arrested for assault, spent two days in jail, and now has a lawsuit pending
against the city. Somehow I doubt that a single, middle-aged, churchgoing
white woman in an all-white neighborhood who had called the police to re-
port that she apprehended a burglar in her home would end up handcuffed,
arrested, and in jail alongside the burglar. At least, I am not uncomfortable as-
suming that the police would not have entered a home in a white community
with the same degree of apprehension, fear, preparedness for violence, and ul-
timate disregard for a law-abiding citizen as they did in this case. But it can
happen in black communities in America today.3
To say that the problem of race endures, however, is not to say that it re-
mains fundamentally the same and essentially unchanged. I share the view ar-
ticulated by historians such as Barbara Fields (1982) and Thomas Holt (2000)
that race is both socially constructed and historically contingent.4 As such, it
is not enough to declare that race matters or that racism endures. The much
more demanding challenge is to account for how and why such a social construc-
tion comes to be reconstituted, refreshed, and enacted anew in very different times
and places. How is it that in 2001 we can find a working-class white man who
is convinced that many blacks are “trashy people” controlled by emotions and
clearly more susceptible to violence? How is it that a black woman defending
herself and her home against a burglar ends up apprehended as if she were one
of the “usual suspects”? Or cast more broadly, how do we have a milestone like
the Brown decision and pass a Civil Rights Act, a Voting Rights Act, a Fair
Housing Act, and numerous acts of enforcement and amendments to all of
these, including the pursuit of affirmative action policies, and yet still continue
to face a significant racial divide in America?
The answer I sketch here is but a partial one, focusing on three key obser-
vations. First, as I have argued elsewhere and elaborate in important ways here,
I believe that we are witnessing the crystallization of a new racial ideology
here in the United States. This ideology I refer to as laissez-faire racism. We
once confronted a slave labor economy with its inchoate ideology of racism
16 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

and then watched it evolve in response to war and other social, economic, and
cultural trends into an explicit Jim Crow racism of the de jure segregation era.
We have more recently seen the biological and openly segregationist thrust
of twentieth-century Jim Crow racism change into the more cultural, free-
market, and ostensibly color-blind thrust of laissez-faire racism in the new mil-
lennium. But make no mistake—the current social structure and attendant
ideology reproduce, sustain, and rationalize enormous black-white inequality
(Bobo and Kluegel 1997).
Second, race and racism remain powerful levers in American national pol-
itics. These levers can animate the electorate, constrain and shape political dis-
course and campaigns, and help direct the fate of major social policies. From
the persistently contested efforts at affirmative action through a historic ex-
pansion of the penal system and the recent dismantling of “welfare as we know
it,” the racial divide has often decisively prefigured and channeled core features
of our domestic politics (Bobo 2000).
Third, social science has played a peculiar role in the problem of race. And
here I wish to identify an intellectual and scholarly failure to come to grips
with the interrelated phenomena of white privilege and black agency. This fail-
ure may present itself differently depending on the ideological leanings of
scholars. I critique one line of analysis on the left and one on the right. On the
left, the problem typically presents as a failure of sociological imagination. It
manifests itself in arguments that seek to reduce racialized social dynamics to
some ontologically more fundamental nonracialized factor. On the right, the
problem is typically the failure of explicit victim-blaming. It manifests itself in
a rejection of social structural roots or causation of racialized social conditions.
I want to suggest that both tactics—the left’s search for some structural force
more basic than race (such as class or skill levels or child-rearing practices) and
the right’s search for completely volitional factors (cultural or individual dis-
positions) as final causes of “race” differences—reflect a deep misunderstand-
ing of the dynamics of race and racism. Race is not just a set of categories, and
racism is not just a collection of individual-level anti–minority group attitudes.
Race and racism are more fundamentally about sets of intertwined power re-
lations, group interests and identities, and the ideas that justify and make sense
out of (or challenge and delegitimate) the organized racial ordering of society
(Dawson 2000). The latter analytic posture and theory of race in society is
embodied in the theory of laissez-faire racism.5

ON LAISSEZ-FAIRE RACISM
There are those who doubt that we should be talking about racism at all. The
journalist Jim Sleeper (1997) denounces continued talk of racism and racial
bias as mainly so much polarizing “liberal racism.” The political scientists Paul
Sniderman and Edward Carmines (1997) write of the small and diminishing
 INEQUALITIES THAT ENDURE? 17

effects of racism in white public opinion and call for us to “reach beyond race.”
And the linguist John McWhorter (2000) writes of a terrible “culture of
victimology” that afflicts the nation and ultimately works as a form of self-
sabotage among black Americans. Even less overtly ideological writers talk of
the growing victory of our Myrdalian “American Creed” over the legacy of
racism. Some prominent black intellectuals, such as the legal scholar Randall
Kennedy (1997), while not as insensitive to the evidence of real and persistent
inequality and discrimination, raise profound questions about race-based
claims on the polity.
These analysts, I believe, are wrong. They advance a mistaken and coun-
terproductive analysis of where we are today, how we got here, and the paths
that we as a nation might best follow in the future. In many respects, these
analysts are so patently wrong that it is easy to dismiss them.
Let’s be clear first on what I mean by “racism.” Attempts at definition
abound in the scholarly literature. William Julius Wilson (1973, 32) offers a
particularly cogent specification when he argues that racism is an “an ideology
of racial domination or exploitation that (1) incorporates belief in a particu-
lar race’s cultural and/or inherent biological inferiority and (2) uses such
beliefs to justify and prescribe inferior or unequal treatment for that group.”
I show here that there remains a profound tendency in the United States to
blame racial inequality on the group culture and active choices of African
Americans. This is abundantly clear in public opinion data (Kluegel and Smith
1986), and it is exemplified by more than a few intellectual tracts, including
McWhorter’s Losing the Race (2000). Closely attendant to this pattern is the
profound tendency to downplay, ignore, or minimize the contemporary po-
tency of racial discrimination (Kluegel 1990). Again, this tendency is clear in
public opinion and finds expression in the scholarly realm in the Thernstroms’
book America in Black and White (1997). These building blocks become part
of the foundation for rejecting social policy that is race-targeted and aims to
reduce or eliminate racial inequality. In effect, these attitudes facilitate and
rationalize continued African American disadvantage and subordinated status.
Our current circumstances, then, both as social structure and ideology, war-
rant description and analysis as a racist regime. Yet it is a different, less rigid,
more delimited, and more permeable regime as well.
Laissez-faire racism involves persistent negative stereotyping of African
Americans, a tendency to blame blacks themselves for the black-white gap in
socioeconomic status, and resistance to meaningful policy efforts to amelio-
rate U.S. racist social conditions and institutions. It represents a critical new
stage in American racism. As structures of racial oppression became less for-
mal, as the power resources available to black communities grew and were
effectively deployed, as other cultural trends paved the way for an assault on
notions of biologically ranked “races,” the stage was set for displacing Jim
Crow racism and erecting something different in its place.
18 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

I have taken up a more complete development of the historical argument

and the contemporary structural argument elsewhere (Bobo, Kluegel, and
Smith 1997; Bobo and Smith 1998).6 What is worth emphasizing here is, first,
the explicit social groundedness and historical foundation of our theoretical
logic—something that sets this theory of racial attitudes apart from notions
like symbolic racism. Although not directly inspired by his work, our theoret-
ical logic is a direct reflection of ideas articulated by the historian Thomas Holt
(2000, 21–22). As he explains: “Racial phenomena and their meaning do
change with time, with history, and with the conceptual and institutional
spaces that history unfolds. More specifically they are responsive to major shifts
in a political economy and to the cultural systems allied with that political
economy.”
The second point to emphasize here is that this is an argument about gen-
eral patterns of group relations and ideology—not merely about variation in
views among individuals from a single racial or ethnic category. As such, our
primary concern is with the central tendency of attitudes and beliefs within
and between racial groups and the social system as such, not within and be-
tween individuals. It is the collective dimensions of social experience that I
most intend to convey with the notion of laissez-faire racism—not a singular
attitude held to a greater or lesser degree by particular individuals. The intel-
lectual case for such a perspective has been most forcefully articulated by the
sociologist Mary R. Jackman (1994, 119). We should focus an analysis of at-
titudes and ideology on group-level comparisons, she writes, because doing so

draws attention to the structural conditions that encase an intergroup relation-

ship and it underscores the point that individual actors are not free agents but
caught in an aggregate relationship. Unless we assume that the individual is so-
cially atomized, her personal experiences constitute only one source of infor-
mation that is evaluated against the backdrop of her manifold observations of
the aggregated experiences (both historical and contemporaneous) of the group
as a whole.

The focus is thus more on the larger and enduring patterns and tendencies that
distinguish groups than on the individual sources of variation.
With this in mind, I want to focus on three pieces of data, the first of which
concerns the persistence of negative stereotypes of African Americans. Figure
2.1 reports data from a national Web-based survey I recently conducted using
eight of Paul Sniderman’s stereotype questions (four dealing with positive so-
cial traits and four dealing with negative social traits) (Sniderman and Piazza
1993).7 Several patterns stand out. It is easier for both blacks and whites to
endorse the positive traits when expressing views about the characteristics of
blacks than the negative traits. However, African Americans are always more
 INEQUALITIES THAT ENDURE? 19

FIGURE 2.1 STEREOTYPE ITEMS, BY RACE

Agreement with Positive Descriptions of Blacks

100
90 78 80
80
70 66
60
Percentage

60 48 50
50 45
40
40
30
20
10
0
Law-Abiding Good Hardworking Intelligent
Neighbors

Agreement with Negative Descriptions of Blacks

100
90
80
70
Percentage

60
50 41
40 33
30 24 21 24 24
20 13 10
10
0
Lazy Aggressive or Prefer to Complaining
Violent Live on Welfare
Whites Blacks

Source: Race, Crime, and Public Opinion Study (2001).

favorable and less negative in their views than whites. Some of the differences
are quite large. For instance, there is a thirty-percentage-point difference be-
tween white and black perceptions on the trait of intelligence and a thirty-three-
percentage-point difference on the “hardworking” trait.
A fuller sense of what these patterns mean for group differences can be seen
in figure 2.2. It provides a cumulative assessment of the positive and negative
ratings. Here we see that whites are more than twice as likely as blacks to have
attributed none of the positive traits to blacks and that blacks are essentially
twice as likely as whites to attribute all four positive traits to members of the
group. On the flip side, nearly two-thirds of blacks reject all of the negative
20 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

FIGURE 2.2 SUMMARY STEREOTYPE MEASURES, BY RACE

Agreement with a Specific Number of Positive Descriptions of Blacks

80
70
60 51
Percentage

50
40 34
30 26
20 14 15 17
12 11 13
10 7
0
Zero Traits One Trait Two Traits Three Traits Four Traits

Agreement with a Specific Number of Negative Descriptions of Blacks

80
70 64
60
Percentage

50 42
40
30 22 21
20 15
10 9 10
10 4 4
0
Zero Traits One Trait Two Traits Three Traits Four Traits
Whites Blacks

Source: Race, Crime, and Public Opinion Study (2001).

stereotypes of the group, in contrast to the 58 percent of whites who accept

at least one negative trait perception and the nearly one-third who accept
three or more.
Negative stereotypes of African Americans are common, though not uni-
form, and to a distressing degree they exist among both blacks and whites and
presumably influence perceptions and behaviors for both groups.8 How-
ever, there is a sharp difference in central tendency within each group, in pre-
dictable directions. One cannot escape the conclusion that most whites have
different and decidedly lesser views of the basic behavioral characteristics of
blacks than do blacks themselves. And that generally these patterns indicate
that African Americans remain a culturally dishonored and debased group in
the American psyche.
 INEQUALITIES THAT ENDURE? 21

Stereotypes as measured here are arguably more cognitive in nature and tell
us a bit less about racism as an active force than do more overt expressions of
social distance. We asked three questions about interracial relationships in a
1997 national telephone survey.9 The questions dealt with general approval of
black-white dating and marriage, and black-white marriages of family mem-
bers. To provide a strong assessment of the extent of non- or antiracist think-
ing, we present the data in three broad categories: we distinguished those who
gave the highest “strongly approve” response across all three items from those
who gave the consistent overtly racist response of “strongly disapprove” and
treated everyone else as in the middle. As figure 2.3 shows, large fractions of
whites and blacks end up in the middle category under this scheme. Perhaps
not too surprising is the higher percentage of African Americans in the con-
sistently “strongly approve” category (48 percent versus 31 percent).
It is the committed racist category to which I most want to draw attention.
Barely 2 percent of African Americans fall into this category, compared to

FIGURE 2.3 WHITE AND BLACK LEVELS OF APPROVAL OF INTERRACIAL ITEMS

White Respondents
70
60 53
50
Percentage

40 31
30
20 16
10
0

Black Respondents
70
60 50
48
50
Percentage

40
30
20
10 2
0
Strongly Approve on Three Items Combination
Strongly Disapprove on Three Items

Source: National Omnibus Survey (1997).

22 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

16 percent of whites (or slightly less than one in six). Given that these are na-
tionally representative data, given that they yield a ratio of committed racists,
comparing black to white, of eight to one, and assuming that these figures prob-
ably underestimate (particularly among whites) racist leanings, these numbers
point to a serious ongoing problem of racism.
Alternatively, these data could be interpreted as showing the essential am-
bivalence of racial attitudes today, especially among most whites. This is the view
adopted by Robert Entman and Andrew Rojecki (2000) in their very important
book, The Black Image in the White Mind: Media and Race in America. I want to
suggest that, sociologically speaking, the view that most whites are ambivalent on
race, while politically strategic, is also probably a good deal too generous. There
are two reasons for this conclusion that are tightly interrelated. First, I think gen-
uine ambivalence requires a fairly high level of what Howard Schuman once
called “sympathetic identification” with the underdog (Schuman and Harding
1963). Most of the cultural and social structural pressures in the United States
still arguably tilt in an antiblack direction. So, second, without strong under-
lying sympathetic identification, the extant patterns of economic inequality,
segregation by race, and political polarization and the long-standing failures
of American political culture (discussed later) heavily weight the scale toward
ambivalence that usually (if not invariably) resolves itself on the side of acting
against, recoiling from, or disparaging blacks rather than actively, sympathet-
ically embracing blacks.
More specifically, we can produce some empirical evidence on this point.
In the same national survey we included the distinguished social psychologist
Tom Pettigrew’s (1997) intergroup affect measures. These questions ask how
often the respondent has felt sympathy for blacks and how often he or she has
felt admiration for blacks. Again, to pose a strong test, we focus our attention
on those respondents who said “very often” in response to both questions. As
figure 2.4 shows, a vanishingly small fraction of whites fall into this category,
only 5 percent, while fully 37 percent of African Americans do, for a ratio of
more than seven to one. Moreover, fully 35 percent of whites consistently said
that they “not very often” or “never” felt sympathy or admiration for blacks.
Viewed as central tendencies within major social groups—not individuals—
these results bespeak the likelihood of a profound and widespread tendency
on the part of whites to regard blacks as “the other.” Many individuals may
indeed be ambivalent. Nonetheless, the larger social context and climate re-
main seriously doubtful of the full humanity of African Americans. At a min-
imum, the immediate sense of commonality assumed in much of the current
“color-blind” discourse is simply not in evidence here.

ON AMERICAN POLITICS
As a historic fact and experience as well as a contemporary political condition,
racial prejudice has profoundly affected American politics. A wide body of
 INEQUALITIES THAT ENDURE? 23

FIGURE 2.4 WHITE AND BLACK AFFECTS TOWARD AFRICAN AMERICANS

White Respondents
80
70 60
60
Percentage

50
40 35
30
20
10 5
0

Black Respondents
80
70
60 58
Percentage

50
40 37
30
20
10 5
0
“Very Often” on Both Items Combination
“Not Very Often” or “Never” on Both Items

Source: Race, Crime, and Public Opinion Study (2001).

evidence is accumulating to show that racial prejudice still affects politics. Black
candidates for office typically encounter severe degree of difficulties securing
white votes, partly owing to racial prejudice (Citrin, Green, and Sears 1990;
Kaufman 1998; Callaghan and Terkildsen 2002). There is some evidence, to
be sure, that the potency of racial prejudice varies with the racial composition
of electoral districts and the salience of race issues in the immediate political
context (Reeves 1997; Kaufman 2003).
Moreover, political candidates can use covert racial appeals to mobilize a
segment of the white voting public under some circumstances. For example,
the deployment of the infamous Willie Horton political ad during the 1988
presidential campaign heightened the voting public’s concern over race issues.
It also accentuated the impact of racial prejudice on electoral choices and did
so in a way that did not increase concern with crime per se (Kinder and Sanders
1996; Mendelberg 1997). That is, what appears to give a figure like Willie
Horton such efficacy as a political symbol is not his violent criminal behavior
24 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

per se, but rather his being a violent black man whose actions upset a racial
order that should privilege and protect whites.
Major social policy decisions may also be driven by substantially racial con-
siderations. The political psychologists David Sears and Jack Citrin (1985) make
a strong case that antiblack prejudice proved to be a powerful source of vot-
ing in favor of California’s historic property tax reduction initiative (Propo-
sition 13), a change in law that fundamentally altered the resources available to
government agencies.
On an even larger stage, the very design and early implementation of core
features of the American welfare state were heavily shaped by racial consider-
ations. Robert Lieberman (1998) has shown that the programs that became
Social Security, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), and un-
employment insurance were initially designed to either exclude the great bulk
of the black population or leave the judgment of qualification and delivery of
benefits to local officials. The latter design feature of AFDC (originally ADC)
had the effect in most southern states of drastically curtailing the share of so-
cial provision that went to African Americans. As Lieberman (1998, 216–17)
explains:

Any possibility for broader racial inclusion in social policy evaporated before the
ink from the president’s pen was dry on 14 August 1935; the moment Franklin
Roosevelt affixed his signature to the Social Security Act, a particular racial com-
promise became law—a compromise not of generalities but of specifics. A new
set of rules was in place that would define for a generation and more who was in
and who was out of American social provision. African-Americans were decid-
edly out, but the terms on which they were excluded, the institutions designed
to keep them out, differed in their racial porousness. . . . Although different poli-
cies affect race relations in different ways—by challenging or buttressing partic-
ular legal, political, economic, or social relations—American social policies share
a legacy of race-laden institutional structures. The ability to exclude African-
Americans from benefits has been a central factor in the adoption of national
policies, and the parochialism of other policies has often effectively restricted
African-American participation.

Lieberman shows that it was white southern legislators who insisted upon many
of these racialized features of the early American welfare state and that they
often spoke directly about the impact of the policies on blacks and labor rela-
tions in the South. It was mainly early black civil rights organizations, he also
shows, that argued against these policies and political compromises with racism.
There are good reasons to believe that the push to “end welfare as we know
it”—which began as a liberal reform effort but was hijacked by the political
right and became, literally, the end of welfare as we had known it—was just
 INEQUALITIES THAT ENDURE? 25

as surely impelled by heavily racial considerations. The political sociologist

Martin Gilens (1999) has carefully analyzed white opinion on the welfare state
in the United States. Some features of the welfare state, he finds, lack an over-
tone of black dependency (such as Social Security) and enjoy high consensus
support. Other programs (AFDC, food stamps, general relief) are heavily
racialized, with much of the white voting public regarding these programs as
helping lazy and undeserving blacks.
Indeed, the fundamental alignment of the U.S. national political parties has
been centrally driven by a racial dynamic (Frymer 1999; Glaser 1996). Over
the past thirty-five years we have witnessed a fundamental transformation in
the Democratic and Republican party system, a transformation that political
scientists call realignment. The more the Democratic Party was seen as advanc-
ing a civil rights agenda and black interests—in a manner that clearly set
them apart from the Republican Party—the more race issues and race itself
became central to party affiliations, political thinking, and voting in the
mass white public (Carmines and Stimson 1989). What was once a solid
white Democrat-controlled South has thus shifted to a substantially white
Republican-controlled South.
The end result of all of these patterns, simply put, is that African Americans
do not enjoy a full range of voice, representation, and participation in politics.
Black candidates, particularly if they are identified with the black community,
are unlikely to be viable in majority white electoral districts. Even white can-
didates who come to be strongly associated with black interests run the risk of
losing many white voters. As a consequence, party leaders on both sides have
worked to organize the agenda and claims of African Americans out of national
politics. In particular, the national Democratic Party, which should arguably
reward its most loyal constituents in the black community, instead has often
led the way in pushing black issues off the stage (Frymer 1999; Edsall and
Edsall 1991). As the political scientist Paul Frymer (1999) has explained, party
leaders do so because they are at risk of losing coveted white “swing voters” in
national elections if they come to be perceived as catering to black interests.
Thus is the elite discourse around many domestic social policies, and their
ultimate fate, bound up in racial considerations.
Against this backdrop it becomes difficult, if not counterproductive, to ac-
cept the widely shared view that American democracy is on an inexorable path
toward ever-greater inclusivity and fuller realization of its democratic poten-
tial. In the context of such enduring and powerful racialization of American
politics, such an assumption is naive at best.
There is an even more incisive point to be made. The presumption of ever-
expanding American liberalism is mistaken. For example, the Pulitzer Prize
winning–historian Joseph Ellis (2001) writes of the terrible “silence” on the
subject of slavery and race that the “founding fathers” deliberately adopted.
They waged a Revolutionary War for freedom, declared themselves the
26 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

founders of a new nation, and in very nearly the same moment knowingly wed-
ded democracy to slave-based racism. The philosopher Charles Mills (1997)
extends the reach of this observation by showing the deep bias of Enlighten-
ment thinkers toward a view of those on the European continent—whites—
as the only real signatories to the “social contract.” Others, particularly blacks,
were never genuinely envisioned or embraced as fully human and thus were
never intended to be covered by the reach of the social contract.
Considerations of this kind led the political theorist Rogers Smith (1993)
to suggest that the United States has not one but rather multiple political tra-
ditions. One tradition is indeed more democratic, universalistic, egalitarian,
and expansive. But this tradition competes with and sometimes decisively loses
out to a sharply hierarchical, patriarchal, and racist civic tradition (see also
Gerstle 2001; Glenn 2002). The ultimate collapse of Reconstruction follow-
ing the Civil War and the subsequent gradual development of de jure segre-
gation and the Jim Crow racist regime provide one powerful case in point.

ON THE PECULIAR ROLE OF SOCIAL SCIENCE

Mainstream scholars on the left tend to treat race as a categorical designation
that affects the outcomes that matter to us for reasons that have nothing to do
with race as a sociological phenomenon. If African Americans have lower em-
ployment chances or earnings than whites, this is not a function of race but
rather of purely “statistical discrimination” or other factors, such as different
levels of education and skill, that somehow “explain” the extraneous influence
of race. Since we do not believe in race as an inherent biological or primordial
cultural factor that produces social outcomes, there must be other nonracial
social conditions that account for any effect of race on outcomes that matter.
The analog to this line of reasoning in examinations of political attitudes and
public opinion is the treatment of African Americans as an out-group attitude
object, an object toward which individual whites have been socialized to hold
more or less negative attitudes.
To the credit of liberal social analysts, both approaches reject biological and
inflexible cultural understandings of race and racial differences. Yet both ap-
proaches fail to come to grips with the condition of embedded white privilege
and the import of constrained but quite real black agency. That is, there are
sociologically meaningful “imagined communities,” communities of identity
as well as of typical residence, interaction, family connection, and larger in-
terest defined as black and white that exist in relation to one another in the
United States. And indeed, race has been used at various points and in various
ways as one of the fundamental principles in organizing an array of conditions
that define the relationship between those sociological units or imagined com-
munities. Hence, its effects are not reducible to other, putatively more funda-
mental causes.
 INEQUALITIES THAT ENDURE? 27

Let me be more specific by taking an example from the realm of racial attitudes
and public opinion. The theory of symbolic racism contends that a new form of
antiblack prejudice has arisen among whites reflecting a blend of early learned tra-
ditional values (for example, individualism and the Protestant work ethic) and
early learned negative feelings and beliefs about blacks.10 This new attitude is an
amalgamation. It consists of a resentment of demands made by blacks, a resent-
ment of special favors received, especially from government, by blacks, and a de-
nial of the contemporary relevance of discrimination. These views constitute a
coherent attitude, an attitude not bearing any functional relation to white ad-
vantage or privilege or to real-world black challenge and resistance to white
privilege. Rather, the attitude is a learned ideation of centrally unreasoned,
emotion-laden content. When political issues arise that make race and African
Americans salient, this underlying psychological disposition becomes the basis of
whites’ political response. Hence, prejudice intrudes into politics.
What I want to suggest is that prejudice is in and of politics—not an ideational
intrusion of the individual’s emotionally expressive and irrational impulses upon
the political sphere (Bobo and Tuan, forthcoming). As I have argued else-
where, intergroup attitudes are not principally individual-level judgments of
like and dislike (Bobo, Kluegel, and Smith 1997; Bobo and Smith 1998).
Instead, following the inspiration of Herbert Blumer (1958), I argue that these
attitudes centrally involve beliefs and feelings about the proper relation be-
tween groups. Racial attitudes capture aspects of the preferred group positions
and those patterns of belief and affect that undergird, mobilize as needed, and
make understandable the prevailing racial order.
These remarks have specific meaning with regard to the conceptualization
and measurement of a notion like symbolic racism. Beliefs and feelings about
whether blacks receive special treatment, favors, or an unfair advantage or have
leaders and a political agenda that demand too much are not merely ventila-
tions of atomistic feelings of resentment or hostility. These are highly politi-
cal judgments about the status, rights, and resources that members of different
groups are rightly entitled to enjoy or make claims on.
This difference in conceptualization is an important one and is directly linked
to my concern with white privilege and black agency. From the vantage point
of symbolic racism theory, there is no instrumental or rational objective what-
soever behind the intrusion of prejudice into politics. Whites are neither seek-
ing the maintenance of privilege nor responding in any grounded fashion to real
social, political, and economic demands arising from the black community and
its leaders. Instead, the theory holds, a mixture of emotions, fears, anxieties, and
resentments combines with important social values to occasion a hostile response
when African Americans and their concerns are made politically salient (Kinder
and Sanders 1996; Sears, van Laar, and Kosterman 1997).
Although not intended as such, this view trivializes African Americans’ polit-
ical activism and struggle that put issues like desegregation, antidiscrimination,
28 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

affirmative action, and increasingly the matter of reparations on the national po-
litical agenda. Real political actors pursued deliberate strategies and waged hard-
fought legal, electoral, and protest-oriented battles to advance the interests
of black communities. These actions had powerful effects on the larger dynam-
ics of politics and public opinion (Lee 2002). And however imperfect and
imbued with exaggerated apprehensions they may have been, white Americans
nonetheless perceived and responded to these very substantively political strug-
gles (Bobo 1988). Hence, to classify white attitudes and beliefs about black
demands, black leadership, and black responses to disadvantage as some sort
of “pre-political,” completely emotional ideation is to trivialize black America,
to infantalize white America, and to skirt serious engagement with the many
powerful “wages” that still accrue to whiteness.
Empirically and in terms of measurement, this argument raises serious
doubts about how to understand the meaning of responses to the questions
used to tap symbolic racism. For example, my own research suggests that when
many whites say that blacks (or any other minority group) are “taking unfair
advantage of privileges given to them by the government,” these are not vague
resentments (Bobo 1999). These sentiments are almost certainly not precisely
calculated assessments of real risks and actual losses, but they are still expressly
political judgments about the quality of life and about important resources, at
once material and symbolic, that groups may get from the state.
In particular, whites who answer in the affirmative to this sort of survey ques-
tion frequently speak of their tax dollars and their work effort going to support
others, in the concrete language of a zero-sum resource transfer. A good illus-
tration of the point comes from the cultural sociologist Michele Lamont’s im-
portant new book, The Dignity of Working Men: Morality and the Boundaries of
Race, Class, and Immigration (2000, 60–61). She writes of one of her subjects:

. . . Vincent is a workhorse. He considers himself “top gun” at his job and makes
a very decent living. His comments on blacks suggest that he associates them
with laziness and welfare and with claims to receiving special treatment at work
through programs such as affirmative action. He says: “Blacks have a tendency
to . . . try to get off doing less, the least possible . . . to keep the job where whites
will put in that extra oomph. I know this is a generality and it does not go for
all, it goes for a portion. It’s this whole unemployment and welfare gig. A lot of
the blacks on welfare have no desire to get off it. Why should they? It’s free
money. I can’t stand to see my hard-earned money [said with emphasis] going
to pay for someone who wants to sit on his ass all day long and get free money.”

As Lamont (2000, 62) concludes about a number of the white working-class men
she interviewed: “They underscore a concrete link between the perceived depen-
dency of blacks, their laziness, and the taxes taken from their own paychecks.”
 INEQUALITIES THAT ENDURE? 29

This is not an isolated finding of Lamont’s in-depth interviews. For exam-

ple, the sociologist Mary Waters (1999, 177) observed a very similar pattern
among the white managers and employers she studied. She writes:

Most white respondents were much more able to tap into their negative im-
pressions of black people, especially “underclass” blacks whom they were highly
critical of. These opinions were not just based on disinterested observation.
There was a direct sense among many of the whites that they personally were
being taken advantage of and threatened by the black population.

The language used is one of traits (laziness) and violations of values (hard work
and self-reliance) coupled with moral condemnation, but the group compar-
ison, sense of threat, and identity-engaging element is equally clear. Indeed, as
the experimental social psychologist Eliot Smith (1993, 308–9) has persuasively
argued, it is exactly this blend of important group identity and resource threat
to the group that should be emotionally arousing: “These items and the defini-
tion all involve appraisals of an outgroup as violating ingroup norms or obtain-
ing illegitimate advantages, leading to the emotion of anger.” Conceptualizing
such responses as the ventilation of resentment distorts the critical point that
“the focus in the model advanced here is not the intrinsically negative qualities
attributed to blacks themselves (which are the theoretical key in concepts of prej-
udice as a negative attitude) but appraisals of the threats posed by blacks to the
perceiver’s own group” (309, emphasis in original).
The substance of the theory and the interpretation of the measures of sym-
bolic racism thus suffer from a failure of sociological imagination. The theory
pushes out of analytical view the real and substantial linkage between the facts
of white privilege and the facts of active black challenge to it. In their place, the
theory gives us but the phantasms of racial resentments in the minds of indi-
vidual whites. These phantasms somehow—but apparently unintentionally—
enter politics, take note of black agitation and disruption, and then release in a
spasm of reaction against race-targeted social policies. I would like to suggest
that there is something decidedly wrong with the theory and conceptualization,
even though the many sentiments identified in the concepts of symbolic racism
and racial resentment are indeed at the heart of the contemporary political
struggle over race (Krysan 2000).
On the right side of the political spectrum, the example I wish to draw at-
tention to is the mounting speculation, most prominently offered by Stephan
and Abigail Thernstrom (1997), that the pervasive patterns of racial segrega-
tion we observe in the United States are a function of “black self-segregation.”
In this case, African Americans are credited with agency, but that agency is said
to be exercised in a manner that continues to disadvantage blacks. Only this
time it is blacks themselves who, by choosing a self-handicapping preference,
30 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

are responsible. The argument is a troubling one for anyone who believes that
neighborhoods vary in school quality, safety, social services and amenities, and
all that goes into the phrase “quality of life.” It says that blacks are, perforce and
of their own free will, placing racial solidarity above social mobility and a
better quality of life.
The failure here is twofold. First, the Thernstroms’ argument is contingent
on the rejection of compelling empirical evidence of racial bias and discrimi-
nation in the housing market (for an authoritative review, see Charles 2003).
It is clear that a powerful racial hierarchy continues to permeate thinking about
communities, neighborhoods, and where to live. Using experimental data,
Camille Z. Charles and I show that white Americans are systematically more
open to residential contact with Asians and Latinos than with blacks—hold-
ing every other consideration constant (Zubrinsky and Bobo 1996). Several
studies have now made it clear that antiblack racial stereotypes are direct pre-
dictors of willingness to live in more integrated communities (Farley et al.
1994; Bobo and Zubrinsky 1996; Charles 2000).
These results are consistent with other demographic and behavioral data
(Yinger 1998). Researchers at the State University of New York at Albany doc-
ument the very small changes in high rates of black-white residential segrega-
tion between 1990 and 2000. Indeed, HUD auditing studies in 1989 found
overall rates of discrimination in access to housing for African Americans that
were only trivially different from those observed a decade earlier (for the most
up-to-date review of the literature, see Charles 2003).
Second, the theory of black self-segregation treats black choice and action as
if it exists in a vacuum. That is, it ignores altogether what are almost surely im-
portant feedback mechanisms that prompt many blacks to self-select into black
neighborhoods out of the reasonable expectation that they would encounter
hostility from some white neighbors. As formulated by the Thernstroms and
others, the self-segregation hypothesis fails to address the immediately relevant
question of whether African Americans would self-select into predominantly
black communities in the absence of historic experience, current collective
memory, and ongoing encounters with contemporary racism. The best avail-
able empirical evidence suggests that blacks as a group are the people who are
the most likely to prefer integration and to comfortably accept living in minor-
ity group status in a neighborhood (Charles 2000).
Part of the message here concerning theoretical interpretation on the right
and the left is that variables and data never speak for themselves. It is the ques-
tions we pose (and those we fail to ask) as well as our theories, concepts, and
ideas that bring a narrative and meaning to marginal distributions, correlations,
regression coefficients, and statistics of all kinds. If we suffer from failures of
sociological imagination, if we conceive of race and racism in ways that dis-
associate them from white privilege, black agency, and the interrelations be-
tween the two phenomena, then we are bound to get things wrong however
 INEQUALITIES THAT ENDURE? 31

much we may have followed formal statistical criteria and other normative
canons of science. Or, as the sociologist Tukufu Zuberi (2001, 144) puts it in
his new book, Thicker Than Blood: How Racial Statistics Lie: “Most racial sta-
tistics lack a critical evaluation of racist structures that encourage pathological
interpretations. These pathological interpretations have had a profound impact
on our causal theories and statistical methods. Our theories of society, not our
empirical evidence, guide how we interpret racial data.”
Indeed, it is that perspective on racist structures, or what the political sci-
entists Michael Dawson (2001) and Claire Jean Kim (2000) call the American
racial order, that informs a very different reading of the import of white priv-
ilege and black agency.

CAVEATS
A series of interpretative caveats should be borne in mind here. First, although
I have spoken extensively about black-white relations, I am mindful of the ex-
tent to which this is an increasingly partial view of American race relations.
The rapid and continuing expansion of the Asian and Latino populations in the
United States and the unique experiences and issues faced by members of these
internally diverse communities will inevitably reshape the American social land-
scape. However, it is not at all clear that the continued diversification of the
United States in any way fundamentally destabilizes the historic black-white
divide. The urban sociologist Herbert Gans (1999) has written a provocative
and I think more than suggestive essay arguing that we are evolving as a nation
toward a new major racial dichotomy: the black versus the nonblack. Accord-
ingly, we would still have racial hierarchy and some degree of heterogene-
ity, especially within the nonblack category (which include whites and those
effectively earning the title of honorary whites, such as successful middle-class
Asians). And much of the arsenal of analytical tools and perspectives that long
helped to make sense of the black-white divide would have applicability in such
a new context. Similarly, my colleague Mary Waters’s (1999) powerful recent
book, Black Identities: West Indian Immigrant Dreams and American Realities,
makes clear just how salient the black-white divide remains even for an immi-
grant population that arrived committed to transcending race.
Second, wartime and the social upheaval occasioned by war can present a
powerful opportunity for reshaping the landscape of race relations. Indeed, the
political scientists Philip Klinkner and Rogers Smith (1999) craft a persuasive
claim that war is a necessary but not sufficient precondition for improvements
in the status of blacks. They argue that far-reaching qualitative changes in the
status of African Americans have typically involved the convergence of three
factors: a major wartime mobilization that ultimately required a large number
of black troops; an enemy viewed as profoundly antidemocratic, thereby
heightening the claims for fuller realization of democratic ideals at home;
32 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

and significant internal political mobilization and contestation from below

demanding reform.
Viewed in this light, the terrorist attacks on the United States of September
11, 2001, and the subsequent military actions in Afghanistan against the al
Qaeda network and the ruling Taliban regime and the later war in Iraq raise
again the possibility of this convergence of circumstances. That the early tele-
vised images of the devastation at the World Trade Center in New York were
so thoroughly multiracial and multiethnic only heightens this potential. And
that African Americans in the persons of Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice
occupy such high leadership posts adds to the salutary import of the moment.
Certainly we are already witnessing journalistic accounts of a nation pulling
together and uniting in ways that may heal otherwise deep racial divisions.11
Yet at this moment there are no strong indications that these events will se-
riously shift the landscape of black-white relations. Not all wartime moments
do, as Klinkner and Smith note with regard to the Spanish-American War, the
Korean War, and the Vietnam War.
Third, I have scarcely touched upon the matter of class divisions within the
African American community and the growth of the black middle class. Nor,
for that matter, have I wrestled with the ways in which gender and sexuality
also condition life along the color line. It must be stressed that class, gender,
and sexuality all become dividing lines within the African American commu-
nity (and outside it) in ways that shape agendas, the capacity for mobilization,
and even ideas about who is a full member of the community (Cohen 1999;
Dawson 1994, 2001). My objective has been to focus on those aspects of con-
temporary race relations that largely cut across these cleavages and thus are
centrally experienced as “race,” rather than examine the intersection of race
with other statuses and identities. I do not mean to dismiss or disregard these
other factors, but rather to stress that there remain social conditions we must
understand and engage as a distinctive racial divide.

CONCLUSION
I opened with the words of a young, angry white male who saw “trashy”
Section 8 blacks coming into his neighborhood with government subsidies
and diminishing what he perceived as a standard of life that he had earned and
that set him above and apart from them. And with the words of a middle-aged,
churchgoing black woman who returned to her home one Sunday morning
not only to do battle with a burglar but later with the racially biased police and
criminal justice system. As these two cases attest, race remains a deep divide in
America.
Of course, black and white Americans could scarcely be further apart in
their own judgments about the severity of the racial divide. As part of an elec-
tion study in 2000, Michael Dawson and I asked a large national sample of
 INEQUALITIES THAT ENDURE? 33

blacks and whites about the likelihood of achieving racial equality in America.12
Figure 2.5 shows the results. A full one-third of whites said that we had already
achieved it, in contrast to a mere 6 percent of African Americans. One in five
blacks said that we never would achieve it, and another two out of five said
that it would never happen in their lifetimes. Blacks see a deep and lingering
social ill, and whites see a problem that is just about resolved. Without claim-
ing to “know” the answer, I interpret responses of “have already achieved racial
equality” and perhaps even of “will soon achieve racial equality” to constitute
a deliberate evasion of responsibility more than a thoughtful assessment or re-
sponse to social realities (Kluegel and Smith 1986; Kluegel and Bobo 2001).
Too many friction points, inequalities, and signs of discrimination remain to
take such views at face value.

FIGURE 2.5 RESPONDENTS’ RACE AND BELIEFS ABOUT RACIAL EQUALITY

6%

16%
34%
Have Achieved
Racial Equality

Will Soon Achieve

Racial Equality
40% 18%
Will Not Achieve
Racial Equality
in My Lifetime
24%
Will Never Achieve
19% Racial Equality
3%
Don’t Know

19% 21%

Black Respondents White Respondents

N = 821 N = 722
Do you think that blacks have achieved racial equality, will soon
achieve racial equality, will not achieve racial equality in your lifetime,
or will never achieve racial equality?

Source: National African American Election Study (2000).

34 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

Indeed, it is fair to still speak of white supremacy in America and of racism

in America (Bonilla-Silva 2001; Feagin 2001). The persistence of white su-
premacy and the enduring potency of racism, I believe, trace to the adaptive
capacity of racial ideologies. As Thomas Holt (2000, 27–28) has explained:
“Race is ideological, but, being embedded in political economies that are quite
historically specific, it cannot long survive changes in the material base from
which it draws sustenance.” The defeat of Jim Crow racism and the victories
of the civil rights era did not eradicate black-white economic inequality, labor
market discrimination, or gargantuan disparities in accumulated wealth; they
did not end residential segregation by race and randomly disperse people in
physical space; they did not reallocate political power; and they did not com-
pletely repudiate the racist stereotypes and other elements of American polit-
ical culture and whites’ sense of entitlement that feed and sustain racism.
These victories did, however, fundamentally restructure the terrain on which
racism is now enacted, understood, and reproduced. This new regime of laissez-
faire racism is more fluid and permeable than the Jim Crow regime. It works
in ways that permit, on the one hand, the carefully delimited and controlled
success of a Colin Powell, a Condoleezza Rice, or even an Oprah Winfrey, but
that, on the other hand, do not eliminate the ghetto, black joblessness, and
poverty and do not even wince at a despicable effort at black voter disenfran-
chisement. Indeed, it works in ways that allow a young working-class white
man to seethe with anger at a social policy effort to extend a step up for poor
blacks and in ways that allow a churchgoing black woman to endure the tragic
burden of fighting a black burglar and the white police. These are all mani-
festations of our continued entrapment in the snare of racism.
I have no battle plan for defeating laissez-faire racism. What we can do as
scholars is, first, to struggle to conceptualize, name, and understand as accu-
rately as possible what is happening and to make those ideas widely available.
Let’s tell the story of enduring inequality in its fullness and according to the
highest standards that we can attain.
Second, we can push for changes and social policies that speak to what our
analyses tell us are the central structural and cultural problems. In that regard,
the push for a serious dialogue about race—for truth and reconciliation, for
an apology, and most of all for reparations—is a major element of the next
stage of the struggle (Dawson and Popoff 2004). Liberal and progressive voices
must turn away from the demand that the black political agenda be entirely
suppressed in favor of a race-neutral, purely universalistic or centrist political
agenda (see Thompson 1998).
And third, I do not believe it is possible to accomplish a recognition of one’s
full humanity without demanding it as such. Careful political thinking and
organizing is necessary, to be sure. Strategic coalitions reaching across lines of
class, color, and ethnicity will be essential. Working through conventional
legal and political channels will be necessary too. But I remain doubtful that
 INEQUALITIES THAT ENDURE? 35

hidden agendas and half-measures will do what it takes to finally crush the
legacy of white supremacy in America, to dislodge laissez-faire racism, and
to lead us to that mountaintop that Martin Luther King spoke of the night
before he was assassinated.

NOTES
1. The white focus group, led by a white, professional focus group moder-
ator, had nine participants, six men and three women. Everyone in the
group had at least a high school education, with an average of 15.1 years
of schooling. The average age was 48.3, and participants had an aver-
age income of $66,700. The group lasted for two hours and after some
opening general topics moved to issues of crime and criminal
justice.
2. The black focus group, led by a black, professional focus group moder-
ator, had nine participants, five men and four women. Everyone in the
group had at least a high school education, with an average of 14.2 years
of schooling. The average age of participants was 40.6, and participants
had an average income of $51,900. The group lasted for two hours and
after some opening general topics moved to issues of crime and crimi-
nal justice.
3. Two recent series of events underscore just how arbitrarily and unjustly
the criminal justice system can act in black communities, especially low-
income ones. Based on an erroneous tip from a police informant, New
York City police officers used a concussion grenade to enter, without
knocking or providing any warning, the home of a fifty-seven-year-old
Harlem woman. She was a career civil servant with no criminal history
or involvement in drug-dealing, and she was dressing to go to work at
the time of the 6:00 A.M. raid. Officers broke down her door and tossed
in the grenade, and she was initially handcuffed by police officers.
Within two hours she had died of a heart attack (Rashbaum 2003). Of
somewhat broader notoriety are the Tulia, Texas, drug arrests carried
out by a white undercover agent who provided the only evidence and
testimony against a number of defendants, the overwhelming major-
ity of whom were African American. In August 2003, the governor of
Texas pardoned thirty-five people (thirty-one of whom were black),
many of whom had already served lengthy years in jail, when that evi-
dence turned out to be fabricated (Liptak 2003).
4. As I develop later, race is neither a biological nor a primordial cultural
imperative or affiliation, but a historically contingent social construc-
tion. It also varies in configuration and salience over time (Collins 2001).
The experience of race may be importantly conditioned by and intersect
36 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

with class, gender, and sexuality, among other variables (Cohen 1999).
It nonetheless has powerful social effects (for other definitional issues,
see Bobo [2001] and Bobo and Tuan [forthcoming]), but these effects
are best understood as part of a social process (Zuberi 2001) that is
greatly influenced by significant social actors, as expressed in such
forms as government policy (Nobles 2000), rather than as static demo-
graphic categories.
5. This critique of the left and the right with regard to race is very similar
to the historian Alice O’Connor’s (2001) definitive analysis of the
shortcomings of social science examinations of poverty in the
post–World War II era. She finds that larger economic structures and
racial dynamics were often obscured by a narrow focus on the specific
circumstances or behaviors of those who were poor. The consequence,
she suggests, has been a set of analyses and policy prescriptions too
heavily tilted toward altering individual behavior and insufficiently fo-
cused on the larger and more fundamental social and political forces
that constrain opportunity.
6. The laissez-faire racism argument rests on an analysis of the critical his-
torical changes in the configuration of demographic, economic, politi-
cal, and cultural forces that, on the one hand, opened the door to a
sustained and effective attack on Jim Crow institutional arrangements
and ideas. These factors include the waning economic and political
power of the old southern planter elite, the urban and northern migra-
tion of African Americans and attendant growth in human capital and
social capital in black hands, and the growing intellectual and cultural
assault on notions of “biological racism.” On the other hand, the laissez-
faire racism theory also points to the persistence of residential segrega-
tion, enormous economic inequality (especially in terms of accumulated
assets or wealth), limited political representation, and deep reservoirs of
antiblack attitudes and beliefs that have powerfully constrained and
channeled progressive racial reform. This historical argument provides
the basis for contemporary empirical analyses showing how whites’
attitudes shifted toward more qualified stereotyping of blacks, away
from biological attributions for black-white differences to cultural at-
tributions, and toward resistance to strong integrationist and equal
opportunity policies.
7. The data come from my 2001 Race, Crime, and Public Opinion Study.
These data were collected by Knowledge Networks using a nationally
representative, Web-based social survey design, with 978 white and
1,010 black respondents. The within-panel response rate for blacks
was 72 percent and it was 61 percent for whites. Fuller information
on the sample and respondent characteristics are reported in Bobo and
Johnson (2004).
 INEQUALITIES THAT ENDURE? 37

8. That stereotypes are likely to influence blacks as well as whites is strongly

suggested by the pioneering work of the social psychologist Claude Steele
(1998) on the notion of stereotype threat. Insightful work by Kimberly
Torres and Camille Charles (2004), based on in-depth interviews with
black students on an elite college campus, shows how these students are
aware of whites’ negative stereotypes about blacks and strive to differ-
entiate themselves from stigmatizing group images, which they too
take seriously.
9. The data come from the 1997–1998 National Omnibus Survey con-
ducted by the University of Maryland Survey Research Center. It in-
volved a random digit dial telephone survey of 838 white, 115 black,
and 51 other race respondents. The survey had an overall cooperation
rate of 68 percent and a conservatively estimated response rate of 55 per-
cent.
10. Several scholars, most notably David O. Sears (1988), Donald R. Kinder
(Kinder and Sanders 1996), and John B. McConahay (1986), have ad-
vocated for the theory. Over time some differences in usage, labeling,
and measurement have emerged among these (and other) scholars. For
example, both McConahay and Kinder have moved away from the label
“symbolic racism,” the former preferring “modern racism” and the
latter “racial resentment.” Sears retains the original concept label.
11. Immediately following the events of September 11, the New York Times
reported on newfound interracial harmony, particularly between police
and the African American community (Sengupta 2001).
12. The 2000 National African American Election Study was a nationally
representative, Web-based survey conducted by Knowledge Networks.
It included a preelection panel of 831 African Americans and post-
election panel of 605 African Americans and a fresh sample of 724
whites. Fuller details on the sample characteristics and respondents
may be found in Dawson and Popoff (2004) and Bobo and Johnson
(2004).

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38 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

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 INEQUALITIES THAT ENDURE? 39

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 INEQUALITIES THAT ENDURE? 41

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 3
COLOR-BLIND RACISM AND RACIAL INDIFFERENCE:
THE ROLE OF RACIAL APATHY IN FACILITATING
ENDURING INEQUALITIES


Tyrone A. Forman

THE CIVIL RIGHTS movement prompted several important changes in American

society. One significant change has been the decline in overt expressions of
racial prejudice over the past four decades (Schuman et al. 1997). This decline
has led some observers to argue that white racial antipathy has virtually dis-
appeared in the United States (D’Souza 1995; Steele 1990; Thernstrom and
Thernstrom 1997). Others have argued, however, that rather than an actual
disappearance in white racial antipathy, there has instead been a change in its
expression (Bobo, Kluegel, and Smith 1997; Bonilla-Silva and Forman 2000;
Dovidio 2001; Forman 2001; Gould 1999; Myers and Williamson 2001;
Pettigrew and Meertens 1995; Sears and Henry 2003). These authors have
drawn attention to the fact that despite the rather dramatic increase in the ac-
ceptance of the principle of racial equality and integration among large num-
bers of whites over the past four decades, there remain indications of persisting
racial antipathy and enduring racial inequalities (Crosby, Bromley, and Saxe
1980; Darity and Myers 1998; Forman 2001; Pettigrew 1985).
There is abundant evidence that racial prejudice persists as an important
problem. For example, while large-scale surveys show overwhelming liberaliza-
tion in racial thinking in response to traditional survey items, on survey items
designed to capture the present-day racial climate there is evidence for the ac-
tual worsening of racial prejudice (see Forman 2004). As recent experimental
results illustrate, the change in racial prejudice is one of kind rather than of
degree. Using laboratory experiments, John Dovidio and his colleagues have
shown that white college students are more likely to express distaste for or
to discriminate against blacks when conditions enable them to do so without
44 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

having to directly acknowledge or confront their racist attitudes or behavior—

for example, when their views can be masked by some other motive (see
Dovidio 2001; Dovidio and Gaertner 2000; Hodson, Dovidio, and Gaertner
2002). Thomas Pettigrew and Roel Meertens (1995, 73) note that many indi-
viduals “express their negative views only in ostensibly nonprejudiced ways that
‘slip under the norm.’ ” Increasingly it seems apparent that those measures of
racial attitudes traditionally deployed in surveys and other studies have limited
utility for capturing racial dynamics in the post–civil rights period, a time when
overt expressions of racial prejudice are discouraged (Bonilla-Silva and Forman
2000; Myers and Williamson 2001).
As many analysts have argued, tapping into these newer, subtler forms of
racial prejudice requires the use of new measures (Bobo, Kluegel, and Smith
1997; Dovidio 2001; Forman 2001, 2004; Henry and Sears 2002; Pettigrew
and Meertens 1995; Sears and Henry 2003). But measuring contemporary
racial prejudice is not straightforward.1 New measures must be able to capture
the more passive and less explicit ways in which white racial antipathy is in-
creasingly expressed. Building on Pettigrew and Meertens’s (1995) formula-
tion of the absence of sympathy for an out-group (that is, the denial of
emotions) as a new form of prejudice, in this chapter I develop a construct,
racial apathy, that I argue is an especially good way to capture at least one man-
ifestation of newer and subtler racial prejudice in the post–civil rights era.
Broadly, racial apathy refers to lack of feeling or indifference toward societal
racial and ethnic inequality and lack of engagement with race-related social is-
sues. It is expressed in at least two ways: a lack of concern about racial and eth-
nic disparities and an unwillingness to address proximal and distal forms of
racially disparate treatment. As Paul Wachtel (1999, 35–36) points out, this di-
mension has too often been overlooked:

Perhaps most important of all for whites to acknowledge and understand is

[racial] indifference. . . . Perhaps no other feature of white attitudes and of the
underlying attitudinal structure of white society as a whole is as cumulatively
responsible for the pain and deprivation experienced by [racial minorities] at
this point in our history as is [racial] indifference. At the same time, perhaps no
feature is as misunderstood or overlooked.

Whereas historically most scholars have characterized racial prejudice as an

overt manifestation of negative feelings about an out-group, in this chapter I
focus instead on the expression of racial apathy toward, lack of care for, or dis-
interest in the social circumstances of racial and ethnic minorities as a new
form of racial prejudice. I argue that contemporary racism plays an essential
part in the construction of this newer and more subtle form of prejudice.
Before examining the parameters and extent of this new prejudice, I explore
an important antecedent to its expression, namely, contemporary racism.
 COLOR-BLIND RACISM AND RACIAL INDIFFERENCE 45

THE NATURE OF CONTEMPORARY RACISM

Researchers have labeled these more subtle and covert forms of racism as
laissez-faire racism (Bobo, Kluegel, and Smith 1997), color-blind racism
(Bonilla-Silva and Forman 2000), cultural racism ( Jones 1999), aversive
racism (Dovidio 2001), symbolic racism (Henry and Sears 2002; Sears and
Henry 2003), racial resentment (Kinder and Sanders 1996), modern racism
(McConahay 1986), and subtle racism (Pettigrew and Meertens 1995).
Despite the fact that these authors differ in how they conceptualize the nature
and content of contemporary racism, they share two common features. First,
these authors theorize that new forms of racism emerged in the aftermath of the
civil rights movement. Second, they argue that racism is not motivated by ir-
rationality but rather by the desire to maintain a dominant social position
in the racialized social system. I use the term “racism” here to represent a
widely held ideology that enables either the full or—in more recent times—
partial denial of opportunity and resources to particular racial and ethnic
groups (for a similar perspective, see Mills 1997, 2000).2
I argue that the post–civil rights racial ideology should be called color-blind
racism.3 As I use it here, color-blind racism encapsulates the general set of
ideas that race does not matter in post–civil rights America and the claim by
many Americans that they are personally color-blind and do not see race (see
Gallagher 2003; Lewis 2001; Lewis, Chesler, and Forman 2000).4 The main
beliefs of this racial ideology are: (1) U.S. society functions as a racial meri-
tocracy; (2) for the most part these days people do not care about or even notice
race; (3) any racialized patterns of social inequality that do persist are outcomes
of individual and/or group-level cultural deficiency; and (4) because of the first
three beliefs, nothing systematic (such as affirmative action) needs to be or
should be done to redress racialized outcomes.
Color-blind ideology largely explains contemporary racial and ethnic in-
equality as the result of nonracial dynamics. It fosters a view that existing racial
inequality must be the result of personal choices, not blocked opportunity. As
Lewis Killian (1990, 4) observes, many whites

have accepted the victories of the Civil Rights Movement. They don’t object to
sharing public accommodations with blacks and they will let their children go
to school with them as long as there aren’t too many. They believe that blacks
should have equal job opportunities and if a lot of them remain poor it must be
because they don’t take advantage of the changes open to them.

It is important to note that, because color-blindness provides a seemingly neu-

tral or nonracial basis for not redressing racial and ethnic inequalities, it serves
as a barrier to doing so. Color-blindness explains away inequities, blaming the
46 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

victims of racial discrimination for their situation and, as Charles Gallagher

(2003, 6) puts it, rendering the true origins of such inequality invisible: “Color-
blindness hides white privilege behind a mask of assumed meritocracy while
rendering invisible the institutional arrangements that perpetuate racial in-
equality.” In this way color-blindness is a central mechanism used today in the
United States to defend the racial status quo.
It is essential to point out, however, that the importance of color-blind
racism in the post–civil rights era is not necessarily in the direct harm it inflicts
on individual racial minorities, as was the case with Jim Crow racism. The
importance of color-blindness lies instead in its indirect impact on racial and
ethnic minorities’ life chances through its creation of a societal climate that
prevents many whites and some minorities from recognizing or taking actions
to redress persistent and pervasive racial inequality. That is, a crucial limita-
tion to the color-blind discourse is that it “blinds [us] to the effects of race and
color in the world around us” (Lewis 2003, 192). The ethical protection of
color-blindness (“I’m color-blind and therefore not responsible”), which leaves
many whites free to participate in a system of inequality without feeling any
accountability, is one of the main pillars of contemporary racial and ethnic
inequality. In this way, whites are taken off the moral hook and individual
and group cultural deficiencies are made the culprit for any persistent racial
inequity.
As color-blind racism gains normative dominance in U.S. society, targeted
efforts perceived as addressing contemporary racial and ethnic inequality in our
society (affirmative action, for example) are increasingly deemed illegitimate
and therefore stigmatized. Another important consequence of this emergent
post–civil rights racial ideology is that individuals are not likely to express their
prejudices toward racial minorities explicitly but rather are more likely to ex-
press their negative feelings in ways that are subtle or covert and enable plausi-
ble deniability, both to themselves and to others (Bonilla-Silva and Forman
2000; Myers and Williamson 2001). Racial apathy represents one new mani-
festation of negative feelings toward racial minorities. Unfortunately, our tra-
ditional conceptualization of prejudice does not allow us to fully capture this
new development.

RECONCEPTUALIZING PREJUDICE
A review of the race and ethnic relations literature reveals broad diversity in con-
ceptualizations and definitions of prejudice. In fact, this diversity prompted
Patricia Devine and her colleagues to note that more than any other phenom-
enon, “how social psychologists have conceptualized prejudice has changed
over time” (Devine, Plant, and Blair 2001, 198). The following lists present a
number of the definitions of prejudice that are provided in the research litera-
ture. The thread connecting these diverse definitions is the idea that prejudice
 COLOR-BLIND RACISM AND RACIAL INDIFFERENCE 47

is negative and contains both affective and cognitive components. However, it

is also at this point that the varying definitions of prejudice part ways concep-
tually. To highlight these different conceptualizations of prejudice I have sep-
arated the definitions into two categories: traditional and alternative views of
prejudice.

TRADITIONAL DEFINITIONS OF PREJUDICE

“Prejudice is an antipathy based upon a faulty and inflexible generaliza-
tion” (Allport 1954, 10, emphasis added).
“Prejudice is a pattern of hostility in interpersonal relations which is
directed against an entire group or against its individuals members; it
fulfills a specific irrational function for its bearer” (Ackerman and Jahoda
1950, 3–4, emphasis added).
“Prejudiced attitudes . . . are irrational, unjust, intolerant dispositions
towards other groups” (Milner 1975, 9, emphasis added).
“Prejudice is an irrational attitude of hostility directed against an indi-
vidual, a group, a race, or their supposed characteristics, an unreasonable
prejudgment” (Better 2002, 19, emphasis added).
“Prejudice is an unreasonable negative attitude towards others because of
their membership in a particular group” (Fishbein 1996, 5, emphasis
added).
“Prejudice is shared feelings of acceptance-rejection, trust-distrust, and
liking-disliking that characterizes attitudes toward specific groups” (Brewer
and Kramer 1985, 230).

ALTERNATIVE DEFINITIONS OF PREJUDICE

“Prejudice is a failure of rationality or a failure of justice or a failure
of human-heartedness in an individual’s attitude toward members of
another ethnic group” (Harding et al. 1969, 6, emphasis added).
“Prejudice against racial and ethnic groups is an antipathy [that] simul-
taneously violates two basic norms—the norm of rationality and the
norm of human-heartedness” (Pettigrew 1980, 2–14, emphasis added).
“Prejudice refers to attitudes or propensities to act in ways which dis-
advantage individuals because of their group affiliation” (Leggon 1979, 9,
emphasis added).
48 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

“Prejudice refers to an organized predisposition to respond in an unfavor-

able manner toward people from an ethnic group because of their ethnic
affiliation” (Aboud 1988, 4, emphasis added).
“Prejudice is a set of attitudes which causes, supports, or justifies discrim-
ination” (Rose 1951, 5, emphasis added).

The traditional conceptualization of prejudice has a number of advantages;

most important is its focus on the negative and hostile nature of prejudice.
Further, it typically focuses on the irrationality, faultiness, or unreasonableness
of prejudice. An unfortunate consequence of this focus has been a tendency
to narrowly conceptualize prejudice as a personality disorder. According to the
sociologist Robin Williams (1988, 345), this view makes two important as-
sumptions: “(1) The individual is a unit separable from ‘society’; and (2) prej-
udices involve distortions of an external reality or departures from rationality.”
Thus, a common criticism of the traditional view of prejudice is that it ignores
the larger social structure and power dynamics (see Blumer 1958; Bobo and
Fox 2003; Jackman 1994; Williams 1988). By focusing on the irrationality of
prejudice and ignoring social structural dynamics, the traditional conceptual-
ization of prejudice is unable to account for some of the newer, subtler, and
more covert manifestations of contemporary prejudice.
In contrast, the five alternative definitions of prejudice highlight the notion
that prejudice is linked to a larger social system. This linkage results in a con-
ceptualization of prejudice that acknowledges the role of irrationality but also
considers the failure of justice (Harding et al. 1969) and the violation of the
norms of human-heartedness and justice (Pettigrew 1980). Interestingly, two of
the traditional definitions of prejudice highlight the role of unjust attitudes
(see Milner 1975; Stephan 1999). For example, according to J. H. Harding
and his colleagues, “prejudice violates the norm of rationality by being over-
generalized, rigid, and based on inadequate evidence; it violates the norm of
justice because it fails to accord equal treatment to all members of society; and
it violates the norm of human-heartedness in denying the basic humanity of
[the] other” (cited in Duckitt 1992, 15). The incorporation of unjust attitudes
and/or failure of human-heartedness into our definition of prejudice also pro-
vides conceptual leverage for understanding the changing expression of racial
prejudice in U.S. society.
Moreover, the traditional view’s focus on the irrationality or unreasonable-
ness of prejudice implies that people have no rational reason (that is, nothing
to gain) for expressing racial prejudice. In contrast, others have pointed out that
“far from being deviant or abnormal, prejudice often becomes the normal and
expected state of affairs in a society” (Levin and Levin 1982, 76). In line with
this perspective, Richard Schermerhorn (1970, 6) argues that if social scien-
tists have learned anything from their long-term study of the concept of prej-
 COLOR-BLIND RACISM AND RACIAL INDIFFERENCE 49

udice, it is that prejudice “is not a little demon that emerges in people because
they are depraved.” Therefore, I argue that the expression of racial prejudice
is not simply irrational but in fact serves an important social function in a
racialized social system. Typically this function is to disadvantage an individ-
ual or socially defined group viewed as subordinate (see also Pettigrew 1980).
As such, racial prejudice must be understood in a wider sense to include a pos-
sible irrational component and/or to include a failure of justice component.
Further, this alternative conceptualization provides an important basis for con-
sidering racial apathy a contemporary form of racial prejudice.
Although racial prejudice has long been recognized to have both affective
and cognitive dimensions, most of the previous research on contemporary racial
prejudice has focused on the cognitive dimension (Pettigrew 1997, 2000;
Shelton 2000). As Eric Vanman and Norman Miller (1993, 215) note, “A con-
sideration of prejudice as a phenomenon in the mind rather than in the guts
has its limits.” Furthermore, the predominant focus on cognition in the study
of prejudice is quite limited, since “affect is an inexonerable force in intergroup
relations. Encounters with members of different groups might activate beliefs
and thoughts, but they are also likely to activate feelings and emotions”
(Stroessner and Mackie 1993, 63). In fact, recent research has begun an im-
portant corrective by emphasizing the affective dimension of prejudice. For in-
stance, Eliot Smith and his colleagues (Smith 1993; Smith and Ho 2002) have
developed a new conceptualization of prejudice that highlights the affective di-
mension. Smith (1993, 304) defines prejudice as “a social emotion experienced
with respect to one’s social identity as a group member, with an outgroup as a
target.” Consistent with this definition, Marilyn Brewer and Roderick Kramer
(1985, 231) note that although “the term ‘prejudice’ could be applied to the
cognitive content of intergroup perceptions as well, typically it is used with ref-
erence to the affective or emotional component.” In essence, by defining prej-
udice in this manner, it highlights the notion that feelings and emotions are
central to intergroup dynamics.
This theoretical insight has spawned a number of empirical investigations
concerning the role of intergroup emotions in shaping a range of outcomes.
For instance, Thomas Pettigrew and his colleagues (Meertens and Pettigrew
1997; Pettigrew and Meertens 1995; Pettigrew et al. 1998; Pettigrew 2000)
have investigated an important dimension of affective prejudice in Europe and
the United States, namely, subtle prejudice. They argue that individuals ex-
press prejudice toward out-groups in ways that shift over time in response to
changes in societal norms about socially appropriate ways to express dislike.
Thus, subtle prejudice consists of three ways to express distaste in modern-day
Europe and the United States that are thought to be socially acceptable: defense
of traditional values, exaggeration of cultural differences, and denial of positive
emotion. Drawing on large, nationally representative survey data from four
European nations, Pettigrew and his colleagues show that subtle prejudice is
50 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

distinct from blatant prejudice and is independently linked to a variety of social

policies concerning out-group members, even when other important factors are
simultaneously controlled (see Meertens and Pettigrew 1997; Pettigrew and
Meertens 1995; Pettigrew et al. 1998; Pettigrew 2000). Especially noteworthy
in this work is the focus of Pettigrew and his colleagues on the withholding of
positive emotions, such as sympathy or admiration, toward out-group members
as an important dimension of subtle prejudice. In the next section, I build on
this formulation of subtle prejudice as the denial of emotions by focusing on
the absence of human-heartedness or denial of care as another form of subtle
prejudice (that is, racial apathy). I speculate that the expression of racial apathy
reflects not a true lack of care but a subtler distaste for out-group members.

RACIAL APATHY: THE NEW FACE OF

RACIAL PREJUDICE
Several decades ago Jack Levin claimed that “if we fail to take action to halt dis-
crimination or redress the grievances of minorities, we are acting against them”
(Levin and Levin 1982, 58). Here he highlights the importance of recognizing a
lack of action (for example, a failure to intervene in the face of injustice) as equiv-
alent in some important ways to direct action against a group. In a similar
vein I argue that the expression of racial apathy serves functions similar to those
of explicit forms of prejudice of the past. In the post–civil rights era the expres-
sion of racial apathy represents passive support for the racial status quo in society.
It facilitates the racial status quo by paralyzing individuals from acting to redress
injustice. As color-blind racism becomes hegemonic in U.S. society more indi-
viduals are becoming indifferent to racial inequality. Racial apathy is often ex-
pressed because individuals believe that any existing racial inequities are the result
of individual or group cultural deficiencies, not racial discrimination. Thus, the
racially apathetic see little reason to be bothered by or to care about lingering
inequities. Racial apathy is a subtle expression of a particular kind of dislike.
Theorizing the negative consequences of racial apathy is not entirely new.
For instance, Daniel Katz (1960, 182) noted almost fifty years ago that

most research on attitudes has been directed at beliefs concerning the undesir-
able character of minority groups or of deviants, with accompanying feelings of
distrust, contempt, and hatred. Many attitudes, however, are not the projection
of repressed aggression but are expressions of apathy or withdrawal. The indi-
vidual protects himself from a difficult or demanding world and salvages his self-
respect by retreating within his own shell.

Here Katz argues that apathy is not truly a lack of opinion about a group,
but an expression of a particular kind of dislike. Pettigrew (1980, 2–14) has
 COLOR-BLIND RACISM AND RACIAL INDIFFERENCE 51

also discussed indifference as a form of prejudice. He argues that “violating the

norm of ‘human-heartedness’ can result from fear and threat, or jealousy and
envy; it can range from intense hatred to simple indifference and an absence of
human sympathy.” In fact, in recent work Pettigrew and his colleagues have
argued that the absence of sympathy for out-group members in a number of
European countries represents a new form of subtle prejudice (Pettigrew and
Meertens 1995; Pettigrew et al. 1998; Pettigrew 2000). These patterns have
also been observed in the United States. For instance, a recent study found
that 43 percent of whites reported that they seldom (not too often, hardly ever,
never) feel sympathy for blacks, and 48 percent indicated that they seldom feel
admiration for blacks (Williams et al. 1999). As another analyst has recently
pointed out, often when individuals say they do not feel anything or they are
apathetic, “it can mask and underlie great cruelty . . . [and] can shape how
[individuals] behave in powerful ways” ( Johnson 1997, 66). This is quite con-
sistent with the view that the “mind rarely, probably never, perceives any ob-
ject with absolute indifference, that is, without feeling” (Sherrington 1890, as
cited in Blumenthal 1977). Moreover, recent qualitative research confirms
that expressions of racial apathy as conceptualized here easily coexist with per-
sistent negative views about racial minorities. For example, studying everyday
life in a white suburban enclave, recent ethnographic research describes the way
in which young, middle-class whites discussed race-related matters: “When
the topic of racial difference was posed to SWR [abbreviation for town name]
students directly and in a more public context, they made it clear that they
thought race was someone else’s issue, one [with] which they did not need to
bother” (Kenny 2000, 171). In more private settings, however, these same stu-
dents were quite willing to express negative feelings toward racial minorities
(Kenny 2000). As a construct, racial apathy captures the ways in which whites
may publicly express indifference or lack of care about racial inequality while
at the same time continuing to hold antiminority views.
There are at least two possible reasons why individuals express racial apathy.
First, individuals may express indifference to racial inequality because they view
those racial minorities who experience difficulty as having individual or group
cultural deficiencies that justify their disadvantaged status. As a result, these
individuals feel they have little reason to care about the social circumstances of
these minorities. In essence, they deny the humanity of the disadvantaged.
Daniel Bar-Tal (1990) has labeled this phenomenon delegitimization, by which
he means the categorization of certain groups into negative social categories so
as to exclude them from social acceptability. This view is also captured in
Michael Katz’s (1989) concept of the “undeserving poor.” Although this term
ostensibly refers to the work effort of the poor, in the post–civil rights era these
moral judgments have been extended to racial minorities. The perception is
that the deserving poor are white and work hard, whereas the undeserving poor
are black or Latino as well as unemployed and receiving government assistance.
52 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

Thus, the disadvantaged status of many racial minorities is attributed to their

lack of motivation and non-normative values.
Another possible reason for the expression of racial apathy is ignorance
about the persistent nature of racial and ethnic inequality. One advantage of
a focus on racial apathy is its ability to capture not only white indifference to
racial inequality—their lack of an opinion or interest in the subject—but also
the expression of whites’ privileged status in the racialized social system in their
ability to be structurally ignorant about racial discrimination or to not even
think much about racial matters. Rather than being a thoughtful response to
social realities, such a lack of thought about racial matters in some ways rep-
resents a strategic evasion of responsibility, or what Lorraine Kenny (2000) has
called “sanctioned ignorance.” James Baldwin (1955, 166) discussed the power
of this sanctioned ignorance in his classic essay “Stranger in the Village,” in
which he argues that

there is a great deal of will power involved in the white man’s naïveté . . . [he
prefers] to keep the black man at a certain human remove because it is easier for
him thus to preserve his simplicity and avoid being called to account for crimes
committed by his forefathers, or his neighbors. He is inescapably aware, never-
theless, that he is in a better position in the world than black men are.

What Baldwin highlights here is the fact that despite being profoundly igno-
rant about the social circumstance of racial minorities, in many ways whites oc-
cupy a privileged position because of that very ignorance. For if they were to
dispense with this ignorance, they would ultimately have to change their views
and behavior toward racial minorities. This “naïveté” or “sanctioned ignorance”
is an evasion that is closely linked to the pervasive racial residential segregation
in our society.
Whites continue to be the most racially isolated group in the country (Lewis
2001; Massey and Fischer 1999; Orfield and Lee 2004). Many whites live in
almost-all-white suburban communities; a large body of recent work has clearly
demonstrated that these communities are not accidentally this way (Lipsitz
1998; Massey and Denton 1993; Sugrue 1996). That is, living in such largely
homogenous communities is representative not of a lack of racial dynamics but
of participation (whether deliberate or accidental) in the very racialized phe-
nomenon of segregation. On the other hand, although there is a racial com-
ponent to the composition of these spaces, the racial motives, history, and
practices that have led to their current demographics are largely unacknowl-
edged, if not explicitly denied (see Lewis 2001). For example, Lorraine Kenny
(2000, 6), in her ethnography of everyday life in white suburbia, describes the
segregated spaces as the “ ‘anti-OtherAmerica’—a place intentionally built on
imposing distance between white America and its Others” and based on both
 COLOR-BLIND RACISM AND RACIAL INDIFFERENCE 53

“the exclusion of the Other and the denial of this practice.” Thus, whites are
often today deliberately situated so that they do not have to think about race
regularly and can remain ignorant about contemporary discrimination, largely
because they have insulated themselves from the racial “other.” The construct
of racial apathy represents a way to capture these kinds of deliberate evasions,
destructive indifference, and powerful inaction.

NATIONAL FINDINGS
What is the extent of racial apathy and indifference in the United States? To
answer this question I draw on survey data from several nationwide surveys.
As a first step in examining changes in racial indifference among whites, fig-
ure 3.1 reports results for a measure of racial apathy and generalized apathy
drawn from a large-scale survey of young people called the Monitoring the
Future Survey, an annual survey since 1976 of young people about their social
attitudes toward a broad range of questions. Racial apathy was measured by ask-
ing respondents whether they agreed or disagreed (on a scale from 1 = “disagree”
to 5 = “agree”) with the statement: “Maybe some minority groups do get
unfair treatment, but that’s no business of mine.” The statement with which

FIGURE 3.1 CHANGES IN YOUNG WHITES’ EXPRESSION OF RACIAL APATHY AND

GENERALIZED APATHY, 1976 TO 2000

20
Generalized Apathy 18
18
Racial Apathy 16
16
14 13
Percentage

12 11
10 10 10 10
10
8
6
4
2
0
1976 1988 1998 2000
Year

Source: Author’s compilation.

Note: p ≤ .05.
54 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

generalized apathy was measured was: “It’s not really my problem if others are
in trouble and need help.” Here I am interested in comparing white youths’
responses in 2000 with those given in 1998, 1988, and 1976. Two patterns
are worth highlighting from these data. First, racial apathy shows movement
toward increasing racial intolerance. That is, more young whites today agree
(18 percent) with the statement that minority groups may receive unfair treat-
ment but that is not their concern than did so in 1976 (10 percent). Second,
there appears to be virtual stability in young whites’ expression of generalized
apathy. For example, approximately one in ten young whites today agree that
it is not their problem if others need help; a similar number shared this view
in 1976. This pattern of results indicates, at least with respect to young whites,
that racial indifference is a perspective held by an increasing number of white
youth. Further, this expressed racial apathy is distinct from the generalized ap-
athy that is often attributed to young people. Rather, it is specific to a racial-
ized notion of apathy.
Figure 3.2 reports the proportion of young whites responding “never” over
time to the question: “How often do you worry about race relations?” (scale

FIGURE 3.2 CHANGE IN THE PERCENTAGE OF YOUNG WHITES REPORTING THEY

NEVER WORRY ABOUT RACE RELATIONS, 1976 TO 2000

25

21
20
20
18

15
Percentage

13

10

0
1976 1988 1998 2000
Year

Source: Author’s compilation.

Note: p ≤ .05.
 COLOR-BLIND RACISM AND RACIAL INDIFFERENCE 55

from 1 = “never” to 4 = “often”). An increasing number of young whites re-

port never being concerned about race relations. For instance, whereas 13 per-
cent of young whites reported never being concerned with race in 1976, by
2000, 21 percent of white youth expressed this view. Again, this pattern of
change suggests that racial apathy in particular is on the rise, not generalized
apathy.
Is racial indifference specific to the young? Unfortunately, comparable sur-
vey questions have not been asked of the general adult population. However,
other questions have been asked of white adults continuously, in many cases
for at least four decades (1964 to 2000). These questions provide some in-
sight, albeit indirectly, about the prevalence of and shifts in racial indiffer-
ence among white adults. The first set of questions comes from the Institute
for Social Research (ISR) at the University of Michigan. Surveys from ISR
have included three questions about government intervention in matters of
school integration, neighborhood integration, and workplace integration (see
appendix to this chapter). Figure 3.3 graphically depicts changes over the past
four decades in the proportion of white adults saying they have no interest in
these questions on integration. These data indicate that increasing numbers
of white adults are responding that they have no interest in the role that the
government should play in ensuring integration in several life domains. For
instance, the proportion of white adults saying they had no interest in the
issue of school integration rose from approximately 11 percent in 1964 to
34 percent in 2000.
Does the rise in “no interest” and “don’t know” responses reflect racial apa-
thy and more general racial intolerance? I argue that it does. My interpretation
of these survey responses is quite consistent with other recent research that has
shown that some whites who harbor negative racial attitudes hide behind “don’t
know” responses (see Berinsky 1999). Furthermore, analysis of longitudinal
data spanning the 1960s through the 1990s indicates that the pattern among
whites of responding “don’t know” or “no interest” is more likely today than it
was in the past to reflect a strategic move to mask socially undesirable responses
(Berinsky 2002). Similarly, Moshe Semyonov and his colleagues (2001), in a
study of antiforeigner sentiment in Germany, found that 29 percent of their
German respondents refused to answer a question on the perceived size of the
foreign population. When they examined these respondents’ views on other
questions in the survey, it was clear that they were more likely to have a deep
hatred for foreigners than those who had responded.
Figure 3.4 provides data that enable us to get a better assessment of the ex-
tent of racial apathy among white adults. It shows white and black responses
to the “better break” question: “On the whole, do you think most white people
want to see blacks get a better break, or do they want to keep blacks down, or
don’t you think they care either way?” Figure 3.4 reports the proportion of
whites and blacks who say that whites “don’t care either way.” Two patterns
FIGURE 3.3 CHANGES IN THE PERCENTAGE OF WHITES SAYING THEY HAVE
“NO INTEREST” IN INTEGRATION-RELATED ISSUES, 1964 TO 2000

Federal Job Intervention, 1964 to 2000

50
45
40
35
Percentage

30
25
20
15
10
5
0
1964 1968 1972 1974 1986 1988 1992 1996 2000
Year

Federal School Intervention, 1964 to 2000

50
45
40
35
Percentage

30
25
20
15
10
5
0
1964 1966 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1986 1990 1992 1994 1995 2000
Year

Public Accommodation Intervention, 1964 to 1995

25
20
Percentage

15
10
5
0
1964 1968 1970 1972 1974 1995
Year

Source: Author’s compilation.

Note: p ≤ .05.
 FIGURE 3.4 CHANGES IN THE PERCENTAGE OF THOSE REPORTING THAT
“WHITES DON’T CARE,” BY RACE, 1969 TO 1998

White Respondents, 1984 to 1998

50
45
40
35
Percentage

30
25
20
15
10
5
0
1984 1988 1989 1991 1992 1995 1998
Year

Black Respondents, 1969 to 1998

50
45
40
35
Percentage

30
25
20
15
10
5
0
1969 1981 1983 1984 1988 1989 1991 1992 1995 1998
Year

Source: Author’s compilation.

Note: p ≤ .05.
58 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

revealed in this figure are worth emphasizing. First, in 1984, 33 percent of

whites responded that “whites don’t care”; by 1998, 44 percent of whites
responded in this fashion. Second, there is substantial agreement among blacks
and whites on this question, a rare occurrence in survey research on racial at-
titudes (see Kinder and Sanders 1996)! Whereas 29 percent of blacks reported
in 1969 (at the height of the urban riots) that “whites don’t care,” by 1998,
44 percent of blacks held this view. In short, there was an upward shift in the
proportion of whites and blacks who believed that “whites don’t care” about
the plight of African Americans.
I believe that taken together these patterns of change in social attitudes re-
veal a growing level of racial apathy among young and old whites alike in the
United States. These results are especially important because they provide
additional empirical evidence for the changes that have occurred over the past
three decades in whites’ racial attitudes. They highlight the need to refine our
measurement of racial attitudes to incorporate the increasingly subtle forms of
their expression (Bobo, Kluegel, and Smith 1997; Bonilla-Silva and Forman
2000; Dovidio 2001; Forman 2001).

CONCLUSION
As Lawrence Bobo highlights in this volume, “it is not enough to declare
that race matters or that racism endures. The more demanding challenge is
to account for how and why such a social construction comes to be recon-
stituted, refreshed, and enacted anew in very different times and places.”
Clearly, our efforts to eradicate racial and ethnic inequality will not be suc-
cessful until we better understand the precise mechanisms reproducing it. In
this chapter, I have argued that the expression of racial apathy is one mech-
anism by which racial and ethnic inequality endures. By being indifferent
or ignoring the social reality of race in a racialized social system, whites and
others sustain a system of inequality that restricts opportunities for many
racial and ethnic minorities. As Bryan Fair (1997, xxiii) recently noted: “The
problem of the twenty-first century will be the problem of color-blindness—
the refusal of legislators, jurists, and most of American society to acknowledge
the causes and current effects of racial caste and to adopt remedial policies to
eliminate them.” Those who are color-blind and racially apathetic to perva-
sive racial and ethnic inequality represent a “silent majority” in our society
(Wiley 1973).
Almost four decades ago the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. (1996, 745)
remarked in his famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” that “we will have to
repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the
bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.” In other words,
“what counts isn’t just what [people] do, but even more what they don’t do”
( Johnson 2001, 114). The continued focus on traditional, overt Jim Crow
 COLOR-BLIND RACISM AND RACIAL INDIFFERENCE 59

prejudice as the main cause of the dire circumstances that many racial and eth-
nic minorities experience, ironically, enables many whites to overlook their
role in facilitating enduring racial and ethnic inequalities.
If in the face of entrenched, systemic, and institutionalized racism most
whites say that they have no negative feelings toward racial minorities but that
they feel no responsibility to do anything about enduring racial and ethnic in-
equalities and in fact object to any programmatic solutions to addressing those
inequalities—is that progress or merely a new form of prejudice in its passive
support for an unequal racial status quo? It is my view that it is the latter rather
than the former. The expression of racial apathy in the post–civil rights era
represents an action that is racist at least in its effect, if not in its intent. Hence,
we must pay closer attention to its manifestation as an important and de-
structive force. Although this chapter represents just a first step in detailing the
nature and extent of racial apathy in the United States today, it does highlight
some possible new expressions of prejudice that demand methodological as
well as conceptual innovation.

APPENDIX: QUESTION WORDING

MONITORING THE FUTURE SURVEY
Racial Apathy Respondents were asked to rate on a five-point Likert-type
scale the following statement: “Maybe some minority groups do get unfair
treatment, but that’s no business of mine.” Possible responses ranged from
“disagree” (1) to “agree” (5). High scores represent greater racial apathy.

Generalized Apathy Respondents were asked to rate on a five-point Likert-

type scale the following statement: “It’s not really my problem if others are
in trouble and need help.” Possible responses ranged from “disagree” (1) to
“agree” (5). High scores represent greater apathy.

Concern About Race Relations Respondents were asked to answer the follow-
ing question on a four-point Likert-type scale: “Of all the problems facing the
nation today, how often do you worry about race relations?” Possible responses
ranged from “never” (1) to “often” (4).

INSTITUTE FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH SURVEY

Federal School Intervention “Some people say that the government in
Washington should see to it that white and black children go to the same
schools. Others claim that this is not the government’s business. Have you
been interested enough in this question to favor one side over the other? [If
yes] Do you think the government in Washington should see to it that white
60 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

and black children go to the same schools, or stay out of this area, as it is not
its business?” Possible responses were “government should see to it” (1), “gov-
ernment should stay out” (2), or “no interest” (3).

Federal Job Intervention “Some people feel that if black people are not getting
fair treatment in jobs, the government in Washington ought to see to it that
they do. Others feel that this is not the federal government’s business. Have
you had enough interest in this question to favor one side over the other? [If yes]
How do you feel? Should the government in Washington see to it that black
people get fair treatment in jobs or is this not the federal government’s busi-
ness?” Possible responses were “government should see to it” (1), “government
should stay out” (2), or “no interest” (3).

Public Accommodations Intervention “As you may know, Congress passed a

bill that says that black people should have the right to go to any hotel or restau-
rant they can afford, just like anybody else. Some people feel that this is some-
thing the government in Washington should support. Others feel that the
government should stay out of this matter. Have you been interested enough
in this to favor one side over the other? [If yes] Should the government support
the right of black people to go to any hotel or restaurant they can afford, or
should it stay out of this matter?” Possible responses were “government should
see to it” (1), “government should stay out” (2), or “no interest” (3).

GALLUP SURVEY
Better Break “On the whole, do you think most white people want to see
blacks get a better break, or do they want to keep blacks down, or do you think
they care either way?” Possible responses were “better break” (1), “keep blacks
down” (2), or “don’t care either way” (3).

This chapter was completed while I was a visiting fellow at the Research
Institute of Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity (RICSRE) at Stanford
University. I am grateful to colleagues Thomas Guglielmo, Maria Krysan,
Thomas Pettigrew, Kerry Ann Rockquemore, Ulrich Wagner, and participants
in Stanford’s RICSRE Fellows Forum—Tom Biolsi, James Campbell, George
Fredrickson, Hazel Markus, Thomas Pettigrew, Ann Pettigrew, Robert Smith,
and Dorothy Steele—for their insightful comments and suggestions. I am
especially indebted to Amanda Lewis for her thoughtful comments on earlier
versions of this chapter. Support for this project was provided by the Institute
for Research on Race and Public Policy at the University of Illinois at Chicago
and the Russell Sage Foundation.
 COLOR-BLIND RACISM AND RACIAL INDIFFERENCE 61

NOTES
1. Given the continuing existence of racial prejudice in society, albeit
covertly expressed, some social psychologists have focused in recent years
on more unobtrusive measures of prejudice. One form that this line of in-
quiry has taken has been to study implicit prejudice—biases of which in-
dividuals themselves may not even be aware (see Fazio et al. 1995; Blair
2001). One of the most common methods of measuring implicit preju-
dice is to use response-time latency procedures—in essence, the length of
time it takes respondents to make particular associations that are either
stereotypic or counterstereotypic (Cunningham, Preacher, and Banaji
2001). Several recent studies indicate that these implicit measures are
an important predictor of socially sensitive behaviors, above and be-
yond traditional self-report measures of racial prejudice (Dovidio 2001;
McConnell and Leibold 2001). Although these new developments in the
study of racial prejudice are clearly important, a full discussion and inte-
gration of these works are beyond the scope of this chapter. Furthermore,
I contend that more refined survey items can capture the new forms of
prejudice.
2. By ideology I mean, following Jeffrey Prager (1982, 101), “an organized
set of assumptions and presuppositions concerning social organization
that orient thought and action in society and, if need be, are capable of
articulation and rational defense.”
3. There are clear conceptual similarities between laissez-faire racism and
color-blind racism. They both highlight the importance of whites’ be-
liefs in the cultural inferiority of racial minorities and their resistance
to efforts that promote racial equality. The two conceptualizations dif-
fer in important respects as well. For instance, laissez-faire racism fo-
cuses on the persistence of negative racial stereotypes, whereas
color-blind racism focuses on individuals’ belief that U.S. society func-
tions as a racial meritocracy and that people do not care about or even
notice race. Nevertheless, it may well be the case that these differences
mainly concern a difference in emphasis rather than substantive
content.
4. I use the term “color-blind” here to highlight the idea that these beliefs
are rooted in the notion of not seeing race. Though the irony of color-
blindness is that, as Amanda Lewis (2003, 34) points out, “it attempts to
mask the power of race as it simultaneously demonstrates precisely the
difference race does make (that is, when one asserts that one does not pay
attention to race, the implication is that to notice it would have deleteri-
ous outcomes).” That is, color-blindness contains within it implicit cyn-
icism about our capacity to recognize and appreciate difference without
also engaging in discrimination. As Michelle Alexander (2003, 10) puts
62 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

it, “The colorblindness ideal is premised on the notion that we, as a soci-
ety, can never be trusted to see race and treat each other fairly, or with
genuine compassion.”

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 4
INSTITUTIONAL PATTERNS AND
TRANSFORMATIONS: RACE AND ETHNICITY IN
HOUSING,EDUCATION,LABOR MARKETS,
RELIGION, AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE


Amanda E. Lewis, Maria Krysan,

Sharon M. Collins, Korie Edwards, and Geoff Ward

WHERE PEOPLE LIVE, go to school, work, and pray—as well as the system pur-
ported to protect them as they go about these and other pursuits—continues to
be fundamentally shaped by race and ethnicity. An individual’s race and eth-
nicity shapes how he or she is treated by the institutions of housing, education,
labor markets, religion, and the criminal justice system, and issues of race and
ethnicity are embedded in how these institutions operate. This is not a new story.
But what is new are the particulars of how race and ethnicity operate and the
larger context within which they operate. Specifically, the manifestations and
expressions of racial stratification, prejudice, and discrimination have become
more subtle, and the causes and consequences correspondingly more complex.
Increases in immigration from Asia and Latin America, which have resulted
in a dramatic demographic change in the racial-ethnic composition of the
United States, have also made the dynamics of race and ethnicity more complex.
In this chapter, we examine five social institutions, providing a brief historical
context for each institution before reviewing recent trends in racial and ethnic in-
equality within it. We highlight the current key debates on the impact of race and
ethnicity on each of these institutions and then pose key questions for the future.
Within our discussion of each institution, our aim is to clarify how race and eth-
nicity play out at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Taken together, these
detailed examinations of five institutions provide important insights into how
race and ethnicity continue to affect individuals in their everyday life.
68 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

HOUSING
Throughout our nation’s history, there have been few moments when whites
and blacks shared residential space. During some times and in some places the
separation was not as severe, and in recent decades the levels of integration
have risen modestly in some areas, but it is still difficult to survey America’s
landscape without concluding that whites and blacks live in different neighbor-
hoods and communities. Although the overall terrain has changed only some-
what, the context in which these patterns are created and perpetuated has
shifted substantially, and the causes of these patterns continue to be the subject
of much research and debate.
Prior to 1968, explicit and in many cases legally and politically mandated laws
and public policies kept African Americans out of white neighborhoods. These
policies shaped where people moved, encouraged neighborhood turnover, and
turned a blind eye to the deterioration of the communities in which African
Americans predominated. For example, local governments instituted restrictive
zoning ordinances to keep blacks out of certain neighborhoods, and the federal
government’s policies on public housing and other housing programs were com-
plicit in these efforts as they encouraged white movement to the suburbs and
discouraged investment in urban housing stock, where most African Americans
lived (Oliver and Shapiro 1995).
These patterns were exacerbated by actions taken in the private realm.
Neighborhood improvement associations and the real estate industry used re-
strictive covenants to prohibit white owners from selling to African Americans.
Brokers and lenders were often bound by their codes of practice and ethics
to refuse their services to those who were making pro-integrative moves, and
others in the industry took direct action to prompt racial turnover through
various “block-busting” strategies (Massey and Denton 1993; Meyer 2000). In
fact, as Stephen Meyer (2000) has recently argued, government policies were
constructed in part as a response to the civil disruption created by whites—
individually as well as collectively through homeowners’ associations, neighbor-
hood groups, and mobs—upon the arrival of African Americans on their block.
Whites responded with intimidation, scare tactics, buyouts, and protests (see
also Sugrue 1996).
After years of resistance through the work of individual black homeowners
making integrative moves and through collective action by civil rights groups
waging legal and political battles, the passage of the 1968 Fair Housing Act
signaled the end of “legal” housing segregation. Although explicit barriers and
policies limiting blacks’ housing choices were made illegal by the act, contin-
ued research and persisting patterns of segregation reveal that free and open
access to housing is still not a reality for racial and ethnic minorities in the
twenty-first-century United States. The most recent census data document
modest declines in black-white residential segregation, mainly in newer areas
 INSTITUTIONAL PATTERNS AND TRANSFORMATIONS 69

and the West (Farley and Frey 1994), but many of our nation’s largest metro-
politan areas continue to be residentially divided along racial lines. In addi-
tion, evidence suggests that Latinos and Asians, though not as residentially
segregated as African Americans, were actually becoming more segregated dur-
ing the past decade (Charles 2003). However, the Fair Housing Act has led to
changes in the patterns and sources of residential segregation. Current debates
about the origins of segregation highlight some of these new dynamics, though
many are simply new variations on three old themes: preferences, discrimina-
tion, and economics.

THE CAUSES OF PERSISTENT RACIAL

RESIDENTIAL SEGREGATION
Racial Preferences One subject of considerable debate during the last decade
or so is the degree to which residential segregation is the outcome of blacks
and whites preferring to live in neighborhoods composed of people of their
own race. At issue has been both the meaning of these preferences and the
question of whose preferences fuel the process: is it that whites prefer to live
with whites, that blacks prefer to live with blacks, or both? During the 1950s
and 1960s the research focused on patterns of white departure from the neigh-
borhoods into which African Americans were moving. But during the 1990s
the focus turned to: (1) the role of whites’ decisions, not about which neigh-
borhoods to leave, but about which neighborhoods to enter; (2) the role of
African American preferences; and (3) the motivations underlying these vari-
ous preferences.
Although there is considerable debate about whether “white flight” appro-
priately describes contemporary population distribution patterns, there is sub-
stantial agreement that the corollary decision—about which areas whites are
willing to move into—is critical. The evidence is quite clear: residential segre-
gation is perpetuated in part because whites are significantly less likely to move
into a neighborhood where African American residents are already living
(South and Crowder 1998; Crowder 2000).
The second theory—that African American segregation is a result of African
American preferences to live in black neighborhoods—argues that even if
white aversion to living with blacks was eliminated, segregation would persist
because of the “neutral” preferences of African Americans to live “among their
own kind” (Clark 1986, 1992; Patterson 1997; Thernstrom and Thernstrom
1997). A number of scholars have refuted this “black preference” theory of res-
idential segregation. For example, Camille Charles (2001) and Maria Krysan
and Reynolds Farley (2002) find that many African Americans are willing to
consider moving into neighborhoods with few African Americans and that
African Americans, compared to Asians, Latinos, and whites, have the lowest
level of “in-group preference.” In short, African American preferences are
70 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

complex and flexible and thus do not support the argument that African
Americans live in largely black communities because of a preference to do so.
A growing body of research has sought to answer the question that is im-
plicit in this debate about the role of African American preferences: what are
the motivations underlying expressed preferences? Those who attribute segre-
gation to the preferences of African Americans argue that such preferences are
motivated by neutral ethnocentrism—a desire to live among one’s “own kind”
where shared culture and values predominate. But others suggest that black
preferences are driven by concerns about the possibility of racial hostility and
discrimination in predominantly white neighborhoods (Feagin and Sikes
1994; Bobo and Zubrinsky 1996). This possibility suggests that even to the
degree that African American “preferences” contribute to segregation, they are
motivated by concerns that are far from benign and neutral.
There are also a number of competing interpretations of the origins of white
preferences. Some analysts have suggested that whites do not object to living
with African Americans per se but to the conditions they associate with living
with African Americans—or what David Harris (2001) calls “racial proxy”
considerations. Here the argument is that whites want to avoid living in
African American neighborhoods because these neighborhoods are run-down,
have low property values, and suffer from high crime rates—not because they
want to avoid African Americans. Ingrid Ellen (2000) offers a variant on this
argument—the neighborhood stereotyping hypothesis. Others have refuted
this interpretation, arguing that objections to integrated neighborhoods that
are based on supposedly “race-neutral” characteristics of the neighborhood—
declining property values, run-down housing, and high crime rates—may not
be so racially benign (Charles 2000; Krysan 2002).

Discrimination Although many of the public and private practices and poli-
cies of explicit discrimination in the housing market have been outlawed,
various forms of discriminatory treatment by a range of social institutions and
actors persist. Audit studies in which housing is sought by paired individuals
who are comparable on a number of characteristics but differ in their race or
ethnicity have documented discriminatory treatment toward African Americans
searching for housing, purchasing a mortgage, and securing insurance (Yinger
1995). Though outright refusals to sell or to show a home are rare, these studies
have consistently found more subtle forms of differential treatment: giving
minority home-seekers fewer options, showing them fewer units, or steering
them to neighborhoods with higher numbers of other racial-ethnic minorities
(Turner and Wienk 1993).
Discrimination also can occur beyond the point of simply finding a home
to purchase or an apartment to rent. When attention turned to “the color
of credit” during the 1990s (Ross and Yinger 2002), several studies docu-
mented that, controlling for numerous other relevant characteristics, blacks
 INSTITUTIONAL PATTERNS AND TRANSFORMATIONS 71

and Hispanics are denied loans at a much higher rate than whites (Munnell
et al. 1996; Oliver and Shapiro 1995). Disparate treatment can be subtle: for
example, when white applicants arrive with flaws in their credit histories, they
may be more likely to be given information and assistance to help them fix the
flaws; minority customers, by contrast, are more likely to simply be denied the
loan. Or when customers get behind in payments, mortgage companies can
decide either to foreclose or to help the customers through their problems. The
latter approach appears to be taken more often with white customers than with
minority customers. Finally, loan officers can make the process more difficult
by encouraging buyers to shop around, emphasizing the complicated applica-
tion procedures, sending them to other branch offices (where interest rates are
higher), or encouraging them to apply for FHA loans (which have less favor-
able terms) (Wyly and Holloway 1999). In short, at all the points in the mort-
gage process where discretion can be exercised, minorities are at a disadvantage.
The result may be that the search for housing involves more psychological,
emotional, and economic costs for minorities than for whites. Not only do
these various forms of disparate treatment contribute to residential segrega-
tion, but they may create more general barriers to homeownership among
African Americans and Latinos.
Redlining—a discriminatory practice used by the banking industry for
much of the twentieth century—continues today, although, again, in more
subtle forms. Currently such practices include differential placement of branch
offices, advertising approaches, and pre-application procedures. Each such
practice can result in fewer banks competing for minority loans, higher inter-
est rates, and less favorable terms for minority borrowers (Oliver and Shapiro
1995; Smith and DeLair 1999). This complex chain of events can set in mo-
tion a self-fulfilling prophecy, as Melvin Oliver and Thomas Shapiro (1995,
144) suggest:

Minority customers are perceived as being higher risk borrowers and are rejected
more frequently for conventional loans. So they take their business to finance
companies and pay higher rates than they would have paid on a conventional
mortgage. In the process they actually become the higher-risk borrowers that
banks originally perceived them to be. Ironically, minority customers would be
lower-risk borrowers if their monthly payments were not inflated by high rates
of finance-company interest.

Economic Causes The general public most commonly offers an economic ex-
planation for residential segregation: whites and blacks live in different areas
because blacks, on average, cannot afford to live in the same kinds of neighbor-
hoods as whites (Krysan and Faison 2002). The validity of this explanation
has been largely refuted by studies of the 1960 to 1980 censuses showing that
72 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

high-income African Americans were just as segregated from high-income

whites as poor blacks were segregated from poor whites (Denton and Massey
1988; Farley 1977b). More recent analyses are less clear on this question: some
show that social class may play some role, but others continue to find negligi-
ble effects (Alba, Logan, and Stults 2000; Clark and Ware 1997; Darden and
Kamel 2000; Krivo and Kaufman 1999; Massey and Fischer 1999; St. John
and Clymer 1999).
One of the recent contributions to the debate about the relationship be-
tween economics and residential segregation turns the question around and
asks: to what extent is economic inequality due to residential segregation? As
Oliver and Shapiro (1995) demonstrate, while there has been some progress
toward reducing black-white income inequality, a tremendous racial gulf in
wealth remains: for every $1 in wealth held by a black household, white house-
holds have $12. Oliver and Shapiro (1995) and more recently Dalton Conley
(1999) argue persuasively that homeownership is a key to wealth accumula-
tion; thus, one of the outcomes and implications of housing segregation is that
African Americans have been shut out of a critical avenue to wealth accumu-
lation and economic stability. Differential homeownership rates are not the
only culprit: segregated housing markets also suppress for black homeowners
the increases in property values that whites enjoy, largely because of the dis-
criminatory “tastes” of whites. Government policies and practices have been
complicit in this development, and its effects go beyond simple homeowner-
ship: “Black Americans who failed to secure this economic base [through
homeownership] were much less likely to be able to provide educational access
for their children, secure the necessary financial resources for self-employment,
or participate effectively in the political process” (Oliver and Shapiro 1995, 23).
In addition to residential segregation’s effects on wealth differentials, the
1990s saw a number of studies that provide substantial evidence of other dele-
terious consequences of segregation for African Americans across a wide range
of economic and health outcomes, including single-motherhood, infant mor-
tality, homicide rates, and adult mortality rates (Collins and Williams 1999;
Cutler and Glaeser 1997; Hart et al. 1998; LaViest 1989, 1993; Peterson and
Krivo 1991, 1999; Polednak 1990).

THE FUTURE OF RACE, ETHNICITY, AND HOUSING

What Are the Implications of an Increasingly Multiethnic Population? The na-
tion’s changing racial-ethnic composition raises critical questions about the
future of housing patterns. Asians and Latinos continue to be less segregated
from whites than blacks are segregated from whites, but analyses of the 2000
census reveal that these groups are becoming more segregated over time. The
dynamics of immigration contribute to this pattern of isolation (Charles 2003).
At the same time, analyses of Hispanics and Asians reveal that levels of segre-
 INSTITUTIONAL PATTERNS AND TRANSFORMATIONS 73

gation differ considerably depending on subgroup: for example, Puerto Ricans

are more segregated than Mexicans and Cubans. Several questions arise: Will
these new immigrant groups from Latin America and Asia substantially alter
patterns of segregation, both in cities where they join large populations of
African Americans and in areas where they are the only or the largest racial-
ethnic minority group? Will Latino and Asian immigrants eventually become
less segregated, as earlier European ethnic groups have done over time? Or will
there be persistent segregation across all of these groups? What are the atti-
tudes of immigrants toward living with whites and blacks? And conversely,
what are the attitudes of whites and blacks toward living with Asians and
Latinos? Charles (2000) has provided some of the only answers to these ques-
tions; much remains to be done.

What About Revitalization? During the 1990s several of our nation’s largest
metropolitan areas showed substantial signs of revitalization of their inner-city
neighborhoods. What influence will such efforts have on overall patterns of
segregation? Will segregation be reduced as a result of this flow back into the
city? Or will this movement simply re-create patterns of segregation within the
city? What will happen to those who are being displaced, and how will their
displacement affect overall patterns of segregation?

What Will Black Suburbanization Do to the Future of Residential Segre-

gation? Black suburbanization has increased over the last few decades; for ex-
ample, the census of 2000 reports fewer all-white neighborhoods than in the
past (Glaeser and Vigdor 2001). What are the implications of this movement?
Who will move into these suburbs, and who will stay? Will others follow? What
impact do gated communities in these suburbs have on residential processes?
Will increased suburbanization result in resegregation in the suburbs? Or will
different patterns emerge?

Will Changes in Technology Use in the Housing Industry Influence Patterns of

Segregation? Technology has transformed aspects of the mortgage industry,
particularly through the increased use of automated underwriting techniques.
In the aggregate, this may make the mortgage industry more willing to assume
more credit risk, but would this have a positive or negative effect on minorities
(Gates, Perry, and Zorn 2002; LaCour-Little 2000; Straka 2000)? Does such
a process eliminate the discretion of the manual methods that resulted in
discriminatory treatment? Or will the models upon which the automated
processes are based have a disparate impact on minorities (Ross and Yinger
2002)? Will the lack of information about an applicant’s racial identity—when,
for example, mortgage loans are secured over the Internet—help to equalize
these markets? Or will other tactics emerge that are more subtle yet equally dis-
criminatory in their impact? Outside the realm of the mortgage industry, there
74 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

are other areas where technology is transforming how people do real estate busi-
ness. Will the “digital divide” make disparities between whites and blacks who
are searching for housing even greater in access to information and resources
that make it possible to succeed in this search (Gates, Perry, and Zorn 2002)?

EDUCATION
Residential segregation has been called the “structural lynchpin” that main-
tains racial inequality in the United States (Bobo 1989; Pettigrew 1979). One
of the consequences of segregated housing, for example, is that it feeds directly
into segregated schools and racial inequality in education. Throughout the his-
tory of the United States, educational institutions have at times reproduced or
maintained racial inequality, and at other times have challenged it. From the
systematic denial of education to black slaves, Japanese field workers, and
Mexican laborers to the provision of distinctly separate but equal schools in
the South, to the development of freedom schools (Anderson 1988; Franklin
2000; Montejano 1987; Takaki 1989), education has been a key arena in which
racial hierarchies have been negotiated and contested (Walters 2001).
Much as occurred with housing, the 1950s and 1960s featured legal and
political battles, first simply to gain access to schools and educational oppor-
tunities, and then to gain access to white schools. One of the key legal deci-
sions in the arena of schools was a dismantling of Jim Crow laws in the South
by the 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education, which out-
lawed segregation in public schooling. Some of the early and influential social
scientific research on race and education provided key evidence in this ruling—
specifically, studies showing the negative effects of segregated schooling on
African American children (McKee 1993). As with housing, then, the battle
to dismantle de jure segregation in education was eventually won.
By the 1990s, however, these civil rights successes had been turned on their
head. The legal battles now being waged focus on dismantling the very policies
that were put in place to integrate educational institutions, such as challenges
to affirmative action and the ending of many court-ordered desegregation
plans. As such, schools—more so than many other institutions—are at the cen-
ter of the most contested policy issues pertaining to race and ethnicity in the
contemporary United States. In addition to the lawsuits against affirmative ac-
tion and school desegregation plans, there are political battles being waged to
equalize school funding, to institute a voucher system, and to change bilingual
education. The core issues within the arena of race, ethnicity, and education
are changing school demographics, current patterns of school desegregation,
and debates about the causes of racial inequality in school achievement.

School Demographics The demographic changes in the United States are

magnified in the context of schools, given the age distribution of the newly
 INSTITUTIONAL PATTERNS AND TRANSFORMATIONS 75

arriving immigrants and birthrates among different racial-ethnic groups. There

are now 7.9 million more black and Latino students in U.S. public school sys-
tems and 6.1 million fewer whites than there were in the 1960s (Orfield and
Lee 2004). Latinos are by far the fastest-growing group of public school students,
with a 305 percent increase since 1968. The number of black students has
also increased (29 percent), while the number of white students has declined
by 18 percent. By 2001 only 60.3 percent of all U.S. public school students were
white. The biggest changes in public school demographics have taken place in
the West and Southwest, where there are high numbers of immigrants from Asia
and Latin America; in many of these states public school systems already have
nonwhite majorities (Orfield and Lee 2004; Orfield and Gordon 2001).
As is most evident in California and Texas—the states where the demo-
graphic changes have been the greatest—these shifting demographics have re-
sulted in a number of public policy debates about whom public schools should
serve (as reflected, for example, in laws that bar children of illegal immigrants
from receiving public services), the best means to educate diverse populations
(as evidenced by both vigorous public opposition to and support for bilingual
education), and what criteria are most important for admissions to public
higher educational systems (as argued, for example, in affirmative action law-
suits). Similar to the rethinking of education that followed large population
influxes from southern and eastern Europe in the early 1900s, current demo-
graphic changes may well lead to reexaminations of the proper means and ends
of public education in the United States.

The Dismantling of Desegregation The school desegregation success story was

relatively short-lived. While the emphasis in housing has been on modest—
though inadequate—improvements in integration, in education the story is
one of regression. Indeed, given the large transformations in school demo-
graphics and the increasing numbers of students of color in the schools, we
might assume that schools generally are becoming more diverse. But the actual
picture of school racial composition is much more complicated. In the decades
following Brown v. Board of Education, the segregation of black students de-
clined dramatically and steadily (Frankenberg, Lee, and Orfield 2003; Orfield
and Gordon 2001; Orfield and Yun 1999). The South was in many ways the
biggest success story: those states that had state-mandated segregation were the
states where desegregation orders were most carefully and forcefully enforced,
and thus where schools were most successfully integrated. The result has been
that whites in the South attend schools with more minority students than do
whites in any other region in the United States (Orfield and Yun 1999). But
many of the gains in the South and elsewhere were lost during the 1990s. Partly
as a result of the termination of a number of desegregation orders by state and
appellate courts and the Supreme Court, racial segregation in U.S. public
schools intensified throughout the 1990s—in contrast to the patterns in
76 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

housing, which either improved somewhat or remained stagnant (Frankenberg,

Lee, and Orfield 2003). Erica Frankenberg and Chungmei Lee (2002, 4, em-
phasis in original), using national data, find that “virtually all school districts
analyzed are showing lower levels of inter-racial exposure since 1986, suggest-
ing a trend towards resegregation,” with sharp declines in some districts. These
patterns are true not only for public schools but for private schools: indeed, a
recent study of national trends for private schools found that they are more
segregated than public schools (Reardon and Yun 2002).
One emerging issue in the discussion of school segregation is the experiences
of Latinos, who are now one of the largest minority groups in the country and
will soon be the largest within public schools. Educationally, they are also the
most segregated minority group by both race-ethnicity and poverty and have
been for over a decade. Partly as a result, Latinos have the highest dropout
and lowest graduation rates. Many also face the additional challenges of subpar
bilingual education. Of the 9 percent of students nationally who are limited
English proficient (LEP), 75 percent are native Spanish speakers. Many of these
students attend schools where the quality of the teaching and the facilities is
poor and where resources are inadequate (Ma 2002).
Despite the overall fluctuations in school segregation patterns, it remains
true today that most white students in the United States attend schools with
few minority peers. Whites are, in fact, the most segregated group in terms of
their schooling. Moreover, most black and Latino students remain in pre-
dominantly minority schools. This is not an issue merely because of concerns
about diversity and interracial exposure. Partly because of segregation patterns,
minority students are also much more likely to attend schools with concen-
trated poverty—that is, schools where over 50 percent of the student body
lives in poverty.
The recent retreat from desegregation has taken place despite the many
demonstrated benefits of desegregation (for example, improved test scores,
higher rates of college attendance and success, and greater confidence in
interracial situations). As recent work by the Civil Rights Project makes clear,
the period from the 1960s through the 1980s, a time when major gains were
made in integration, was also a time of major gains for black students in clos-
ing academic achievement gaps (Orfield and Lee 2004; Orfield and Gordon
2001). By contrast, the last few decades, a period of resegregation, are show-
ing increasing gaps and loss of progress. This is especially alarming given that
many of the alternative strategies for equalizing separate schools (such as com-
pensatory education and raising standards) have not been successful. For ex-
ample, the 1990s movement to stimulate improvement by raising standards
was not very successful. Racial differences in achievement and graduation ac-
tually grew during the 1990s after several decades of shrinking (Orfield and
Gordon 2001). These patterns of retrenchment mirror resegregation patterns
almost exactly.
 INSTITUTIONAL PATTERNS AND TRANSFORMATIONS 77

Racial Inequality in School Outcomes Another major issue in race and educa-
tion has been racial differences in both the quantity and quality of schooling.
On the one hand, high school graduation rates for all groups have increased
steadily since the 1960s. In the year 2000, according to the 2000 census,
Asians and whites had the highest graduation rates (around 85 percent), and
blacks had achieved substantial progress, with graduation rates close to 79 per-
cent. While widely varying among different nationality groups, Latinos
remain substantially behind (U.S. Census 2001). By contrast, gaps in the
acquisition of a college degree remain high. Relative to whites, blacks are only
65 percent as likely to have attained a bachelor’s degree and only 58 percent
as likely to have achieved an advanced degree. Rates for Latinos are even lower
(42 percent and 38 percent, respectively). Asians have the highest educational
attainment rates, though again, there remains substantial variation within the
category among different national-origin groups. For example, while many
East and South Asian groups (Chinese, Japanese, Asian-Indians) have college
graduation rates around 40 percent, Southeast Asian (Vietnamese, Cambodian,
Laotian) rates are one-half to one-eighth as high. This bimodal distribution of
educational attainment among Asians is quite important, because it stands in
stark contrast to the model minority myth that all Asians groups have high
academic achievement.
Despite some progress with regard to the amount of education different
groups receive, there is still substantial evidence that large gaps remain in the
quality of their educational experiences. As noted earlier, blacks and Latinos
in particular are more likely to attend high-poverty schools; these schools also
tend to have fewer resources. For example, as we learned from the 2000 census,
schools with high minority enrollments are less likely to have Internet access
in the classroom, and they have more students per computer available; black
and Latino students are also less likely to have access to computers in the early
grades. Schools with black majorities are much more likely to have under-
qualified instructors or to use long-term substitutes to fill teacher vacancies
(Darling-Hammond 2003; Nettles and Perna 1997). Recent studies have also
shown that black and Latino students are less likely to have access to instruc-
tional materials, safe facilities, college preparatory curricula, and advanced
placement courses and less likely to take either the SAT or ACT (Allen, Bonous-
Hammarth, and Ternishi 2002; Harris 2004; IDEA 2004). These examples of
gaps in the quality of education are most often not a result of explicit segrega-
tion and direct action to limit minority access to quality education, as they
were in the past. Instead, they are more typically both the direct and indirect
outcome of a number of school and nonschool processes, such as the segrega-
tion of communities, the concentration of poverty, the dependence on local
property taxes to fund schools, and whites’ aversion to sending their children
to minority schools. Some of these processes involve seemingly “race-neutral”
public policies (such as local funding for schools), and some involve private
78 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

practices (such as families’ school choices). Their cumulative impact, however,

is unquestionable. For example, while only 15 percent of segregated white
schools had concentrated poverty, 88 percent of segregated minority schools
were predominantly poor (Orfield and Lee 2004).
These differences in educational quality are receiving growing attention be-
cause of the persistence in racial gaps in school achievement. Though the gaps
narrowed in the 1970s and 1980s, they leveled off or increased in the 1990s
(Lee 2002). There are competing explanations for these gaps. Individual-level
explanations include those emphasizing innate or genetic factors (for example,
Herrnstein and Murray 1994) and those pointing to community or family fac-
tors (for example, Coleman et al. 1966). Currently, there is a considerable de-
bate about whether students of color, particularly blacks and Latinos, have a
culture of opposition that might explain their underperformance. While John
Ogbu and Signithia Fordham (Ogbu 1978; Fordham and Ogbu 1986) have
received much attention for making these arguments, substantial recent re-
search suggests that school practices, personnel, and institutional cultures—
rather than student cultures—may be the more important factors (Ainsworth-
Darnell and Downey 1998; Carter 2003; Horvat and O’Connor, forthcoming;
Mickelson 1990; O’Connor 2001; O’Connor, Lewis, and Mueller, forthcom-
ing). Like other school-level or structural explanations, this work has focused
on how schools support some students and families more than others; how
resource differences across schools or communities shape different outcomes
(Kozol 1991; Hanushek 1994; Card and Krueger 1996; Conley 1999); and
how racial dynamics play out in teacher expectations, home-school relations,
rewards for cultural resources, and school discipline (Ainsworth-Darnell and
Downey 1998; Lareau and Horvat 1999; Delpit 1990; R. Ferguson 1998a,
1998b; A. Ferguson 2000). For example, a number of studies recently have
documented dramatic differentials in school disciplinary rates and the school
processes that produce such differentials (Ayers, Dohrn, and Ayers 2001; A.
Ferguson 2000; Johnson, Boyden, and Pittz 2001). Linked at least figuratively
to the criminalization of minority communities in general (see the last section
of this chapter for more on this issue), the rates at which students of color are
targeted for punishment and excluded from school have been increasing.

THE FUTURE OF RACE, ETHNICITY, AND EDUCATION

Will the Trend Toward “Regression” Continue? One thing that stands out
about the changing terrain of education is how it differs from other areas, such
as housing. For example, one key finding from housing research is stagnation—
that is, segregation in many of our nation’s largest metropolises is stuck at very
high levels. But the patterns in segregated schools tell a story of regression: we
are undoing what has been accomplished. In other arenas the story is more
complex. Gaps in school completion rates have narrowed—clearly a sign of
 INSTITUTIONAL PATTERNS AND TRANSFORMATIONS 79

progress—but there are still major inequities in the schools that different stu-
dents attend. The question remains: will the trend toward undoing integrated
schools continue, and if so, what consequences will this have for persisting
inequalities in educational outcomes?

How Will Changing Demographics Affect Schools and Education? The chang-
ing demographics of the United States—which are magnified in the public
schools—raise a number of important scholarly and policy questions. How
will such changes affect the educational outcomes of various groups? What will
race relations look like in schools with substantial numbers of three, four, or
five racial-ethnic groups present? How will public school districts faced with
shrinking budgets address the growing needs of new populations? Why are
Latino school achievement levels still so low? What will be the effects of pat-
terns of growing Latino school segregation? How much progress on educational
outcomes will be lost if school segregation overall continues to be dismantled?
Relatedly, more research is needed on diversity within populations: we need
to understand not only how the experiences of different subgroups diverge (for
example, Mexican American versus Puerto Rican students) but also how race
intersects with immigration status, class, and gender (for example, why college
graduation rates are higher for black women).

How Do Schools “Teach” Race to Students? Historically, educational research

has examined race by comparing the education and achievement levels of
racial groups and focusing on the causes for these differences. That is, research
has emphasized the expression or exacerbation of racial inequality in educa-
tion and schools. But given the important socialization role of schools, it is
equally important to understand how race, as a social phenomenon, is con-
structed “in the schoolyard” (Lewis 2003)—that is, understanding how
schools as social institutions are a venue in which racial identities and mean-
ings are negotiated (Davidson 1996; Dolby 2001; Lewis 2003; Perry 2002).
Schools are clearly places where children learn not only about belonging to a
“racial group”—“being,” for instance, white, black, or Asian—but also about
the rules of classification and how race works (Van Ausdale and Feagin 2001;
Lewis 2003). This area of research, though still in its early stages, has demon-
strated the powerful way in which this occurs. Future research needs to build
on these ideas and create more theoretically sophisticated treatments of the
interaction between race and education. For example, what lessons do schools
“teach” students about race? How are students’ racial identities and under-
standings shaped by explicit and hidden curricula, interracial interactions,
and experiences in and across different school buildings? Given the shift-
ing ways in which racism is manifested in the larger society, how do we then
study these phenomena of color-blind or laissez-faire racism in everyday school
practices?
80 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

What Are the Policy Implications of This Changing Terrain in Education? The
policy implications of all of these changing patterns are substantial, and sev-
eral arenas have been identified here. One additional arena would be linking
research on housing segregation to research on education. We need to under-
stand the ways in which educational opportunities and segregation in housing
are connected. In particular, how are data on schools used by individuals to
make housing decisions? Is race used as a proxy for measuring school quality?
How do school funding mechanisms (for example, funding schools primarily
through local property taxes) continue to link the “public” good of education
with “private” choices in housing?

LABOR MARKETS
As with education and housing, policies and practices of exclusion have shaped
the experiences of racial and ethnic minorities in labor markets for decades.
Also as with the institutions of housing and education, there has been in some
cases substantial progress in labor markets toward equality. But the patterns
are complex, and inequalities persist despite the passage of laws, much like
those in housing and education, that outlaw discrimination based on race or
ethnicity. A review of the historical and contemporary patterns of racial in-
equality in occupation and labor market status highlights what has changed
and what remains the same. After summarizing these trends, we turn to the
question of the underlying causes of racial inequality—a debate that mirrors
similar debates in the arenas of housing and education that we just discussed.
Before the 1960s, in both the South and the North, blacks were cast in
servant roles and almost unilaterally barred from lucrative industries and
establishments—in short, from any jobs that white workers found attractive.
Between 1960 and 1980 there was a dramatic change in blacks’ ability to com-
pete in the broader labor force. Blacks entered white-collar jobs at a rate much
faster than that of whites: the proportion of blacks in white-collar jobs in-
creased 80 percent between 1960 and 1970, and 44 percent more between
1970 and 1979. By 1980 the proportion of blacks in white-collar jobs had
increased 120 percent, compared to only 25 percent for whites.
This period was also marked by substantial improvement in black-white
male earnings ratios (Smith and Welch 1977, 1978), and the occupational dis-
tribution for employed black men began to approximate that of employed white
men (Farley 1977a; Featherman and Hauser 1976; Hauser and Featherman
1974). The most dramatic occupational advancements occurred as black men
moved into professional jobs, including management and the business-oriented
professions, such as accounting and law. For the first time in U.S. history,
highly educated black men broke into these traditionally closed, higher-paying,
white-collar jobs. Thus, the relative occupational gap between skilled black and
white men began to shrink (Freeman 1976; Featherman and Hauser 1976;
 INSTITUTIONAL PATTERNS AND TRANSFORMATIONS 81

Smith and Welch 1977). As is the case with housing and education, despite
the progress, closer examination of the labor market across a range of economic
indices reveals persistent disparities.

PERSISTENT DISPARITIES AT THE BOTTOM AND

TOP RUNGS OF LABOR MARKETS
African Americans continue to face challenges at both the bottom and the top
rungs of the labor market. At the very bottom, underemployment and un-
employment persist. For example, the size of the black-white unemployment
gap was as wide in the early 1990s as it was in 1970 (Harris and Farley 2000),
remaining roughly twice the rate of whites for decades. African Americans are
also greatly overrepresented in unskilled work and thus concentrated in eco-
nomic sectors that pay unlivable wages. At the other end of the occupational
spectrum, despite substantial gains, African Americans remain far under-
represented among skilled blue-collar workers, higher-paid managers, and pro-
fessionals and overrepresented in low-wage service-sector jobs.
Understanding current forms of racial inequality in the labor market re-
quires an examination of the distinct patterns in the private and public sectors.
In short, the issue is not just having a job or not—or having a high-status job
or not. Disparities also emerge because African Americans, including those in
management and the professions, are overrepresented in government jobs.
There is evidence that unique advantages flow to blacks employed in gov-
ernment. For example, blacks employed in the public sector face less race-based
disadvantage relative to those employed in the private sector: they experience
less earning and wage rate discrimination and fare better in terms of occupa-
tional placement (Asher and Popkin 1984; Beggs 1991; Blank 1985; W. Johnson
1978; Maume 1985). In short, the public sector has more egalitarian employ-
ment practices relative to the private sector. But the disproportionate con-
centration of minorities in government does carry its own set of disadvantages:
blacks are disproportionately employed in social service bureaucracies, such as
housing, education, and welfare, and during periods of economic recession and
government reduction these services are often among the first to be reduced
or eliminated.
In the private sector, the trends highlight that the private sector plays an
important role in shaping racial disparities. Black participation in the private
sector increased between 1966 and 1999, from 8.2 to 14 percent of the pri-
vate sector. But at the same time, the gains made in occupations where African
Americans were underrepresented in 1966 failed to erode their overconcentra-
tion in menial and low-paid fields. For example, African Americans went from
3.6 to 9.8 percent of all skilled craft workers in the private sector and from
0.9 to 6.2 percent of officials and managers in the private sector. Although
there were modest increases in the percentages of operatives, the percentages
82 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

remained about the same for service workers and laborers. In other words,
African Americans remained overrepresented in lower-status occupations.
A key message from the private sector highlights an important feature of
contemporary patterns of racial inequality: the only job sectors to become
racially equalized during this thirty-year period were the midrange and highly
feminized fields of office and clerical work and sales jobs, which are on the
lower rung of the white-collar job hierarchy. Other research supports this
trend by indicating that the post-1960 upward mobility of African American
women is a result of a shift into clerical and sales positions from domestic and
personal service jobs (Freeman 1976; King 1993). In short, racial inequality
persists at the top and the bottom: blacks remain overrepresented in menial
work and underrepresented in the most prestigious private-sector occupations.

PERSISTENT RACIAL INEQUALITY IN THE CONTEXT OF

INCREASING DIVERSITY
As discussed elsewhere in this chapter, the population of the United States has
become increasingly diverse—and this is true both overall and within various
minority groups. The Latino population now roughly equals that of African
Americans; the Asian American and Pacific Islander populations are on a rapid
ascent; and nearly seven million Americans checked more than one racial box
in the 2000 census. By the middle of this century, the United States will no
longer be a majority non-Hispanic white nation, and the very concept and
meaning of race will have evolved. Although researchers historically focus on
economic gaps between whites and blacks, since the 1980 U.S. census, mea-
sures of race and ethnicity have been based on self-identified race and ancestry
rather than on state-defined categories (Darity, Guilkey, and Winfrey 1996;
Farley 1989, 1990; Harris and Farley 2000). This means that finer distinc-
tions within and between groups are possible: economic achievement among
Asians, for example, can be distinguished by Japanese, East Indian, Chinese,
Vietnamese, or Korean ancestry. Similar distinctions can be made between
black and white Hispanics and between blacks reporting West Indian and
non–West Indian backgrounds.
But even with these more complex and detailed comparisons, it is clear that
when employment, occupational attainment, and wage and salary data are ex-
amined, self-identified white and U.S.-born Asians are at the top while blacks
are at the bottom (Darity, Guilkey, and Winfrey 1996). Virtually all self-
identified white groups have higher per capita income than do blacks of any
ethnicity (Darity, Guilkey, and Winfrey 1996; Farley 1989, 1990), and the
economic profile of non-Hispanic whites was the highest among all
Americans. In contrast, the economic profile of black, Hispanic, and other
nonwhite groups—including large numbers of recent immigrants—fell below
the national average. The exceptions are Asians of Japanese, East Indian, or
 INSTITUTIONAL PATTERNS AND TRANSFORMATIONS 83

Chinese ancestry. The economic consequence of color shows up even among

Hispanic workers. Hispanic black men suffer much greater proportionate
losses than their Hispanic nonblack counterparts (Darity, Guilkey, and
Winfrey 1996). Thus, even when racial inequality in America is no longer
viewed exclusively through the black-white prism, that prism remains an es-
sential feature for understanding U.S. systems of stratification. The meaning
of race may be changing, but the relationship between economic inequality
and color remains strong.

THE CAUSES OF RACIAL INEQUALITY IN THE

LABOR MARKET
The effects of labor market discrimination on occupational attainment de-
creased dramatically in the decade between the mid-1960s and the mid-1970s,
much as we saw in the case of education. But more evidence indicates that racial
discrimination persists and the trend toward equity no longer holds. For ex-
ample, African American males continue to suffer 12 to 15 percent losses in
earning as a consequence of persistent discrimination (Darity 1998; Gottschalk
1997). This suggests that the initial impetus provided by the civil rights move-
ment (Darity and Myers 2001; Jackson and Jones 2001) resulted in historic
black attainments, but the relative position of blacks has not continued to
improve. Equally disheartening is that poverty, unemployment, and non-
participation rates signaled the growth of a black “underclass” in conjunction
with blacks’ entry into traditionally closed positions during that time period
(see Farley and Bianchi 1983; Glasgow 1980; Parsons 1980; W. J. Wilson
1978). Most important is that employment conditions for blacks continue to
deteriorate, although blacks attaining at least a college education appear to be
better off than in decades past.
As with housing and education, the causes of these persistent patterns of
inequality constitute a core part of the debate about race, ethnicity, and labor
markets. This debate is likely to continue to focus on the degree to which rel-
ative labor market status is mediated by educational attainment and human
capital characteristics (O’Neill 1990; Smith and Welch 1977; Smith 1984;
Welch 1973) versus employment structure (Collins 1997a, 1997b) and racial
discrimination (Fix and Struyk 1993; Fosu 1993; Horton 1995; F. H. Wilson
1995; G. Wilson 1997). Economists’ human capital theory and sociologists’
status attainment theory presume that job allocation among blacks is a color-
blind function of supply-side characteristics such as education, skill, and in-
dividual preferences. The latter parallels the theory that residential segregation
occurs because of racial differences in economic status. Thus, according to
these perspectives, racial inequalities are not a response to race per se, in the
form of discrimination by employers and structural barriers (Smith and Welch
1984, 1986; Thernstrom and Thernstrom 1997). In this view, racial discrim-
84 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

ination is an individual anomaly rather than an entrenched feature of U.S.

society. Labor market inequalities are understood to be due to the fact that
African Americans, American Indians, and some Hispanic groups stand lower
than whites and Asian Americans on these indicators of human capital. For
example, James Smith (2001) finds that the gap in the economic status be-
tween races is influenced mostly by skill-related factors. By extension, in-
equality in employment, occupational, and earnings arenas will be ameliorated
with increased levels of education among racial and ethnic minorities. Other
research notes that unemployment gaps between whites and blacks result
from educational disparity coupled with increasing demands for skilled labor
(Holzer 1996).
The alternative contention is that labor market attainment is a function of
social structure and demand-side characteristics. In a field experiment using job
résumés, for example, Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan (2003)
show that racial discrimination is a prominent feature in U.S. labor markets.
They find that résumés with white-sounding names are about 50 percent more
likely to receive callbacks from prospective employers than résumés with
African American–sounding names. They find a statistically uniform amount
of discrimination across all job and industrial categories contained in their
experiment. Discrimination was also highlighted in a survey of Chicago em-
ployers by Jolene Kirschenman and Kathryn Neckerman (1991), who found
that these employers often engaged in “statistical discrimination” by making
negative assumptions about African American job candidates because of their
perceptions regarding racial group membership. Survey-based research has also
documented substantial reports of racial discrimination in the workplace (Bobo
and Suh 2000; Forman, Williams, and Jackson 1997; Forman 2003).
Other theorists attribute people’s limited progress to the characteristics of
their jobs (Doeringer and Piore 1970; Thurow 1975). In this case, minorities
are subjected to tokenism and tracking mechanisms that lead them to fill niches
in white-collar occupations that are either in decline or do not lead to ad-
vancement (Ghiloni 1987; Kanter 1977; Reskin and Roos 1990). For example,
Sharon Collins (1997a, 1997b) shows that college-educated blacks in profes-
sional and managerial positions are concentrated in niches responsible for man-
aging blacks or delivering services and products to black people and therefore
are “functionally segregated” within occupations and labor markets. Labor mar-
ket inequality, then, is perpetuated in ways that are slightly more subtle than
flat-out refusals to hire. Again, it is not explicit and blatant exclusion but more
subtle and slippery—and equally problematic—actions that result in persistent
inequalities.
A number of scholars maintain that discrimination remains an obstacle to
blacks’ full economic participation (Feagin and Sikes 1994; Forman 2003;
Landry 1987; Zweigenhaft and Domhoff 1991). They view institutional prac-
tices and prejudice as barriers that restrict blacks’ economic chances, regardless
 INSTITUTIONAL PATTERNS AND TRANSFORMATIONS 85

of human capital and other class-related advantages. For example, networks and
mentors are important ingredients of success in the work world, yet blacks tend
to be excluded from the relaxed social interactions with whites through which
beneficial relationships of this kind tend to originate. In a recent study of grad-
uates from vocational schools, Deirdre Royster (2003) illustrates how the
networks that help white graduates get jobs are simply not accessible to black
graduates. As the title implies, her book, Race and the Invisible Hand: How
White Networks Exclude Black Men from Blue-Collar Jobs, is a compelling illus-
tration of the subtle ways in which race operates in social institutions in the
United States today. Blacks are not barred from entrance into vocational schools
and are no less likely to complete the training, but they are shut out—in often
subtle and indirect ways—of the networks necessary for securing the good jobs
in the fields in which they are trained. Overall, the confluence of such barriers
may help to explain why black male college graduates earned 17 percent less
than their white counterparts in 1996, despite the unprecedented job advance-
ment they experienced in the post-1960 period (Levy 1998).

THE FUTURE OF RACE, ETHNICITY, AND

LABOR MARKETS
With Increasing Immigration, What Role Does the Politics of Race and Ethnicity
Play in Shaping Labor Markets? A critical question for the future is the poli-
tics of race and ethnicity and the role that immigration will play in U.S. labor
markets (for a discussion, see Zhou 2001). The consensus is that the demand
for low-skilled labor has been declining (Bailey 1987). Within the context of
the changing terrain of race and ethnicity in the United States, this means that
young black men and low-skilled, nonwhite native groups who remain con-
centrated in temporary, low-status, and low-paying work are placed directly
into job competition with newly arriving and unskilled immigrant labor. A
central question is: will the influx of ethnic immigrants lead to the displace-
ment of nonwhite unskilled workers, particularly black workers? George Borjas
(1990), for instance, argues that immigrants do little to lower earnings among
blacks or to increase black underemployment and unemployment. Yet other
research suggests that the impact of immigrant competition on blacks’ labor
market status is real and that the arrival of immigrants into urban populations
lowers the earnings of high school graduates (Katz, Borjas, and Freeman 1992).
Roger Waldinger (1996) and Allen Scott (1996) find that less-educated blacks
in the inner city are at a competitive disadvantage for low-skilled work because
jobs are monopolized by immigrant networks. In addition, Robert Cherry and
William Rodgers (2000) show that discrimination against blacks and black
disadvantage increase when there is strong competition for jobs.
Evidence of the possible negative effects of immigration on racial inequality
in the labor market also comes indirectly from the work of Kirschenman and
86 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

Neckerman (1991). Reacting in large part to William Julius Wilson’s (1978)

arguments about the causes of inner-city unemployment, they found that em-
ployers have a rank order of preferred workers that favors white workers and
even workers from certain Latino ethnicities over African American workers.
Waldinger (1997, 366) notes this finding and suggests that employers have a
hierarchy in which native white workers are at the top, followed by immigrant
whites and immigrant Hispanics. Thus, although the evidence for a direct re-
placement hypothesis is not supported, other studies suggest that native-born
blacks—directly or indirectly—lose out where immigrant labor pools are large.
Given the projected trends in population dynamics, questions surrounding this
issue will continue to need attention by researchers.

What Is the Fate of Affirmative Action and How Will It Affect Racial Inequality
in Labor Markets? A second area for future research lies in the impact of chal-
lenges to affirmative action on the labor market for racial minorities. General
economic trends aside, occupational upgrading among African Americans in
particular is tied to the impact of affirmative action (Herring and Collins
1995; Leonard 1984, 1987, 1990, 1998; Neumark and Stock 2001; Rodgers
1996). By extension, if affirmative action policy is dismantled, employer efforts
to create and maintain equal employment opportunities may shrink accord-
ingly. Despite an almost universal acceptance of affirmative action in corporate
America, administrative efforts at the federal level have been severely curtailed.
The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) was gutted
by the Reagan administration, and the Supreme Court has held that to prove
discrimination, plaintiffs must show that numerical imbalance is not a busi-
ness necessity (Anderson 1996; Leonard 1990, 1998). The OFCCP has the
power to revoke federal contracts and bar firms from bidding for future con-
tracts. Although debarment is rarely used, it is a powerful incentive nevertheless
to increase minority private-sector employment. Thus, both the economic and
legal incentives to enforce affirmative action and drive structural change in the
private sector are removed. Moreover, in-house corporate mechanisms to pro-
tect racial minorities’ access to higher-paying jobs in the private sector are also
weakening (Collins 1997a). What is happening in the education realm is mir-
rored in the labor markets: federal actions are being taken to undermine and
undo the policies and programs that were intended to increase integration, re-
duce inequality, and improve the living conditions of people of color—and in
many cases were modestly successful in doing so.
Finally, the focus of corporate initiatives such as formal recruitment, reten-
tion, and business supplier programs, which initially worked to bring blacks
into the economic mainstream, is now being shifted so that other groups are
included in these programs. Typically, such programs covered two groups—
women and minorities—but there is now evidence, according to Fortune
magazine, that the number of protected groups has increased to as many as
 INSTITUTIONAL PATTERNS AND TRANSFORMATIONS 87

twenty-two. At the same time, charges of reverse discrimination, the intense

focus on the “plight” of the white male, and the resurgence of a conservatism
in the federal government raise the question of whether progress can continue
in this climate. Black political pressure and affirmative action once were the key
tools for creating access to management and the professions in corporations,
but these forces have eroded. Whether the erosion of these and other forces will
result in a retrogression, as we are seeing in the arena of education, is a subject
in need of future research.

What Will Be the Impact on Racial Inequality of the Shift from “Affirmative
Action” to “Diversity”? Corporate America has begun to shift its focus away
from affirmative action and toward an interest in “diversity.” On the one
hand, this shift may signal the emergence of a more enlightened form of cap-
italism that values a more racially and ethnically inclusive work environment.
In a highly competitive economy, for example, race and ethnicity are useful
marketing tools and can be a source of greater profit for big business. Thus,
the connection between color and markets for products and services may lead
companies to increase their efforts to include racial and ethnic groups to en-
hance their market position. On the other hand, the shift to diversity may fore-
shadow programmatic displacement of blacks in favor of other workers. Indeed,
it may be a new form of institutional racism and laissez-faire racism. Diversity
means color-blindness, and it constitutes a liberal stance for the corporate
world. But the “all-inclusiveness” of diversity may result in reductionism if it
equates the status of blacks with every other status and equates black problems
with the problems of every other worker.

RELIGION
The next social institution we consider differs in many fundamental ways from
housing, education, and the labor market. As a voluntary institution, and as
one outside the purview of governmental regulation, religion has a fundamen-
tally different foundation and emphasis than these other institutions. At the
same time, race is and has been central to the organization—and associated
social structures—of religious institutions in the United States. Religion, as a
white-dominated institution, has been a participant in the construction and
perpetuation of the American racial order. In short, systems of exclusion and
segregation are evident in religion just as in the institutions of housing, edu-
cation, and the labor market. Within religion, this is evident in the exclusion
of racial minorities from full religious participation in congregations and other
religious organizations. For example, during the eighteenth century African
American participation in Protestant churches was restricted to worship service
attendance. Hence, opportunities for mobility within the church for African
Americans were very rare (Frazier 1974). Because the Spanish had already intro-
88 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

duced Catholicism to Latino homelands before the United States conquered

Puerto Rico and Mexico, a Latino Catholicism was established before the
U.S. invasion and subsequent imposition of American Catholicism. The U.S.
Catholic Church, with the intent of Americanizing Latino Catholicism, used
its control within the Catholic Church to inferiorize “expressions of [Latino]
Catholics . . . [and] subordinate their way of expressing the faith” to that of
Euro-American Catholicism (Stevens-Arroyo 1998, 29).
As with the other social institutions we have considered here, then, religion
has excluded and subordinated racial and ethnic minorities in the United
States. Religion differs from other institutions because it has been a source of
empowerment and advancement for race-specific religious organizations that
have developed. In creating their own ethnic and race-specific religious orga-
nizations, nonwhite organizations have created something of a paradox: reli-
gion in America has been a liberating force for communities of color, but it has
also been employed to oppress these same communities. For example, both
Latinos (Stevens-Arroyo 1998) and African Americans (Morris 1984) used
their respective religions as a platform for civil rights activism. At the same time,
white evangelicals have both supported racial progress (with the abolitionist
movement, for instance, and the civil rights movement) and opposed it (south-
ern pro-slavery evangelicals) (Emerson and Smith 2000). This paradox contin-
ues to be relevant and is likely to persist, particularly as the growing racial-ethnic
diversity of our nation’s population creates new questions about how this as-
pect of the changing terrain of race and ethnicity will play itself out within the
paradoxical setting of religion in America. In this chapter, after a review of the
recent research on race and ethnicity in religion, we focus on the response of
religious institutions to segregation, efforts to dismantle segregation, and the
effects on religion of increasing racial and ethnic diversity.

EFFORTS TO INTEGRATE RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS

Whereas local, state, and federal laws could be used first to ensure segregation
in education and housing and then to break it down, clearly such governmen-
tal legislation is not applicable in the domain of religious institutions. But the
governing bodies of religious institutions have nevertheless begun to pay some
attention to patterns of segregation and integration among worshipers. The
goal of racial integration within religious institutions has been of growing in-
terest since the civil rights movement. Martin Luther King Jr. observed that
11:00 A.M. on Sunday mornings is the most racially segregated hour of the
week. The inherent challenge in this observation—that Christians need to
make strides toward racial integration—has been taken up by many Christian
organizations. In evangelical circles, these attempts are commonly referred to
as the racial reconciliation movement. Originated by African American evan-
gelicals and later co-opted by white evangelicals, the movement initially sought
 INSTITUTIONAL PATTERNS AND TRANSFORMATIONS 89

to achieve racial reconciliation by developing interracial friendships, recogniz-

ing and resisting structures of racial subordination, having whites repent their
“personal, historical, and social sins” related to racial subordination, and hav-
ing African Americans forgive whites for their participation in the creation and
perpetuation of the racial order (Emerson and Smith 2000, 54–55). However,
this understanding of racial reconciliation shifted: “As the message of racial re-
conciliation spread to a white audience, it was popularized. The racial reconcil-
iation message given to the mass audience is individual reconciliation” (67).
Thus, while black evangelicals acknowledged both the individual and structural
aspects of the racial reconciliation process, white evangelicals acknowledged
only the individual component. In this view, the steps to racial reconciliation
were: (1) individuals developing interracial friendships and (2) individuals re-
penting of individual prejudice. The recognition that structural or collective
forces helped to shape racialization were eliminated from consideration. Thus,
individualism as the problem and the solution permeates perspectives on race
in religion, much as it does in some recent arguments about race in the other
social institutions we have discussed in this chapter.
Although studying patterns of segregation and integration has a long history
in research on housing, education, and labor markets, sociologists of religion
have only recently begun to document these patterns in churches. The racial
reconciliation movement endorsed and encouraged the development of inter-
racial churches, and as recounted in Raleigh Washington and Glen Kehrein’s
Breaking Down Walls: A Model for Reconciliation in an Age of Racial Strife
(1993), the leaders of this movement have faced a number of challenges to achiev-
ing interracial churches. Partly owing to the barriers described in Washington
and Kehrein (1993), including racism, stereotyping, and denying that there is
a race problem in America, there has been little progress in the development of
interracial churches in America since King’s observations some forty years ago.
Today, only 10 percent of American churches are interracial (Emerson and
Smith 2000). There is a significant difference, however, between Christian and
non-Christian religions in the prevalence of interracial congregations: nearly
three times as many (28 percent) non-Christian congregations are interracial
compared to Christian congregations (Christerson and Emerson 2001). This
figure includes primarily Muslim but also Buddhist, Hindu, and other non-
Christian religious institutions. Within non-Christian religious institutions race
is apparently not the salient dividing line that it has proven to be in Christian
religious institutions—a point to which we return shortly.

The Downside of Integration While racial integration is valued among some re-
ligious organizations, it also poses a potential threat to the vitality and social or-
ganization of racial minority communities. The exclusion of racial minorities
from the power centers of white-dominated religious institutions has ironically
led to the formation of minority-controlled organizations and institutions. In
90 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

1787 a preacher in the white-dominated Methodist denomination, Richard

Allen, and other freed blacks created the African Methodist Episcopal Church
after being physically removed from an unsanctioned section of the church dur-
ing a crowded worship service (Frazier 1974; Marty 1985). The formation of
other black denominations under similar circumstances gave birth to the “black
church,” which has become one of the most central institutions in the African
American community (Frazier 1974; Mays and Nicholson 1985; Morris 1984).
The vast majority of African Americans, regardless of their religious affin-
ity, have an attachment to the African American church (Lincoln 1974; Mays
and Nicholson 1985). It is a space where African Americans can freely express
themselves artistically, politically, and socially (Morris 1984). In addition to
church-related meetings and services, church space has been used for non-
church-related activities, such as business and political contacts (Drake and
Cayton 1985). Moreover, the black church provided a structural framework
for the creation of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), a
crucial player in the civil rights movement (Morris 1984). For this reason, the
black church has significant influence over the religious and social construc-
tion of ideas within the black community. But more important, it is a space
where African American interests have been recognized, understood, and
freely pursued.1

IMMIGRATION AND DIVERSITY WITHIN

RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS
A key development in our understanding of race and religion in the United
States has been the response to changes in immigration patterns over the past
forty years. Immigrant groups are now coming to the United States from Latin
America, Asia, and to a lesser extent eastern European countries. Because of the
strong connection between race-ethnicity and religion, these demographic
changes have profound implications for the landscape of religion in America.
Post-1965 immigration has increased the religious diversity and representation
of minority religions in America, such as Hinduism, Islam, and Buddhism. It
has also brought a new face to Christianity: immigrants of color arriving on
American shores are disproportionately Christian (Warner, forthcoming).
The result is an emerging presence in the United States of “de-Europeanized”
Christianity and non-Christian religions (Warner 1998).
Recent examinations of the process of assimilation for these more recent
immigrants suggest that their experiences—within the context of religion—
may not follow those of their western and northern European counterparts of
the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. On the one hand, immigrants
from Asian and Latin American countries, like their predecessors from western
and northern Europe, have developed ethnic-specific congregations around
language needs, immigrant concerns, and homeland cultural practices. There-
 INSTITUTIONAL PATTERNS AND TRANSFORMATIONS 91

fore, first-generation immigrant churches are ethnically, not racially, organized.

This is not new. However, the assimilation of Asian immigrants has not fol-
lowed the pattern that was followed by immigrants from western and northern
European countries ( Jeung 2002). The latter assimilated into white-dominated
American religious institutions, but the children of immigrants from Asian
countries have instead formed pan-Asian religious institutions, especially on the
West Coast. In other areas of the country Asians tend to form ethnic-specific
churches (primarily Korean or Chinese). Nonetheless, the perpetuation of
ethnic-specific churches into the second generation suggests that, at the least,
Asian ethnic groups are opting not to attend white-dominant churches. At worst,
they are responding to exclusion from full participation in white-controlled
religious institutions.
This trend suggests that immigrants from Asian countries are recognizing
and responding to racialization in America: that is, they recognize that “Asian”
is a relevant and salient category in the United States. This is a dimension, then,
along which they are constructing religious institutions. For example, Russell
Jeung (2002) finds in his study based in the San Francisco Bay Area that pan-
Asian congregations have organized around a pan-Asian identity because of dom-
inant expectations and understanding of Asians in government, the marketplace,
and religious institutions. In religious institutions an Asian or Asian American
identity is imposed through religious curricula and seminary training. Asian
ethnic identities are thus perceived as culturally similar and having similar
interests. At the same time, ethnic-specific identities are not acknowledged,
suggesting that pan-Asian, or racial group, boundaries are more salient than
ethnic-specific boundaries in the United States generally and within a religious
context specifically. Jeung (2002, 216) argues that unlike ethnic identities,
which are rooted in specific cultural practices and linguistic commonalities,
pan-Asian identity is symbolic: it binds people together through “expressive
feeling and connection to a group” and is adopted by Asian ethnic groups to
foster solidarity and mobilize congregations.
The dramatic increase of the number of Latinos in the United States is of
particular relevance for understanding the changing terrain of race and reli-
gion in the twenty-first century because this increase affects not only the racial
and ethnic landscape of the country but also the American Catholic religious
landscape, since Latinos are overwhelmingly Catholic. Up until the mid-
twentieth century, Latino Catholic religious expression was delegitimized by
the U.S. Catholic Church (Stevens-Arroyo 1998). The experience of Latino
Catholics as “conquered peoples” who already practiced a form of Catholicism
that differed from Euro-American Catholicism distinguishes them from Euro-
pean Catholic immigrants, who easily assimilated into the North American
Catholic Church. However, since the civil rights movement, Latino Catholicism
has been revived, particularly after Cesar Chavez drew on Catholicism to sup-
port the farmworkers’ strike in Delano, California. The farmworkers’ move-
92 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

ment not only spawned institutional changes within the Catholic Church and
Latino Catholic organizations but also increased Latino representation at the
national level within the American Catholic Church.2 These organizations have
developed alternative religious practices, such as culturally relevant Spanish
masses, thus providing Latino Catholics with relatively autonomous religious
spaces within the Catholic Church. Moreover, the recent Latino Catholic
presence in America has affected American Catholicism by moving it more
toward religious individualism, sacramental practices, and devotion (Warner,
forthcoming).
Although Latino immigrants are largely Catholic, a disproportionate num-
ber of Protestant Latino immigrants have come to America. Over the past
fifteen years, membership in Protestant churches, particularly Pentecostal and
evangelical denominations, has grown to include an estimated 10 percent of
the population of Latin countries (Stoll and Garrard-Burnett 1993). These
Protestant Latin Americans are coming to the United States and reportedly
amount to 23 percent of the Latino population (Espinosa, Elizondo, and
Miranda 2003, 14–16). Hence, American Protestantism may also be changed
by the increase in Latino immigration to the United States.
Finally, other immigrant groups are arriving on America’s shores from such
places as the Caribbean, Africa, and India. Many of these groups practice
minority religions, including Hinduism, Rastafarianism, and Buddhism. In
Stephen Warner and Judith Wittner’s edited volume on new immigrant re-
ligious groups, Gatherings in Diaspora: Religious Communities and the New
Immigration (1998), researchers find that religious identity for these groups
(as well as larger recent immigrant groups) is of particular importance and has
in some cases increased in salience after coming to America because it serves
to unify them as a distinct group. Additionally, they have found that new im-
migrant groups are adapting to the religious structure of the United States. More
specifically, they are organizing into congregations whose religious activities are
governed by the local body rather than by a regional governing group or bishops.
More so than with the other social institutions, a consideration of religious in-
stitutions makes salient the role of racial and ethnic identity, highlighting how
these very institutions are shaped by changes in the racial and ethnic diversity
of the United States. The interplay is complicated, as evidenced by the devel-
opment of pan-Asian churches and the emergence of legitimate Latino Catholic
institutions.

THE FUTURE OF RACE, ETHNICITY, AND RELIGION

What Methodological and Theoretical Contributions Can the Study of Race and
Ethnicity in Religion Make to the Overall Study of Race and Ethnicity? The socio-
historical context of American religion and the expected demographic changes
elicit new and important questions about American religion and race-ethnicity.
 INSTITUTIONAL PATTERNS AND TRANSFORMATIONS 93

As we embark on the twenty-first century, our prescription for understanding

American religion must accommodate the expected racial and religious changes.
Scholars of American religion can contribute to understanding that is relevant
and applicable across cultures by employing inclusive research methods and
using them to study and recognize the impact of different historical experiences,
locations in social structures, and cultural norms and values. This strategy has
thus far eluded many researchers (for notable exceptions, see Ammerman 1997;
Emerson and Smith 2000; Warner and Wittner 1998), and as a result we have
an incomplete accounting of religion across racial-ethnic groups.
But perhaps even more important, an examination of how race and eth-
nicity play out in U.S. religious institutions can offer valuable insights into the
construction of race-ethnicity more broadly construed. Although religion has
been similar to housing, education, and labor markets in that it has been used
to subordinate and exclude racial and ethnic minorities in America, unlike
these other institutions, religion is a space where people voluntarily choose to
interact regularly, build community, and share life. Moreover, religion is not
directly subject to external demands such as social policies and financial limi-
tations. The impact of these two factors, choice and autonomy, which are void
in most other contexts (particularly for racial and ethnic minorities), can illu-
minate our understanding of people’s willingness to cross racial and ethnic
boundaries and of features of race-ethnicity that may elude us in the context
of other social institutions.

Should We Care That in America 11:00 A.M. Is the Most Segregated Hour of the
Week? Michael Emerson and Christian Smith (2000) have provided one of the
first comprehensive and systematic analyses of religious racial segregation in the
United States. Although we need even more studies of the pervasiveness of racial
segregation and the prospects for integration, we must also look at a larger ques-
tion about the advantages and disadvantages of such congregations. Racially sub-
ordinated groups have responded to racial exclusion from white-dominated
religious institutions by creating autonomous religious spaces that have become
central to their communities. Unlike white religious institutions, these religious
institutions are often the only base of power and influence for these minority
groups. Racial minorities therefore have the most to lose as a group if American
religion becomes a more racially inclusive institution. For this reason, they may
resist racial integration, more so than whites. What, then, are the benefits of
racial integration? Who benefits? Are religious whites willing to relinquish racial
dominance within religious institutions? If so, under what conditions? Will the
burden of integration remain on racial minorities, or will whites be willing
to attend traditionally black, Latino, or Asian American congregations?

What Will Be the Impact on Non-Christian Religions of the Construction of Race

in America?—and Vice Versa? As noted earlier, non-Christian religious insti-
94 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

tutions are more likely to be racially integrated than Christian ones. A number
of questions arise from this observation: What is it about non-Christian reli-
gious institutions in America that allows for racial integration? Do these insti-
tutions construct race differently than the broader society? If so, can this
construction of race be replicated in Christian institutions? Over time, will
these institutions adopt a similar kind of racialization as Christian institutions?
What are the effects of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, on religious
institutions? Will being Muslim prevent Eastern Europeans from experiencing
the advantages of whiteness in America? For example, are Muslims in fact
white? If not, will whiteness expand to include Eastern European Muslims? As
Americans, we have been called upon to be the eyes and ears of the government
in being aware of Muslim activities and potential terrorist acts. How will this
expectation shape the experiences of Eastern Europeans who have white skin
color and phenotype—since physical traits are not the only criteria for possess-
ing whiteness?

What Is the Trajectory for the Religious Experiences of Asian and Latino
Immigrants? Latinos are estimated to become 23 percent of the American
population by 2050, a growth rate that would make them the largest racial
minority group in the United States. The number of African Americans and
Asians will also increase from 12 percent to 14 percent and from 4 percent to
10 percent, respectively, while the proportion of white people in the United
States is projected to decrease by one-third, to 50 percent of the American
population (Schaeffer 1998).
A disproportionate number of immigrants are Christian—some estimates
suggest as many as two-thirds ( Jasso 2003). The large influx of European
immigrants to the United States during the nineteenth century changed the cul-
ture and religious practices of American Catholicism (Marty 1985). Will
Christian culture be similarly affected by the large increase in Asian and Latino
Christians in this country?
Finally, we already know that Asian and Latino immigrants are follow-
ing different patterns in their religious experiences than previous immigrant
groups: unlike their Western and Northern European counterparts, second-
generation immigrants from these countries have formed racialized religious
organizations. The existence of pan-Asian and pan-Latino religious institu-
tions suggests a recognition of and response to the exclusion of nonwhite
groups in America. Therefore, what role will pan-ethnic religious institutions
play in the community life of ethnic subordinates? What does the existence
of pan-Asian and pan-Latino organizations say about the power of race in the
United States and its impact on the organization of incoming immigrant
groups? Will these patterns persist? In the decades to come, will these insti-
tutions, in the tradition of other black and Latino churches of the past, be
a source for new movements for civil rights or for struggles against racial
discrimination?
 INSTITUTIONAL PATTERNS AND TRANSFORMATIONS 95

THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

The criminal justice system is distinct in many ways from the institutions ad-
dressed so far in this chapter. Whereas people voluntarily participate in religious
and educational institutions, few people voluntarily come into contact with the
criminal justice system; whether as criminal victim or offender, most people
prefer not to be involved with this institution. But even for those who have no
direct contact with criminal justice systems, their policies and practices can have
profound consequences. The impact of this institution is evident in the tremen-
dous growth of criminal justice systems and related industries over the past
several decades. The adverse consequences of this expansion are dramatically
revealed in its disproportionate impact on individuals, families, and commu-
nities of color.
In this section, we begin by reviewing the growing use of incarceration,
briefly considering the causes of those increases (and whether they are linked to
increases in criminal activity). We then consider how race operates to shape—
sometimes subtly and other times not so subtly—the experiences of individuals
at different stages of the administration of criminal justice, including policing,
the courts, and sentencing. We conclude with a discussion of the collateral con-
sequences of racialized mass criminalization and incarceration—that is, how
policies and decisions in criminal justice spill beyond courtrooms and prison
walls to influence individual life chances, community conditions, and other
social institutions.

RACE AND THE PUNISHMENT BOOM

The criminal justice system has drawn tremendous scrutiny in recent years,
especially where issues at the intersection of race, crime, and justice are con-
cerned. And for good reason. The past quarter-century has witnessed numerous
cases of race-related police brutality and misconduct; official acknowledgments
of systematic racial profiling in policing; the exoneration of numerous falsely
convicted persons, including many who faced capital punishment; and a tremen-
dous increase in the number of people in U.S. prisons, jails, and detention facil-
ities, especially persons of color.
The U.S. government confines its citizens and other residents in detention
facilities, jails, and prisons at rates far exceeding that of any other industrialized
nation (see Chambliss 1995; Zimring 2001). The number of inmates in state
and federal prisons more than tripled between 1980 and 2000. Although the
number is still increasing, the rate of increase has slowed somewhat (U.S.
Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics 2002c). Nevertheless, by
2001, over 6.5 million Americans were under some form of correctional su-
pervision (prison, jail, probation, or parole). Over 2.1 million of these were
incarcerated in State or Federal prisons or local jails (U.S. Department of Justice
2002c).
96 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

The increase in the U.S. prison population is in large part due to the in-
carceration of black and Latino young women and men for drug-related and
typically nonviolent offenses. While the number of adults of all races increased
during the 1980s and 1990s, the number of blacks who were incarcerated rose
much more quickly, doubling during this time period (U.S. Department of
Justice 1999). In 1997, 2 percent of the white population was under some
form of correctional supervision, compared to 9 percent of the black popula-
tion (U.S. Department of Justice 1999). Since 1990, the number of Hispanics
in jail has increased at a faster annual rate than for any other group, yet by the
year 2000 blacks were still twice as likely as Hispanics, and five times more
likely than whites, to be incarcerated (U.S. Department of Justice 2002b). The
Bureau of Justice Statistics recently made the dire prediction that, “based on
current rates of first incarceration, an estimated 28 percent of black males will
enter State or Federal prison during their lifetime, compared to 16 percent of
Hispanic males and 4.4 percent of white males” (U.S. Department of Justice
2003). Although the number of black women in prison is comparatively small,
the increase in rates of incarceration has recently been greater among black
women than black men. By 1998 the incarceration rate for black women ac-
tually exceeded that of white males in 1980 (Currie 1998, 14; Mauer and
Huling 1995). Today African American men and women together represent
a numerical majority of state and federal prisoners in the United States, ex-
ceeding the total number of white prisoners by more than 100,000 (Davis
2003, 20).
The sociological causes and consequences of the prison buildup, and the
racial disparities therein, are complex and far-reaching. For example, increases
in the U.S. prison population have coincided with dramatic increases in spend-
ing on the criminal justice system, spending that might otherwise support other
social institutions, including those we have already discussed. Expenditures on
different sectors of the justice system have more than tripled since the 1980s
for municipal, county, state, and federal governments (U.S. Department of
Justice 2002a). Direct and intergovernmental justice system expenditures in the
United States totaled nearly $36 billion in 1982, and had climbed to nearly
$147 billion by 1999. Over the same period, direct and intergovernmental
expenditures on policing increased from nearly $20 billion in 1982 to over
$65 billion by 1999. Combined federal, state, and local expenditures on cor-
rections totaled just over $9 billion in 1982 and $49 billion in 1999 (U.S.
Department of Justice 2002a).
It is beyond the scope of this chapter to provide a full elaboration of these
social developments and their implications. Instead, the remainder of this sec-
tion focuses on select issues related to the development of racial disparities in
criminal justice, especially in terms of court processing and incarceration, and
the more general consequences of racialized mass imprisonment for individuals,
families, and communities.
 INSTITUTIONAL PATTERNS AND TRANSFORMATIONS 97

HOW RACE OPERATES IN THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

Notwithstanding important changes over the course of the twentieth century,
racial discrimination and inequality continue to permeate the U.S. criminal
justice system, such that criminal justice processes in the United States can be
viewed as reflections and reinforcements of our larger racialized social system
(Bonilla-Silva 1997). Indeed, race and crime—in the eyes of the public and
many officials—remain intertwined, as is clear from sources ranging from sur-
veys of public opinion to the campaigns of candidates for elective office. Perhaps
more than for any of the institutions we have considered so far, it is difficult to
discuss criminal justice in contemporary U.S. society without considering race
and ethnicity or to seriously advance the cause of racial equality without con-
fronting problems of criminal (in)justice.
Although seemingly discrete categories in the criminal justice system,
policing, the courts, and corrections are more appropriately seen as the inter-
connected stages at which decisions about punishment and social control are
initially shaped, further refined, and subsequently applied. What happens at
any one of these stages can have profound consequences for what happens at
another, and this spillover effect is critical to appreciating the effect of race in
criminal justice processes.
Police officers are the most visible representations of the rule of law, and the
first to deliberately enter the scenes of real and suspected crimes. Mandated to
serve and protect the public, they are our criminal justice system’s front-line
service providers, its key ambassadors and gatekeepers. It is through their inter-
actions with victims, perpetrators, suspects, and bystanders that our experiences
of law and order are conditioned. Throughout history, race has shaped and
strained these interactions in a number of ways, as reflected in police violence
within minority communities, in resistance to racially integrating police forces,
and in the recently acknowledged practice of racial profiling. Notwithstanding
improvements in police and community relations and increases in police ac-
countability, these problems persist today. In the wake of the terrorist attacks
of September 11, 2001, they are likely to have an impact on new racialized
groups, especially those of Middle Eastern descent.
There is substantial research and anecdotal evidence that police target mi-
nority communities for surveillance and aggressive law enforcement (Chambliss
1994). One result of targeted and aggressive tactics is that blacks and whites
have very different relations with and perceptions of the police: the former trust
the criminal justice system less than whites do and perceive more bias in it
(Russell 1998; Tuch and Weitzer 1997; Weitzer 2000). Another result, of
course, is that racial and ethnic minorities enter the formal processing stages of
criminal justice administration at greater rates and are therefore subject to
additional potential biases, further increasing the likelihood of criminal con-
viction and incarceration.
98 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

Even as the U.S. prison population has dramatically expanded, there has been
general stability in crime rates, as shown by the National Crime Victimization
Survey (U.S. Department of Justice 1997). This suggests that crime alone can-
not fully explain either the massive growth of the U.S. prison population or its
racial disproportions. Although differential offending is among the factors re-
lated to racially disproportionate incarceration, research on race and court sanc-
tions has provided an accumulation of evidence over the past several decades
that racialized disadvantage also operates across a number of decision points in
criminal justice processing. Among others, these include decisions about bail,
detention, plea-bargaining, sentencing, and parole. Similar to what happens in
housing, education, and the labor market, these disparities often result from
complex and indirect processes. For example, race can indirectly influence sen-
tencing decisions through its relationship with other relevant variables, such as
bail status, occupational status, type of offense, age, and prior incarceration
(Burke and Turk 1975; LaFree 1985; Lizotte 1978).
Another prominent pattern in court processing has been the devaluation of
black victims and the corresponding prioritization of white victims. That is,
black (and white) offenders of black victims have historically been treated
more leniently than black offenders of white victims, who received substan-
tially harsher punishments (LaFree 1989; Myers 1979). As one author has ob-
served, the color line of criminal justice marks a patterned underprotection
and excessive punishment of racial and ethnic minorities (Kennedy 1997).
However, it is no longer the case that people of color are indiscriminately and
without exception subject to severe court sanctions, as was true at earlier points
in the past century. It is thus critical to examine interaction effects—race
of the offender with race of the victim, occupational status, age, and so on—
to appreciate the nature and extent of racially disparate treatment in court
processing (Zatz 1987).
The adoption of a “determinate sentencing” policy in the 1980s signifi-
cantly influenced the nature of race effects in court processing. Under this pol-
icy, sentences are determined a priori, according to “legal factors,” including
the formal charge and the defendant’s offense history. Determinate sentenc-
ing policies have thus markedly reduced judicial discretion at the sentencing
stage. In addition, through the emphasis in determinate sentencing on formal
charges, the role of police officers and especially prosecutors in sentencing de-
cisions has increased substantially. This reorganization of court processing has
thus altered and further complicated the scenarios by which race can influence
criminal sanctions.
A key arena in which this transformation has taken place and contributed
to racial disparities in criminal sanctions is in drug-related prosecutions and
sentencing. Mandatory sentencing laws for drug possession, sales, and distri-
bution have been passed in states nationwide as part of the “War on Drugs.”
Although advertised as an assault on drug dealers, these policies have in prac-
 INSTITUTIONAL PATTERNS AND TRANSFORMATIONS 99

tice affected mainly drug users and those on the lowest rungs of illegal drug dis-
tribution. The casualties have disproportionately been young racial minorities.
For example, while the number of state prison inmates incarcerated for drug-
related crimes increased dramatically between 1985 and 1995, the increase was
twice as great for blacks as for whites. In 1996, 62 percent of all drug offend-
ers admitted to state prisons were African American, and in some states this
disparity was much greater. In Maryland and Illinois, for example, 90 percent
of state prison drug offender admissions that year were African American
(Human Rights Watch 2000).
Though glaring, statistics on the disproportionate number of blacks incar-
cerated for drug offenses do not themselves establish race effects in case pro-
cessing. Surveys on drug use and empirical research on sentencing both suggest,
however, that differential offending does not explain these disproportionate
sanctions. Much of the racial disparity in incarceration for drug crimes relates
to patterns of arrest mandated by the “War on Drugs” and greater police sur-
veillance and aggressive law enforcement in minority communities. These ar-
rests subject minority offenders at greater rates to harsh determinate sentencing
policies in state and federal courts, where prosecutorial charging decisions and
opportunities for charge adjustment take on added significance.
There are several troubling aspects to the apparent racial disparities in drug
crime charging decisions and sentencing outcomes. One concerns the jurisdic-
tion where cases are prosecuted. Several researchers have suggested that state
and federal court officials engage in “selective prosecution” of cases, particularly
drug-related cases, and that those involving certain types of racial minority
(especially the poor and young) defendants are aggressively prosecuted, while
similar cases involving whites are diverted or never formally pursued to begin
with (Tonry 1995; Petersilia 1983). Such a pattern is apparent in the vigor-
ous pursuit against minority defendants of federal drug charges: the penalties
mandated by federal sentencing guidelines for drug crimes are much more se-
vere than at the state level. Others suggest that racially selective prosecution is
evident in decisions to charge pregnant black drug abusers with exposing their
unborn children to illegal drugs, an aggravation of charges less common
among white offenders (Roberts 1991; but see Kennedy 1997, 360).
Plea-bargaining decisions become more important when determinate sen-
tencing is adopted because it can influence the nature of the formal charges a
defendant faces and thus the sentence received in the event of a conviction. In
short, by accepting a lesser charge in exchange for a guilty plea or other assis-
tance, an offender can avoid the more severe sanction reserved for the original
charge. Research has found some evidence that race is related to the distribu-
tion of these opportunities. Cases involving black offenders are significantly
less likely to be resolved through guilty pleas than cases involving white of-
fenders (Petersilia 1983; Zatz and Lizotte 1985) and less likely to benefit from
an especially subjective plea-bargain type known as “substantial assistance”:
100 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

a reduction in charges in exchange for information, testimony, or other assis-

tance to law enforcement (Maxfield and Kramer 1998). Studies in select juris-
dictions have found that charges are more likely to be reduced for minorities
through plea agreements, yet these researchers speculate that this may be true
either because prosecutors devalue minority victims or because, in the absence
of supporting evidence, they are making corrections to earlier overcharging by
police (Holmes, Daudistel, and Farrell 1987).
The causes of disparities in plea-bargaining are multiple and complex. Not
only are potential biases on the part of prosecutors relevant, but so too are the
quality of the legal defense and the types of information or assistance that dif-
ferent defendants are able or willing to provide. Greater distrust of the crimi-
nal justice system among African Americans (Sherman 2002), for example, may
render black defendants generally less inclined to plea-bargain. In addition,
non-English-speaking individuals are disadvantaged in an era of determinate
sentencing because, as one author notes, “the benefits and implications of plead-
ing guilty rather than going to trial are communicated in subtle ways requiring
knowledge of the . . . intricacies of the English language” (Zatz 1987, 81).
Ultimately, a relative lack of plea-bargaining opportunities appears to make
black and other minority defendants more likely to be sentenced for the orig-
inally charged offenses and is therefore an important factor among others in
the pattern of racially disparate sanctions observed in this era of determinate
and severe sentencing.
It is welcome news that rates of incarceration have slowed in recent years,
even if that slowdown is due more to fiscal constraint than to changes in crim-
inal justice policy. Yet even if prisons were miraculously emptied tomorrow,
we would still need to understand the impact of decades of mass incarceration
on U.S. society in general and on racial and ethnic minority communities in
particular. The outward indicators of the punishment boom are rather appar-
ent in such factors as levels of expenditure, the physical buildup of prisons, and
the distributions of arrests, convictions, and criminal sanctions. Less visible
and well understood—but potentially more profound—are the broader con-
sequences of the punishment boom for individuals, families, and communi-
ties and for other social, cultural, political, and economic institutions. In short,
what is the impact of the rise of the prison as a dominant social institution on
other spheres of life—and how are race and ethnicity implicated in this process?
It is to these questions that we now turn.

COLLATERAL CONSEQUENCES OF RACIALIZED

MASS INCARCERATION
Growing numbers of scholars and activists suggest that the full depth and sig-
nificance of our social investment in the prison system will not become evident
until we step outside the police precincts, courtrooms, and prison walls and
 INSTITUTIONAL PATTERNS AND TRANSFORMATIONS 101

move beyond official statistics to appreciate the impact of the overdevelopment

of the prison on our social and cultural fabric—and particularly on the life ex-
periences and opportunities of those individuals, families, and communities
that occupy the older “ground zeroes” of our war against drugs and crime.
Since 600,000 individuals exit the criminal justice system each year, we need
to ask what happens when they return. But there are deeper questions still. We
must also ask about the disruptions and other effects of decades of mass crimi-
nalization and incarceration on those families and communities these individ-
uals left behind, on those rather distinct neighborhoods marked by high rates
of population turnover owing to incarceration, and on the more than two mil-
lion children with incarcerated parents.
A growing body of literature is developing answers to these questions, and
early findings related to the “collateral consequences” of mass incarceration give
cause for great concern. We know, for example, that licensing restrictions (on
driving licenses but also on occupational licenses) and patterns of hiring dis-
crimination against convicted felons, especially racial and ethnic minorities,
prevent many former prisoners from finding work (Pager 2003). Felony con-
victions can also result in deportation, as well as disqualification from public
housing, welfare, and financial aid for education (Mauer and Chesney-Lind
2002). These formal and informal civil disabilities may undermine the possi-
bility of successful societal reintegration and impose further strain not only on
the individuals, families, and communities within a former prisoner’s web of
relations but ultimately on the resources of other societal institutions, includ-
ing the criminal justice system itself.
Another collateral consequence of mass incarceration is a rising number of
children with incarcerated parents. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics,
state and federal prisons in 1999 held more than 700,000 parents of children
under the age of eighteen. Almost half of these parents reported living with their
children prior to their incarceration, meaning that in 1999 “an estimated 336,300
U.S. households with minor children [were] affected by the imprisonment of a
resident parent” (Mumola 2000, 1). The number of children with incarcerated
parents grew dramatically in the 1990s. A total of 1.5 million children in the
United States had a parent in prison in 1999, an increase of more than 500,000
since 1991. This increase was especially pronounced among African American
(7 percent) and Hispanic (2.6 percent) children, who were nine and three times
more likely, respectively, than white children (.8 percent) to have an incarcerated
parent in 1999 (Mumola 2000, 2). These trends raise a number of questions
about the consequences of incarceration for individual child development, fam-
ily and community dynamics, and resulting strain on the relevant social insti-
tutions (such as child welfare agencies and schools). These are consequences
experienced disproportionately by racial and ethnic minority communities.
There is thus a collective element to the civil penalties and collateral dam-
ages attendant to mass criminalization and incarceration. This may be most
102 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

evident in the loss of voting rights for persons convicted of felonies and in the
loss of proportional representation for those communities with large numbers
of people removed to prisons. Disfranchisement of felons is a function of state
law, and a variety of practices obtain nationwide. Forty-eight states prohibit
adults in correctional facilities from voting. Most states maintain voting re-
strictions of varying periods of time for people with felony convictions. In more
than a dozen states, ex-felons are prohibited from voting for the remainder of their
lives unless they undergo a costly process of having their voting rights restored
(Fellner and Mauer 1998).
Not surprisingly, felon disfranchisement has disproportionately and severely
affected African American communities. As of 1999, approximately 13 percent
of all adult black men were disqualified from voting owing to criminal convic-
tions. In 1998, 4.3 million citizens—including 1.4 million black Americans—
had lost the right to vote for life (Fellner and Mauer 1998). In Mississippi,
Alabama, South Carolina, Texas, and other states, between one-quarter and
one-fifth of all voting-age black residents have been either permanently or tem-
porarily stripped of their access to the ballot (Fellner and Mauer 1998). An im-
portant analysis of electoral implications, based on conservative estimates of
likely political participation, found that felon disfranchisement played a decisive
role in several congressional and national elections, including the 2000 presi-
dential election (Uggen and Manza 2002).
Compounding the issue of felon disfranchisement is how prisoners are
counted in the U.S. census for purposes of defining legislative districts. This
practice effectively dilutes the voting power of individuals in a prisoner’s home
district (often a segregated urban area), while inflating the influence of the vot-
ers in the typically rural districts where most prisons are based and whose
political interests are likely to depart from those of the prisoners and urban
dwellers whose voting power they assume (Wagner 2002). Thus, current and
former prisoners, together with dependents and political allies, experience fur-
ther exclusion from processes of civic engagement.
We find then that processes of formal social control in policing, the courts,
and corrections are differentially experienced by racial and ethnic minorities and
that much of this difference relates to direct and indirect patterns of racial dis-
crimination. Notwithstanding important progress over the course of the twenti-
eth century in realizing the constitutional right of equal protection under the law,
the color line of criminal social control endures, and the consequence are signif-
icant. These consequences are elevated not only by the severe sanctions of our cur-
rent criminal justice policies—and particularly the reliance on incarceration—but
by what we are coming to appreciate as the collateral consequences of racialized
mass incarceration. Through felon disfranchisement and other formal disabilities
and informal practices of exclusion resulting from criminal convictions, racialized
mass incarceration threatens to maintain and intensify the marginalization of
affected minority individuals, families, and communities.
 INSTITUTIONAL PATTERNS AND TRANSFORMATIONS 103

THE FUTURE OF RACE, ETHNICITY, AND

CRIMINAL JUSTICE
Assuming Current Trends in Incarceration Cannot Continue, What Will Come
Next? Given the budget crises nationwide, it seems unlikely that various gov-
ernments can continue to invest in imprisonment on such a costly and es-
calating scale. Will public and official concerns about the rising costs of current
incarceration trends, financial if not social, stall further expansion of the prison-
industrial complex? And assuming our reliance on incarceration is unsustainable,
what will come next? Will we simply revert to the goal of rehabilitation in a
familiar cycle of prison reform, or will growing anti-prison movements effec-
tively challenge the existence of the prison as a social institution, thus making
progress in the radical project of prison abolition or otherwise shifting the debate?
Future research should be proactive in anticipating future directions of criminal
justice policy, especially in relation to prisons and their implications for racial
and ethnic communities. This might help in evaluating various options and
avoiding merely cosmetic responses to the current crisis.

How Will the “War on Terror” Reshape the Intersection of Race and Criminal
Justice? Investigations of the role of race and ethnicity in the criminal justice
system have overwhelmingly focused on the U.S. context, and particularly on
the African American experience. Events of the day are disrupting this national
focus, forcing us to consider these issues in a transnational context and in re-
lation to other racial and ethnic group experiences. In addition to expanding
our understanding of the experiences of newly arriving immigrants from Asia
and Latin America, the declaration of a “War on Terror” challenges us to ad-
dress its impact on the constantly changing terrain of race and social organiza-
tion. Armed with lessons from old “wars” on crime and drugs, future research
should examine how the “War on Terror” is expanding and otherwise alter-
ing the intersection of race-ethnicity, crime, and justice, including problems
of racialized mass criminalization and incarceration and their collateral conse-
quences for individuals, families, and communities—in particular those of
Middle Eastern descent.

What Are the Collateral Consequences of Criminal Justice Policy in General, and
for Racialized Groups in Particular? We have just begun to appreciate the
collateral consequences of several decades of mass imprisonment. We have
learned much about the implications of mass imprisonment for civil society,
employment opportunity, representative government, social welfare, child
welfare, and other issues. Yet more work is needed to determine the extent of
the collateral damage of criminal justice policy, how best it can be repaired,
and how it might be avoided. We hope that future research will shift some of
the attention currently focused on the characteristics of those entering the
104 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

criminal justice system to an examination of the situation faced by those com-

ing out. This research must look not just at the circumstances of the formerly
incarcerated individuals themselves but also at their families, communities,
and the society of which they and we are a part.

CONCLUSION
In this chapter, we have not offered an exhaustive review of the role of race
and ethnicity in all social institutions. Rather, we have tried to highlight key
issues currently at play in several important arenas. The realities are telling. To
be sure, much progress is evident in some arenas. But in others, there are clear
signs of retrenchment, if not outright worsening, of racial disparities. Across a
range of social institutions the most consistent pattern is one of both persis-
tence and change. That is, although there is considerable evidence of steady
(or increasing, but rarely decreasing) levels of racial inequality, these inequal-
ities are often being produced through new mechanisms. Thus, shifts in the
legal and cultural terrain of race have resulted less in the elimination of racism
than in shifts in how it operates. As we outlined at the end of each section,
these changes have clear implications for how we think about and research race
and ethnic matters.
We recognize that the trends we have mapped out for the social institutions
we examined in this chapter are also taking place in other arenas, such as the
social welfare arena and the political arena. For example, there is much evi-
dence that racial patterns in political participation are undergoing important
transformations. This is evident in battles over felony disenfranchisement laws
(which disproportionately affect blacks and Latinos), struggles around re-
districting in states across the country, allegations of racism in key election
outcomes in recent years (for example, the Florida presidential election), and
a number of heated local elections (such as the 2003 Philadelphia mayoral
election) in which race has been at play either implicitly or explicitly.
Moreover, in important ways these institutional patterns and transforma-
tions are not isolated from one another. For example, there are clear inter-
sections between the arenas of criminal justice and education. What effect will
the punishment boom have on children in public schools? In several states
dollar-for-dollar divestment in public education has funded the construction
of jails and prisons. And the introduction of criminal justice technologies and
management strategies into schools has shaped the daily lives of the children
attending these schools. “Zero tolerance” policies and policing strategies have
been adopted in urban public school management, effectively criminalizing
student misbehavior in otherwise severely underresourced schools. Divestment
in education and the criminalization of school misconduct, combined with
the disruption of social ties and mechanisms of informal social control through
high levels of incarceration, have probably resulted in a direct pipeline from
 INSTITUTIONAL PATTERNS AND TRANSFORMATIONS 105

failing public schools to hopeless prisons. This is a conveyor belt that is almost
exclusively the domain of black and Latino/a communities.
Similarly, there are clear intersections between housing segregation patterns
and school segregation. Especially with the outlawing of the explicit segre-
gation of schools, the persistently high levels of racial segregation of school-
children are due in large part to segregation in housing. On the other hand,
there are some indicators that school demographics are one key measure that
families use in making housing decisions. Thus, there is a dialectic and com-
plicated relationship between these patterns in housing and education. More
research is needed to uncover and clarify the dynamics involved.
At minimum this chapter has outlined a number of pressing research ques-
tions for scholars to pursue. These are questions that those centrally interested
in race and ethnicity will have to engage, and they are questions with which
scholars who are focused on any one of the social institutions discussed here
will also need to grapple.

This chapter was a collaborative effort, with each co-author assuming responsi-
bility for one of the social institutions: housing—Maria Krysan; education—
Amanda Lewis; labor markets—Sharon Collins; the criminal justice system—
Geoffrey Ward; and religion—Korie Edwards. Lewis and Krysan were respon-
sible for editing the overall chapter.

NOTES
1. The African American church is not necessarily supportive of all African
American interests equally. Patriarchy (Gilkes 1985; Dodson 1988) and
antihomosexual teachings are prevalent in the black church (Griffin 2001).
2. In the 1960s the Catholic Church approved the use of other languages
besides Latin in performing the liturgy. This change legitimized the use
of Spanish by Latino Catholics and subsequently preserved an important
part of Latino culture—their language (Stevens-Arroyo 1998).

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 PART II


CHANGES IN RACIAL CATEGORIES

AND BOUNDARIES
 5
IDENTIFYING WITH MULTIPLE RACES: A SOCIAL
MOVEMENT THAT SUCCEEDED BUT FAILED?


Reynolds Farley

THE CIVIL RIGHTS revolution of the 1960s fundamentally changed how racial
information is used. Prior to that decade, race was used to assign students to
schools, to determine where people could live, to determine which job, if any,
candidates were offered, and even whom people could marry. The litigation
strategy of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP) and their allies shifted federal courts away from their endorsement of
state-imposed racial discrimination. Later, grassroots desegregation efforts led by
such unlikely people as Rosa Parks in Montgomery, Alabama, and Ezell Blair,
Franklin McClain, Joseph McNeil, and David Richmond in Greensboro, North
Carolina, evolved into the most potent social movement of the last century.
The word “tolerance” was still frequently mentioned with regard to race
relations in the 1960s, rather than “racial ratios,” “quotas,” or “affirmative
action.” Racial data were gathered and scrutinized to promote discrimination.
Employers seeking white-collar workers typically asked job-seekers to include
their picture with their applications, as did many colleges. This allowed both
employment and admissions offices to readily limit or segregate Negroes. Using
racial data from the census, lenders redlined neighborhoods, thereby perpetu-
ating residential segregation.
In its early stages, the civil rights movement sought to terminate the collec-
tion of racial information in hopes of thereby ending discrimination. Employers
and colleges dropped their demand for photographs. New Jersey stopped col-
lecting racial data on birth and death certificates. Later in the decade the pen-
dulum swung far in the other direction. The federal government mandated that
employers and schools at every level gather racial information to demonstrate
the absence of discrimination. When we fill out job applications, seek admission
to schools, go to hospitals, or borrow money from fiscal institutions, we report
124 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

our race because of these encompassing federal regulations. And when we die,
the mortician will register our race one final time.
The social movement to allow us to identify with multiple races is the fore-
seeable outcome of three developments flowing from the civil rights decade.
First, federal courts required racial data for the enforcement of constitutional
mandates. Second, the controversy about which races would benefit from fed-
eral protection led to congressional actions and eventually a federal decree about
how the population was to be classified by race. Third, after interracial marriages
had produced a mixed-race population, dissatisfaction arose with the federal gov-
ernment’s traditional rule that everyone fit into one and only one racial category.
A multiracial movement developed in the 1990s and succeeded in getting the
federal statistical system to permit a person to identify with several races.

FEDERALLY REQUIRED RACIAL DATA: THE 1960S

The congressional discussion that led to civil rights legislation in the 1960s
focused on ending discrimination against blacks (Whalen and Whalen 1985).
To do so, federal laws, agencies, and courts quickly insisted that job applicants,
students, and those seeking mortgages be tabulated by race, since the most
convincing evidence of nondiscrimination was an appropriate representation
of minorities.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 made the Fifteenth Amendment effective
in all states by calling for federal oversight of elections in geographic areas
where African Americans had not been allowed to vote. But rather than specif-
ically mentioning race, the law required federal supervision in jurisdictions
where less than 50 percent of the voting-age population was registered in
November 1964 or where less than 50 percent of those registered actually cast
ballots in the Johnson-Goldwater presidential election.
Federal courts simultaneously wrestled with the unwillingness of southern
schools to accept the integration mandates of Brown v. Board of Education
(1955). When faced with a court order to desegregate, numerous southern dis-
tricts adopted “freedom of choice” plans that, in theory, allowed white students
and black students to transfer from schools of their own race to schools where
the student population was of a different race. As expected, few whites sought
to do so (Klueger 1976, ch. 27). Tired of southern strategies that kept schools
thoroughly segregated despite court orders, the Supreme Court, in Green v. New
Kent County (1968), declared that the only acceptable integration plan was one
that actually placed white and black children in the same schools. Quickly, fed-
eral judges issued orders requiring the assignment of black and white students
and black and white teachers to the same schools. In a key and unanimous rul-
ing, Swann v. Charlotte Mecklenburg County (1971), the Supreme Court called
for the use of both racial ratios and busing to integrate schools in Charlotte,
North Carolina. A school district could comply with these court orders only if
 IDENTIFYING WITH MULTIPLE RACES 125

they had classified their students and employees by race. By this time the Office
for Civil Rights within the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare
(HEW) was collecting information about the race of those enrolled in individ-
ual public schools using, as authority, Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
On the employment front, Title VII of the identical law established the
Equal Employment Opportunities Commission (EEOC) and gave it author-
ity to investigate racial discrimination, a task that required data about the racial
characteristics of people working at different jobs. President Johnson’s Executive
Order 11246 prohibited racial discrimination in all work performed by federal
contractors and created the Office of Federal Contract Compliance (OFCC),
which had broad powers to terminate contracts if firms practiced employment
discrimination. The agency rapidly collected data about the race of employees
by occupations within specific firms. The absence of black workers in a job cat-
egory raised questions about the employer’s hiring and promotion practices.
George Schultz, secretary of labor in the Nixon administration, sought to
end the persistent exclusion of black men from skilled construction trades. He
hammered out the Philadelphia Plan, which was to serve as a national model.
Construction firms could retain their lucrative federal contracts and unions
could avoid federal suits by demonstrating that they hired sufficient numbers
of black men at all ranks, including the crafts trades. The test of compliance
was to be the actual employment of black men.
The Supreme Court’s key employment discrimination ruling was Griggs v.
Duke Power (1971). While banning the use of tests that do not assess the actual
skill level of the job to be performed, the decision went further and placed great
importance on the classification of workers by race. The justices observed that
seemingly neutral screening procedures, such as requiring a high school diploma
for a laborer’s job, often had a disparate impact on the employment opportuni-
ties of members of one racial group. Rather than requiring plaintiffs to prove the
intent to discriminate, this Supreme Court decision opened the door for litiga-
tion based on the underrepresentation of minorities in a job classification.
To boost a sluggish economy by creating construction jobs, the Carter
administration initiated, and Congress enacted, a $4 billion public works pro-
gram in 1977. Congress used an innovative strategy: for the first time, it specif-
ically set aside 10 percent of these funds for qualified minority contractors,
defined as “Negroes, Spanish-speaking, Orientals, Indians, Eskimos and Aleuts”
(La Noue and Sullivan 2001, 74). In Fullilove v. Klutznik (1980) the Supreme
Court, in a six-to-three decision, upheld the specific allocation of federal
spending to qualified minority firms. During President Reagan’s administra-
tion this earmarking of federal spending for minorities was extended to include
the Departments of Defense and Transportation. Congress assumed not only
that racial data existed but that firms could be categorized by the race of their
owner or top officer and that federal dollars for minority firms would break
down traditional discrimination.
126 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

In 1960 many civil rights leaders opposed the collection of racial data, since
historically they had been used to deny opportunities. Less than a dozen years
later the federal government had firmly established the norm that racial data
should be gathered from everyone. Overcoming past discrimination depended
on whether sufficient numbers of minorities were hired and promoted, were
admitted to universities, or received contracts from governmental agencies. In
the span of just a decade and a half, racial data went from being a tool for dis-
crimination to a strategy for proving nondiscrimination.

DEFINING RACIAL GROUPS: FROM THE SIMPLE TO THE

COMPLEX IN THE 1970S AND 1980S
Discussions of race in the civil rights decade focused on African Americans.
Few comments were offered about the half a million American Indians (Snipp
1989, fig. 3.1), many of whom lived in remote areas of sparsely populated
states. The Asian population in 1960 numbered just 875,000—comprising
primarily about 500,000 Japanese and 250,000 Chinese (Barringer, Gardner,
and Levin 1993, table 2A). Asians were concentrated in Hawaii, Los Angeles,
San Francisco, and New York. The 1970 census did not specifically identify
the Spanish-origin population, although the census reported that there were
892,000 individuals of Puerto Rican birth or parentage, as well as 3.4 million
persons with Spanish surnames living in five southwestern states (Bean and
Tienda 1987, ch. 2; U.S. Department of Commerce 1963a, 1963b).
Two changes broadened the discussion of race after 1970. First, the success
of the African American civil rights movement in providing new federal protec-
tions for the employment, voting, and educational rights of blacks spurred
movements to extend those protections to other groups that believed they
were targeted for discrimination. Among the largest were American Indians,
Hispanics, Asians, the elderly, and, later, the disabled and gays and lesbians.
Second, the ideology of the civil rights decade induced Congress to remove
national-origin quotas from the immigration laws—the quotas that favored
Western Europeans but discouraged immigration from elsewhere. After 1968
immigration from Asia, the Caribbean, Mexico, Latin America, and Africa
soared, thereby increasing the size and heterogeneity of the minority population
and providing a strong demographic base for new civil rights organizations.
The Spanish-origin population occupied a unique status because of the
nation’s victory in the war against Mexico in 1848 and against Spain a half-
century later, the latter of which added the Spanish-speaking colonies of
Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Philippines. By the late 1960s Latinos were a
rapidly growing minority without obvious ties to either major political party.
Political campaigners cannot effectively seek the votes of a minority unless they
know their location, size, and characteristics. The Census Bureau was already
printing questionnaires for the 1970 count when Daniel Patrick Moynihan,
 IDENTIFYING WITH MULTIPLE RACES 127

then a White House domestic policy adviser to President Nixon, ordered that
a question identifying Latinos be added. New forms were printed, and a 5 per-
cent sample was asked whether their origin or descent was Mexican, Puerto
Rican, Cuban, Central or South American, other Spanish, or none of the above
(Choldin 1986). For the first time, a census question sought to measure the size
of a specific non-European-origin ethnic group.
In the early 1970s Hispanic advocates in Washington sought to share in the
legal protections and benefits flowing to African Americans from the civil rights
laws and court rulings. Consideration was given to adding Spanish to the race
question, but it was difficult to justify doing so since several European ances-
try groups—English, German, and Irish—were much larger. And the use of
“Mexican” as a race in the enumeration of 1930 had met with such virulent
criticism from Mexicans who did not want to be classed with nonwhite races
that the Census Bureau refused to publish information about the Mexican
“race” ( Jaffe, Cullen, and Boswell 1980).
The Voting Rights Act came up for renewal one decade after its passage.
That law used a 50 percent voting criterion for determining where the U.S.
Justice Department would superintend elections. By this time Latino advo-
cates knew that the Voting Rights Act enhanced the election chances of black
candidates through the drawing of electoral districts. A revision of that law to
include areas with many Spanish-origin residents would increase the number
of Latinos elected to office.
To accomplish that, Congress created the concept of a “language minority.”
As amended, the Voting Rights Act called for a federal pre-clearance of changes
in election procedures in all counties where fewer than 50 percent of the adult
population voted in 1972 or where elections were conducted in English and at
least 5 percent of the voting-age population were members of a single language
minority, as determined by the Census Bureau. Congress specified that language
minorities could consist only of Asian Americans, Alaskan Natives, American
Indians, and persons of Spanish heritage. Parishes in Louisiana with French-
speaking minorities did not receive protection, but northern counties with large
Puerto Rican and Indian populations were covered, including New York City,
all of South Dakota, and much of Alaska—places that did not have a history
of denying the franchise. This was a major victory for Hispanic advocacy
groups, and it did not require classifying the Spanish-origin population as a race
(Thernstrom 1987).
The success of Latinos prompted other groups to develop definitions so that
they could become a protected category deriving federal benefits from civil
rights laws and court rulings. At this time there was no federal policy about
the collection of racial information, and the Census Bureau’s racial categories
changed from one enumeration to the next. In 1973 Caspar Weinberger, then
serving as secretary of health, education, and welfare in the Nixon adminis-
tration, asked the Federal Interagency Committee on Education to develop
128 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

government-wide standards with regard to racial classification. For several

years, representatives of federal agencies discussed this issue. In the first year
of President Carter’s administration, the Office of Management and the
Budget (OMB), relying on the efforts of Katherine Wallman, issued Direc-
tive 15. This was extremely important since it was the first federal mandate
specifying which racial categories had to be used in the national statistical sys-
tem. All federal agencies gathering demographic data were required to classify
persons into one of four mutually exclusive major racial categories: white,
black, Asian or Pacific Islander, and American Indian or Alaskan Native.
Agencies also had to obtain information about the Hispanic origin of every-
one, but the directive permitted either a distinct question about this or the use
of Hispanic origin as if it were a race similar to white, black, or Asian (Spencer
1997). This directive served as the commanding word on federal racial statis-
tics for twenty-three years but had a much greater impact since employers,
schools, and firms linked in any fashion to federal spending had powerful in-
centives to gather data consistent with the government’s requirement.
The questionnaire for the 1980 census was strongly influenced by OMB
Directive 15. To avoid the possibility of minimizing the count of Hispanic
persons, a special question about this ethnicity was added, and most federal
offices followed this practice. All of the major racial groups in Directive 15
were listed on the census schedule, but race questions in the last three enu-
merations have been strongly influenced by Representative Robert Matsui
(D-Calif.). Fearing that specific Asian groups might not be fully counted if the
inclusive term “Asian” were used, he insisted that many specific Asian origins
be listed. Thus, the 1980 census listed Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, Vietnamese,
Asian Indian, Hawaiian, Guamanian, and Samoan.
Directive 15 settled the measurement of race in an official sense, but litiga-
tion continued to hash out which groups might be treated as races with regard
to legal protections. In its St. Francis College v. Al-Khazraji (1987) decision,
the Supreme Court declared that an Iraqi was entitled to sue his employer on
grounds of racial discrimination. On the same day the Supreme Court ruled
that a Maryland man who defaced a synagogue could be prosecuted under a
state law prohibiting crimes of racial hatred; in this case, Jews were protected
as if they were a race (Shaare Tefila Congregation v. Cobb, 1987). These simulta-
neous Supreme Court decisions broadened the meaning of race.

A NEW DEVELOPMENT: THE MULTIRACIAL

MOVEMENT IN THE 1990S
Court decisions and congressional discussions through 1990 never challenged
the principle that all persons can be classified into one and only one race, but
that year’s census provoked a social movement that drastically changed the
nation’s racial classifications. In 1988 Susan Graham developed an umbrella
 IDENTIFYING WITH MULTIPLE RACES 129

organization for clubs and groups representing the interests of mixed-race cou-
ples and their offspring. She was a white woman from suburban Atlanta mar-
ried to Gordon Graham, a black man who was an anchorman for CNN. She
knew Georgia school systems inevitably classified children as minorities if one
parent was not white—hence the name of her organization, Reclassify All
Children Equally (Project RACE). The arrival of her 1990 census question-
naire propelled her to a leadership position in a small but effective social move-
ment. After examining the form, she said later, she called the Census Bureau
to ask how a child’s race should be reported if his or her parents differed in
race. She claimed that Census Bureau personnel told her that she had to mark
the mother’s race for the child’s.
At the same time, Carlos Fernandez, an attorney in San Francisco of
Mexican and white ancestry, was upset by the federal requirement that every-
one be slotted into only one race. Upon learning about the 1990 census, he
considered filing a suit in federal court but did not locate a plaintiff with stand-
ing. He founded an organization called the Association of Multi-Ethnic
Americans (AMEA). Shortly thereafter, local groups sprang up to represent the
interests of mixed-race persons, including A Place for Us (APFU), an advocacy
group founded in Los Angeles by a white man who sought to marry a black
woman but was turned down by his minister; the Brick by Brick Church, cre-
ated by Pastor Kenneth Simpson in Lexington, Kentucky, to minister to the
spiritual needs of multiracial people; the Interracial Family Alliance, founded
by parishioners at the Episcopal church in Augusta, Georgia; and the Interracial
Lifestyle Connection, created as a correspondence club for persons who wished
to cross racial boundaries (Skerry 2000, ch. 2). Fortunately for this movement,
the Internet has allowed a rapid and low-cost exchange of information and is
an effective medium for recruitment and promotion.
To give national visibility to this emerging movement, AMEA called a
“Loving Conference” for June 1992 in Washington to commemorate the
quarter-century anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Loving v. Virginia (1967)
decision, which overturned state laws prohibiting interracial marriage. The
group invited governmental officials and succeeded in getting the attention
of both Ohio Congressman Thomas Sawyer, who headed the House Sub-
committee on the Census, and Nampeo McKinney, who had responsibility
for racial statistics at the Census Bureau. When Congressman Sawyer held
hearings in 1993 about the 2000 census, he invited representatives of the multi-
racial movement to speak, giving them a more prominent platform then they
ever had before. Susan Graham and her collaborators, in the meantime, worked
at the state level to raise awareness of the psychological damage that is done to
multiracial children when they are forced to identify with only their mother’s
or only their father’s race. They persuaded legislatures in Ohio, Illinois, and
Georgia to add “multiracial” as a category in state-mandated data collections
(Spencer 1997).
130 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

By late 1993, traditional civil rights organizations recognized a threat in the

addition of a multiracial category on the census. If the multiracial movement
convinced many people to mark it rather than one of the traditional races, the
demographic foundation for racial advocacy groups would shrink. Billy Tidwell,
director of research for the Urban League, relied on Roderick Harrison of the
Census Bureau to argue that black civil rights organizations could find them-
selves representing a much smaller African American population if persons were
allowed to identify as multiracial (Williams 2000).
With planning for the 2000 census speeding along, OMB in 1994 declared
that the racial categories delineated in Directive 15 were of decreasing value
and that a revision of that directive would be considered. With the issue of
deciding which racial categories should be used by the government in play, the
multiracial movement gained new opportunities for congressional testimony
and lobbying. The OMB declaration about revising Directive 15 stimulated
three major Census Bureau surveys that used a variety of new questions to
gather racial data: the 1995 Supplement on Race and Ethnicity to the Current
Population Survey, the 1996 National Content Test, and the 1996 Race and
Ethnic Targeted Test (Hirschman, Alba, and Farley 2000).
As hearings were held in Washington and governmental agencies developed
recommendations, advocacy organizations succeeded in bringing attention to
their cause. Susan Graham lived in Congressman Newt Gingrich’s (R-Ga.) dis-
trict, and after the Republican victory in the 1996 congressional election, he
gave his boisterous support to the multiracial movement. AMEA spokespersons
called attention to the large number of prominent multiracial Americans, in-
cluding persons often considered to be black, such as W. E. B. DuBois, Langston
Hughes, Alex Haley, Malcolm X, and General Colin Powell. Lani Grenier
came in for special criticism for emphasizing her black rather than her Jewish
background in order to get a federal appointment. A Multiracial Solidarity
March was called for Washington in July 1996, with the specific aim of adding
“multiracial” to the list of racial groups on the 2000 census (Williams 2000,
ch. 6). Tiger Woods declared on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1997 that he was
neither black nor Thai, but rather Cablinasian (Caucasian, black, American
Indian, and Asian). Representative Thomas Petri (R-Wisc.) introduced House
Bill 830. Known as the “Tiger Woods bill,” it called for the addition of “multi-
racial” or “multi-ethnic” as a racial category on the 2000 census, but was never
enacted.
By the late 1990s the multiracial movement was supported by individuals
with very different but compatible aims: parents who wanted to identify their
children as multiracial and politicians who presumed that Democrats bene-
fited from the way racial data were gathered and used, especially in redrawing
congressional districts.
As pressures for a multiracial category increased, Katherine Wallman and
others at OMB considered an alternative strategy: letting respondents identify
 IDENTIFYING WITH MULTIPLE RACES 131

with as many races as they wished. When spokespeople for the multiracial
movement were asked their opinions about this—additional congressional
hearings were held in 1997—they were unenthusiastic. No one would be able
to identify themselves as multiracial. Furthermore, this option would produce
unwieldy data, since there would be dozens of combinations of races and no
unambiguous count of multiracial persons or any one race.
By 1997 the most powerful civil rights lobbyists in Washington, especially
the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights representing the interests of African
Americans, came to support OMB’s “check all that apply” idea. Census Bureau
studies suggested that a relatively small proportion of people, perhaps 1.5 per-
cent, would identify with a multiracial category or mark a second race if given
the option, so a multiracial option would not seriously reduce the counts of mi-
norities. Indeed, the size of a minority race might increase a bit if some who first
marked a different race checked that race as a second or third racial identity.
On October 30, 1997, OMB officials announced their authoritative deci-
sion. It had its most immediate and greatest impact on the 2000 census. All
persons were to be given the option to identify with as many racial groups as
they wished, starting with the decennial enumeration and extending to all
federal data systems by 2003. OMB announced that five major racial groups
were to be used in the federal system: American Indian and Alaskan Native;
Asian; black or African American; Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander
(NHOPI); and white.
This OMB directive also mandated the gathering of data about the Spanish
origin of each person. It recommended a distinct question about race and an-
other dichotomous question about whether the individual’s origin was or was
not Hispanic or Latino. Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders were sep-
arated from Asians and designated as one of the five major racial groups, pri-
marily because of the effective lobbying of Senator Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii).
This October 1997 decision settled the issue of measuring race for the 2000
census, and perhaps for the next few censuses.
The multiracial movement of the 1990s can be easily summarized:

• Frequently spokespeople for this movement and those for the traditional
civil rights movement traded heated and ad hominem charges. Civil
rights leaders asserted that the multiracial movement intended to turn
back the clock and eliminate the racial progress of the last three decades,
progress that depended on a simple and clear system for classifying race.
The multiracialists were described as stalking horses for the growing
anti–affirmative action movement. For their part, the multiracialists
charged that traditional civil rights leaders were denying the multiracial
reality of the nation and trying to force outdated racial concepts on every-
body for their own gains.
132 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

• Participants in this contentious debate seldom called on experts, and they

seldom, if ever, cited scholarly studies concerning the measurement of race
and ethnicity.
• While gaining considerable attention in the press and on Capitol Hill, the
multiracial groups had few members, were not well financed, and did not
establish lobbying offices in Washington. Nor did they have the statistical
capability to conduct surveys or analyze the substantial flow of findings
from the Census Bureau tests of racial queries.
• Nevertheless, there were good reasons to think that the multiracial popu-
lation grew rapidly in the 1990s, since an increasing number of marriages
were between spouses who reported different races (Farley 1999).
• The grassroots multiracial movement of the 1990s did not succeed in get-
ting its favored term, “multiracial,” added to the government’s list of races.
But it did win a major battle when the decision was made to have the 2000
census allow all people to identify with more than one race. Never again
will we assume that everyone fits neatly into one and only one racial group.

QUESTIONS AND STRATEGIES USED TO IDENTIFY THE

MULTIPLE-RACE POPULATION
You might think that the 2000 census questions would have made it very easy
for people to identify with two or more races. It was certainly possible for a per-
son to do so, but the count of the multiracial population depends as much on
the coding rules developed at the Census Bureau as it does on the intentions and
pencil marks of respondents. Figure 5.1 presents the race and Spanish-origin
questions asked of all persons in the last two censuses. At first glance, the race
options on the 2000 census seem hardly consistent with OMB specifications: re-
spondents could check as many of the race boxes as they wished. They were given
the choice of white, black, American Indian, or Alaska Native, and then they
could identify with as many as seven different Asian origins (one a write-in) or
with any or all of four Pacific Island origins (one a write-in). Finally, they could
fill in the box for “some other race” and write in a term if they felt that none of
the eighteen racial designations printed on the census form applied to them.
Coding rules were extremely influential. If an immigrant from Bangkok
filled in the box for “Chinese” and the box for “some other race” and wrote
“Thai,” he was classified as a monoracial Asian, since Thais and Chinese were
both considered component parts of the Asian major racial group. If a Honolulu
resident marked “Samoan” and “Native Hawaiian,” she too was classified as
monoracial, since she identified with two different components of the NHOPI
major racial group. If a person marked “White” and “some other race” and
then wrote “Italian” or “Irish,” he was assumed to be a monoracial white. But
FIGURE 5.1 RACE AND SPANISH-ORIGIN QUESTIONS ASKED IN THE CENSUSES OF 1990 AND 2000
Census of 1990, Questions 4 and 7 Census of 2000, Questions 5 and 6
4. Race  White NOTE: Please answer BOTH Questions 5 and 6.
 Black or Negro
Fill ONE circle for the race that the person  Indian (A mer.) (Print the name of the 5. Is this person Spanish/Hispanic/Latino? Mark 嘺 the “No” box if not Spanish/Hispanic/Latino.
considers himself/herself to be. enrolled or principal tribe)
If Indian (Amer.) print the name of  No, not Spanish/Hispanic/Latino
the enrolled or principal tribe.  Yes, Mexican, Mexican Amer., Chicano
 Yes, Puerto Rican
 Yes, Cuban
 Chinese  Japanese  Yes, other Spanish/Hispanic/Latino—print group
If other Asian or Pacific Islander (API),  Filipino  Asian Indian
print one group, for example: Hmong,  Hawaiian  Samoan
Fijan, Laotian, Thai, Tongen, Pakistani,  Korean  Guamanian
Cambodian, and so on.  Vietnamese  Other API 6. What is this person’s race? Mark 嘺 one or more races to indicate what this person considers
himself/herself to be
If other race, print race.
 White
Other race (print race)  Black, African Amer., or Negro
 American Indian or Alaska Native—print name of enrolled or principal tribe.

7. Is this person of Spanish/Hispanic origin? Fill ONE circle for each person.
 Asian Indian  Native Hawaiian
 No (not Spanish/Hispanic)  Chinese  Guamanian or Chamorro
 Yes, Mexican, Mexican Amer., Chicano  Filipino  Samoan
 Yes, Puerto Rican  Japanese  Other Pacific Islander—print race
Yes, Cuban  Korean
 Yes, other Spanish/Hispanic. Print one group,  Vietnamese
for example, Argentinean, Colombian, Dominican,  Other Asian—print race
Nicaraguan, Salvadoran, Spaniard, and so on.

 Some other race—print race

Source: Author's compilation.

Note: Major Changes in the Race and Spanish-Origin Questions
• The Spanish-origin questions in 2000 preceded the race question. In 1990 the race question came first.
• In 1990 the Spanish-origin questions gave six examples of specific Spanish origins for those who identified with another Spanish or Hispanic origin. In 2000 no examples of other Spanish origins were given.
• The race question in 2000 used “African American” in addition to “black” and “Negro.”
• “Eskimo” and “Aleut” were used in 1990, but in 2000 “Alaska Natives” was included with “American Indian.”
• “Hawaiian” in 1990 was changed to “Native Hawaiian” in 2000.
• “Or Chamorro” was added to “Guamanian.”
• “Other API” was changed to “Other Asian.”
• “Other race” was changed to “some other race.”

The six major races used in the census of 2000 were: white; black or African American; American Indian or Alaska Native; Asian; Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander (NHOPI); and some other race.
134 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

if a person marked “White” and “some other race” and wrote “Mexican” or
“Spanish,” she was classified as multiracial.
The key to this procedure involves the coding responses written by those
who marked “some other race.” The OMB requirement did not permit the use
of the “some other race” category, but the Census Bureau obtained an exemp-
tion for the 2000 census and included this category, primarily because the bu-
reau knew that many Spanish-origin respondents would mark “some other
race” as their identity.
If a person marked “some other race” and wrote a term indicating a Spanish
origin, he was automatically assigned to the “other race” category. Many people
identified with “some other race” alone, and so they were monoracials. Others
identified with “Black” or “White,” then with “some other race” and wrote a
Spanish term; they were classified as multiple in race. If a person wrote a term
for “some other race” other than a Spanish-origin group, the Census Bureau
checked the 1990 census data to investigate the racial reports of people who used
that term for their ancestry. If 70 percent or more of the people using that an-
cestry term in 1990 identified with a specific race, those people using that term
for their “other race” in 2000 were placed into a specific racial category. For ex-
ample, in the 1990 census, 99.5 percent of those who marked “Irish” as their an-
cestry, marked “White” for their race. This meant that someone writing in
“Irish” for his only race or for his second race in the 2000 census was a mono-
racial white. Of those who marked “Surinamese” for their ancestry in 1990,
25 percent had identified themselves as white, 46 percent as black, and the re-
mainder as Asian or Indian. Thus, a person writing “Surinamese” for their “other
race” in 2000 was left in the “other race” category.
Figure 5.1 also shows another major change from 1990: the Spanish-origin
question came prior to, not after, the race question. Census Bureau pretests sug-
gested that if the race question came first, many respondents would feel that
they had already identified their origin and would leave the Spanish-origin
question blank. To prevent this, the Spanish-Hispanic-Latino query preceded
the race question in 2000, with a reminder to answer the following race ques-
tion as well. We do not yet know what impact this had on responses to the race
question (Martin, Demaio, and Campanelli 1990). In two-thirds of the house-
holds enumerated in 2000, someone filled out the census form and mailed it
back. That person presumably answered the race and Spanish-origin ques-
tions for all residents. The other one-third of households provided informa-
tion to a census-taker who visited their home. We do not know how the mode
of data gathering influenced the results.

2000 CENSUS RESULTS

About one American in forty, a total of 6.7 million, reported multiple races in
2000 according to the coding procedures used by the Census Bureau. This is
 IDENTIFYING WITH MULTIPLE RACES 135

2.4 percent of the population. If we exclude those persons who were multiple
in race because they marked one of the five major racial groups, also marked
“other race,” and then wrote in a Spanish term, the count of multiple races
falls to 1.6 percent, or 4.4 million. This is very close to the percentage of multi-
racial hinted at in the Census Bureau pretest.
Because the census questionnaire listed the five major racial groups called
for by OMB and “some other race,” there are sixty-three different racial groups
from which data are now available: six single races and fifty-seven combina-
tions of two to six races. The top panel of table 5.1 shows the frequency of
identifying with two or more racial groups. Very few individuals—fewer than
one in one thousand—went on to identify with a third or fourth race. The
middle panel of table 5.1 shows the most and least popular race combinations.

TABLE 5.1 POPULATION INFORMATION FROM THE REPORTING OF RACE,

CENSUS OF 2000
Percentage of
Number Total Population
Population by number of races
reported
One 274,595,678 97.4%
Two 6,368,075 2.3
Three 410,285 0.1
Four 38,408 <0.1
Five 8,637 <0.1
Six 823 <0.1
Total 281,421,905 100.0
Percentage of Two-or-
More-Races Population
Most frequently reported combination
of two or more races
White and some other race 2,206,251 32.30%
White and Indian 1,082,683 15.9
White and Asian 868,395 12.7
White and black 784,764 11.5
Black and some other race 417,249 6.1
Asian and some other race 249,108 3.6
Black and Indian 182,494 2.7
Asian and NHOPI 138,802 2.0
White and NHOPI 112,964 1.7
White, black, and Indian 106,782 1.6
(Table continues on p. 136.)
136 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

TABLE 5.1 CONTINUED

Least frequently reported combination of
two or more races
White, black, Indian, 68 <0.1
NHOPI, and other
Black, Indian, NHOPI, and other 111 <0.1
Indian, Asian, NHOPI, and other 207 <0.1
Black, Indian, Asian, NHOPI, 216 <0.1
and other
White, Indian, NHOPI, and other 309 <0.1
White, black, NHOPI, and other 325 <0.1
Black, Indian, Asian, and other 334 <0.1
White, black, Asian, NHOPI, 379 <0.1
and other
Indian, NHOPI, and other 586 <0.1
White, Indian, Asian, NHOPI, 639 <0.1
and other
Maximum as
One Race Alone and in Percentage
Major Race Alone Combination of Minimum
Maximum and
minimum counts of
the five major races
White 211,460,626 216,930,975 102.6%
Black or 34,658,190 36,658,190 105.1
African
American
Asian 10,242,998 11,898,828 116.2
American 2,476,956 4,119,301 166.3
Indian
NHOPI 398,836 874,414 219.2
Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Census of 2000, “Overview of Race and Hispanic Origin,”
C2KBR /01-1; summary file 1, table P-4; Census 2000 supplemental survey, public use
microdata sample.
Note: These data include information for those who identified with two races because they
wrote in a Spanish term for their second race.

“White and some other race” tops the list because many Americans marked
“White” and “some other race,” then wrote in a Spanish term. These respon-
dents amount to more than one-third of the multiple-race population. Next
in popularity—with a count of 1.1 million—was the “White–American Indian”
combination, reflecting the long history of marriage between European settlers
 IDENTIFYING WITH MULTIPLE RACES 137

and their descendants and American Indians. “White-Asian,” “White-Black,”

and “Black-other” (that is, “Black-Spanish”) ranked third, fourth, and fifth.
Some people identified with each of the 57 racial combinations, although
many combinations were rarely reported: for 30 of the 57, the actual count was
under 10,000. The five-race combination of “White-Black-Indian-NHOPI-
other” was the least frequently reported—just 68 persons—followed by “Black-
Indian-NHOPI-other.” Only 823 of the 281.4 million Americans counted in
2000 identified with all six races.
The single-race count of some races differs greatly from the maximum count,
but for others it does not. The final panel in table 5.1 shows the maximum count
of each of the five major racial groups as a percentage of the minimum. At one
extreme are the NHOPIs. Most of those who checked “Native Hawaiian,”
“Guamanian or Chamorro,” or “Samoan” or wrote in an NHOPI term such as
“Polynesian” or “Micronesian” went on to identify with a second race, typically
“White” or “Asian.” Consequently, the maximum count of NHOPIs is more
than twice the minimum count.
Whites were distinguished by how seldom they reported a second race. Of
all who marked the “White” box, no more than one in forty marked a second
race. “Some other race” (Spanish origin), “American Indian,” and “Asian”
were the most popular choices used in combination with “White.” Although
few whites identified with a second race, the dominating size of the white pop-
ulation means that most multiple-race persons identified themselves as white.
We stress that individuals did not rank-order their races. They merely filled in
a box on the census schedule, so we do not know which was their primary or
preferred racial identity.

WHO IDENTIFIED WITH TWO OR MORE RACES IN 2000?

The opportunity to identify with several racial groups was an abrupt change in
conceptualizing and measuring race. Although the Census Bureau tested mul-
tiple race questions in the 1990s, it did not pretest the “Mark all that apply”
question that was used.
Several characteristics of individuals seem likely to influence whether they
would identify with one race or with more than one race. The multiracial move-
ment emphasized the desire of parents in a mixed-race marriage to list their
children as members of two races. Thus, we expect that many children whose
parents differ in race would report themselves or be reported as members of
two races.
Second, place of residence makes a difference. For more than a century,
Hawaii has had a racially diverse population—the migrants from the Marqueses
Islands who settled there; the British colonialists who preceded the Americans;
Filipinos and Puerto Ricans imported to work the plantations; the Japanese
who dominated the economy; and the many white and black military person-
nel assigned there since the U.S. war with Spain. We expect much intermarriage
138 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

in Hawaii and a large multiracial population. At the other extreme, some

states, such as Vermont and New Hampshire, have had a largely white popula-
tion since the earliest days of European migration, and others, like North
Dakota, have never had a minority population. So we expect that few residents
of these states would identify with two races. In the American South, a firm color
line emerged from the imposition of the “one drop” rule after the Civil War, so
we also expect that most people there would identify with only one race.
Third, we expect age to be related to the number of races reported because
of an increase over time in interracial marriages. Apparently fewer than 2 per-
cent of black husbands marrying in the Depression decade or before had a
white wife, but among African American men marrying in the 1990s, more
than one in ten had a white wife. There was a similar increase over time in the
frequency with which whites and native-born Asians married outside their
own racial group (Farley 1999, fig. 5.7; 2002, table 1.1). If the offspring of
mixed marriages identify with two races, then age should be strongly linked to
such reporting.
Fourth, educational attainment should have an influence on the identifica-
tion with more than one race. Those who complete college presumably have
studied American history and social science, so they may be more likely to be
aware of the complicated racial issues in the United States and the frequency
with which whites, African Americans, and Indians have married outside their
own race.
Finally, it is likely that racial groups differ in their propensity to identify with
a second race. Since the arrival of the early settlers from the British Isles, whites
and American Indians have been marrying each other, so much so that most
people who identify as American Indian today have one or more white ances-
tors. As Randall Kennedy (2003) stresses, during the centuries of slavery inter-
racial sex between blacks and whites occurred frequently, producing a large
mulatto population in the colonies and the United States. On the eve of the Civil
War, the 1860 census reported that 13 percent of the Negro population was mu-
latto (U.S. Department of Commerce 1918, table 1). The Census Bureau con-
tinued to classify Negroes by degree of blackness through 1890, using the terms
“quadroon” and “octoroon,” but then recognized the folly of doing so. Despite
interracial parenting, customs and legal rulings in the South mandated that all
persons be classified on one or the other side of a firmly drawn black-white di-
viding line. Thus, we expect that African Americans would identify with a sec-
ond race much less frequently than American Indians. Because they are
numerically dominant, whites should be least likely to identify with a second
race. Even if race made no difference at all in the selection of a spouse, most
whites would marry other whites because of the dominating size of the white
population, so today’s whites should be least likely to identify with several races.
To analyze patterns of multiple-race identification, the 5 percent microdata
from the 2000 census were analyzed. These provide information about the re-
 IDENTIFYING WITH MULTIPLE RACES 139

porting of race and all other characteristics for a sample of 14 million persons.1
Because of the confounding way in which the writing of a Spanish term for
“some other race” turned 1.6 million into multiple-race people, this analysis
is restricted to the non-Hispanic population.

CHILDREN IN MIXED-RACE MARRIAGES:

THEIR REPORTED RACES
A primary motivation for many of those who advocated a new race question
was to allow parents in racially mixed marriages some flexibility in identifying
their children. Did they make use of the multiple-race question? Yes, they did.
Householders were asked to list the relationship of all who lived in their
home or apartment and provide racial information for each person. Using those
responses, the Census Bureau identified “own children”—that is, the children
of the household head or the spouse of the head. “Own children” included chil-
dren related to the parents by blood, marriage, or adoption. These children
were not necessarily, however, the biological offspring of one or both of the par-
ents. In this analysis, we consider non-Hispanic children under age eighteen
who lived in two-parent, married-couple households in which both parents
were non-Hispanic.
There were 36.9 million “own children” under age eighteen for whom both
parents identified with the same major racial group: white, black, Indian, Asian,
or NHOPI. In these racially homogeneous marriages, only 0.2 percent of the
children—or 2 per 1,000—were identified with two or more races. We conclude
that almost all children in racially homogeneous married were single-race chil-
dren. Approximately 1.4 million children were counted in husband-wife fami-
lies in which the spouses differed in their reported races. Fifty-one percent of
these children were marked as identifying with two or more races.
This is strong evidence of the effectiveness of the new race question, which
has shown that many parents in racially mixed marriages think of their chil-
dren as members of two or more racial groups. Table 5.2 reports that just over
1.0 million “own children” under age eighteen lived in two-parent households
in which the races of the partners differed. Forty-four percent of those chil-
dren were identified with two or more racial groups. Quite clearly, many par-
ents in racially mixed marriages think of their children as multiracial.
Table 5.2 provides additional information about the reporting of children’s
races by focusing on racially mixed marriages involving whites, blacks, Asians,
or American Indians. Not all interracial marriages are included here.
The first panel of table 5.2 reports that 994 per 1,000 of children in white-
white marriages were identified as white only and that just 2 per 1,000 were
multiracial. Similarly, 995 per 1,000 children in black-black marriages were
black only. Among those couples comprising a white husband and an African
American wife, 467 per 1,000 children were identified with two racial groups.
140 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

TABLE 5.2 RACE OF CHILDREN UNDER AGE EIGHTEEN IN TWO-PARENT,

NON-HISPANIC HOUSEHOLDS, BY RACE OF PARENTS
White-Only, White-Black, and Black-Only Married Couples
Race of
Husband: White Only White Only Black Only Black Only
Race of Wife: White Only Black Only White Only Black Only
Race of child
White only 99% 15% 17% <1%
Black only <1 43 24 99
Multiracial <1 30 58 <1
Another race <1 12 1 <1
Total 100 100 100 100
Number of 34,691,122 100,937 237,383 3,282,213
children

White-Only, White-Asian, and Asian-Only Married Couples

Race of
Husband: White Only White Only Asian Only Asian Only
Race of Wife: White Only Asian Only White Only Asian Only
Race of child
White only 99% 26% 21% <1%
Asian only <1 21 19 99
Multiracial <1 51 59 <1
Another race <1 2 <1 <1
Total 100 100 100 100
Number of 34,691,122 328,448 165,177 1,969,688
children

White-Only, White-Indian, and Indian-Only Married Couples

Race of
Husband: White Only White Only Indian Only Indian Only
Race of Wife: White Only Indian Only White Only Indian Only
Race of child
White only 99% 32% 30% 3%
Indian only <1 50 34 95
Multiracial <1 17 33 1
Another race <1 <1 3 1
Total 100 100 100 100
Number of 34,691,122 105,395 112,107 134,607
children
(continued)
 IDENTIFYING WITH MULTIPLE RACES 141

TABLE 5.2 CONTINUED

White-Only, White-Multiracial, and Multiracial Married Couples
Race of
Husband: White Only White Only Multiracial Multiracial
Race of Wife: White Only Multiracial White Only Multiracial
Race of child
White only 99% 48% 50% 8%
Multiracial <1 51 46 90
Another race <1 <1 4 2
Total 100 100 100 100
Number of 34,691,122 217,154 214,350 161,842
children
Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Census 2000 supplemental survey.
Note: These data refer to non-Hispanic “own” children under age eighteen who were enumerated
in a married household in which both the husband and wife were non-Hispanic. “Own children”
includes those related to either the husband or wife by blood, marriage, or adoption, so these
children are not necessarily the biological offspring of both parents.

But among couples comprising a white wife and a black husband (see the sec-
ond panel), an even higher percentage of children—529 per 1,000—were
identified with two racial groups. Because black husband–white wife couples
are much more numerous than the reverse, we conclude that the majority of
children in black-white married couples were identified with two racial groups.
In Asian-only two-parent families, 989 per 1,000 children were identified
as Asian only. Among those couples comprising a white husband and an Asian
wife, 522 per 1,000 children were identified with at least two racial groups,
while 518 per 1,000 children in Asian husband–white wife families were iden-
tified with two racial groups.

PLACE OF RESIDENCE AND IDENTIFICATION WITH

TWO OR MORE RACES
Figure 5.2 reports the percentage of non-Hispanic persons who identified with
more than one race by state. This ranged from a low of just 0.6 percent in West
Virginia to a high of 18.2 percent in Hawaii identifying with two races. Asian-
NHOPI, Asian-white, and white-NHOPI were the most common dual races
reported there. Hawaii was also the only state where many identified with
three or more races: almost 7 percent of Hawaiian residents marked three or
more races, with white-Asian-NHOPI the most popular combination.
FIGURE 5.2 PERCENTAGE OF THE NON-HISPANIC POPULATION
IDENTIFYING WITH MORE THAN ONE RACE, BY STATES
(INCLUDING THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA): CENSUS 2000

0 to 1.0 Percent
1.0 to 1.3 Percent
1.3 to 1.5 Percent
1.5 to 1.9 Percent
1.9 to 18.4 Percent

Highest Percentage Lowest Percentage

Washington 3.33 West Virginia 0.62
California 3.43 Washington, D.C. 0.75
Oklahoma 5.78 Mississippi 0.76
Alaska 6.54 North Dakota 0.83
Hawaii 18.14 Pennsylvania 0.86

United States: 1.6

Source: Author’s compilation.

 IDENTIFYING WITH MULTIPLE RACES 143

Identification with two races was most common in the Pacific Rim states
and in states with large American Indian populations, such as New Mexico,
Arizona, and Oklahoma, reflecting the historic experience of frequent inter-
marriage between Indians and whites. At the other extreme were states that
have never had substantial minority populations: New Hampshire, Vermont,
and North Dakota, as well as states in the Deep South, including Louisiana
and Mississippi.
Examining data for metropolises reveals that Honolulu had the highest fre-
quency of identification with two races at 20 percent. Indeed, it was the only
metropolis where more than 6 percent did so. Anchorage, Alaska, came after
Honolulu in density of multiracial population. In the conterminous United
States, three heterogeneous California cities topped the list: Stockton, Vallejo,
and Merced.
At the other extreme were metropolises where very few identified with more
than one race—just over 0.5 percent of their residents. Multiple-race report-
ing was most rare in three Appalachian areas in Pennsylvania that have never
had minority populations: Altoona, Johnstown, and Wilkes-Barre. Jackson,
Mississippi, and Monroe, Louisiana, also had extremely low rates of two-race
identification, but they were metropolises with large white and African
American populations.
When counties are considered, the distinctive racial history of Hawaii is
again evident. Four of the five counties with the highest rates of multiple-race
identification were Hawaiian counties. Indeed, on the Big Island—Hawaii
County—almost three residents in ten identified with two or more racial groups.
In the conterminous United States, Craig County in northeastern Oklahoma
had the highest rate of identification with two or more races. In that county,
two-thirds of the population identified themselves as white only, about one-
sixth as American Indian only, and one in nine as both white and American
Indian. Four of the five counties where identification with two races was least
frequent were in North Dakota. In the northern reaches of the grain belt, about
one person in one thousand used the new census options to identify with two
or more racial groups.

BIRTH COHORTS AND IDENTIFICATION WITH

TWO OR MORE RACES
The four largest major racial groups were sorted into birth cohorts, and the
percentage identifying with a second race is shown in figure 5.3. This figure
lucidly indicates the substantial racial difference in the propensity of non-
Hispanics to identify with a second race. In 1980 the percentages identifying
with one race and then one or more other races were as follows: American
Indians—43.1 percent; Asians—13.0 percent; African Americans—4.3 per-
cent; and whites—2.0 percent. More than four of ten of those who marked
144 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

FIGURE 5.3 PERCENTAGE OF NON-HISPANIC WHITES, BLACKS, AMERICAN

INDIANS, AND ASIANS IDENTIFYING WITH TWO OR MORE RACES, BY
BIRTH COHORT: CENSUS 2000

60

50

40
Percentage

White
30 Black
American Indian
20 Asian

10

0
99

89

79

69

59

49

39

29

19

10
19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19
e-
to

to

to

to

to

to

to

to

to

Pr
90

80

70

60

50

40

30

20

10
19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19
Year

Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Public Use 5 Percent Sample, Microdata Sample.

“American Indian” went on to identify with a second racial group, presumably

because of the centuries-old tradition of Indians marrying and bearing chil-
dren with whites. The racial homogeny of white marriages helps to explain the
infrequency with which whites opted to also identify with black, Asian, or
Indian—just 2 percent.
Birth cohort differences in identification with two or more races are gener-
ally consistent with the hypothesis and finding that interracial marriage has in-
creased in recent decades. Asians, blacks, and whites under age twenty in 2000
were much more likely than older members of the same racial group to be iden-
tified with two or more races. Many fewer than 1 percent of whites and African
Americans over age sixty identified with two or more racial groups, but
5 percent of whites and 10 percent of blacks under age ten were multiracial.
American Indians were the exception to the generalization about the effects of
age on identification with two or more races: in every birth cohort, almost one-
half of those who identified with Indian also identified with a second racial
group. Indeed, the percentage of American Indians who identified with a sec-
ond race was greater for persons over fifty than for those under twenty.
 IDENTIFYING WITH MULTIPLE RACES 145

EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT AND IDENTIFICATION WITH

TWO OR MORE RACES
We presumed that educational attainment would be linked to identification
with two or more racial groups. Figure 5.4 presents findings for the non-
Hispanic population age twenty-five and over. For American Indians and
blacks, the link between schooling completed and the reporting of multi-
ple races was in the expected direction. Perhaps as members of these racial
groups complete college, they learn more about the nation’s complex history
and realize that some of their ancestors were whites. However, for both Asians
and whites, educational attainment appeared unrelated to identifying with a
second race.
It is quite likely that the effects of birth cohort and nativity confound the
link between educational attainment and the reporting of race.

FIGURE 5.4 PERCENTAGE OF NON-HISPANIC WHITES, BLACKS, AMERICAN

INDIANS, AND ASIANS AGE TWENTY-FIVE AND OVER IDENTIFYING
WITH TWO OR MORE RACES, BY EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT:
CENSUS 2000

70
60
50
Percentage

40 White
Black
30
American Indian
20 Asian
10
0
Less Than High School Some Four-Year Postgraduate
High School Diploma College, College Degree
No Four- Degree
Year Degree
Education Completed

Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Public Use Microdata Sample.

146 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

CONCLUSION
As recently as five decades ago, racial data were used to maintain segregation,
but in the 1960s the civil rights movement ended governmental support for
discrimination. By the early 1970s, federal courts, agencies, and employers
were using an effective and unambiguous test to demonstrate the elimination
of racial discrimination: Did employers hire African Americans and promote
them to all occupations? Did black workers earn as much as whites? Did school
systems enroll blacks, hire African American teachers, and assign both students
and employees without regard to race? Were election districts drawn so that
minorities had opportunities to win? Congress also directed federal spending
toward firms owned by minorities. To demonstrate that blacks were repre-
sented appropriately, racial data were needed. Instead of being an instrument
of segregation, racial data were used to help overcome traditional practices of
discrimination.
The success of the African American civil rights movement led other mi-
norities to seek the benefits that they perceived as flowing from the use of goals,
quotas, and affirmative action and from the delineation of districts with the
electability of minorities in mind. Because the large and rapidly growing
Hispanic population succeeded in gaining a special status in the federal statis-
tical system, all federal agencies must now ask everyone whether their origin
is Spanish. The tireless efforts of Representative Robert Matsui made certain
that many specific Asian racial groups were listed on the census schedule, and
Senator Daniel Akaka raised Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders to
the status of a major race equivalent to whites and African Americans.
The multiracial movement in the 1990s provoked a fundamental change in
the way racial data are collected. With interests that briefly overlapped those of
a powerful Speaker of the House, they succeeded in overturning the idea that
the government can classify everyone into one and only one race. They failed to
win their major goal of making “multiracial” the equivalent of “White,” “Black,”
or “Asian,” but they fundamentally changed the rules so that when we fill out a
governmental form we now have the opportunity to identify simultaneously
with up to five racial groups. In the 2000 census, about 1.6 percent of the pop-
ulation identified with two or more of the five racial groups, and an additional
0.8 percent marked one of the five major racial groups, then also checked “some
other race” and wrote in a Spanish term for their identity. The multiracial move-
ment succeeded in giving parents whose races differed new options for identify-
ing their children. The majority of the 1.4 million children in racially
heterogeneous, two-parent families were identified with two or more races.
Although the multiracial movement has been successful in changing the
federal statistical system, at this point there is no strong evidence that it shifted
how people think about race or how racial data from the census are used. The
redrawing of congressional and state legislative districts was accomplished
 IDENTIFYING WITH MULTIPLE RACES 147

without controversy or litigation concerning those with two or more racial

identities. As of now, no plaintiffs have prominently litigated the rights or legal
prerogatives of two-race persons.
The multiracial population will undoubtedly grow rapidly in the future as
the number of interracial marriages increases. I doubt, however, that “multi-
racial” will be commonly used as if it were a race, either when people identify
themselves or when agencies and courts wrestle with equal opportunities for
all races. Giving people an opportunity to identify with two racial groups may
remind individuals that they have racial options and can use one or another,
or both, of their races, as the circumstances dictate. The child of an Asian par-
ent and a white parent might mark “White” when applying to an engineering
or computer science program at a California university, but mark “Asian” when
applying to study European history in North Carolina. A woman with one
African American parent and one white parent might identify as “Black” if she
wishes to secure a highway paving contract for her construction company but
mark “White” when seeking a mortgage for a new home. Popularizing the
multiracial concept may be a challenge.
By 2003 the census-oriented multiracial movement had faded into oblivion.
The website of Susan Graham’s Project RACE is no longer accessible. Carlos
Fernandez’s AMEA website has not been updated since March 2001, and its
spanner announces the cancellation of the AMEA 2001 convention.

NOTE
1. Available at: www.pdq.com and www.census.gov.

REFERENCES
Barringer, Herbert, Robert W. Gardner, and Michael J. Levin. 1993. Asians and
Pacific Islanders in the United States. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Bean, Frank D., and Marta Tienda. 1987. The Hispanic Population of the United
States. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Choldin, Harvey M. 1986. “Statistics and Politics: The ‘Hispanic Issue’ in the
1980 Census.” Demography 23(3): 403–18.
Farley, Reynolds. 1999. “Racial Issues: Recent Trends in Residential Patterns
and Intermarriage.” In Diversity and Its Discontents: Cultural Conflict and
Common Ground in Contemporary American Society, edited by Neil J.
Smelser and Jeffrey C. Alexander. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press.
———. 2002. “Racial Identities in 2000: The Response to the Multiple Race
Option.” In The New Race Question: How the Census Counts Multiracial
Individuals, edited by Joel Perlmann and Mary C. Waters. New York: Russell
Sage Foundation.
148 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

Hirschman, Charles, Richard Alba, and Reynolds Farley. 2000. “The Meaning
and Measurement of Race in the U.S. Census: Glimpses into the Future.”
Demography 37(3): 381–94.
Jaffe, A. J., Ruth M. Cullen, and Thomas D. Boswell. 1980. The Changing
Demography of Spanish Americans. New York: Academic Press.
Kennedy, Randall. 2003. Interracial Intimacies: Sex, Marriage, Identity, and
Adoption. New York: Pantheon Books.
Klueger, Richard. 1976. Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of
Education and Black America’s Struggle for Equality. New York: Alfred
A. Knopf.
La Noue, George R., and John C. Sullivan. 2001. “Deconstructing Affirmative
Action Categories.” In Color Lines: Affirmative Action, Immigration, and
Civil Rights Options for America, edited by John David Skrentny. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Martin, Elizabeth, Theresa J. Demaio, and Pamela C. Campanelli. 1990.
“Context Effects for Census Measures of Race and Hispanic Origin.” Public
Opinion Quarterly 54: 551–66.
Skerry, Peter. 2000. Counting on the Census. Washington, D.C.: Brookings
Institution.
Snipp, C. Matthew. 1989. American Indians: The First of This Land. New York:
Russell Sage Foundation.
Spencer, John Michael. 1997. The New Colored People: The Mixed Race
Movement in America. New York: New York University Press.
Thernstrom, Abigail M. 1987. Whose Votes Count? Affirmative Action and
Minority Voting Rights. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
U.S. Department of Commerce. U.S. Bureau of the Census. 1918. Negro
Population in the United States 1790–1915. Washington: U.S. Government
Printing Office.
———. 1963a. Census of Population: 1960. PC (2)-1D. Washington: U.S.
Government Printing Office.
———. 1963b. Census of Population: 1960. PC (2)-1B. Washington: U.S.
Government Printing Office.
Whalen, Charles, and Barbara Whalen. 1985. The Longest Debate: A Legislative
History of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. New York: New American Library.
Williams, Kim. 2000. “Changing Race as We Know It? The Political Location
of the Multiracial Movement.” Unpublished paper. Harvard University,
John F. Kennedy School of Government, Taubman Center for State and
Local Government, Cambridge, Mass.
 6
“WE ARE ALL AMERICANS”:
THE LATIN AMERICANIZATION OF
RACE RELATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES


Eduardo Bonilla-Silva and Karen S. Glover

We need to speak about the impossible because we know too much about the possible.
—Silvio Rodríguez, Cuban New Song
Movement singer and composer

“WE ARE ALL Americans! ” This, we contend, will be the racial mantra of the
United States in years to come. Although for many analysts, because of this
country’s deep history of racial divisions, this prospect seems implausible, na-
tionalist statements denying the salience of race are the norm throughout the
world.1 Countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia, Trinidad and Belize, and,
more significantly for our discussion, Iberian countries such as Puerto Rico,
Cuba, Brazil, and Mexico, all exhibit this ostrichlike approach to racial matters.
That is, they all stick their heads deep into the social ground and say, “We don’t
have races here. We don’t have racism here. Races and racism exist in the
United States and South Africa. We are all Mexicans (Cubans, Brazilians, or
Puerto Ricans)!”
Despite these claims, racial minorities in these self-styled racial democracies
tend to be worse off, comparatively speaking, than racial minorities in Western
nations. In Brazil, for example, blacks and “pardos” (tan or brown) earn 40
to 45 percent as much as whites. In the United States blacks earn 55 to 60 per-
cent as much as whites. In Brazil blacks are half as likely as blacks in the United
States to be employed in professional jobs, and about one-third as less likely to
attend college; they have a life expectancy, controlling for education and income,
between five and six years shorter than that of white Brazilians. This last statis-
tic is similar in size to the black-white difference in the United States (Andrews
150 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

1991; Silva do Valle 1985; Hasenbalg 1985; Lovell and Wood 1998; Telles
1999; Hasenbalg and Silva 1999; do Nascimento and Larkin-Nascimento
2001).
In this chapter, we contend that racial stratification and the rules of racial
(re)cognition in the United States are becoming Latin America–like. We sug-
gest that the biracial system typical of the United States, which was the excep-
tion in the world racial system, is becoming the “norm” (for the racialization
of the world system, see Balibar and Wallerstein 1991; Goldberg 1993, 2002;
Mills 1997; Winant 2001). That is, the U.S. system is evolving into a complex
racial stratification system.2 Specifically, we argue that the United States is de-
veloping a tri-racial system with “whites” at the top, an intermediary group
of “honorary whites” (similar to the coloreds in South Africa during formal
apartheid), and a nonwhite group or the “collective black” at the bottom.3 We
predict that the “white” group will include “traditional” whites, new “white”
immigrants, and, in the near future, assimilated Latinos, some (light-skinned)
multiracials, and other subgroups. The intermediate racial group, or “honorary
whites,” will comprise most light-skinned Latinos (most Cubans, for instance,
and segments of the Mexican and Puerto Rican communities; Rodríguez 1998),
Japanese Americans, Korean Americans, Asian Indians, Chinese Americans, the
bulk of multiracials (Rockquemore and Arend, forthcoming), and most Middle
Eastern Americans.4 Finally, the “collective black” will include blacks, dark-
skinned Latinos, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Laotians, and maybe Filipinos.

PRELIMINARY MAP OF TRI-RACIAL SYSTEM IN THE

UNITED STATES
“Whites”
• Whites
• New whites (Russians, Albanians, and so on)
• Assimilated white Latinos
• Some (white-looking) multiracials
• Assimilated (urban) Native Americans
• A few Asian-origin people

“Honorary Whites”
• Light-skinned Latinos
• Japanese Americans
• Korean Americans
• Asian Indians
• Chinese Americans
• Middle Eastern Americans
• Most multiracials
 “WE ARE ALL AMERICANS” 151

“Collective Black”
• Filipinos
• Vietnamese
• Hmong
• Laotians
• Dark-skinned Latinos
• Blacks
• New West Indian and African immigrants
• Reservation-bound Native Americans

This map is heuristic, however, rather than definitive. It is included as a

guide for how we think various ethnic groups will line up in the new emerging
racial order. We acknowledge several caveats: the position of some groups may
change (for example, Chinese Americans, Asian Indians, or Arab Americans);
the map does not include all groups in the United States (Samoans and Micro-
nesians, for instance, do not appear); and at this early stage, owing in part to
data limitations, some groups may end up in a different racial stratum al-
together. For example, Filipinos may become “honorary whites” rather than
another group in the “collective black” stratum. More significantly, if our Latin
Americanization thesis is accurate, the categories will be porous and a “pig-
mentocracy” will make the map useful for group-level rather than individual-
level predictions. (By porous we mean that individual members of a racial
stratum can move up [or down] the stratification system, as might happen
when a light-skinned middle-class black person marries a white woman and
moves to the “honorary white” stratum. Pigmentocracy refers to the rank or-
dering of groups and members of groups according to phenotype and cultural
characteristics, such as may happen when Filipinos move to the top of the “col-
lective black” stratum because of their high level of education and income and
a high rate of interracial marriage with whites.)
We recognize that our thesis is broad (attempting as it does to classify where
everyone will fit in the racial order) and difficult to verify empirically with the
existing data (there are no systematic data on the skin tone of all Americans).
Nevertheless, we believe it is paramount to begin working toward a paradigm
shift in the field of race relations. We consider our efforts here a preliminary
push in that direction.
In the remainder of the chapter, we have four aims. First, we draw on re-
search on race in Latin American and Caribbean societies to provide insight
into the key features of their racial stratification systems. Second, we outline
five reasons why Latin Americanization will occur at this historical juncture in
the United States. Third, we examine various objective (income, education,
occupation), subjective (racial views and racial self-classification), and social
interaction indicators (residential preferences and interracial marriage) to
152 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

assess whether the data point in the direction predicted by the Latin American-
ization thesis. Finally, we discuss the likely implications of Latin American-
ization for the future of race relations in the United States.

HOW RACE WORKS IN THE AMERICAS

To advocate transculturation without attempting to change the systems and insti-
tutions that breed the power differential would simply help to perpetuate the utopian
vision that constructs Latin America . . . as the continent of hope.
—Lourdes Martínez-Echazabal (1998, 32)

One of the authors has argued elsewhere that racial stratification systems oper-
ate in most societies without races being officially acknowledged (Bonilla-Silva
1999). For example, although racial inequality is more pronounced in Latin
America than in the United States, racial data in Latin America are gathered
inconsistently or not at all. Yet most Latin Americans, including those most af-
fected by racial stratification, do not recognize the inequality between
“whites” and “nonwhites” in their countries as racial. “Prejudice” (Latin
Americans do not talk about “racism”) is viewed as a legacy from slavery and
colonialism, and inequality is regarded as the product of class dynamics (Wagley
1952; for a critique, see Skidmore 1990). Therein lies the secret of race in Latin
America and a suggestion as to why racial protest is so sporadic. An examina-
tion of the long history that produced this state of affairs is beyond the scope
of this chapter, and thus we sketch only the six central features of Latin
American (and Caribbean) racial stratification.

MISCEGENATION OR “MESTIZAJE”
Latin American nation-states, with the exceptions of Argentina, Chile, Uruguay,
and Costa Rica, are thoroughly racially mixed. This mixture has led many ob-
servers to follow the historian Gilberto Freyre (1959, 7)—who described
Brazil as having “almost perfect equality of opportunity for all men regardless
of race and color”—and label them “racial democracies.” However, all con-
tacts between Europeans and the various peoples of the world have involved
racial mixing. The important difference is that the mixing in Latin America
led to a socially and sometimes legally recognized intermediate racial stratum
of mestizos, browns, or “trigueños.”5
However, racial mixing in no way challenged white supremacy in colonial
or postcolonial Latin America. Four pieces of evidence support this claim: the
mixing was between white men and Indian or black women, thus maintain-
ing the race-gender order; the men were fundamentally poor or working-class,
 “WE ARE ALL AMERICANS” 153

which helped maintain the race-class order; the mixing followed a racially
hierarchical pattern in which “whitening” was the goal; and marriages among
people in the three main racial groups were (and still are) mostly homogamous
(Hoetink 1967, 1971; Morner 1967; Martínez-Alier 1974; for Puerto Ricans,
see Fitzpatrick 1971). The last point requires qualification: although most
marriages have been within-stratum, they have produced phenotypical varia-
tion because members of all racial strata have variations in phenotype. This
means that members of any stratum can try to “marry up” by choosing a light-
skinned partner within their stratum.

THE TRI-RACIAL STRATIFICATION SYSTEM

Although Portuguese and Spanish colonial states wanted to create “two soci-
eties,” the demographic realities of colonial life superseded their wishes.6 Because
most colonial outposts were scarcely populated by Europeans, all these soci-
eties developed an intermediate group of “browns,” “pardos,” or “mestizos” who
buffered sociopolitical conflicts. Even though this group did not achieve the
status of “white,” it nonetheless had a better status than the Indian or black
masses and therefore developed its own distinct interest. As many commenta-
tors have observed, without this intermediate group, Latin American countries
would have followed the path of Haiti (us versus them). The similarities be-
tween a tri-racial stratification system and a complex class stratification system
are clear: whereas class polarization leads to rebellion, a multiplicity of classes
and strata leads to diffused social conflict (for an early summary on classes in
modern industrial societies, see Bottomore 1968).

COLORISM OR PIGMENTOCRACY
There is yet another layer of complexity in Latin American racial stratifica-
tion systems: the three racial strata are also internally stratified by “color.” By
color we mean skin tone, but also phenotype, hair texture, eye color, culture
and education, and class. All of these features matter in the Latin American
system of racial stratification, and this further stratification by “color” is re-
ferred to as pigmentocracy or colorism (Kinsbrunner 1996). Pigmentocracy
has been central to the maintenance of white power in Latin America be-
cause it has fostered: (1) divisions among all those in secondary racial strata;
(2) divisions within racial strata that limit the likelihood of within-strata
unity; (3) the view that mobility is individual and conditional on “whitening”;
and (4) the belief that white elites should be regarded as legitimate represen-
tatives of the “nation” even though they do not look like the average member
of the nation.7
154 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

BLANQUEAMIENTO: WHITENING AS IDEOLOGY

AND PRACTICE
“Blanqueamiento” (whitening) has been treated in research on Latin America
as an ideology (Degler 1986). However, blanqueamiento is not simply an ide-
ology: it is an economic, political, and personal process. It is a “dynamic that
involves culture, identity and values” (Wade 1997, 341). At the personal level,
members of families can be color-divided or even racially divided and treat
their dark-skinned members differently (Kasper 2000). The material origin of
“whitening” was the 1783 Cédulas de Gracias al Sacar (petitions to “cleanse”
persons of “impure origins”), which allowed mulattoes to buy certificates that
officially declared them to be white (Guerra 1998). With this certificate, they
were allowed to work in the military and colonial administrative posts. It was
also a ticket to mobility for their offspring (Kinsbrunner 1996).
As a social practice, whitening “is not just neutral mixture but hierarchical
movement . . . and the most valuable movement is upward” (Wade 1997, 342).
Thus, whitening does not reveal a Latin American racial flexibility but instead
demonstrates the effectiveness of the logic of white supremacy. This practice
also works in apparently homogeneous societies such as Haiti (Trouillot 1990)
and even Japan (Weiner 1997), where slight variations in skin tone (lighter
shade) and cultural affectations (being more French in Haiti or Western-
oriented in Japan) are regarded as valuable assets in the marriage market.

THE NATIONAL IDEOLOGY OF MESTIZAJE

National independence in Latin America meant, among other things, the
silencing of discussions about race and the forging of a myth of national unity
(Morner 1993; Marx 1998). After years of attempting to unite Latin American
nations under the banner of “Hispanidad” (Martínez-Echazabal 1998; de la
Fuente 2001), a more formidable ideology crystallized: the ideology of “mes-
tizaje” (racial mixing) and “mulataje”—or in the words of José Vasconcelos,
“la raza cósmica.”8 Fathers of the homeland such as Hostos and Betances in
Puerto Rico, Martí in Cuba, Bolivar in Venezuela, and San Martín and
Artigas in southern South America preached national unity and mestizaje, de-
spite the fact that none of them had clean records on racial matters (Martínez-
Echazabal 1998).
The mestizaje ideology hides the salience of race and the existence of a
“racial structure” (Bonilla-Silva 1997, 2001), unites the “nation,” and safe-
guards white power more effectively than “Hispanidad” (regarding oneself
or one’s country as Spanish). “The Hispanidad ideology” persists among
white elites in Latin America and causes problems for the maintenance of non-
racialism (for Puerto Rico, see Negrón-Muntaner 1997 and Torres-Saillant
1998; for Venezuela, see Wright 1990).
 “WE ARE ALL AMERICANS” 155

“WE ARE ALL LATINOAMERICANOS”:

RACE AS NATIONALITY AND CULTURE
Most Latin Americans, even those who are obviously “black” or “Indian,”
refuse to identify themselves in racial terms. Instead, they prefer to use national
(or cultural) descriptors, such as “I am Puerto Rican” or “I am Brazilian.”9 This
behavior has been the subject of much confusion and described as an example
of the fluidity of race in Latin America (for examples, see the otherwise superb
work of Clara Rodríguez [1991, 2000]). However, defining the nation and the
“people” as the “fusion of cultures” (even though the fusion is viewed in a
Eurocentric manner) is the logical outcome of all of the factors mentioned here.
Rather than evidence of nonracialism, nationalist statements such as “We are
all Puerto Ricans” are a direct manifestation of the racial stratification peculiar
to Latin America. These statements, which are taught to “Latinoamericanos”
in schools and at home as historical truths, represent the agency of nonwhites
to carve a space in the nation.10 But they also help maintain the traditional racial
hierarchy by hiding racial division and racial rule (Goldberg 2002).

WHY LATIN AMERICANIZATION NOW?

Why are race relations in the United States becoming Latin America–like at
this point in our history? The reasons are multiple. First, the demography of
the nation is changing. Racial minorities make up 30 percent of the popula-
tion today. Population projections suggest that minorities as a group may be-
come a numeric majority in the year 2050 (U.S. Department of Commerce
1996). More recent data from the census of 2000 suggest that these projec-
tions may be an underestimate, since the Latino population exceeded ex-
pectations and the proportion white was lower than expected (Grieco and
Cassidy 2001).
The rapid darkening of America is creating a situation similar to that of
Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Venezuela in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
or Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries. In both historical periods, the elites realized that their countries were
becoming “black” (or “nonwhite”), and they devised a number of strategies
(unsuccessful in the former and successful in the latter) to whiten their popu-
lation (Helg 1990). Although whitening the population through immigration
or by classifying many newcomers as white (Gans 1999; Warren and Twine
1997) is one possible outcome of the new American demography, for reasons
discussed later in the chapter, we do not think it is likely that these strategies
will be implemented. Rather, we argue that a more plausible response to the
new racial reality will be to (1) create an intermediate racial group to buffer
racial conflict; (2) allow some newcomers into the white racial stratum; and
(3) incorporate most immigrants into the collective black stratum.
156 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

The second reason we believe Latin Americanization will occur now is be-
cause of the tremendous reorganization that has transpired in America in the
post–civil rights era. Specifically, a kinder and gentler white supremacy has
emerged. Elsewhere, Bonilla-Silva has labeled this the “new racism” (Bonilla-
Silva and Lewis 1999; Bonilla-Silva 2001; see also Smith 1995). In post–civil
rights America, systemic white privilege is maintained socially, economically,
and politically through institutional, covert, and apparently nonracial prac-
tices. Whether in banks or universities, in stores or housing markets, “smiling
discrimination” (Brooks 1990) tends to be the order of the day. This new white
supremacy has produced the accompanying Latin America–like ideology: color-
blind racism. This ideology, the norm throughout Latin America, denies the
salience of race, scorns those who talk about race, and increasingly proclaims
that “We are all Americans” (for a detailed analysis of color-blind racism, see
Bonilla-Silva 2001, ch. 5).
A third reason for Latin Americanization is that race relations have become
globalized (Lusane 1997). The once almost all-white Western nations have now
“interiorized the other” (Miles 1993). The new world systemic need for capital
accumulation has led to the incorporation of “dark” foreigners as “guest
workers” and even as permanent workers (Schoenbaum and Pond 1996). Thus,
European nations today have in their midst racial minorities who are progres-
sively becoming an underclass (Castles and Miller 1993; Cohen 1997; Spoonley
1996). In addition, they have developed an internal “racial structure” (Bonilla-
Silva 1997) that maintains white power, as well as a curious combination of
ethno-nationalism and a race-blind ideology similar to the color-blind racism of
the contemporary United States (for more on this, see Bonilla-Silva 2000).
This new global racial reality, we believe, will reinforce the Latin American-
ization trend in the United States while versions of color-blind racism will be-
come prevalent in most Western nations. Furthermore, as many formerly
almost-all-white Western countries (for example, Germany, France, England)
become more and more diverse, the Latin American model of racial stratifica-
tion may surface in these societies as well.
A fourth reason for the emergence of Latin Americanization in the United
States is the convergence of the political and ideological actions of the Repub-
lican Party, conservative commentators and activists, and the so-called multi-
racial movement (Rockquemore and Brunsma 2002). This has created the
space for a radical transformation of the way in which racial data are gathered
in America. One possible outcome of the Census Bureau’s changes in racial
and ethnic classifications is either the dilution of racial data or the elimina-
tion of race as an official category (for more on the multiracial movement and
its implications, see Farley, this volume). At this point, chair of the campaign
for Racial Privacy Initiative (RPI) and UC Regent Ward Connerly and the
American Civil Rights Coalition (ACRC) lost the first round in their move
to establish “California Racial Privacy,” which would prohibit collecting
 “WE ARE ALL AMERICANS” 157

data on race, but we believe that they may be successful in other rounds of
this battle.
Finally, the attack on affirmative action, which is part of what Stephen
Steinberg (1995) has labeled the “racial retreat,” is the clarion call signaling the
end of race-based social policy in the United States. The recent Supreme Court
Grutter v. Bollinger decision, hailed by some observers as a victory, is at best a
weak victory because it allows for a “narrowly tailored” use of race in college
admissions, imposes an artificial twenty-five-year deadline for the program, and
encourages a monumental case-by-case analysis for student admissions. The last
provision is likely to create chaos and push institutions to make admissions de-
cisions based on test scores. This trend reinforces the Latin Americanization
thesis because the elimination of race-based social policy is, among other things,
predicated on the notion that race no longer affects minorities’ status. As in
Latin America, we may succeed in eliminating race by decree but nevertheless
maintain—or even increase—levels of racial inequality.

A LOOK AT THE DATA

To recapitulate, we contend that because of a number of important demo-
graphic, sociopolitical, and international changes, the United States is devel-
oping a more complex system of racial stratification. This system resembles
those typical of Latin American societies. We suggest that three racial strata
will develop: whites, honorary whites, and the collective black. And we argue
that a central factor determining where groups and members of racial and eth-
nic groups will fit into the strata will be “phenotype”—lighter people at the
top, medium in the middle, and dark at the bottom.11 Although we posit that
Latin Americanization will not fully materialize for several more decades, in
the sections that follow we examine various objective, subjective, and social
interaction indicators to see whether the trends support our thesis.

OBJECTIVE STANDING OF “WHITES,”

“HONORARY WHITES,” AND “BLACKS”
If Latin Americanization is happening in the United States, gaps in income,
poverty rates, education, and occupational standing between whites, honorary
whites, and the collective black should be evident. The available data suggest
this is the case. In terms of income, as table 6.1 shows, “white” Latinos
(Argentines, Chileans, Costa Ricans, and Cubans) are doing much better than
dark-skinned Latinos (Mexicans, Puerto Ricans). The apparent exceptions in
table 6.1—Bolivians and Panamanians—are examples of the effect of self-
selection among these immigrant groups.12 Table 6.1 also shows that Asians
exhibit a pattern similar to that of Latinos. Hence, a severe income gap exists
between honorary white Asians (Japanese, Koreans, Filipinos, and Chinese)
158 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

TABLE 6.1 MEAN PER CAPITA INCOME OF SELECTED ASIAN AND LATINO ETHNIC
GROUPS, 2000
Mean Income Mean Income
Latinos (U.S. Dollars) Asian Americans (U.S. Dollars)
Mexicans 9,467.30 Chinese 20,728.54
Puerto Ricans 11,314.95 Japanese 23,786.13
Cubans 16,741.89 Koreans 16,976.19
Guatemalans 11,178.60 Asian Indians 25,682.15
Salvadorans 11,371.92 Filipinos 19,051.53
Costa Ricans 14,226.92 Taiwanese 22,998.05
Panamanians 16,181.20 Hmong 5,175.34
Argentines 23,589.99 Vietnamese 14,306.74
Chileans 18,272.04 Cambodians 8,680.48
Bolivians 16,322.53 Laotians 10,375.57
Whites 17,968.87 Whites 17,968.87
Blacks 11,366.74 Blacks 11,366.74
Source: 2000 Public Use Microdata Sample, 5 Percent Sample.
Note: We use per capita income because family income distorts the status of some groups
(particularly Asians and whites), since some groups have more people in the household who
are contributing toward the family income.

and those Asians we contend belong to the collective black (Vietnamese,

Cambodian, Hmong, and Laotians).
Tables 6.2, 6.3, and 6.4 exhibit similar patterns in terms of education.
Table 6.2 shows that light-skinned Latinos have between three and four years
of educational advantage over dark-skinned Latinos. The same table indicates
that elite Asians have up to eight years more education than most of the Asian
groups we classify as belonging to the collective black. A more significant fact,
given that the American job market is becoming bifurcated such that good jobs
go to the educated and bad jobs to the undereducated, is that the proportion
of white Latinos with “some college” is equal to or higher than the proportion
of the white population with the same level of education. Hence, as table 6.3
shows, 35 percent of Cubans, 37 percent of Costa Ricans, 48 percent of
Argentines, and 44 percent of Chileans have attained “some college” or higher
levels of education, proportions that compare very favorably with the 38 per-
cent of whites with this level of education. In contrast, the bulk of Mexican
Americans, Salvadorans, Puerto Ricans, and Guatemalans (70 percent) have at-
tained twelve or fewer years of education. Table 6.4 shows a similar pattern
among Asians: elite Asians substantially outperform their brethren (and even
whites) in the “some college” and higher categories. It is worth pointing out
that the distance in educational attainment between elite and “collective black”
Asians is larger than that between white and dark-skinned Latinos. For exam-
 “WE ARE ALL AMERICANS” 159

TABLE 6.2 MEDIAN YEARS OF SCHOOLING OF SELECTED ASIAN AND LATINO

ETHNIC GROUPS, 2000
Median Years Median Years
Latinos of Education Asian Americans of Education
Mexicans 9.00 Chinese 12.00
Puerto Ricans 11.00 Japanese 14.00
Cubans 12.00 Koreans 12.00
Guatemalans 7.50 Asian Indians 14.00
Salvadorans 9.00 Filipinos 14.00
Costa Ricans 12.00 Taiwanese 14.00
Panamanians 12.00 Hmong 5.50
Argentines 12.00 Vietnamese 11.00
Chileans 12.00 Cambodians 9.00
Bolivians 12.00 Laotians 10.00
Whites 12.00 Whites 12.00
Blacks 12.00 Blacks 12.00
Source: 2000 Public Use Microdata Sample, 5 Percent Sample.

ple, whereas 50 percent of Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans have “some college”
or higher levels of education, in excess of 80 percent of Hmong, Laotians, and
Cambodians have attained a high school diploma or less.
Substantial group differences are also evident in occupational status. The
light-skinned Latino groups have achieved parity with whites in their pro-
portional representation in the top jobs in the economy. Thus, the share of
Argentines, Chileans, and Cubans in the top two occupational categories (“man-
agers and professional related occupations” and “sales and office”) is 55 percent
or higher, a figure similar to whites’ 59 percent (see table 6.5). In contrast, dark-
skinned Latino groups such as Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Central Americans
are concentrated in the four lower occupational categories.13 Along the same
lines, the Asian groups we classify as “honorary whites” are more likely to be well
represented in the top occupational categories than those we classify as the “col-
lective black.” For instance, whereas 61 percent of Taiwanese and 56 percent of
Asian Indians are in the top occupational category, only 15 percent of Hmong,
13 percent of Laotians, 17 percent of Cambodians, and 25 percent of Vietnamese
are in that category (see table 6.6).14

SUBJECTIVE STANDING OF WHITES, HONORARY WHITES,

AND THE COLLECTIVE BLACK
Social psychologists have demonstrated that it takes very little for groups to form,
to develop a common view, and to create status positions based on nominal char-
acteristics (Tajfel 1970; Ridgeway 1991). Thus, it should not be surprising if
160 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

TABLE 6.3 EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT OF SELECTED LATINO ETHNIC GROUPS,

2000
Less Than
Ethnic High School High School Some College Advanced
Groups (N) Diploma Diploma College Degree Degree
Mexicans 71.21% 13.93% 9.19% 4.50% 1.16%
(1,005,506)
Puerto Ricans 58.69 17.76 12.96 8.30 2.28
(153,838)
Cubans 48.08 16.91 14.14 13.68 7.20
(58,538)
Guatemalans 71.22 13.42 8.84 5.09 1.43
(18,765)
Salvadorans 72.43 13.44 8.90 4.21 1.02
(33,391)
Costa Ricans 44.43 18.63 18.31 13.99 4.64
(3,403)
Panamanians 36.34 17.56 22.50 17.74 5.87
(4,414)
Argentines 34.67 17.21 17.77 16.92 13.42
(4,857)
Chileans 37.75 17.81 18.55 17.33 8.56
(3,375)
Bolivians 36.43 19.48 20.01 17.42 6.65
(1,894)
Whites 37.69 23.19 17.33 15.75 6.04
(11,018,124)
Blacks 52.45 20.45 15.42 8.97 2.71
(1,649,132)
Source: 2000 Public Use Microdata Sample, 5 Percent Sample.

gaps in income, occupational status, and education contribute to group forma-

tion and consciousness. That is, honorary whites may classify themselves as
“white” and believe they are different (better) than those in the collective black
category. If this is happening, this group should also be in the process of devel-
oping whitelike racial attitudes befitting their new social position and also
differentiating themselves from the collective black.
In line with our thesis, we also expect whites to make distinctions between
honorary whites and the collective black by exhibiting a more positive outlook
toward honorary whites than toward members of the collective black. Finally,
if Latin Americanization is occurring, we speculate that the collective black
 “WE ARE ALL AMERICANS” 161

TABLE 6.4 EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT OF SELECTED ASIAN ETHNIC GROUPS,

2000
Less Than
Ethnic High School High School Some College Advanced
Groups (N) Diploma Diploma College Degree Degree
Chinese 39.29% 11.06% 11.25% 22.51% 15.89%
(105,975)
Japanese 20.53 20.03 17.80 31.33 10.31
(37,765)
Koreans 35.05 15.99 15.13 24.44 9.40
(48,992)
Asian Indians 35.48 8.57 9.44 24.46 22.05
(73,500)
Filipinos 33.16 12.70 18.19 30.77 5.18
(88,191)
Taiwanese 25.65 9.13 12.43 28.26 24.53
(5,654)
Hmong 79.42 9.08 7.01 4.07 0.43
(7,523)
Vietnamese 53.19 14.29 14.06 15.32 3.13
(51,572)
Cambodians 69.45 12.69 10.48 6.30 1.09
(8,435)
Laotians 66.10 16.45 10.40 6.40 0.65
(7,811)
Whites 37.69 23.19 17.33 15.75 6.04
(11,018,124)
Blacks 52.45 20.45 15.42 8.97 2.71
(1,649,132)
Source: 2000 Public Use Microdata Sample, 5 Percent Sample.

should exhibit a diffused and contradictory racial consciousness similar to what

occurs among blacks and Indians throughout Latin America and the Caribbean
(Hanchard 1994). The following sections examine these possibilities.

SOCIAL IDENTITY OF HONORARY WHITES

Self-Reports on Race: Latinos Historically, most Latinos have classified them-
selves as “white,” but the proportion who do so varies tremendously by group.
As table 6.7 shows, whereas 60 percent or more of the members of the Latino
honorary white groups classify themselves as “white,” about 50 percent—or
TABLE 6.5 OCCUPATIONAL STATUS OF SELECTED LATINO GROUPS, 2000
Managers and Production,
Professional Sales Construction, Transportation, Farming,
Ethnic Related and Extraction, and and Materials Forestry, and
Groups Occupations Office Services Maintenance Moving Fishing
Mexicans 13.18% 20.62% 22.49% 14.41% 23.76% 5.54%
Puerto Ricans 21.14 29.46 21.40 8.34 19.01 0.66
Cubans 27.84 28.65 16.09 10.21 16.68 0.53
Guatemalans 9.49 16.13 29.73 14.59 27.55 2.51
Salvadorans 8.96 17.29 32.11 15.44 24.84 1.37
Costa Ricans 23.35 22.76 25.46 11.61 16.27 0.55
Panamanians 31.07 32.82 20.27 5.61 9.94 0.29
Argentines 39.77 24.68 14.84 9.24 10.96 0.51
Chileans 32.12 23.92 20.05 10.32 13.13 0.46
Bolivians 27.20 25.80 23.85 11.19 11.73 0.23
Whites 32.07 27.03 15.02 10.12 14.77 1.00
Blacks 21.48 26.48 23.96 7.57 19.84 0.65
Source: 2000 Public Use Microdata Sample, 5 Percent Sample.
TABLE 6.6 OCCUPATIONAL STATUS OF SELECTED ASIAN ETHNIC GROUPS, 2000
Managers and Production,
Professional Sales Construction, Transportation, Farming,
Ethnic Related and Extraction, and and Materials Forestry, and
Groups Occupations Office Services Maintenance Moving Fishing
Chinese 47.79% 22.83% 15.04% 2.77% 11.42% 0.15%
Japanese 46.90 28.05 13.24 4.50 6.70 0.60
Koreans 36.51 31.26 15.65 3.97 12.38 0.23
Asian Indians 55.89 23.39 8.07 2.25 10.03 0.37
Filipinos 34.87 28.70 18.49 4.62 12.35 0.98
Taiwanese 60.95 24.78 8.44 1.34 4.43 0.06
Hmong 14.67 24.14 17.33 4.51 38.57 0.77
Vietnamese 25.21 19.92 19.64 6.02 28.50 0.71
Cambodians 16.66 25.37 17.26 5.45 34.67 0.59
Laotians 12.55 20.60 15.02 6.07 44.96 0.81
Whites 32.07 27.03 15.02 10.12 14.77 1.00
Blacks 21.48 26.48 23.96 7.57 19.84 0.65
Source: 2000 Public Use Microdata Sample, 5 Percent Sample.
164 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

TABLE 6.7 RACIAL SELF-CLASSIFICATION BY SELECTED LATIN AMERICA–

ORIGIN LATINO ETHNIC GROUPS, 2000
Ethnic Native
Groups White Black Other American Asian
Dominicans 28.21% 10.93% 59.21% 1.07% 0.57%
Salvadorans 41.01 0.82 56.95 0.81 0.41
Guatemalans 42.95 1.24 53.43 2.09 0.28
Hondurans 48.51 6.56 43.41 1.24 0.29
Mexicans 50.47 0.92 46.73 1.42 0.45
Puerto Ricans 52.42 7.32 38.85 0.64 0.77
Costa Ricans 64.83 5.91 28.18 0.56 0.53
Bolivians 65.52 0.32 32.79 1.32 0.05
Colombians 69.01 1.53 28.54 0.49 0.44
Venezuelans 75.89 2.58 20.56 0.36 0.60
Chileans 77.04 0.68 21.27 0.44 0.56
Cubans 88.26 4.02 7.26 0.17 0.29
Argentines 88.70 0.33 10.54 0.08 0.35
Source: 2000 Public Use Microdata Sample, 5 Percent Sample.

fewer—of the members of the groups we regard as belonging to the collective

black do so. As a case in point, Mexicans, Dominicans, and Central Americans
are very likely to report “other” as their preferred racial classification, while
most Costa Ricans, Cubans, Chileans, and Argentines choose the “white” de-
scriptor. The 2000 census data mirror the results of the 1988 Latino National
Political Survey (de la Garza et al. 1992).15

“Racial” Distinctions Among Asians Although on political matters Asians tend

to vote pan-ethnically (Espiritu 1992), distinctions between native-born and
foreign-born (for example, American-born Chinese and foreign-born Chinese)
and between economically successful and unsuccessful Asians are developing.
In fact, many analysts have argued that, given the tremendous diversity of ex-
periences among Asian Americans, “all talk of Asian pan-ethnicity should now
be abandoned as useless speculation” (San Juan 2000, 10). Leland Saito (1998)
points out in Race and Politics that many Asians are fleeing the cities of immi-
gration, disidentifying from new Asians, and invoking the image of the “good
immigrant” as a way to escape the “Asian flack.” In some communities this
trend has led older, assimilated segments of a community to dissociate from re-
cent migrants. For example, a Nisei returning to his community after years of
overseas military service had this to say to his father: “Goddamn dad, where the
hell did all these Chinese came from? Shit, this isn’t even our town anymore”
(Saito 1998, 59).
 “WE ARE ALL AMERICANS” 165

To be sure, Asian Americans have engaged in coalition politics and, in var-

ious locations, in concerted efforts to elect Asian American candidates (Saito
1998). However, we argue that it is also important to bear in mind that the
group labeled “Asian Americans” is profoundly divided along many axes. We
further suggest that many of those already existing divisions will be racialized
by whites. As examples, there is the sexploitation of Asian women by lonely
white men in the “Oriental bride” market (Kitano and Daniels 1995) and the
intra-Asian preferences that follow a racialized hierarchy of desire (Tuan 1998).

RACIAL ATTITUDES OF VARIOUS RACIAL STRATA

Another way of assessing if Latin Americanization is taking place is examining
the racial consciousness of the various racial strata to see if their views corre-
spond to our predictions. In what follows, we attempt to assess the racial con-
sciousness of Latinos, Asians, and whites with attitudinal data.

Latinos’ Racial Attitudes Although researchers have shown that Latinos tend to
hold negative views of blacks and positive views of whites (Lambert and Taylor
1990; Mindiola, Rodríguez, and Niemann 1996; Niemann et al. 1994; Yoon
1995), the picture is more complex. For example, a study of Latinos in Houston,
Texas, found differences between native-born and immigrant Latinos: 38 per-
cent of native-born Latinos, compared to 47 percent of foreign-born Latinos,
held negative stereotypes of blacks (Mindiola, Rodríguez, and Niemann 1996).
This may explain why 63 percent of native-born Latinos versus 34 percent of
foreign-born Latinos report frequent contact with blacks.
The incorporation of the majority of Latinos as “colonial subjects” (Puerto
Ricans), refugees from wars (Central Americans), or illegal migrant workers
(Mexicans) has foreshadowed subsequent patterns of integration into the racial
order. In a similar vein, the incorporation of a minority of Latinos as “politi-
cal refugees” (Cubans, Chileans, and Argentines) or as “neutral” immigrants
trying to better their economic situation (Costa Rica, Colombia) has provided
them with a more comfortable ride in America’s racial boat (Pedraza 1985).
Therefore, whereas the incorporation of most Latinos into the United States
has meant becoming “nonwhite,” for a few it has meant becoming “almost
white.”
Nevertheless, given that most Latinos experience discrimination in labor
and housing markets as well as in schools, they quickly realize their nonwhite
status. This leads them, as Nilda Flores-Gonzáles (1999) and Suzanne Oboler
(1995) have shown, to adopt a plurality of identities that signify “otherness.”
Thus, dark-skinned Latinos are calling themselves “black,” “Afro-Dominican”
or “Afro-Puerto Rican” (Howard 2001). For example, José Ali, a Latino inter-
viewed by Clara Rodríguez (2000, 56), stated: “By inheritance I am Hispanic.
However, I identify more with blacks because to white America, if you are my
166 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

color, you are a nigger. I can’t change my color, and I do not wish to do to.”
When asked, “Why do you see yourself as black?” he said, “Because when I
was jumped by whites, I was not called ‘spic,’ but I was called a ‘nigger.’ ”
The identification of most Latinos as racial “others” has led them to be more
pro-black than pro-white. Table 6.8, for example, indicates that the proportion
of Mexicans and Puerto Ricans who feel very warm toward blacks is much
higher than the proportion who feel very warm toward Asians. (The readings
in the “thermometer” range from 0 to 100, and the higher the “temperature,”
the more positive are the feelings toward the group in question.) In contrast,
the proportion of Cubans who feel very warm toward blacks is ten to fourteen
percentage points lower than their feelings toward Mexicans and Puerto Ricans.
Cubans are also more likely to feel very warm toward Asians than toward blacks.
More fitting with our thesis, table 6.9 shows that although Latinos who iden-
tify as white express similar empathy toward blacks and Asians, those who iden-
tify as black express the most positive affect toward blacks (about twenty degrees
warmer toward blacks than toward Asians).

Asians’ Racial Attitudes Various studies have documented that Asians tend to
hold anti-black and anti-Latino attitudes. For instance, Lawrence Bobo and his
colleagues (1995) found that Chinese residents of Los Angeles expressed nega-
tive racial attitudes toward blacks. One Chinese resident stated, “Blacks in
general seem to be overly lazy,” and another asserted, “Blacks have a definite
attitude problem” (Bobo et al. 1995, 78; see also Bobo and Johnson 2000).
Studies of Korean shopkeepers in various locales have found that over 70 per-
cent of them hold anti-black attitudes (Weitzer 1997; Yoon 1997; Min 1996).

TABLE 6.8 PROPORTION OF LATINOS WHO EXPRESS HIGH AFFECT TOWARD

BLACKS AND ASIANS
Degrees of Feeling
Thermometer Toward Blacks Toward Asians
Mexicans’ feelings
51–74 (less positive) 11.9 11.8
75–100 (more positive) 34.3 22.2
Puerto Ricans’ feelings
51–74 (less positive) 11.8 9.0
75–100 (more positive) 39.5 25.3
Cubans’ feelings
51–74 (less positive) 14.5 9.9
75–100 (more positive) 25.1 29.9
Source: Forman, Martínez, and Bonilla-Silva (forthcoming).
 “WE ARE ALL AMERICANS” 167

TABLE 6.9 LATINOS’ AFFECT TOWARD BLACKS AND ASIANS, BY

LATINO ETHNICITY AND RACIAL SELF -CLASSIFICATION
Toward Blacks Toward Asians
Latino ethnicity
Mexicans 60.07 52.88
Puerto Ricans 60.24 50.81
Cubans 56.36 56.99
Racial self-classification
White 57.71 53.49
Black 69.62 48.83
Latino self-referent 61.01 53.10
Source: Forman, Martínez, and Bonilla-Silva (forthcoming).
Note: See table 6.8 for “degrees of feeling.”

These general findings are confirmed in table 6.10, which contains data on
the degree (in a scale running from 1 to 7) to which various racial groups sub-
scribe to stereotypes about the intelligence and welfare dependency of other
groups. The table clearly shows that Asians (in this study, Koreans, Chinese, and
Japanese) are more likely than even whites to hold anti-black and anti-Latino
views. For example, whereas whites score 3.79 and 3.96 for blacks and Latinos,
Asians score 4.39 and 4.46. Asians also hold, comparatively speaking, more pos-
itive views about whites than about Latinos and blacks (for a more thorough
analysis, see Bobo and Johnson 2000). Thus, as in many Latin American and
Caribbean societies, members of the intermediate racial stratum buffer racial
matters by holding more pro-white attitudes than do whites themselves.
The Collective Black and Whites’ Racial Attitudes After a protracted conflict over
the meaning of whites’ racial attitudes (for a discussion, see Bonilla-Silva and
Lewis 1999), survey researchers seem to have reached an agreement: “A hierar-
chical racial order continues to shape all aspects of American life” (Dawson
2000, 344). Whites express and defend their social position on issues such as
affirmative action and reparations, school integration and busing, neighborhood
integration, welfare reform, and even the death penalty (see Sears, Sidanius, and
Bobo 2000; Tuch and Martin 1997; Bonilla-Silva 2001). Regarding how whites
think about Latinos and Asians, not many researchers have separated the groups
that make up “Latinos” and “Asians” to assess whether whites make distinctions
among them. However, the available evidence suggests that whites hold Asians
in high regard but are significantly less likely to hold Latinos in high regard
(Bobo and Johnson 2000). Thus, when judged on a host of racial stereotypes,
whites rate themselves and Asians almost identically (and positively) but nega-
tively rate both blacks and Latinos (at about the same level).
168 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

TABLE 6.10 RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN RACE-ETHNICITY AND RACIAL

STEREOTYPES OF INTELLIGENCE AND WELFARE DEPENDENCY OF
BLACKS, LATINOS, ASIANS, AND WHITES IN LOS ANGELES,
1993 TO 1994
Group Group Stereotyped
Stereotyping Blacks Latinos Asians Whites
Unintelligent?
White 3.79*** 3.96*** 2.90*** 3.09***
Asians 4.39*** 4.46*** 2.90*** 3.25***
Latinos 3.93*** 3.57*** 2.74*** 2.87***
Blacks 3.31*** 3.96*** 3.21*** 3.32***
Prefer Welfare?
White 4.22*** 4.08*** 2.30*** 2.48***
Asians 5.10*** 5.08*** 2.52*** 2.93***
Latinos 5.57*** 4.49*** 2.77*** 2.77***
Blacks 4.12*** 4.29*** 2.67*** 2.77***
Source: Los Angeles Study of Urban Inequality, 1993 to 1994.
*** p < .001.

Lawrence Bobo and Devon Johnson (2000) also show that Latinos tend to rate
blacks negatively and that blacks tend to do the same regarding Latinos. They also
found that Latinos, irrespective of national ancestry, self-rate lower than whites
and Asians. (Blacks, however, self-rate at the same level as whites, and higher than
Asians.) This pattern seems to confirm Latin Americanization: those at the bot-
tom in Latin America tend to have a diffused racial consciousness. Our con-
tention seems further bolstered by the finding that “blacks give themselves ratings
that tilt in an unfavorable dimension on the traits of welfare dependency and in-
volvement with gangs” and that “for Latinos, three of the dimensions [involve-
ment with drugs, poor English ability, and welfare dependency] tilt in the
direction of negative in-group ratings” (Bobo and Johnson 2000, 103).

SOCIAL INTERACTION AMONG MEMBERS OF THE

THREE RACIAL STRATA
If Latin Americanization is happening in the United States, we would expect
to see more social contact (such as friendships and associations as neighbors)
and intimate contact (marriage, for instance) between whites and honorary
whites than between whites and members of the collective black. A cursory
analysis of the data support this expectation.
 “WE ARE ALL AMERICANS” 169

Interracial Marriage Although most marriages in America are still intraracial,

the rates vary substantially by group. Whereas 93 percent of whites and blacks
marry within-group, 70 percent of Latinos and Asians do so, and only 33 per-
cent of Native Americans marry other Native Americans (Moran 2001, 103).
More significantly, when we disentangle the generic terms “Asian” and “Latino,”
the data fit even more closely the Latin Americanization thesis. For example,
among Latinos, Cubans, Mexicans, Central Americans, and South Amer-
icans have higher rates of out-marriage than Puerto Ricans and Dominicans
(Gilbertson, Fitzpatrick, and Yang 1996). Although interpreting the Asian
American out-marriage pattern is very complex (groups such as Filipinos and
Vietnamese have higher than expected rates owing in part to the Vietnam War
and the military bases in the Philippines), it is worth pointing out that the high-
est rate belongs to Japanese Americans and Chinese (Kitano and Daniels 1995)
and the lowest to Southeast Asians.
Furthermore, racial assimilation through marriage (“whitening”) is signifi-
cantly more likely for the children of Asian-white and Latino-white unions than
for those of black-white unions, a fact that bolsters our Latin Americanization
thesis. Hence, whereas only 22 percent of the children of black fathers and
white mothers are classified as white, the children of similar unions among
Asians are twice as likely to be classified as white (Waters 1999). For Latinos,
the data fit the thesis even more closely: Latinos of Cuban, Mexican, and South
American origin have high rates of exogamy compared to Puerto Ricans and
Dominicans (Gilbertson et al. 1996). We concur with Rachel Moran’s (2001)
speculation that the high percentage of dark-skinned Puerto Ricans and Domin-
icans (see table 6.7) results in restricted chances for out-marriage to whites in a
highly racialized marriage market.

Residential Segregation Among Racial Strata An imperfect measure of inter-

racial interaction is the level of neighborhood “integration” (for some of the
limitations of this index, see Bonilla-Silva and Baiocchi 2001). Nevertheless,
the various segregation indices devised by demographers allow us to gauge in
general terms the level of interracial contact in various cities. In this section,
we focus on the segregation of Latinos and Asians, since the extreme segrega-
tion of blacks is well known (Massey and Denton 1993; Yinger 1995).
Latinos are less segregated from and more exposed to whites than blacks
(Massey and Denton 1987; Charles 2003). Yet it is also true that dark-skinned
Latinos experience blacklike rates of residential segregation from whites. Early
research on Latino immigrant settlement patterns in Chicago, for example,
showed that Mexicans and Puerto Ricans were relegated to spaces largely occu-
pied by blacks, in part because of skin color discrimination (Betancur 1996).
More contemporary studies also demonstrate the race effect on Latino residen-
tial segregation patterns. Latinos who identify as white, primarily Cubans and
South Americans, are considerably more likely to reside in areas with non-Latino
170 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

whites than are Latinos who identify as black, mainly Dominicans and Puerto
Ricans (Logan 2001; Alba and Logan 1993; Massey and Bitterman 1985).
Asian Americans are the least segregated of all the minority groups. How-
ever, they have experienced an increase in residential segregation in recent years
(Frey and Farley 1996; White, Biddlecom, and Guo 1993). In a recent review,
Camille Charles (2003) finds that from 1980 to 2000 the index of dissimilar-
ity for Asians had increased three points (from 37 to 40) while the exposure
to whites had declined sixteen points (from 88 to 62).16 Part of the increase in
segregation (and the concomitant decrease in exposure) may be the result of
the arrival of newer immigrants from Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia,
and Laos) over the last two decades (Frey and Farley 1996). For example, the
Vietnamese—who, we theorize, will be considered part of the collective black
during the Latin Americanization process—have almost doubled their U.S.
presence during the 1990 to 2000 period (Logan 2001). The majority of res-
idential segregation studies are based on black-Latino-Asian proximity to
whites and thus limit an examination of intragroup differences among Asians
(and Latinos). Nevertheless, the totality of the lower dissimilarity indexes and
higher exposure indexes for Asians to whites vis-à-vis Latinos—and particu-
larly blacks—to whites tends to fit our prediction that the bulk of Asians be-
long to the honorary white category. Phenotype research on blacks, Latinos,
and Asians, based on subgroup research within each category, is needed in
order for studies on the effect of skin color to fully develop.

CONCLUSION
We have presented a broad and bold thesis about the future of racial stratifica-
tion in the United States.17 However, at this early stage of the analysis, and
given the serious limitations of the data on “Latinos” and “Asians” (the data are
not generally parceled out by subgroups and little is separated by skin tone),
it is hard to make a conclusive case. It is possible that factors such as nativity or
socioeconomic characteristics explain some of the patterns we documented.18
Nevertheless, almost all of the objective, subjective, and social interaction in-
dicators we reviewed go in the direction of Latin Americanization. For exam-
ple, the objective data clearly show substantial gaps between the groups we
labeled “white,” “honorary white,” and “collective black.” In terms of income
and education, whites tend to be slightly better off than honorary whites, who
are in turn significantly better off than the collective black. Not surprisingly, a
variety of subjective indicators signal the emergence of internal stratification
among racial minorities. For example, whereas some Latinos (such as Cubans,
Argentines, and Chileans) are very likely to self-classify as whites, others do not
(for example, Dominicans and Puerto Ricans living in the United States). This
has resulted in a racial attitudinal profile—at least in terms of subscription to
stereotypical views about groups—similar to that of whites. Finally, the objec-
 “WE ARE ALL AMERICANS” 171

tive and subjective indicators have a behavioral correlate. Data on interracial

marriage and residential segregation show that whites are significantly more
likely to live near and intermarry with honorary whites than with members of
the collective black.
If our predictions are right, what will be the consequences of Latin Amer-
icanization for race relations in the United States? First, racial politics will
change dramatically. The “us-versus-them” racial dynamic will lessen as hon-
orary whites grow in size and social importance. They are likely to buffer racial
conflict—or derail it—as intermediate groups do in many Latin American
countries. Second, the ideology of color-blind racism will become even more
salient among whites and honorary whites and will also have an impact on
members of the collective black. Color-blind racism (Bonilla-Silva 2001), sim-
ilar to the ideology prevalent in Latin American societies, will help glue the new
social system and further buffer racial conflict.
Third, if the state decides to stop gathering racial statistics, the struggle to doc-
ument the impact of race in a variety of social venues will become monumental.
More significantly, because state actions always have an impact on civil society,
if the state decides to erase race from above, the social recognition of “races” in
the polity may become harder. We may develop a Latin American–like “disgust”
for even mentioning anything that is race-related.
Fourth, the deep history of black-white divisions in the United States has
been such that the centrality of the black identity will not dissipate. Even the
research on the “black elite” shows that this group exhibits racial attitudes in
line with their racial group (Dawson 1994). That identity, as we argue in this
chapter, may be taken up by dark-skinned Latinos, as it is being rapidly taken
up by most West Indians. For example, Al, a fifty-three-year-old Jamaican
engineer interviewed by Milton Vickerman (1999, 199), stated:

I have nothing against Haitians; I have nothing against black Americans. . . . If

you’re a nigger, you’re a nigger, regardless of whether you are from Timbuktu. . . .
There isn’t the unity that one would like to see. . . . Blacks have to appreciate
blacks, no matter where they are from. Just look at it the way I look at it: That
you’re the same.

However, even among blacks, we predict some important changes. Namely,

blacks’ racial consciousness will become more diffused. For example, blacks will
be more likely to accept many stereotypes about themselves (for example, “We
are lazier than whites”) and to have a “blunted oppositional consciousness” (see
Bonilla-Silva 2001, ch. 6). Furthermore, the external pressure of “multiracials”
in white contexts (Rockquemore and Brunsma 2002) and the internal pres-
sure of “ethnic” blacks may change the notion of “blackness” and even the
position of some “blacks” in the system. Colorism may become an even more
172 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

important factor as a way of making social distinctions among “blacks” (Keith

and Herring 1991).
Fifth, the new racial stratification system will be more effective in main-
taining “white supremacy” (Mills 1997). Whites will still be at the top of the
social structure but will face fewer race-based challenges. As an aside, to avoid
confusion about our claim about “honorary whites,” it is important to note
that their standing and status will be subject to whites’ wishes and practices.
“Honorary” means that they will remain secondary, will still face discrimi-
nation, and will not receive equal treatment in society. For example, although
Arab Americans should be regarded as honorary whites, their treatment in the
post–September 11 era suggests that their status as “white” and “American” is
very tenuous.
Although some analysts and commentators may welcome Latin Amer-
icanization as a positive trend in American race relations, those at the bottom
of the racial hierarchy will discover that behind the statement, “We are all
Americans,” hides a deeper, hegemonic way of maintaining white supremacy.
As a Latin America–like society, the United States will become a society with
more rather than less racial inequality, but with a reduced forum for racial con-
testation.19 The apparent blessing of “not seeing race” will become a curse for
those struggling for racial justice in the years to come. We may become “all
Americans,” as television commercials in recent times suggest. But to para-
phrase George Orwell, “some will be more American than others.”

NOTES
1. Since September 11, 2001, the United States has embarked on what
we regard as temporary “social peace.” Hence, in post–September 11
America the motto “We are all Americans” is commonplace. This new
attitude can be seen in pronouncements by politicians and television
commercials parading the multiracial nature of the country. Notably,
however, there are no commercials presenting interracial unions, which
suggests that we may all be Americans, but we still have our own sub-
national or primary racial associations. Moreover, this new attitude has not
changed the status differences between minorities and whites, between
men and women, or between workers and capitalists. Lastly, this new na-
tionalism excludes “foreigners,” dark people, those who are not Christian,
and those with unfashionable accents (German and French accents are ac-
ceptable). In short, this new Americanism, like the old Americanism, is a
herrenvolk nationalism (Lipsitz 1998; Winant 1994).
2. To be clear, our contention is not that the black-white dynamic has or-
dained race relations throughout the United States, but that at the national
macro level, race relations have been organized along a white-nonwhite
divide. This large divide, depending on context, has included various racial
 “WE ARE ALL AMERICANS” 173

groups (whites, blacks, and Indians or whites, Mexicans, Indians, and

blacks or other combinations). However, under the white-nonwhite racial
order, “whites” have often been treated as superior and “nonwhites” as in-
ferior. For a few exceptions to this pattern, see Reginald Daniels’s (2002)
discussion of “tri-racial isolates.”
3. We are adapting Antonio Negri’s (1984) idea of the “collective worker” to
the situation of all those at the bottom of the racial stratification system.
4. Kerry Ann Rockquemore and Patricia Arend (forthcoming) have pre-
dicted, based on data from a mixed-race (one black parent and one white
parent) student sample, that most mixed-race people will be honorary
whites, a significant component will belong to the collective black, and a
few will move into the white strata.
5. A middle racial stratum emerged in the United States in South Carolina
and Louisiana and in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century South Africa
(Fredrickson 1981). However, in both cases the status of the intermediate
stratum later changed because of political necessities (South Africa) or be-
cause it was a peculiar situation that could not affect the larger, national pat-
tern (United States). In South Africa the “colored” group was reintroduced
at a later point, and in South Carolina and Louisiana those in the inter-
mediate stratum to this day maintain a sense of difference from their black
brethren.
6. This challenges the romantic view that Latin American states and societies
were more pluralist than Great Britain or France because of their Catholic
religion or their supposedly less prejudicial attitudes toward Africans; see
Marx (1998) and Morner (1993).
7. Few Latin Americans object to the fact that most politicians in their soci-
eties are “white” (by Latin American standards). Yet it is interesting to
point out that Latin American elites always object to the few “minority”
politicians on racial grounds. Two recent cases are the racist opposition in
the Dominican Republic to the election of the black candidate José Peña
Gómez (Howard 2001) and the opposition by the business elite to the
mulatto president Hugo Cesar Chávez in Venezuela.
8. At the core of this ideology is the presentation of the black and Indian
in Latin America as “folklore” and as “exotic” (Radcliffe and
Westwood 1996). For example, the “indigenista” cult has glorified the
past and separated it from present-day indigenous groups. For indi-
genistas, the Indian question was a matter “of exotic and romantic
symbolism, based more on the glorification of the pre-Columbian
Indian ancestry of the nation than on respect for the contemporary
Indian population” (Wade 1997, 32). For a list of Vasconcelos-like
Latin American intellectuals in the early twentieth century, see de la
Cadena (2000).
174 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

9. When pushed to choose a racial descriptor, many Latin Americans self-

describe as white or highlight their white heritage, regardless of how re-
mote or minimal it is. For example, according to a recent study in a
community in Brazil, one-third of the Afro-Brazilians were registered
as whites, and a large proportion of the remainder were registered as
pardos (Twine 1998, 114). For a similar discussion on Puerto Ricans,
see Torres (1998).
10. Sarah Chambers (2003) discusses how mestizos in eighteenth- and
nineteenth-century Arequipa, Peru, had to adopt an ideology of whiten-
ing to gain resources or avoid paying taxes. For example, they occa-
sionally claimed Indianness to get access to land. Thus, their agency was
at best a bounded agency, since they could not challenge white su-
premacy.
11. However, as discussed in a previous section, phenotype in Latin America
can be “lightened” (or “darkened”) by nonphenotypical characteristics such
as education, language, culture, class, and occupational background. Thus,
for example, although Asian Indians are quite dark, they are likely to be
viewed as honorary whites because of their mastery of the English language,
high level of education, and other factors.
12. Specifically, whereas the Bolivian census of 2001 reports that 71 per-
cent of Bolivians self-identify as Indian, fewer than 20 percent have
more than a high school diploma, and 58.6 percent live below the
poverty line. By contrast, 66 percent of Bolivians in the United States
self-identify as white, 64 percent have twelve or more years of educa-
tion, and they enjoy a per capita income comparable to that of whites
(Censo Nacional de Población y Vivienda 2002). In short, Bolivians in
the United States do not represent Bolivians in Bolivia. Instead, they
are a self-selected group.
13. The concentration of Puerto Ricans in the lower occupational categories
is slightly below 50 percent. However, looking specifically at the category
“sales and office,” where 20.46 percent of Puerto Ricans are located,
Puerto Ricans are more likely to be in the lower-paying jobs within this
broad category.
14. It is important to point out that occupational representation in a category
does not mean equality. The work of Sucheng Chan (1991) shows that
many Asians are pushed into self-employment after suffering occupational
sedimentation in professional jobs; see also Takaki (1993).
15. Survey experiments have shown that if the question on Hispanic origin is
asked first, the proportion of Latinos who report being white increases
from 25 to 39 percent (Martin, Demaio, and Campanelli 1990). The same
research also shows that when Latinos report belonging to the “other” cat-
egory, they are not mistaken. That is, they do want to signify that they are
neither black nor white. Unfortunately, we do not have results by national
 “WE ARE ALL AMERICANS” 175

groups. Are Cubans more likely to claim to be white if the order of the
questions is changed? Or is the finding symmetrical for all groups? How-
ever these questions may be answered, we think this finding does not alter
the direction of the overall findings on the self-identification of various
Latino groups.
16. The dissimilarity index expresses the percentage of a minority popula-
tion that would have to move to result in a perfectly even distribution
of the population across census tracts. This index runs from 0 (no seg-
regation) to 100 (total segregation), and it is symmetrical (not affected
by population size). The exposure index measures the degree of poten-
tial contact between two populations (majority and minority) and ex-
presses the probability of a member of a minority group meeting a
member of the majority group. Like the dissimilarity index, it runs from
1 to 100, but unlike that index, it is asymmetrical (it is affected by the
population size).
17. We are not alone in making this kind of prediction. Arthur K. Spears
(1999), Suzanne Oboler (2000), Gary Okihiro (1994), and Mari Matsuda
(1996) have made similar claims recently.
18. An important matter to disentangle empirically is whether it is color, na-
tivity, education, or class that determines where groups fit in our scheme.
A powerful alternative explanation for many of our preliminary findings
is that the groups we label “honorary whites” come with high levels of
human capital before they achieve honorary white status in the United
States. That is, they fit this intermediate position not because of their
color or race but because of their class background. Although this is a
plausible alternative explanation that we hope to examine in the future,
some available data suggest that race-color has something to do with the
success of immigrants in the United States. For example, the experience
of West Indians—who come to the United States with class advantages
(educational and otherwise) and yet “fade to black” in a few generations—
suggests that the “racial” status of the group has an independent effect in
the process (Model 1991; Kasinitz, Battle, and Miyares 2001). It is also
important to point out that even when some of these groups do well ob-
jectively, an examination of their returns to their characteristics, such as
the monetary “return” on their education investment, when compared to
whites, reveals how little they get for what they bring (Butcher 1994).
And as Mary Waters and Karl Eschbach (1995, 442) stated in a review of
the literature on immigration, “the evidence indicates that direct dis-
crimination is still an important factor for all minority subgroups except
very highly educated Asians.” Even highly educated and acculturated
Asians, such as Filipinos, report high levels of racial discrimination in the
labor market. Not surprisingly, second- and third-generation Filipinos
self-identity as Filipino American rather than as white or “American”
176 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

(Espiritu and Wolf 2001). For a similar finding on Vietnamese, see

Zhou (2001), and for a discussion of the indeterminate relation be-
tween education and income among many other groups, see Portes and
Rumbaut (1990).
19. “Latin America–like” does not mean exactly “like Latin America.” The
four-hundred-year history of American “racial formation” (Omi and
Winant 1994) has stained the racial stratification order forever. Thus, we
expect some important differences in this new American racial stratifica-
tion system compared to that of Latin American societies. First, “shade
discrimination” (Kinsbrunner 1996) will not work perfectly. Hence, for
example, although Asian Indians are dark-skinned, they will still be higher
in the stratification system than, for example, Mexican American mesti-
zos. Second, Arabs, Asian Indians, and other non-Christian groups will not
be allowed complete upward mobility. Third, because of the three hun-
dred years of dramatic racialization and group formation, most members
of the nonwhite group will maintain ethnic (Puerto Ricans) or racial
(blacks) claims and demand group-based rights.

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 PART III


THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS IN THE

CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY
 7
RACE,GENDER, AND UNEQUAL
CITIZENSHIP IN THE UNITED STATES


Evelyn Nakano Glenn

IN ITS FOUNDING documents, the United States declared its dedication to ideals
of universal freedom and equality. Today, after more than two centuries of
struggle to realize these ideals, race, gender, and class inequality remain perva-
sive and deeply entrenched in American society. Their very persistence indi-
cates that rather than being either surface imperfections or deviations from the
principles of American society, they are inherent and deeply embedded in our
philosophical traditions and institutions.
In this chapter, I examine citizenship as one of the principal institutions
through which unequal race and gender relations have been constituted and
also contested in the United States. Citizenship has been key to inequality be-
cause it has been used to draw boundaries between those included as members
of the community and entitled to respect, protection, and rights and those
who are excluded and thus denied recognition and rights.
First, I examine the ideological and material roots of exclusion in Western
concepts of citizenship. I then explore shifting boundaries of exclusion, show-
ing that there has not been a linear process of increasing inclusiveness, but
rather a much more uneven and contested process. Third, I examine various
approaches to understanding and explaining race and gender exclusion in
American citizenship despite its framing in the rhetoric of universal rights. I
argue for an approach that views ascriptive exclusion and stratification as cen-
tral to, rather than a deviation from, American conceptions of citizenship.
Finally, I develop a concept of citizenship that considers not only the defini-
tions inscribed in the U.S. Constitution, laws, and court decisions, and other
formal documents but also localized practices in which local officials as well as
members of the public enforce and challenge the boundaries of citizenship and
the rights associated with it.
188 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

ROOTS OF EXCLUSION: INDEPENDENCE-DEPENDENCE AND

PUBLIC-PRIVATE DIVIDES
Since the earliest days of the nation, the idea of whiteness has been closely tied
to the notions of independence and self-control necessary for republican gov-
ernment. This conception of white masculine citizenship was rooted in the his-
tory of the United States as a white settler nation that grew out of the conquest
and seizure of territory from indigenous peoples. Its economy was developed
to provide raw materials for the European market and relied on various forms
of coercive labor, including chattel slavery. Imagining non-European “others”
as dependent and lacking the capacity for self-governance helped rationalize the
takeover of their lands, resources, and labor. The extermination and forced re-
moval of Indians and the enslavement of blacks by European settlers therefore
seemed justified (Horsman 1981). This formulation was transferred to other
racialized groups, such as the Chinese, Japanese, and Filipinos, who were
brought to the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth cen-
turies as low-wage laborers. Often working under coercive conditions of in-
denture or contract labor, they were treated as “unfree labor” and denied the
right to become naturalized citizens (Cheng and Bonacich 1984, chs. 1 and 2;
Lopez 1996, 44; Salyer 1995; Melendy 1977, ch. 2).
It was not just whiteness but masculine whiteness that was being constructed
in the discourse on citizenship. Indeed, the association of republican citizen-
ship with masculinity had even more ancient roots than race. As the American
colonists struggled to articulate their cause in the struggle for independence
from England, they harked back to classical conceptions that associated patri-
otism and public virtue with masculinity. As Rogers Smith (1989, 244) argues,
“American republicans identified citizenship with material self-reliance, par-
ticipation in public life, and martial virtue. The very words ‘public’ and ‘virtue’
derived from Latin terms signifying manhood.” The equation of masculinity
with activity in the public domain of the economy, politics, and the military
was drawn in explicit contrast to the equation of femininity with the activities
of daily maintenance carried out in the private domestic sphere. Those immured
in the domestic sphere—women, children, servants, and other dependents—
were not considered full members of the political community.
Given these discourses, it is perhaps not surprising that until the late nine-
teenth century full citizenship—legal adulthood, suffrage, and participation in
governance—was restricted to “free white males.” How did citizenship come
to be constructed as a white masculine category? To what extent have move-
ments for inclusion succeeded in transforming the race and gender meaning of
citizenship? And finally, how do we best describe and account for the raced and
gendered nature of citizenship?
The modern Western notion of citizenship emerged out of the political and
intellectual revolutions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which
 RACE, GENDER, AND UNEQUAL CITIZENSHIP 189

overthrew the old dynastic orders. While the traditional dynastic realms were
populated by subjects, the new nation-states that emerged were seen as consist-
ing of citizens. The earlier concept of society organized as a hierarchy of status
and expressed by differential legal and customary rights among subjects, was
replaced by the idea of a political order established through a social contract
among citizens. A social contract implied free and equal status among those
party to it. Citizenship came to be conceived as a universal status—that is, all
who are included in the status supposedly have identical rights and duties, irre-
spective of their individual characteristics (Anderson 1991, 19–22; Kettner
1978, 3). Equality of citizenship did not, of course, rule out economic and
other forms of inequality. Moreover, and importantly, equality among citizens
existed alongside the inequality of others living within the boundaries of the
community who were defined as noncitizens.
If there is a consistent underpinning to American citizenship it consists of two
conceptual dichotomies that have permeated the discourse on citizenship since
the beginning: the public-private divide and the independence-dependence op-
position (Gunderson 1987; Fraser and Gordon 1994). These dichotomies have
long roots in Western political philosophy and have been central elements in the
conception of the “ideal citizen” since classical times. The Aristotelian tradition
posed a strict separation between “polis,” the public realm of abstract reason, and
“oikos,” the private material realm of people and things. Citizens, free from their
individual, concrete, material interests, came together in the public realm to
make decisions on behalf of the general welfare. In contrast to the Aristotelian
ideal of leaving the world of things behind, the Roman-Gaian formulation made
the capacity to act on things the central attribute of human beings. The posses-
sion of property was evidence of this capacity. The citizen was one who was free
to act by law and to ask and expect the law’s protection. Citizenship meant mem-
bership in a community of shared or common law; thus, to be a citizen of Rome
was to be a person entitled to the rights and protection of Roman law. Although
differing in their stances toward mastery of the physical world, both Greek and
Roman formulations viewed independence as a necessary condition for exercis-
ing citizenship. Independence was established by family headship, ownership of
property, and control over wives, slaves, and other dependents. Also, in both tra-
ditions the public realm of citizenship was defined by bracketing the household,
domesticity, and the “civil society” as outside the domain of equality and rights
(Pocock 1995).
The public-private distinction and the independent-dependent dichotomy
were also central in the writings of Locke, Rousseau, and the other Enlighten-
ment philosophers who shaped American political thought. Carol Pateman
(1988, 1989) has noted that in the liberal tradition the “public” and the “pri-
vate” are constructed in opposition: the public is the realm of citizenship, rights,
and generality, while sexuality, feeling, and specificity—and women—are rel-
egated to the “private.” Citizenship was essentially defined in opposition to
190 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

womanhood. Another influential writer, Uday Mehta (1990), argues that in

Locke’s account, though rationality was potentially reachable by all, it required
extensive social inscription; those viewed as naturally irrational, less civilized,
uneducated, or otherwise inadequately socially inscripted were unable to ex-
ercise reasoned choice. Thus, the notion of natural hierarchy was inherent in
Lockean liberalism (see also Okin 1979; Young 1995).
As the American colonists tried to articulate their cause in the struggle for
independence from England, they harked back to these earlier conceptions.
Historians have documented the colonists’ anxiety about dependency, an anx-
iety intensified by the proximity of chattel slavery. Revolutionary rhetoric con-
structed a fundamental opposition between independence and dependence,
associating independence with liberty and dependence with slavery. Indepen-
dence was what distinguished the colonists from the despised slaves and
protected them from the possibility of “white enslavement.” Economic inde-
pendence and political freedom were linked in the minds of republican artisans.
The imposition of duties by the British Parliament was nothing less than the
confiscation of property necessary to “Man’s Preservation,” the deprivation
of which would reduce Americans to a state of feudal dependency or slavery
(Roediger 1991, 28–29; Jordan 1968, 291–92; Shklar 1991, 39–42). Simulta-
neously, as Linda Kerber (1998, 11) has noted, the political founders mani-
fested an anxiety about the stability of their new construction that “led them,
in emphasizing its reasonableness, its solidity, its link to classical models, also
to emphasize its manliness and to equate unreliability, unpredictability, and
lust with effeminacy. Women’s weakness became a rhetorical foil for republi-
can manliness.” Rogers Smith (1997, 112) also notes the connections that re-
publicans made between masculinity and civic virtue and their rhetorical linking
of effeminacy with the “ultimate republican evils of corruption and ignorance. It
was hard for them to conceive that women might have the qualities that public-
spirited, virtuous republican citizenship demanded.”

THE SHIFTING SANDS OF EXCLUSION

At its most general level, citizenship refers to full membership in the commu-
nity in which one lives. Membership in turn implies certain rights in and rec-
iprocal duties toward the community (Hall and Held 1989). In his influential
account of the growth of citizenship in Britain, T. H. Marshall (1964, 78) dis-
tinguished between three kinds of rights—civil, political, and social. Civil cit-
izenship consists of “the rights necessary for individual freedom—liberty of
the person, freedom of speech, thought, and faith, the right to own property
and to conclude valid contracts, and the right to justice”; political citizenship
refers to “the right to participate in the exercise of political power, as a mem-
ber of a body invested with political authority, or as an elector of the members
of such a body”; and social citizenship is composed of “the whole range from
 RACE, GENDER, AND UNEQUAL CITIZENSHIP 191

the right to a modicum of economic welfare and security to the right to share
to the full in the social heritage and to live the life of a civilized being accord-
ing to the standards prevailing in the society.” Social citizenship is necessary
to transform formal rights into substantive ones; only with adequate economic
and social resources can individuals exercise civil and political rights.
There is nothing in this general definition to preclude exclusion on the basis
of ascriptive or achieved status, but what has made the U.S. case notable is its
philosophical grounding in the doctrine of natural rights and principles of equal-
ity. American citizenship has been defined, by those who have it and therefore
speak for all citizens, as universal and inclusive (the so-called American Creed),
yet it has been highly exclusionary in practice. While republican rhetoric de-
clared that individuals have inherent human rights that transcend specific at-
tributes, whole categories of people were excluded from citizenship and denied
fundamental civil, political, and social rights. The major groups left out by the
nation’s founders were the poor, women, slaves, and Native Americans.
The first three of these groups—the poor, women, and slaves—were each
deemed to lack the independence needed to exercise free choice and the moral
and intellectual qualities needed to practice civic virtue. Paupers were disqual-
ified because their neediness and dependence rendered them unable to know
and act for the common good. Women of all strata were presumed to be mem-
bers of a dependent class. Under the common law doctrine of coverture, a mar-
ried woman’s legal identity was subsumed by her husband’s. Enslaved blacks
occupied the status of commodity or property. As chattel, they did not have
any independent legal identity and could not own property, even their own per-
sons. Native American peoples were considered uncivilized and conceived as
members of separate nations and thus as external to the U.S. polity. Exclusion
of racialized minorities was made explicit national policy by the Naturalization
Act of 1790, which limited the right to become a naturalized citizen to “free
white persons” (Kettner 1978, 301).
A standard historical view has been that liberal egalitarianism eventually
prevailed and that “defects” in the American Creed were gradually repaired
over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as formal civil and
political rights were extended to each of the excluded groups. However, a
closer examination of historical changes shows that the course of American cit-
izenship has been jagged at best.
There are numerous examples of the tortuous paths that various groups have
trod. More generally, blacks, especially free blacks, had fewer explicit restric-
tions on their rights at the beginning of the nineteenth century than they had
fifty years later. Indeed, there was a brief period after the American Revolution
when some blacks were able to realize in a small way the status and rights of cit-
izens. Requirements for private manumission were liberalized in the Upper
South, resulting in a sizable growth in the free black population. New state con-
stitutions written in the Revolutionary period in the North and in some Upper
192 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

South states allowed free black men who could meet general property qualifi-
cations to vote, serve on juries, and hold office.
Starting in 1819, however, in concert with the expansion of voting rights
for propertyless white men, African American men were increasingly dis-
franchised. Proponents of universal white manhood suffrage successfully argued
for suffrage for all white men on the grounds that they were “free, productive,
independent” workers and heads of households, in contrast to men of color,
who were “unfree, unproductive, dependent” labor, and white women, who
were dependent nonworkers. From 1819, when Maine was admitted to the
Union, until the end of the Civil War, all new states guaranteed suffrage to
white males irrespective of property and denied the vote to blacks. Legislatures
in several states lacking such provisions in their original constitutions passed
restrictive legislation. By the late 1850s, most free blacks were barred by their
states from voting, and they were ruled by the Supreme Court in the Dred
Scott decision not to be citizens. After the Civil War, with the passage of the
Fourteenth Amendment, blacks for the first time were recognized by the federal
government as citizens entitled to civil rights and protections. The Fourteenth
Amendment inserted into the Constitution for the first time the principle of
equality before the law and created national citizenship rights separate from state
citizenship. It also defined a new role for the federal government as guarantor of
citizen rights. These rights were once again lost with so-called Redemption and
the imposition of Jim Crow segregation and systematic disfranchisement in
the South and the spread of de facto segregation and discrimination in the
North. Not until the second civil rights revolution of the 1950s and 1960s did
significant numbers of African Americans regain civil rights protections and
the franchise, at least formally.
The history of Native American citizenship is also checkered. In the 1780s
Native Americans had more recognition of their independence than was later the
case. For several decades they were still accorded recognition as members of
separate, quasi-sovereign nations with which matters of land and trade were to be
regulated by treaty with the U.S. government. By the 1850s, after years of en-
croachment on native lands, the taking of native lands, and finally forced removal
of Native Americans from “civilized” areas, Native American nations were re-
duced to the status of “domestic dependent nations” and declared wards of the
federal government. After the Civil War, the U.S. government phased out recog-
nition of Native American nationhood, including communal land rights, with-
out, however, giving Native Americans citizenship rights. Native Americans were
specifically excluded from birthright citizenship in the Fourteenth Amendment
while continuing to be denied the right to become naturalized on the basis of race
under the 1790 Naturalization Act. This double exclusion was not redressed until
Congress passed the Indian Citizenship Act in 1924 (Ringer 1983, 127–48).
With regard to the nation to which a woman owed her citizenship, before
1855 women had citizenship independent of their husbands. After that, an
 RACE, GENDER, AND UNEQUAL CITIZENSHIP 193

alien woman marrying an American citizen was automatically naturalized, re-

gardless of her preference. Between 1907 and 1922 an American woman mar-
rying an alien was automatically expatriated (Kerber 1998, 41– 44). Passage of
the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, after more than seventy years of strug-
gle, finally granted women suffrage. However, it did little to alter the common
law of coverture and myriad statutes that circumscribed women’s civil citizen-
ship. Thus, women still could not bring suit against their husbands for assault
and battery, nor could they have citizenship in a different state than their hus-
band. Women’s supposed domestic obligations also continued to trump their
obligations as citizens. As late as 1965, twenty-nine states either excluded women
from jury duty or granted special exemptions based on their domestic responsi-
bilities (Freeman 1995, 372).
As to other racialized minorities, before the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act
there were no race or ethnic barriers to immigration, nor before 1924 any
nationality-based quotas. Although the 1790 Naturalization Act was used to
bar Japanese and Chinese immigrants from being naturalized from the 1880s
on, not until the 1910s did states, courts, and Congress invent a new category
to classify Asian immigrants—“aliens ineligible for citizenship.” This category
of noncitizen was subject to special restrictions not placed on other noncitizens.
Eleven states passed alien land acts prohibiting “aliens ineligible for citizen-
ship” from owning land. Restrictions on Chinese, Japanese, and Filipinos kept
male immigrants in the status of long-term “sojourners” and barred the entry
of Asian wives. Thus, Asian men and women were denied the right to estab-
lish families, and the birth of a second generation entitled to citizenship was
retarded or forestalled. Not until 1953 did Asian immigrants become eligible for
naturalization, and not until 1965 was immigration from Asia again allowed
(Lopez 1996, 128–29). As late as 2001, several states still had alien land acts
on their books.

EXPLAINING EXCLUSION
How are we to account for this extensive and multifarious history of exclu-
sion? Until recently, many American historians and social scientists viewed
ascriptive exclusions from citizenship as deviations from otherwise dominant
principles of universal equality. Rogers Smith (1997, 17) traces the origins of
this belief to Alexis de Tocqueville. As a European, Tocqueville was struck
most by the revolutionaries’ rejection of aristocratic privilege, which he attrib-
uted to the liberal egalitarianism of American thought. Tocqueville also spent
most of his time reflecting on the political activities of a small segment of Amer-
ican society, namely, middle- and upper-class white men. Tocqueville and those
who followed more or less took for granted gender and race hierarchies or rel-
egated them to the margins, so that inequality was not seen as central to the
American political system.
194 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

Over one hundred years later, the Swedish sociologist Gunnar Myrdal
(1944, 1–25, 1021–22) focused specifically on the subordination of African
Americans as a central “dilemma” in American society. Myrdal subscribed to
the Tocquevillian myth of an overarching American Creed—a belief in uni-
versal equality. He interpreted the widespread racial segregation and discrimi-
nation against blacks that he documented as contradictory to Americans’
professed beliefs. The challenge that he posed to (white) Americans was whether
they would live up to their highest ideals by accepting blacks as equal citizens.
Speaking from the perspective of the early 1940s, a period of democratic fer-
ment, Myrdal (1944, xix) concluded: “[Not] since reconstruction has there
been more reason to anticipate fundamental changes in American race rela-
tions, change which will involve a development toward the American ideals.”
In this respect, Myrdal was more optimistic than the vast majority of
American social scientists. James McKee (1993, 2, 6–9) found that prior to the
1960s race scholars were locked into an assimilationist framework. Many soci-
ologists and social anthropologists viewed blacks as a “folk” people who would
have to go through a long process of education and acculturation to become in-
tegrated into American society. Full citizenship for blacks would occur only
when white Americans were ready to accept blacks as equals, a process that
would take many generations. They discounted the possibility of black agency,
overlooking evidence of black discontent and political activism. Race relations
“experts” thus were taken by surprise by the civil rights revolution of the 1950s
and 1960s. In fact, their accumulated wisdom suggested its impossibility.
More critical perspectives on liberal citizenship have been offered by Marxist
and feminist writers. Marx himself was somewhat equivocal about the rela-
tionship between liberal democracy and capitalist rule. On the one hand, he
saw the universalistic elements of democracy as incompatible with class divi-
sions in capitalist society. On the other hand, his general claims about the lib-
eral state were to the effect that it was a means for organizing and reproducing
class rule. According to Anthony Giddens (1996, 66), Marx preserved the pri-
macy of class by treating democratic rights as “narrow and partial.” Workers in
a liberal democratic regime might be allowed to participate in elections every
few years, but they lacked any real power to control their own lives or to affect
the distribution of material resources. Thus, such rights as they had were largely
hollow (Michael Buroway, personal communication, 1999).
Feminist theorists have also been critical of liberal citizenship, arguing that
exclusion of women is inherent in liberal assumptions. For example, some po-
litical theorists have pointed out that the rights-bearing subject in liberalism is
a discrete and disembodied individual who can act according to abstract prin-
ciples. Women are viewed as held in thrall by bodily demands (pregnancy and
childbirth). As the ultimate embodied subjects, they cannot be accommodated
within the liberal concept of citizen. Still, despite their criticism of particular
liberal writings, many feminist critics have acknowledged that classic liberal
 RACE, GENDER, AND UNEQUAL CITIZENSHIP 195

contract theory, which is premised on natural rights, has the potential for chal-
lenging all forms of hierarchical authority. Moreover, because liberal rights doc-
trine has been the most effective rhetorical device for subordinated groups to
claim rights, many feminists, including critical race theorists such as Angela
Harris (1994, 744), have emphasized the importance of retaining a commit-
ment to universalistic principles such as truth, justice, and objectivity, even
while recognizing their insufficiency.
Other writers have concluded that race and gender exclusion is indeed a cen-
tral and continuing theme in American citizenship, but argue that it stems from
distinctly nonliberal roots. Benjamin Ringer, in “We the People” and Others
(1983), focuses solely on race, arguing that exclusion of racial minorities has
been an inherent feature of the U.S. political system from its inception as a
white settler society. The founders set up a dual legal and political system based
on colonial and colonialist principles. The “people’s domain” consisted of those
included as part of the national community, among whom “universalistic, egal-
itarian, achievement-oriented, and democratic norms and values were to be
ideals.” Existing alongside the people’s domain was a second level of those who
were excluded from the national community and, based on colonialist princi-
ples, were “treated as conquered subjects or property” (Ringer 1983, 8).
In a more recent study, Civic Ideals, Rogers Smith (1997, 35–39) documents
the history of exclusion of women, as well as blacks and Native Americans, from
American citizenship. Smith, like Ringer, argues that exclusionary tendencies
cannot be explained as deviations from an otherwise dominant liberal egalitari-
anism or as inherent in liberalism. He instead hypothesizes that U.S. concepts
of citizenship have been shaped by three ideological strands, some of which are
consensual and egalitarian and some of which are ascriptive and inegalitarian:
liberalism (which emphasizes limited government, personal freedom, and pro-
tection of individual rights); republicanism (which emphasizes self-government,
political participation, civic virtue, and regulation of the economy to ensure the
public good); and ascriptive Americanism (which emphasizes the notion of
Americans as a special people endowed with superior moral and intellectual traits
associated with certain ascriptive categories of race, religion, gender, and sexual
orientation). Smith argues that all three strands have been used in different com-
binations by political leaders to achieve their dual goals of creating a sense of peo-
plehood in their followers and persuading them of the rightness of their vision
and the need for their leadership. In his view, liberalism and republicanism have
been effective in creating a sense of progress, prosperity, and personal freedom,
but not in convincing people that “we” are a special people and that they should
care about “us.” For this task, ascriptive Americanism has been effective in that
it has offered civic myths about our specialness as a people.
These two studies are extremely important both because of their thorough-
ness and because they view ascriptive exclusion and stratification as central and
not peripheral to the story of American citizenship. However, while I build on
196 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

these works, my focus and approach differ in at least two major ways. Both
Ringer (1983) and Smith (1997) concentrate on the national level and on for-
mal definitions and doctrines as decreed in official documents, laws, and court
decisions. Second, their analyses center on debates and arguments among key
political actors (for example, political leaders, reformers, judges and lawyers).
Although they consider conflict, their focus keeps them looking primarily at
discursive conflict among competing elites rather than at “hidden transcripts”
of resistance by excluded groups (Scott 1990).
In my view, important aspects of the story of American citizenship are
thereby overlooked. Citizenship is not just a matter of formal legal status; it is
a matter of belonging, including recognition by other members of the commu-
nity. Formal laws and legal rulings do matter, of course: they create a structure
that legitimates the granting or denial of recognition. However, the maintenance
of boundaries relies on “enforcement,” not only by designated officials but also
by so-called members of the public. During the Jim Crow era, segregation was
maintained on a daily basis by ordinary people. For example, on segregated
streetcars whites rode at the front and blacks at the rear. However, there was no
fixed physical line. Rather, whites boarded and paid at the front, while blacks
paid at the front and reboarded at the rear. The line marking the white section
was established by how far back whites chose to sit. Thus, the segregation of
public conveyances was carried out and enforced not only by white drivers and
conductors but also importantly by white passengers, who imposed sanctions
on blacks whom they perceived as violating boundaries (Delaney 1998, 101;
Meier and Rudwick 1969, 761; Kuhn, Joye, and West 1990, 80).
Contrarily, men and women may act on the basis of schemas of race, gender,
and citizenship that differ from those in formal law or policy. For example, when
the Southwest was taken over by the United States, the U.S. government agreed
under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 that all Mexican citizens re-
siding in the territory would be recognized as U.S. citizens unless they elected to
remain citizens of Mexico. In an era when full citizenship rested on white racial
status, Mexicans by implication were “white.” Indeed, the explicit policy of the
federal government was that Mexicans were white. For this reason, Mexicans
were not enumerated separately from whites in the census prior to 1930. How-
ever, Anglos in the Southwest increasingly did not recognize the official white-
ness of Mexicans and often refused to view them as “Americans” entitled to
political and civil rights (Lopez 1996, 61–62; Reisler 1976, 136).
As a result, even though the segregation of Mexicans was technically ille-
gal, de facto segregation was rampant. Consequential public sites—hospitals,
municipal buildings, banks, stores, and movie theaters—were Anglo terri-
tory. When Mexicans entered Anglo territory, they were confined to certain
restricted times or sections. Mexican women “were only supposed to shop on
the Anglo side of town on Saturdays, preferably during the early hours when
Anglos were not shopping.” Municipal swimming pools barred “colored”
 RACE, GENDER, AND UNEQUAL CITIZENSHIP 197

patrons except on the day before the pool was cleaned. In Anglo-run cafés,
Mexicans were allowed only to eat at the counter or order carryout, and
theaters relegated Mexicans to the balcony (Montejano 1987, 168; Taylor
1930; Foley 1997, 42– 44; Haas 1995, 185). In short, de facto segregation in
the Southwest was “maintained through the actions of government officials,
the voters who supported them, agricultural, industrial, and business inter-
ests, the residents of white neighborhoods, Parent-Teacher Association
members—in short, all those who constituted the self-identified white pub-
lic” (Haas 1995, 106).
Similarly, challenges to exclusion have been made not just through formal
legislative and legal channels. Because excluded groups by definition have often
lacked access to courts and other formal venues, much of their opposition
has taken place in more informal or “disguised” ways and in informal sites.
Returning to the example of streetcar segregation, black men and women chal-
lenged segregation not only when they brought legal suits and organized boy-
cotts but also when individuals refused to “move to the back of the streetcar.”
Historical records suggest that enforcement of streetcar segregation was one of
the most frequent sparks for spontaneous black resistance. North Carolinian
Mary Mebane recounted several instances of blacks in Durham refusing to
move and told of one incident in which a black woman came to the defense of
a fellow passenger who refused to move when ordered, shouting, “These are
nigger seats! The government plainly says these are nigger seats!” Mebane noted
with satisfaction that the driver backed down ( Janiewski 1985, 141).
Excluded groups have also acted on concepts of citizenship that differed
from those of the dominant society. Elsa Barkley Brown (1994) found that in
post-Reconstruction Richmond and other parts of the South, African Americans
operated in two separate political arenas, internal and external. Within the ex-
ternal political realm, black women were disfranchised and the vote was con-
sidered an individual act. In the internal realm, black women were enfranchised
and participated in all public forums, rallies, meetings, and conventions, and
the vote was considered a collective resource. In the 1876 election, for exam-
ple, women as well as men took off from work to show up en masse at polling
sites, often arriving the night before and camping out. Women’s presence at
the polls was meant not only to forestall attempts by whites to intimidate black
voters and deter poll officials from turning them away but also to remind black
men that their votes should be cast in the interests of the entire community. A
Sea Island, South Carolina, woman reported that a Republican speaker had
counseled women to refuse to marry men who voted a Democratic ticket, or if
already married, “don’t service them in bed” (Holt 1977, 35; Brown 1994,
122–24; Sterling 1984, 370).
Attention to how the boundaries and meanings of citizenship are reinforced,
enacted, and contested in raced and gendered ways at the local level and in
everyday interaction is useful in three major ways.
198 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

First, it clarifies the distinction between formal and substantive citizen-

ship. I view formal citizenship—defined by national, state, and local laws and
policies—as setting certain parameters within which individuals and groups
maneuver, strategize, and construct meaning. But what happens when people
go about their daily lives? Are they allowed to live and work where they want,
to vote, to go to school, and to enter public facilities? In general are they recog-
nized as members of the community and as competent adults? The answers to
these questions constitute substantive citizenship. This notion of ongoing rela-
tionships and interactions as constituting substantive citizenship is an impor-
tant addition to understanding inequalities in American citizenship.
Second, a focus on the local avoids an overly monolithic view of oppression
by revealing the “state of play”—the variability and unevenness—in the race-
gender regime of citizenship. The similarities and differences in the ways na-
tional laws and policies were interpreted at the local level and in day-to-day
relations can be compared in the experiences of particular groups in different
regions of the country. For example, regional variation in ethnic concentration
and economic competition might lead us to expect regional differences in
the degree of exclusion experienced by particular groups. An older Japanese
American who grew up in Los Angeles and then studied and worked in New
York and Boston in the midtwentieth century found that his co-ethnics were
less likely to be subjected to segregation and denial of access to public accom-
modations in eastern cities than in California and other parts of the West (Scott
Miyakawa, personal communication, 1977). Within each region, we can also
view variability in the enforcement of boundaries of inclusion or exclusion and
changes over time in the drawing of these boundaries. Tomas Almaguer (1994,
212) describes his surprise upon studying the history of the racialization of
Mexicans in California to learn that in the nineteenth century not all Mexicans
were considered “brown” and that European-identified Californios claimed
and were accorded recognition and rights as full citizens. By the midtwentieth
century, he notes, “to be Mexican in the Southern California agricultural world
that I grew up in meant that one was unambiguously not white.”
Third, a focus on everyday interaction highlights the role of human agency,
including that of the excluded. For example, historians have begun to argue
that black agency was in fact one of the impetuses for the imposition of Jim
Crow segregation after 1900. Black literacy rates had climbed from 10 percent
at Emancipation to over 50 percent; the percentage of black farmers owning
land had risen from 3 to 8 percent in 1880 to 25 percent by 1900; and a vis-
ible black middle class of small entrepreneurs, professionals, and educators had
grown during the same period. Harold Rabinowitz (1978, 336) points to in-
creasing assertiveness in black “insistence on voting independently, protesting
unequal justice, and calling for control of their own education.” Another ex-
ample was the tendency for blacks to clash with urban police, particularly to
prevent the arrest of other blacks. As custom and informal controls seemed no
 RACE, GENDER, AND UNEQUAL CITIZENSHIP 199

longer effective enough to keep blacks in their “place,” whites turned to legal
measures to buttress white domination. One suggestive piece of evidence to
confirm the role of black assertiveness in motivating segregation laws is that
Mississippi, where whites attained the greatest degree of domination through
violence and state repression, actually had fewer such laws than other states
(Fredrickson 1995, 99; Rabinowitz 1978, 336; Meier and Rudwick 1966;
McMillen 1989, 9).
What I am suggesting is that we develop a more sociological conception of
citizenship, one that brings it closer to core theoretical and methodological
themes in sociology. I suggest conceiving of citizenship as a product of rhetor-
ical and material practices that include the everyday interactions through which
the boundaries of the community are enforced and contested.
This approach makes citizenship amenable to some of the same methods
that are used to study other kinds of social categories that involve boundary
maintenance and enactment, and it therefore allows citizenship to be studied
in relation to these other categories. We can ask such questions as, how do race,
gender, and class intersect in the creation and maintenance of citizenship, and
how does citizenship shape whiteness, manhood, and middle-class status?
By tracing the material and ideological roots of American citizenship, I have
tried to expose the extent to which race and gender have been central organiz-
ing principles of the ideals and assumptions underlying American democracy.
Ironically, however, the very tenets of republican and democratic ideology that
proclaim universal equality have helped to obscure the existence of institution-
alized systems of inequality. To the extent that Americans subscribe to beliefs
in independence and free choice and the separation of public and private
realms, they deny interdependence between groups (such that privilege for
some rests on the subordination and exploitation of others) and are blind
to institutional constraints on choice. There is thus an overwhelming tendency
among Americans to view racism and sexism as products of individual beliefs
and attitudes. According to this view, if individual bias and prejudice can be
eliminated, racism and sexism will no longer serve to divide the society and
hobble efforts to achieve social justice. Since twenty-first-century Americans are
less likely than ever before to express overtly negative views of minorities and
women, one likely conclusion is that sexism and racism are disappearing and
thus women and minorities increasingly play on a level field.
Unfortunately, such conclusions ignore the fact that the various forms of
exclusion and discrimination that Native Americans, African Americans,
Mexican Americans, and Asian Americans were subjected to in earlier periods
are still clearly operative in the contemporary United States. Sometimes they
are directed at the same groups and sometimes at new groups. The cruel sweat-
shops of New York and Los Angeles, filled with Chinese and Southeast Asian
immigrant women, mirror the lack of rights of plantation laborers in the
earlier period. Central American and Mexican women employed as live-in
200 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

nannies and housekeepers in private households in California perform gen-

dered caring labor under conditions akin to those of indentured servants: they
are on call twenty-four hours a day, with room and board counted as part of
their pay, even though living-in is a requirement of the job. Mexican and
Mexican American agricultural workers are still subjected to inhuman labor
conditions as well as being poisoned by pesticides, threatened with deportation
if they protest, and often denied access to schooling and health care. And as was
dramatically revealed in the national presidential election of 2000, blacks, par-
ticularly black men, continue to be systematically disfranchised, as well as sub-
jected to grossly disproportionate rates of imprisonment and permanent loss
in many states of the franchise after serving time. Proposals by some members
of Congress to end birthright citizenship for children of undocumented immi-
grants and to deny welfare rights to naturalized citizens mirror earlier attempts
to exclude those deemed to be “nonwhite” from full membership in the com-
munity. All of these examples testify to the continued centrality of citizen-
ship as a site for maintaining and challenging race and gender inequality in
American society.

This chapter draws on portions of my book Unequal Freedom: How Race and
Gender Shaped American Citizenship and Labor (Glenn 2002).

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 8
TOWARD AN INTEGRATED THEORY OF
SYSTEMIC RACISM


Joe R. Feagin

IN THE UNITED STATES, theories about racial and ethnic matters often take the
form of theories of assimilation and ethnicity (seen as an umbrella category in-
cluding nationality and “race”), theories dealing with “race” and stratification
issues (for example, middleman minorities theory), and theories dealing with
the social or ideological construction of “race” (for example, racial formation
theory).
Although these are often useful frameworks, each has its own problems.
Those who use a racial-formation approach place too much emphasis on the
ideological construction of racial meanings and identities. Whether in the past
or the present, racism is not just about the construction of images and identi-
ties; it is centrally about the creation, development, and maintenance of white
privilege, material wealth, and institutional power at the expense of racialized
“others.” In U.S. history, systemic racism has emerged out of the material ex-
ploitation of particular groups, such as the theft of Native American lands and
African American labor by generations of European Americans. Today systemic
racism significantly shapes which socioracial groups have the best income, the
best educational and economic opportunities, the best health, and even the
longest lives. Not only has racism stereotyped people and created racial identi-
ties, but most significantly, it has damaged many lives and killed many people
(see Feagin 2000; Feagin and McKinney 2003).
Major theories of assimilation (for example, Gordon 1964), as well as other
mainstream scholarship on “race” and ethnicity, often view the racial or ethnic
“problem” as less than fundamental to the historical development and current
condition of U.S. society. From such perspectives, the problem is, to use a com-
mon metaphor, a temporary “disease” in an otherwise healthy society. One vari-
ant of this assimilation perspective portrays the U.S. racial-ethnic problem as
204 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

one of groups of white bigots betraying fundamentally egalitarian institutions—

the theme developed well by Gunnar Myrdal (1944/1964) and his many con-
temporary followers. A related approach speaks of vague “race relations,” with
whites seen as just one racial-ethnic group among many such groups contend-
ing for critical socioeconomic positions.
Indeed, phrases like “race relations” and “ethnic relations” are sometimes
used euphemistically by social analysts who prefer to view all racial groups as
more or less responsible for the U.S. “race problem” (for examples, see McKee
1993). The underlying metaphor for many such analysts seems to be one of a
roughly level playing field on which all racial-ethnic groups jockey for status or
power (see Sollors 1989). Others use the metaphor of a social organism whose
diseased parts are not functioning well, but which over time can be made to
function properly because the organism itself is healthy. The impersonal ter-
minology associated with these metaphors allows the spotlight to be taken off
the many white actors, especially powerful white men, who have created and
maintained the system of white racism and its long-term wealth-generating fea-
tures, which still privilege most whites. These impersonal metaphors for social
reality—the playing field, a diseased body, the functioning organism, geologi-
cal strata—are much more than figures of speech. Powerful metaphors often
hide critical social realities and constrain people’s understandings, and thus peo-
ple’s lives. Commonplace metaphors like the playing field, the organism, or the
“free market” are commonly used to rationalize oppressive socioeconomic sys-
tems. Such metaphorical images frequently collude in human oppression by
papering over oppressive underlying realities.
Moreover, these traditional metaphors are generally inappropriate for de-
scribing the racist realities of U.S. society. From the 1600s to the 2000s this
country’s major institutions have been racially hierarchical, white-supremacist,
and inegalitarian. A better metaphor is a hierarchical ladder of exploitation and
oppression. Also suggestive and powerful is the vampire metaphor. Analyzing
class exploitation in capitalist economic systems, Karl Marx (1867/1977, 342)
used the metaphor of the blood-sucking vampire: “Capital is dead labor which,
vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more
labor it sucks.” More recently, Eduardo Galeano (1973/1997, 2) has used a
variant of this metaphor in assessing Latin America’s relationship to outsiders:
“Latin America is the region of open veins. Everything, from the discovery until
our times, has always been transmuted into European—or later United States—
capital, and as such has accumulated in distant centers of power. Everything:
the soil, its fruits and its mineral-rich depths, the people and their capacity to
work and to consume, natural resources and human resources.” Similarly, the
“open veins” of Native Americans, African Americans, and Mexican Americans,
among other non-European groups, have been intensively exploited by Euro-
pean Americans for nearly four centuries. The metaphor of vampires sucking
blood from many victims, while rather harsh, does strongly suggest the con-
 SYSTEMIC RACISM 205

tinuing process of extraction of resources from one group to the great benefit
of another.

SYSTEMIC RACISM: DIMENSIONS OF A HARSH REALITY

What is lacking in most contemporary analyses of racial-ethnic stratification and
conflict is a broader theoretical framework that encompasses the issues raised in
the aforementioned theories, yet goes beyond them to emphasize the material,
social, educational, and political dimensions of racism. I suggest that we need a
clear term for this tradition that parallels terms like Marxism (for class oppres-
sion) and feminism (for sexist oppression). I suggest the phrases “antiracist the-
ory” and “antiracist strategies” for this developing anti-oppression tradition.
In developing a broader antiracist framework, I have emphasized elsewhere
(Feagin 2000; Feagin and Feagin 2003) the political-economic realities of
racial exploitation and suggested a number of concepts that are useful for under-
standing the development and maintenance of racial oppression in North
America. These general concepts include: systemic racism, racial exploitation,
unjust enrichment and impoverishment and the social reproduction of enrich-
ment and impoverishment; rationalization of oppression in racist ideology; and
resistance to racism. Here I focus mainly on examples of racial oppression from
the history and current situations of black men, women, and children in the
United States, although much of this analysis can be applied to the situations
of other people of color here and overseas. Also, because of space limitations,
I can touch only briefly on the important issues of the critical intersections and
overlapping of racism, sexism, and classism that I have analyzed in much ear-
lier as well as more recent work (Feagin and Feagin 1978; Feagin 1982; Ronai,
Zsembik, and Feagin 1997).

DEFINITION OF SYSTEMIC RACISM

From its coinage in the 1930s by Magnus Hirschfeld (1938) as a term to de-
scribe anti-Semitic ideas and actions directed against European Jews, the term
“racism” has meant more than scattered acts of bigotry—the watered-down
meaning emphasized by many white Americans (including many scholars)
today. From the beginning, the term “racism” has meant an institutionalized
oppression that is rationalized in a strong racist ideology. In my view, an inte-
grated and invigorated theory of racism should use the term “racism” in this
original systemic sense for which it was created.
In the history of African Americans and other Americans of color, systemic
racism has included: (1) the many exploitative and discriminatory practices of
whites; (2) unjustly gained resources and power for whites; and (3) the main-
tenance of major resource inequalities by white-controlled ideological and in-
stitutional mechanisms. In this chapter, I discuss these three features in more
206 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

detail. Given more space, I would discuss other important dimensions of sys-
temic racism in more detail: (4) the prejudices and stereotyping covered by the
umbrella racist ideology; (5) the racialized emotions accompanying prejudice
and discrimination; and (6) the multiple and costly impacts of racism on tar-
gets and perpetrators (for more on this, see Feagin 2000; see also Feagin and
Vera 1995). In the conclusion, I touch briefly on yet another central aspect of
systemic racism, past and present: the broad range of resistance strategies de-
veloped by those, such as African Americans, who are routine targets of racial
oppression. These strategies have periodically altered the character of sys-
temic racism.
Here I explore two major arguments underlying this theoretical framework:
that systemic racism is a material, social, and ideological reality, and that racism
has been part of this society’s foundation since at least the seventeenth century.
By “systemic racism” I mean that core racist realities are manifested in each
of society’s major parts. One useful analogy is the hologram: if one breaks a
three-dimensional hologram into separate parts and shines a laser through any
part, the whole three-dimensional image is projected from within one part.
Like a hologram, each part of U.S. society—the economy, politics, education,
religion, the family—reflects the fundamental reality of systemic racism.

THEORIZING RACIAL EXPLOITATION

Interestingly, the word “exploit,” in the sense of taking advantage of another
for one’s personal gain, appeared in the English language in the 1840s during
the zenith of slavery in the United States. The idea of material exploitation
institutionalized in society is central in the thinking about racism in the black
radical and anticolonialist tradition that has inspired my analysis. Perceptive
analysts like Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, W. E. B. DuBois,
Oliver C. Cox, Kwame Ture, Charles Hamilton, Angela Davis, and Philomena
Essed, to name just a few, have long led the way to deeper understandings of
how fundamental racism is to Western societies.1 The nineteenth-century abo-
litionist Frederick Douglass was perhaps the first to feature systemic socio-
economic exploitation in his conceptual analysis of racial oppression. To take
one example, in one assessment of the discrimination faced by black Amer-
icans, Douglass (1881/1968, 446–47, emphasis in original) argued: “In nearly
every department of American life they are confronted by this insidious influ-
ence. It fills the air. It meets them at the workshop and factory, when they
apply for work. It meets them at the church, at the hotel, at the ballot-box,
and worst of all, it meets them in the jury-box. . . . [The black American] has
ceased to be a slave of an individual, but has in some sense become the slave of
society.” This early analysis highlights the reality that African Americans faced
a totally racist society that held them firmly as a group in well-institutionalized
bondage.
 SYSTEMIC RACISM 207

Working against racial oppression around the turn of the twentieth cen-
tury, Ida B. Wells-Barnett (1895) developed key sociological ideas about how
white oppression is grounded not only in the material reality of economic ex-
ploitation but also in the brutal gendering (and related violence and lynching)
of black men and women. She accented the institutionalization and overlap-
ping of racism and sexism. Working about the same time, W. E. B. DuBois
(1920/1996) developed fully a point of view that understood Western societies
like the United States as pervaded by well-institutionalized racism. Perhaps the
first social scientist to analyze the globalizing white-supremacist order in de-
tail, DuBois analyzed how the worldwide exploitation of the land and labor of
Africans and other indigenous peoples has long been critical in generating great
resources and wealth for both Europeans and European Americans. From the
fifteenth century to the twentieth, the great expansion of resources and wealth
for whites, including those in the working class, was made possible by the world-
wide colonialism and imperialism of European countries and the United States.
By the 1940s, Oliver C. Cox (1948, 332–33, emphasis in original) was de-
veloping an extended analysis of the United States as materially exploitative:
the sustained exploitation of black Americans had created a hierarchical struc-
ture of “racial classes,” with whites firmly at the top. Seizing the labor of non-
Europeans in overseas colonialism and in North America “is the beginning
of modern race relations. It was not an abstract, natural, immemorial feeling
of mutual antipathy between groups, but rather a practical exploitative relation-
ship with its socio-attitudinal facilitation—at that time only nascent race
prejudice. . . . As it developed, and took definite capitalist form, we could fol-
low the white man around the world and see him repeat the process among
practically every people of color.” Thus, exploitative racism is well institution-
alized and encompasses far more than racialized beliefs and hostile feelings.
During the 1960s and 1970s, moreover, this institutional-racism perspective
was honed by several sociological analysts, including Kwame Ture (Stokely
Carmichael) and Charles Hamilton (1967) in Black Power. Empirically and
theoretically, their investigations established the magnitude of the recurring
patterns of racist practices inculcated in all major U.S. institutions—practices
that entailed more than the discriminatory actions of scattered bigots.
By the 1970s black women scholars were developing the earlier insights of
Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Anna Julia Cooper, and Fannie Barrier Williams in ex-
amining institutionalized racism in relation to gender and class exploitation.
For example, Angela Davis (1971) showed how slavery encompassed both
black men and women. An early analyst of the intersection of racism, classism,
and sexism, Davis underscored the point that enslaved black women were ex-
ploited for their productive labor as workers and their reproductive labor as
breeders of new slaves. More recently, drawing on interviews with black women
in Europe and the United States, Philomena Essed (1991) has developed
the concept of gendered racism and shown that black women, facing racial
208 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

exploitation that is gendered, developed systems of knowledge critical for fight-

ing that gendered racism.
Today material exploitation remains an important concept for the analysis of
racial-ethnic matters across the globe. Exploitation means taking advantage of
a person or group of people for individual or group gain. Long ago, Karl Marx
showed that exploitation of the labor of subordinated groups is possible because
a small powerful group (the users of labor) has full and ongoing control over
the major means of economic production. Thus, in a slavery system, labor is
coerced into giving its service for less than its value, but under capitalism the
full value of one’s labor is given up more or less voluntarily as part of an appar-
ently “free” market exchange. Workers are therefore the central source of wealth
creation in a capitalist country. Marx developed the idea of “surplus value”—
the value created by productive workers that is not returned to them (see
Roemer 1982). Wage labor is exploitative because workers do not receive the
full value of the work they do in wages (Honderich 1995). Indeed, Marx uses
terms like “robbery” and “embezzlement” for what happens to the value of the
work done by workers in capitalistic economies (see Marx 1867/1977).
In addition to the exploitation of workers because of their subordinated class
position, an added degree of exploitation is possible in a racist system when em-
ployers exploit the labor of workers of color. Black workers and other workers of
color can be super-exploited. Thus, within a system of racism “racial surplus value”
can be extracted from workers of color in addition to the surplus value that is
typically taken from proletarian workers. In such social frameworks, African
Americans and other workers of color are paid substantially lower wages (directly
or indirectly through job typing or channeling) than white workers, with women
of color facing yet more exploitation in its gendered-racist forms (Feagin 1982;
for more discussion of the ways in which women, and especially women of color,
are super-exploited, see Benokraitis and Feagin 1986; St. Jean and Feagin 1998).

ONGOING REALITIES: UNJUST IMPOVERISHMENT AND

ENRICHMENT
Historically, the North American colonies, and later U.S. society, were centered
economically in the impoverishment of some social groups to the enrichment
of others. Early narratives of enslavement, such as that of Frederick Douglass
(1855/2002, 135), make this point eloquently: on slave plantations the labor
of many men “supports a single family in easy idleness and sin. . . . it is here
that we shall find the height of luxury which is the opposite of that depth of
poverty [of the enslaved].” The idea of unjust enrichment in Anglo-American
law can be used to assess this reality of institutional racism today (see Cross
1984; Ayres and Vars 1998; Delgado 1996). The term “unjust enrichment” is
usually associated with exploitative relationships between individuals. In U.S.
court decisions, for example, some defendants have been required to give up
 SYSTEMIC RACISM 209

their unjust enrichment at the expense of other individuals (Kull 1995). As a

general rule, U.S. law does not permit a thief’s child to knowingly benefit from
her or his father’s theft. Those who are enriched unjustly by a relative must re-
turn ill-gotten gains to those impoverished in the process. We can extend this
idea of requiring remedies for the unjust impoverishment of an individual to
requiring remedies for the socially created impoverishment arising from racial
exploitation and oppression, such as that faced by African Americans and other
Americans of color over several centuries. It makes much moral sense in a pu-
tatively democratic society to compensate those groups that are victims of large-
scale and long-term unjust impoverishment, and this view might conceivably
be the basis for new legal concepts aimed at reparations for the unjust impov-
erishment and enrichment stemming from such “crimes against humanity” as
three centuries of slavery, apartheidlike segregation, and anti-Indian genocide.
Central here is the idea of unjust impoverishment, which I suggest to describe
the conditions of those who have suffered greatly at the hands of those who
have unfairly enriched themselves (current white Americans or their ances-
tors). In The World and Africa, DuBois (1946/1965, 37) suggested that large-
scale impoverishment in the former European colonies of Africa was “a main
cause of wealth and luxury in Europe.” Many contemporary Western com-
mentators who discuss poverty and immiseration in Africa today conveniently
overlook the fact that Europeans violently took much of the wealth of Africa
for their own development. This expropriation of great African mineral and
human wealth for Western prosperity continues today under the auspices of
multinational corporations. One can also link the long-term, across-the-board
impoverishment of African Americans and other Americans of color to the
growing prosperity of many white Americans over many generations across
several centuries. Unjust enrichment for one group is often intimately con-
nected to unjust impoverishment for another.

THE REPRODUCTION OF RACISM OVER TIME:

SOME CRITICAL PROCESSES
Research on racial oppression in the United States and elsewhere remains
underdeveloped in regard to some important questions. For example, how are
the wealth and privilege unjustly secured by one generation perpetuated to
later generations? How are wealth and privileges socially reproduced and trans-
mitted? More generally, how is the whole societal system of exploitation and
inequality reproduced over the generations? How is this cross-generational en-
richment and exploitation rationalized and legitimated by those who benefit?
There is remarkably little discussion of such important issues in the main-
stream media and social science literatures. Denial of the foundational reali-
ties of racial oppression in the United States and other Western societies seems
essential for their reproduction over long periods of time.
210 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

INTERGENERATIONAL MECHANISMS
An intertemporal perspective on racial oppression is decisive for a profound
understanding of the development and structure of a racialized society like the
United States. For institutionalized racism to persist across successive genera-
tions, it must reproduce all the necessary socioeconomic and ideological con-
ditions, not only across numerous generations of individuals and families but
also across succeeding incarnations of particular communities and social insti-
tutions. Among the essential conditions is a greatly disproportionate control by
whites of major socioeconomic resources. These conditions also include con-
trol over major political, police, and ideology-generating organizations. These
powers, and the societal structures and processes in which they are imbedded,
are central to sustaining a racist system. For both oppressors and oppressed,
each succeeding generation inherits from their ancestors and predecessors the
organizational structures that work to maintain, if not enhance, unjust enrich-
ment and impoverishment. Essential as well to this social reproduction over
time of resources and other inequalities is a racist ideology that legitimates the
racial oppression and its continuing reproduction.

EXPLOITATION, RESOURCE EXTRACTION,

AND SYSTEM MAINTENANCE
Social theft lies at the heart of American colonial, and later U.S., socioeconomic
development. Valuable lands of Native American societies were taken by (often
genocidal) force by European colonists. These white invaders could not secure
enough European or Indian labor to develop this stolen land, so some sought
enslaved African labor. By the 1700s the colonial system of slavery was well en-
trenched and profitable for many whites, including not only slaveholders and
their families but also the many whites in various classes who policed, serviced,
or traded with plantations. Black Americans as a group were proletarianized to
build up prosperity and wealth for whites as individuals and for the white-dominated
society. After the initiation of slavery, the next step was its cross-generational
perpetuation and regular maintenance, not only to meet the internal require-
ments of the system but also to deal with resistance to it from those oppressed.
From 1790 onward, numerous antiblack laws were passed in the United States
in order to buttress the racist system. Most legislatures, state and federal courts,
and chief executives (state and federal) worked to extend or maintain slavery
and the subsequent system of legal segregation.
Significantly, most white Americans do not now realize the extent to which
the unjustly gained resources and privileges of their ancestors have been passed
down over the generations to the present day. Not surprisingly, perhaps,
societal inheritance mechanisms are well masked by an ideological rationale
(including the heralded work ethic, thought to be greatest among whites),
 SYSTEMIC RACISM 211

making them appear fair to most white analysts. One generation after another
of European Americans has inherited an array of oft-hidden racial advantages.
The majority of whites today have received from their immediate or distant
ancestors some form of economic or cultural (for example, educational) capi-
tal that has enabled them to do better socioeconomically in the society, on
average, than otherwise comparable African Americans. Yet African Americans,
ironically, are likely to have ancestors going back many more generations in
U.S. history than the average white American whose ancestors came in the late
nineteenth or early twentieth century. Once developed and institutionally
imbedded, the unjustly derived assets and advantages take on a life of their
own—and are thus often misrepresented in the typical white mind as indi-
vidual or immediate family achievements disconnected from the past history
of racialized exploitation.
Which white Americans are indeed the privileged ones? I frequently en-
counter this question from callers to talk shows on which I am a guest or from
audience members when I lecture. Many white Americans do not feel they are
privileged, especially those who are the descendants of the millions of Southern
and Eastern European immigrants who came to the United States in the
decades around the turn of the twentieth century. They often say, and often
emotionally, that their grandparents also faced discrimination yet made it in
U.S. society, mainly by dint of hard work. They often claim that African
Americans and other Americans of color could easily do the same. Yet many
such Americans do not know their history. While Southern and Eastern
European immigrants did face some initial discrimination at the hands of
British Americans, these immigrants and their descendants have benefited
greatly over time from the fact that within a generation or so they came to be
accepted as “white.” Therefore, they benefited, often quite substantially, from
the far more extensive discrimination (such as in housing, unions, and skilled
blue-collar job opportunities) that has long targeted African Americans, up to
the present day. Within a few decades the majority in these white ethnic groups
were able to prosper economically and politically. Much social science research
indicates that socioeconomic conditions at the time of immigrants’ entry into
the United States and the level of racially discriminatory barriers made the em-
ployment, housing, and other life experiences of African Americans far more
oppressive than those of the New European immigrants. Group mobility was
possible for these immigrant groups, and for their children and grandchildren,
because most arrived when U.S. capitalism was expanding and jobs were more
abundant, they faced far less severe discrimination than African Americans, and
they found housing reasonably near their workplaces (Hershberg et al. 1981).
Their economic opportunities, and those of their children and grandchildren,
were also far better over ensuing decades, to the present day. The typically sub-
stantial economic and educational benefits gained in previous generations have
usually been passed down to later generations. Whites today, including those
212 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

descended from relatively recent immigrant groups, continue to benefit from

the contemporary discrimination that widely targets African Americans and
other Americans of color.
Consider the long-term impact of racial oppression. It is quite possible that
without the enslavement of Africans, and the great wealth and development
generated by the slavery-centered Atlantic economy, there would have been
no United States and no Industrial Revolution in Europe—at least not at the
relatively early times they actually developed in Western history. Much of
the wealth of the European countries and of the new United States came off the
lands stolen from Native Americans and off the laboring backs of those African
and African American women, men, and children who were enslaved—for con-
siderably more than two centuries. This prosperity and wealth was generated
not only by the slave trade but by the trade in slave-produced products (for ex-
ample, rice, cotton, sugar, and tobacco), by the direct commercial trade with
plantations (for example, British textiles), and by the spin-off commercial
trade (for example, banking and insurance) generated as the result of the large-
scale, slavery-related trade. The importance of black labor was generally recog-
nized by white European and American elites in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, as this eighteenth-century pamphleteer indicated in comments on
Britain’s rapidly increasing wealth:

It is also allowed on all Hands, that the trade to Africa is the Branch which ren-
ders our American Colonies and Plantations so advantageous to Great Britain:
that Traffic only affording our Planters a constant supply of Negro Servants for
the Culture of their Lands in the Produce of Sugars, Tobacco, Rice, Rum,
Cotton, . . . all other our Plantation Produce: so that the extensive Employment
of our Shipping in, to, and from America, the great Brood of Seamen consequent
thereupon, and the daily Bread of the most considerable Part of our British
Manufactures, are owing primarily to the Labour of Negroes; who, as they were
the first happy instruments of raising our Plantations: so their Labour only can
support and preserve them, and render them still more and more profitable to
their Mother-Kingdom. The Negro-Trade therefore, and the natural conse-
quences resulting from it, may be justly esteemed an inexhaustible Fund of
Wealth and Naval Power to this Nation. (Parry and Sherlock 1971, 110–11).

The 1700s and first half of the 1800s constituted an era of great Atlan-
tic economic expansion: a booming trade in enslaved workers and slave-
produced products provided much capital for the commercial and industrial
revolutions in Europe and North America. For example, between the seven-
teenth century and the nineteenth century, the majority of the major agricul-
tural exports in world trade were produced by enslaved Africans (Williams
1944/1994; Bailey 1994).
 SYSTEMIC RACISM 213

Millions of enslaved Africans and African Americans paid the price for this
expansion with their labor and lives. They were followed by millions more
whose labor under legalized segregation and European colonialism in Africa
created yet more wealth for whites, including whites at most class levels. The
sum total of the worth of all the labor stolen through slavery, segregation, and
contemporary discrimination is indeed staggering. The great amount of
labor lost also meant capital lost for immediate and later African and African
American generations. For about fifteen generations the exploitation of black
Americans has redistributed the wealth earned by their labor to white Amer-
icans, leaving the former relatively impoverished and the latter relatively privi-
leged. Consider just the monetary value of the labor expropriated. One scholar
has estimated that the contemporary worth of the slave labor taken by whites
from about 1620 to 1865 is at least $1 trillion, and perhaps much more de-
pending on calculations of interest forgone (Swinton 1990). In addition, very
large amounts of labor were stolen during the period of legal segregation—from
about 1890 to the 1960s—in the form of greatly discriminatory wage rates,
some of which continue to exact losses from black workers. Writing about the
transition from slavery to segregation, Gunnar Myrdal (1944/1964, 209)
noted: “In the beginning the Negroes were owned as property. When slavery
disappeared, caste remained. Within this framework of adverse tradition the
average Negro in every generation has had a most disadvantageous start.
Discrimination against Negroes is thus rooted in this tradition of economic ex-
ploitation.” Historically, then, there is a direct and continuing line of ex-
ploitation and unjust enrichment from slavery to legal segregation to informal
discrimination today. The major manifestations of systemic racism are con-
nected and reinforcing across this long period, and in this way they accumulate
to further accentuate advantages for white Americans and disadvantages for
African Americans.
Let us examine one major example of wealth-generating resources that were
provided for many ancestors of today’s white families, including immigrant fam-
ilies, but were largely denied to the ancestors of today’s black families. After the
Civil War, most black families never got access to the land promised by President
Abraham Lincoln and Republican members of Congress, and the resulting racial
inequality in wealth-generating agricultural land has been a major cause of per-
sisting racial inequality. Pressed through Congress during the Civil War, the
Homestead Act allowed the federal government to provide much farmland, an
important wealth-generating asset, to many white homesteading families. From
the 1860s to the 1930s and beyond, about 246 million acres were provided by
the U.S. government, often at little cost, for about 1.5 million homesteads.
Research by Trina Williams (2000) estimates that, depending on calculations of
multiple ownership, mortality, marriage, and childbearing patterns, somewhere
between 20 million and 93 million Americans are currently the beneficiaries of
this large wealth-generating program, which operated over several generations.
214 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

Williams suggests a middle-range estimate of about 46 million current benefi-

ciaries, the overwhelming majority of whom are white. Moreover, economic
modeling of the impact of this initial gap in farmland access has shown that it
has produced most of the long-term racial gap in income between white and black
Americans, even without considering other aspects of racial discrimination and
segregation that have been very destructive for black Americans seeking to build
up families and communities (DeCanio 1981), including thousands of lynch-
ings, much other violence against African Americans, a lack of schooling
opportunities, and widespread employment discrimination.
Calculating the further costs of antiblack oppression from the end of slavery
in 1865 to the year 1969, the end of legal segregation, and on into the present
day increases the economic-loss estimate to a multitrillion-dollar figure. And
there are many discriminatory mechanisms at work in recent decades that have
added to the damage of discrimination in the past. For example, discrimina-
tion in home sales and insurance has limited the ability of black Americans to
build up equities that they could have used to start businesses or help their chil-
dren get a college education (Oliver and Shapiro 1995). Discrimination in se-
curing mortgages for homes as well as for businesses has cost African Americans
an estimated $100 billion over just the current generation, as compared to
otherwise similar whites (Darity and Myers 1998). Private foundation and gov-
ernmental reports regularly repeat the grim statistics: an average black family
earns about 60 percent of the income of an average white family and has only
10 percent of the economic wealth of an average white family. We should also
note that the costs of slavery, segregation, and contemporary discrimination are
far more than economic, for there are many human and community costs as
well. For example, African Americans have significantly shorter life spans (about
six years less) than whites. This is one more lasting legacy, in the contemporary
era, of systemic racism. It costs now—and has cost in the past—a great deal in
human and economic terms to be black in North America. Indeed, for all their
comments to the contrary, few whites would trade places today with an African
American, for most know at some level the terrible cost of racism. The politi-
cal scientist Andrew Hacker (1992) has asked his white students how much
compensation they would want if they were suddenly changed from white to
black. Most would want about $50 million for this reversal of racial fortunes.
Once a group is far ahead in terms of socioeconomic resources, it is very
difficult for another group that does not have similar access to those critical
resources—or even one that has access to modest new resources—to catch up,
even over a substantial period of time. With entry to employment, education,
and business blocked by slavery, legal segregation, and widespread informal
discrimination for nearly four hundred years, African Americans have high
entry and continuing costs and barriers for doing well in such institutional
arenas. Moreover, even with the relatively recent removal of some major barriers,
black Americans entering traditionally white arenas are likely to enter with
 SYSTEMIC RACISM 215

much greater resource problems than whites who have been privileged for cen-
turies. Over time the “bloodsucking vampires” get stronger as their prey get
weaker. That is, without major societal changes, such as large-scale government
intervention, U.S. society will always be characterized by racial inequality. This
is one rationale that lies behind recent calls and organized movements among
African Americans for government and private reparations for the past and
present damages of racial oppression.

MAINTAINING INEQUALITY:
WIDESPREAD DISCRIMINATION TODAY
Carried out by whites at all class levels, racial discrimination and exclusion per-
sist dramatically in the United States today and play a role in keeping African
Americans and other Americans of color from being able to catch up socio-
economically with white Americans. Recall Myrdal’s (1944/1964, 209) comment
that racial discrimination is “rooted in this tradition of economic exploitation.”
Numerous studies show large-scale antiblack discrimination in employment,
education, housing, and other settings (see Feagin and Feagin 2003). To demon-
strate the high level of contemporary antiblack (and anti-Latino) discrimination,
we can examine housing audit studies. For example, one federally funded proj-
ect conducted 3,800 test audits in numerous cities. Estimates from the study
indicated that black renters faced discrimination half the time, while black
Americans trying to buy a home faced discrimination 59 percent of the time
(Turner, Struyk, and Yinger 1991). More recent housing studies conducted in
various cities have found higher rates. Compared to white testers paired with
them, black renters faced discrimination about 60 to 80 percent of time, de-
pending on the city. Studies using Latino renter-testers have also found high
rates of discrimination (see Fair Housing Council of Fresno County 1997;
Central Alabama Fair Housing Center 1996; Fair Housing Action Center,
1996; San Antonio Fair Housing Council 1997). Similarly high levels of dis-
crimination have been found for employment. Thus, one Los Angeles study
found that about 60 percent of more than one thousand black workers reported
discriminatory barriers in their workplaces (Bobo and Suh 2000). In addition,
a survey of forty thousand military personnel found that half or nearly half of
the black personnel reported racist jokes, offensive discussions of race, or racial
condescension during the previous year. Many also reported discrimination in
career-related matters (Scarville et al. 1999; U.S. Department of Defense 1999).

RACIST IDEOLOGY: THE RATIONALIZATION OF

RACISM AND THE REPRODUCTION OF RACIAL CONSCIOUSNESS
Systemic racism is rooted in the material exploitation of African Americans
and other Americans of color, but it involves considerably more than just ma-
terial exploitation. Over time exploitative racism comes to encompass a wide
216 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

range of racist symbols, interpretations, and ideologies as well. Over nearly

four centuries, white Americans, especially those in the ruling elite, have de-
veloped a racialized perspective and ideologies that rationalize white exploita-
tion and material privileges. For centuries now, whites have argued that their
unjust enrichment is legitimate and the result, entirely or mainly, of their own
(and their ancestors’) meritorious efforts. A racist ideology is “a socially imbed-
ded set of beliefs that is widely accepted and critical to maintaining the sub-
ordination of Black Americans and other people of color” (Feagin 2000, 32).
Such an ideology, in the European and American contexts, has rationalized
the ongoing racist hierarchy as one that places “superior” racial groups above
racially “inferior” ones. Recall DuBois’s (1946/1965, 37) comment about the
connections between the point of view of the former European colonies in
Africa and the wealth and luxury in contemporary Europe. He adds in this
connection that the problems of poverty “had to be represented as natural
characteristics of backward peoples.” This is also true for the United States,
where a racist ideology accenting biological differences and a racist ideology
accenting cultural differences (for example, the “culture of poverty”) between
“superior” and “inferior” racial groups still vie for the racist white mind’s at-
tention. It is also the case that, once racist ideologies are well developed in chil-
dren’s minds, they become concrete and powerful over the long term (see Van
Ausdale and Feagin 2001).
In the United States, white elites, almost entirely male, have been central
in creating racist ideologies for centuries, yet most ordinary whites have also
bought into these racist ideologies, as we see in the continuing racial prejudice
and stereotyping that targets Americans of color today. Over centuries, most
whites have accepted the hierarchy of racial groups because they benefit from
it. Most have accepted the “public and psychological wage” of whiteness
(DuBois 1935/1992, 700). Thus, for many decades most white workers have
rejected organizing with black workers to improve working conditions for all.
From the 1830s to the early 1900s, European immigrant groups, including
those not initially considered to be “white” by native-born whites, pressed hard
to be viewed as white, thereby making elimination of the longstanding racist
system difficult. Today there are still new immigrants—such as some (but by
no means all) Cuban and Middle Eastern immigrants—who press to be con-
sidered white. White racial identity has “generally determined the social world
and loyalties, the life world, of whites—whether as citizens of the colonizing
mother country, settlers, nonslaves, or beneficiaries of the ‘color bar’ and the
‘color line’ ” (Mills 1997, 138). Early in this process of creating a white racial
identity, systemic racism became much more than a matter of economic ex-
ploitation and worker competition. It became a societywide system designed
to reproduce in all its major aspects, especially in institutions, the generally
privileged position of white Americans and generally disadvantaged position
of African Americans and many other Americans of color.
 SYSTEMIC RACISM 217

RACIST ATTITUDES TODAY

This long-standing racist ideology is an umbrella for many racist prejudices
and stereotypes. Racist ideas become imbedded in the white mind, for indi-
vidual minds are largely social minds. We learn notions about the world sub-
stantially from interaction with other human beings, beginning as very young
children. Thus, today most whites still hold negative views of African Americans,
and probably of other Americans of color as well. Note the national survey by
the Anti-Defamation League in which three-quarters of white respondents ac-
cepted as true one or more eight racist statements about African Americans
(Anti-Defamation League 1993). Recent research by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
and Tyrone Forman (2000) and by Kristen Myers and Passion Williamson
(2001) strongly suggests that the level of racist thought in the white popula-
tion remains high, though often hidden by the adeptness most whites have at
keeping these views backstage.
Significantly, the collective memory (social mind) of white Americans, those
unjustly enriched with resources and privileges, is not the same as the collec-
tive memory of those who are unjustly impoverished.2 In this context, collec-
tive memory can be seen as how people understand and experience the present
in terms of their group’s collective past, which is “what is left of the past in the
lived experiences of groups, or what groups make of their past” (Nora 1988,
170). Many relatives and friends are carriers of this collective memory into
the present. For whites, there is a positive memory of individual and family
achievements over generations, of hard work that made possible the achieve-
ments of recent generations, unmarred by memories of contemporary racial dis-
crimination. However, for black men, women, and children, strong memories
of family, community, and positive achievements are accompanied by strong
negative memories of past and recent racism (St. Jean and Feagin 1998).

THE RACIAL EXPLOITATION OF

OTHER PEOPLE OF COLOR
In U.S. history, racial exploitation has not been limited to African Americans.
Many other Americans of color have suffered from white oppression. Interest-
ingly, in recent years numerous U.S. analysts have criticized what they call the
dominant “black-white paradigm” in the analysis of racial-ethnic issues in the
United States (see Perea 1997). For the most part, these analysts are not actu-
ally referring to a theoretical paradigm but rather to the fact that much U.S.
discourse about racial-ethnic relations centers on “black-white” issues. Although
these analysts make very important points about the discrimination faced by
other Americans of color, in these commentaries they focus too little on who
controls both the public discourse and the underlying racist system. Too sel-
dom do these analysts note that it is powerful whites (not blacks) who are in
218 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

control of most of the public racial-ethnic discourse, and it is whites, often elite
whites, who are more or less obsessed with issues of black and white Americans.
Moreover, the central reality often being tiptoed around in these analyses
is “white-on-black” or “white-on-nonwhite” (not “black-white”) oppression
(Feagin 2002; see also Feagin and Vera 1995; Feagin 2000). As I showed ear-
lier, white-on-black oppression is the archetypical case of white racism in U.S.
history. At the time when Africans were enslaved in large numbers in the
American colonies, the only other non-Europeans present, Native Americans,
were mostly driven away from white areas (to the West) or targeted for exter-
mination. For the most part, it was African Americans who were centrally in-
tegrated as laborers into the new white-controlled economy of the colonies, and
later the United States. Indeed, African Americans are the only group of color
in U.S. history to have been chattel slaves on a large scale—and for more than
two centuries. They were also the main group of color targeted for socioeconomic
and political oppression in the U.S. Constitution, whose construction was sub-
stantially in the hands of slaveholders. For centuries the dominant white group
has maintained a racialized ladder of oppression—running from whites at the
top to blacks and Native Americans at the bottom. They have incorporated into
this ladderlike framework each new non-European group brought into the
sphere of white control. Each new group is placed by dominant whites some-
where in the white-to-black hierarchy of resources and power (see Feagin 2000,
205–20; Feagin and Feagin 2003, passim).
Of course, the character of the racial oppression faced by an entering group
varies depending on the timing of its entry, its region of entry, and its size, eco-
nomic resources, cultural characteristics, and physical characteristics. Thus,
whites particularly accent the cultural “alienness” and “foreignness” of Latino
and Asian immigrants. Indeed, viewing Americans of color as alien goes back
to white views of enslaved Africans, who were early on considered to be un-
civilized, strange, and foreign. Asian and Latino immigrants and their descen-
dants have usually been positioned, and initially and principally by powerful
whites, somewhere on the racialized ladder of oppression and given social sta-
tus somewhere between whites and blacks—with a negative evaluation on both
axes of alienated social relations, that of superior-inferior and that of insider-
foreigner (Kim 1999; Feagin 2002).
More recent non-European immigrant groups do not share exactly the same
fate, but in all cases it is the dominant white group that mostly determines the
character of the societal treatment (mistreatment) and incorporation into var-
ious socioeconomic sectors, as well as the prevailing interpretation of that group
incorporation. For example, some immigrant groups, such as Taiwanese,
Vietnamese, Cuban, and Korean immigrants, have come to the United States
as a result of U.S. involvement in imperialistic or neocolonial operations and
wars overseas, while others have been brought in to meet continuing demand
by capitalists for low-wage labor (see Feagin and Feagin 2003, passim). For ex-
 SYSTEMIC RACISM 219

ample, Juan Gonzalez (2000, xiv) notes that “the Latino migrant flows were di-
rectly connected to the growth of a U.S. empire, and they responded closely to
that empire’s needs, whether it was a political need to stabilize a neighboring
country or to accept its refugees as a means of accomplishing a broader foreign
policy objective (Cubans, Dominicans, Salvadorans, Nicaraguans), or whether
it was an economic need, such as satisfying the labor demands of particular U.S.
industries (Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Panamanians).” Once again we see the
central role of material exploitation in the history of U.S. racist relations.

CONCLUSION
Assessing the coming Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln made the predic-
tion that a “house divided against itself cannot stand.” As we look across the
twenty-first century, we can see a great need for the “house” that is U.S. soci-
ety to be substantially rebuilt along more democratic and egalitarian lines. The
foundation of this great house is still one of systemic racism. “We the people”—
a term originally created by white men with property for themselves—have
never replaced the underlying racist foundation of this society. We have re-
modeled this racist house two times, during the abolitionist and Civil War
periods and again during the civil rights revolution of the 1950s and 1960s, yet
the household’s racist foundation today is still substantially in place.
Analyzing workers’ exploitation under capitalism, Karl Marx had two ob-
jections. One was that such labor exploitation was unjust, an objection rooted
in traditional egalitarian political theory. Yet Marx had a second objection to
exploitation that goes deeper. Exploitation is objectionable not just because of
distributive inequality but also “because it involves social relations in which
agents view the needs of others as levers manipulated for their own private
advantage. Each agent views his or her own capacities as powers to be used
to take advantage of others, rather than as powers either to be developed for their
own sake or as powers to be used for the common good” (quoted in Warren
2001, n.p.). It is not just the unjust extraction of resources from the other that
is troubling, but also the reality and quality of the alienated social relationships,
which under capitalism are grounded in individualistic concerns and selfishness
(Marx 1959; Ollman 1976). This is also true for other exploitative systems,
including modern racism and sexism. These racist and sexist systems radically
divide human beings from each other, thereby creating alienated human rela-
tions and severely impeding the development of a common consciousness and
solidarity. This is not a healthy situation for any Americans, whatever their racial
and ethnic background. It is certainly not healthy for the future of a multiracial
society trying to become a truly operational and fully developed democracy.
If we are to generate a complete and useful theory of systemic racism, we must
also focus on how to generate greater sociopolitical resistance to racial oppres-
sion. The course of U.S. history shows that racial and other social oppressions
220 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

have periodically generated major resistance movements involving Americans of

many socioeconomic backgrounds. I do not have the space here to develop some
ideas on the great and ongoing importance of people’s resistance, which I have
sketched out elsewhere (see Feagin 1982, 2000). Various scholars have shown
how African Americans, other people of color, and white women have played a
central role in loosening their own chains of oppression. We have previously
noted the abolitionist movements of the nineteenth century and the civil rights
movements of the twentieth century. This important history shows that when
human beings build up knowledge about structures of oppression and knowl-
edge of how to destroy structures of oppression, they can, and eventually will,
rebel. The great inequality of socioeconomic resources across the color line has
often led to subtle or overt resistance by black Americans and other Americans
of color. Human beings have a unique ability to reflect on their own circum-
stances and to create, in association with others, a collective consciousness lead-
ing to major societal change in the direction of greater democracy.

NOTES
1. In portions of this chapter, I summarize and expand on arguments made
in Feagin 2000 and Feagin and Feagin 2003.
2. I am indebted to Bernice McNair Barnett for suggesting this point and for
comments on an early draft of this paper; I am also indebted to Danielle
Dirks for copyediting assistance.

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 9
THE POLITICAL AND THEORETICAL CONTEXTS
OF THE CHANGING RACIAL TERRAIN

Manning Marable

AT THE FIRST Pan-African Conference held in London in August 1900, the

great African American scholar W. E. B. DuBois (1970, 125) predicted that
“the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line, the ques-
tion as to how far differences of race . . . will hereafter be made the basis of
denying to over half the world the right of sharing . . . the opportunities and
privileges of modern civilization.” Today, with the both tragic and triumphant
racial experiences of the twentieth century behind us, we may say from the
vantage point of universal culture that the problem of the twenty-first century
is the problem of “global apartheid”—the construction of new racialized ethnic
hierarchies, discourses, and processes of domination and subordination in the
context of economic globalization and neoliberal public policies. Within the more
narrow context of the United States, the fundamental problem of the twenty-first
century is the problem of “structural racism”: the deeply entrenched patterns
of socioeconomic and political inequality and accumulated disadvantage that
are coded by race and color and constantly justified in both public and pri-
vate discourses by racist stereotypes, white indifference, and the prison-
industrial complex.
The African political scientist and anthropologist Mahmood Mamdani
(1996) has observed that beginning with the imposition of European colonial
rule in Africa, the institution of race was central to the development of the mod-
ern state. Mamdani’s insight about the racialized construction of the modern
state holds true for the U.S. state as well. Racial categories and racial identities
in the United States are politically constructed. That is, racial identities con-
tinue to be legally sanctioned categories, supported by the weight of the courts,
political institutions, organized religion, and custom and reinforced by both
deliberate as well as random acts of violence. The African American has be-
 POLITICAL AND THEORETICAL CONTEXTS 225

come the permanent reference point for the racialized other within political
and civil society. To be “black” is to be excluded from the social contract that
links all other citizens to the state through sets of rights and responsibilities.
Even prior to the American Revolution against the British and the consoli-
dation of the new federal system of the United States in 1787, race was firmly
set as the organizing principle of power in the early American colonies, after
more than a century of black civic and political exclusion. One outcome of the
institutionalization of the system of racial hierarchy was the evolution, as the
United States grew and matured, of two very distinct political narratives about
the nature of U.S. democracy, how the American nation-state was founded, and
the character of the social contract between the American people and the state.
For most white Americans, U.S. democracy is best represented by values such
as personal liberty, individualism, and the ownership of private property. For
most African Americans, the central goals of the black freedom movement have
always been equality—the eradication of all structural barriers to full citizen-
ship and full participation in all aspects of public life and in economic rela-
tions—and self-determination—the ability to decide, on their own collective
terms, what their future as a community with a unique history and culture
might be. “Freedom” for black Americans has always been perceived in collec-
tive terms as something achievable by group action and capacity building.
“Equality” means the elimination of all social deficits between blacks and whites
and the eradication of the cultural and social stereotypes and patterns of social
isolation and group exclusion generated by white structural racism over several
centuries.
Historically, the United States has witnessed two great struggles to achieve
a truly multicultural democracy, both of which have focused on the status of
African Americans. The First Reconstruction (1865 to 1877) ended slavery
and briefly gave black men voting rights, but it failed to provide meaningful
compensation for two centuries of unpaid labor. The promise of “forty acres
and a mule” was for most blacks a dream deferred. The Second Reconstruction
(1954 to 1968), or the modern civil rights movement, outlawed legal segre-
gation in public accommodations and achieved major legislative victories such
as voting rights. But these successes paradoxically obscured the tremendous
human costs of historically accumulated disadvantage. Those costs remain
central to black Americans’ lives today.

MANIFESTATIONS OF STRUCTURAL RACISM

The disproportionate wealth that most white Americans enjoy today was first
constructed from centuries of unpaid black labor. Many white institutions, in-
cluding Ivy League universities, insurance companies, and banks, profited from
slavery. This pattern of white privilege and black inequality continues today,
even though legal segregation has ended. As the legal scholar Cheryl Harris
226 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

(1993) observed over a decade ago, in a racialized social hierarchy “whiteness”

is essentially a form of private property. The state is organized around the
processes of what can be termed “racial accumulation.” The racial benefits ac-
crued by whites include higher salaries, superior working conditions, lower rates
of unemployment, higher rates of homeownership, greater access to profes-
sional and managerial positions, and average life expectancies that are seven
years longer than those of black Americans. White Americans have benefited
from nearly four hundred years of accumulated white privilege, which is re-
flected in vast disparities in material resources and property between racial
groups. Here are just a few examples of the historical consequences of America’s
structural racism:

• Wealth: One-third of all black households actually have a negative net

wealth. In 1998 the typical black family’s net wealth was $16,400, less than
one-fifth that of white families. Black families are denied home loans at
twice the rate of whites. Blacks are frequently forced to turn to “predatory
lenders” who charge outrageously high home mortgage rates.
• Labor market: Blacks remain the last hired and first fired during recessions.
For example, during the 1990 to 1991 recession, African Americans suf-
fered disproportionately. At Coca-Cola, 42 percent of employees losing
their jobs were black. At Sears, 54 percent were black. Black workers usu-
ally have less job seniority and are less able to be hired through informal
networks of friends and relatives.
• Health: Blacks have significantly shorter life expectancies. Part of the rea-
son is racism in the health establishment. Blacks are statistically less likely
than whites to be referred for kidney transplants or early-stage cancer
surgery. The percentage of blacks without health insurance is about twice
that for whites.
• Criminal justice: African Americans constitute only one-seventh of all drug
users. Yet we are 35 percent of all drug arrests, 55 percent of drug convic-
tions, and 75 percent of prison admissions for drug offenses. For juveniles
arrested and charged with a crime, black youths are six times more likely
than whites to be sentenced to prison.

HISTORICAL RESPONSES TO STRUCTURAL RACISM

How have African Americans responded to the evolving domains of structural
racism? In terms of racial counterhegemonic approaches, the black American
community over the course of 150 years has developed three overlapping
protest strategies: integration or racial assimilation, black nationalism or black
separatism, and what the feminist anthropologist Leith Mullings and I have
 POLITICAL AND THEORETICAL CONTEXTS 227

termed “transformation” (Marable and Mullings 2003). Integrationist move-

ments sought full democratic rights and interracial assimilation within the ex-
isting institutions of society. Integration called for the desegregation of public
accommodations, schools, and residential patterns, as well as more equitable
black representation throughout the class structure. Black nationalism was
premised on the pessimistic (or realistic) notion that most white Americans’
prejudices were relatively fixed and meaningful racial reforms were impossible
in the long run. What was required was the construction of strong black-owned
institutions, businesses, and schools, an emphasis on black cultural awareness
and group consciousness, and frequently a strong identification with Africa.
Transformationists, or black radicalists, focused on the link between racial op-
pression and class exploitation, calling for a redistribution of wealth as a key
strategy in dismantling racism. Transformationists attempted to construct stra-
tegic coalitions across racial boundaries, focusing on issues of socioeconomic
inequality and the day-to-day violence perpetuated by poverty.
Each of these three strategies had certain strengths and weaknesses. Inte-
grationists placed too much faith in the American capitalist class’s commit-
ment to liberal democracy and social fairness, and they tended to believe that
racism was rooted in ignorance rather than cold, deliberate exploitation. Black
nationalists perhaps underestimated the “American-ness” of black Americans,
a people who share many of the same economic values, political aspirations,
and cultural practices as white Americans. Strategies of black entrepreneurial
capitalism in segregated racialized markets cannot work in a period of global
markets and transnational corporations. Transformationists possibly gave too
much emphasis to class conflict as the driving force in social history and under-
estimated the psychological and cultural factors that justified and perpetuated
white power and privilege.

THE FUTURE: THE NEXT STEPS IN

CHALLENGING STRUCTURAL RACISM
First, as scholars who study ethnicity and race, especially as they relate to modes
of state power, we should contribute to a richer theoretical and historically
grounded understanding of diversity. Instead of just celebrating diversity, we
must theorize it, interrogate it, and actively seek the parallels and connections
between people of various communities. Instead of talking about race, we
should popularize the public’s understanding of the social processes of “racial-
ization,” that is, how certain groups in U.S. society have been relegated to an
oppressed status by the weight of law, social policy, and economic exploitation.
This has never been solely a black-white paradigm. Although slavery and Jim
Crow segregation were decisive in framing the U.S. social hierarchy, with
whiteness defined at the top and blackness at the bottom, people of African de-
scent have never experienced racialization by themselves. As the historian Gary
228 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

Okihiro (2001a, 2001b) has observed, the 1790 Naturalization Act defined
citizenship only for immigrants who were “free white persons.” Asian immi-
grants who were born outside the United States were largely excluded from
citizenship until 1952. U.S. courts constantly redefined the rules deter-
mining who was “white” and who was not. For example, as Okihiro observes,
Armenians were originally classed as “Asians” and thus were nonwhite, but they
legally became “whites” through a 1909 court decision. Syrians were “white”
in court decisions in 1909 and 1910; they became “nonwhite” in 1913, then
“white” again in 1915. Asian Indians were legally white in 1910, but nonwhite
after 1923. Historians like David Roediger (1991), Noel Ignatiev (1995), and
Tom Guglielmo (2003) illustrate how a series of ethnic minorities, such as the
Irish and Jews, experienced racialization but scaled the hierarchy of whiteness.
Historically, all too frequently, the oppressed have defined themselves largely,
and often unthinkingly, by the boundaries of identities that were superimposed
on them. Louis Althusser once referred to this social dynamic as “overdetermi-
nation.” Oppressed people living at the bottom of any social hierarchy are
constantly reinforced to see themselves as “others,” as individuals who dwell
outside of society’s social contract, as subordinated categories of marginalized,
fixed minorities. Frequently, oppressed people have utilized these categories and
even terms of insult and stigmatization, such as “nigger” or “queer,” as a site for
resistance and counterhegemonic struggle.
The difficulty inherent in this kind of oppositional politics is twofold. First,
it tends to anchor individuals to narrowly defined, one-dimensional identities
that can essentially be the inventions of others. For example, how did African
people become known as “black,” or in Spanish, “Negro”? Europeans launch-
ing the slave trade across the Atlantic four hundred years ago created the termi-
nology as a way of categorizing the people of an entire continent with tremendous
variations in language, religion, ethnicity, kinship patterns, and cultural tradi-
tions. “Blackness,” or the state of being black, was completely artificial; no peo-
ple in Africa called themselves “black.” Blackness exists only as a social construct
in relation to something else. That “something else” became known as “white-
ness.” Blackness as a totalizing category relegates other identities—ethnic-
ity, sexual orientation, gender, class affiliation, religious traditions, kinship
affiliations—to a secondary or even nonexistent status. In other words, those
who control or dominate hierarchies—whether they own the means of produc-
tion or dominate the state—have a vested interest in manufacturing and repro-
ducing categories of difference.
An excellent recent example of this occurred in the United States in 1971
when the U.S. Census Bureau “invented” the category “Hispanic.” The census
category “Hispanic” was then imposed on a population of nearly 20 mil-
lion people who reflected widely divergent and often contradictory nation-
alities, racialized ethnic identities, cultural traditions, and political affinities:
black Panamanians of Jamaican or Trinidadian descent who spoke Spanish;
 POLITICAL AND THEORETICAL CONTEXTS 229

Argentines of Italian or German descent; anti-Castro, white, upper-class

Cubans in Miami’s Dade County; impoverished Mexican American farm-
workers in California’s Central Valley; and black Dominican working-class
people in New York City’s Washington Heights. Yet when states or hierarchies
name the “other,” the act of naming creates its own materiality for the op-
pressed. Government resources, economic empowerment zones, and affirma-
tive action scholarships are in part determined by who is classified as Hispanic
and who is not. Identities may be situational, but when the power and resources
of the state are used to categorize groups under a one-size-fits-all designation,
the life chances of individuals who are defined within these categories are largely
set and determined by others.
A second issue we need to consider is the question: how do we begin to re-
build the protest capacity of and resistance organizations within black, Latino,
Asian-Pacific Island, and other racialized immigrant communities? Part of this
effort must be frankly defensive: the construction of racialized minority-based
institutions to provide goods and services, educational and child care resources,
and health clinics, frequently with little or no government funding. Non-
governmental organizations, such as neighborhood associations and compre-
hensive community initiatives, may enhance the ability of disadvantaged groups
to realize their specific, objective interests. We need new approaches to combat
what Angela Davis (2003, forthcoming) describes as “civic death”—the legal
marginalization and civic disempowerment that have become so widespread
that they threaten not only to negate the Voting Rights Act of 1965 but also,
in many respects, to void the Fifteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution,
which granted black males the right to vote.
To revitalize the African American social protest movement, we must also
break with the idea that “politics” is something that takes place in the electoral
arena alone. Voter registration and mobilization are, of course, crucial tools in
the struggle for black empowerment. But electoralism by itself cannot transform
the actual power relations between racialized, oppressed minorities and the white
majority. New tactical protest approaches, which employ creative political con-
frontations by mass constituencies of African Americans, must be initiated.
Black political history provides several successful models of mass collective
mobilizations around issues of public policy. One excellent example is
A. Philip Randolph’s Negro March on Washington Movement of 1941. The
first March on Washington mobilization was established outside of the formal
organizational structures of civil rights groups like the NAACP. Like Marcus
Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), it was largely if
not exclusively an all-Negro movement. It advanced a specific set of public
policy objectives that pointed toward the ultimate elimination of legal Jim
Crow segregation. The Negro March on Washington focused its energies not
on persuading white liberals to support racial reforms but instead on action by
the black masses, through town hall–style meetings and protest demonstra-
230 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

tions. It linked the issues of the most oppressed sectors of the black commu-
nity to the organized efforts of black unions and more progressive black
middle-class organizations.
Randolph’s intervention forced President Franklin Roosevelt to issue
Executive Order 8802, declaring that “there shall be no discrimination in the
employment of workers in defense industries or government because of race,
creed, color or national origin.” Roosevelt also established the Fair Employment
Practices Committee. Because of Executive Order 8802, more than one-quarter
million African Americans would be hired in defense industries during World
War II. The Negro March on Washington created a new political environment
of black militancy that directly contributed to the creation of the Congress of
Racial Equality (CORE) in 1941 and the unprecedented growth of the NAACP,
increasing its membership from 50,000 in 1940 to over 200,000 by 1945.
The demand for black reparations may have the same potential for trans-
forming the national public policy discourse on race relations as the Negro
March on Washington Movement did sixty years ago. Randolph’s 1941 move-
ment brought together young leftist intellectuals like Ralph Bunche with black
trade unionists, constructing a multiclass, black-identified coalition that es-
poused both a long-term vision—the complete dismantling of Jim Crow segre-
gation and the democratic access of Negroes to all levels of American society and
public life—and short-term objectives, such as the end of racial exclusion in hir-
ing in wartime industries and the outlawing of racially segregated units in the
U.S. military. The reparations campaign must approach the challenge of break-
ing apart the leviathan of American structural racism in a similar way. We must
clearly set out the long-term objective—the realization of a truly multicultural,
pluralistic democracy without the barriers of race, class, and gender—while
focusing specifically on the immediate, realizable reforms that are necessary to
achieve as part of a broad counterhegemonic democratic movement.
A third critical area for both theory and practice is critical and concrete en-
gagement with the intersectionalities of race with gender, sexuality, and class.
Black feminists for decades have made the effective theoretical observation that
racism does not exist in a gender vacuum and that structures of domination
and social hierarchy reinforce each other across the boundaries of identity. In
practical political terms, from day-to-day experiences working with multi-
ethnic communities, we can observe how the intersectionalities of gender, sexu-
ality, and class combine with structural racism. A plethora of contemporary and
historical examples illustrate the particular ways in which race and gender, for
example, have intersected to shape the lives of women of color. In one exam-
ple, Andrea Smith (2001) details the nonconsensual sterilization of Latina and
Native American women during the 1970s—a practice deeply connected to
the women’s racialized sexuality, which constructed them as hyperfertile and
thus dangerous to national stability. In a different example, Smith cites statis-
tics showing that women of color are far overrepresented in the prison popu-
 POLITICAL AND THEORETICAL CONTEXTS 231

lation and tend to serve longer sentences for the same crime than do white
women or men of color. Moreover, women of color are much more likely to
be poor than their white peers.
A fourth area of concern for the future politics of racialized ethnicity is the
need to incorporate understandings of transnational contexts into our analy-
sis. The black freedom movement in the United States must reorient itself in
a period of globalization and transnational corporations toward the antiracist
struggles being waged across international communities. White supremacy in
the United States has always endeavored to reinforce political parochialism
among the African American people, encouraging them to perceive themselves
in isolation from the rest of the racialized nonwhite world. Those black revo-
lutionary activists and progressive social reformers, such as W. E. B. DuBois,
Paul Robeson, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Angela Y. Davis, and Malcolm X,
who advocated internationalist perspectives on black liberation were invari-
ably defined as subversive and as most threatening to the established order. Yet
in the age of globalization, there can be no “national” solution to the problem
of structural racism. As the power of nation-states declines relative to the
growth of transnational capital, individual counterhegemonic political pro-
jects confined to one narrow geographical area will lack the theoretical and or-
ganizational tools to transform their societies.
The twenty-first century truly began—politically, socially, and psycho-
logically—with two epochal events: the World Conference Against Racism,
held in Durban, South Africa, and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001,
which destroyed the World Trade Center towers and part of the Pentagon.
These events were directly linked to the political economy of global apartheid
and to the crystallization of new transnational hierarchies of racialized “other-
ness” and new modes of power and powerlessness.
At Durban, the Third World, led primarily by African Americans and African
people, attempted to renegotiate its historically unequal and subordinate rela-
tionships with Western imperialism and globalized capitalism through the pro-
cesses of diplomacy. Reparations were seen by black delegates at Durban as a
necessary precondition for the socioeconomic development of the black com-
munity in the United States, as well as for African and Caribbean nation-
states. September 11 was another type of renegotiation, but through terror, a
violent statement by fundamentalist Muslims demanding an end to American
imperialism’s economic and political domination throughout the Arab world.
Both events symbolized a challenge to America’s almost completely uncritical
support for Israel and were to some extent expressions of solidarity with the
Palestinians’ struggle for self-determination. The aftermath of both events left
the U.S. government more politically isolated from the African and Islamic
worlds than ever before.
Although the traumatic events of September 11 have pushed the black
reparations issue temporarily into the background in the United States, the
232 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

reality is that U.S. and Western European imperialism ultimately will be

forced to acknowledge the legitimacy and necessity of at least a limited repa-
rations agreement. U.S. policymakers will undoubtedly attempt to solidify
their problematic relationships with African and Caribbean countries and
separate them from any possible strategic coalition with more radical Islamic
states. The price for their diplomatic cooperation may be debt forgiveness
and some kind of financial aid package to assist in development projects. If
African countries are successful in renegotiating their debt payments, based
in part on the history of colonial exploitation and slavery, the granting of
some program of black reparations in the United States also becomes more
likely.
The official U.S. delegation at Durban rejected the definition of slavery as “a
crime against humanity.” It refused to acknowledge the historic and contempo-
rary effects of colonialism, racial segregation, and apartheid on the under-
development and oppression of the non-European world. It dishonestly
manipulated charges of anti-Semitism to evade serious discussions concerning
the right of self-determination for the Palestinian people. The world’s subaltern
masses represented at Durban sought to advance a new political discussion about
the political economy of global apartheid—and the United States insulted the
entire international community.
The majority of dark humanity is saying to the United States that racism and
militarism are not the solutions to the world’s major problems. Transnational
capitalism and the repressive neoliberal policies of structural adjustment repre-
sent a dead end for the developing world. We can end the threat of terrorism
only by addressing constructively the routine violence of poverty, hunger, and
exploitation that characterizes the daily existence of several billion people on
this planet. Racism is, in the final analysis, only another structural manifestation
of violence. To stop the violence of terrorism, we must stop the violence of xeno-
phobia, racialization, and class inequality. To struggle for peace and find new
paths toward reconciliation across the international boundaries of religion, cul-
ture, and color is the only way to protect our cities, our country, and ourselves
from the violence of terrorism.
The World Conference Against Racism of August and September 2001
may be judged by history to have represented a dramatic turning point to-
ward the construction of a global antiracism. But to create practical, democratic
instruments of social advocacy and capacity building and community-centered
institutions that can make real changes in the material conditions and con-
texts of the lives of people of color, we must acknowledge two different ori-
entations or ideological tendencies within this antiracist counterhegemonic
current: a liberal, democratic, and populist tendency and a radical, egalitar-
ian tendency. Both tendencies were present throughout the Durban confer-
ence and made their presence felt in the deliberations of the nongovernmental
organization panels and in the final conference report. They reflect two very
 POLITICAL AND THEORETICAL CONTEXTS 233

different political strategies and tactical approaches in deconstructing processes

of racialization.
The liberal democratic tendency focuses on a discourse of rights, calling for
civic participation, political enfranchisement, and capacity building of institu-
tions for the purposes of civic empowerment and multicultural diversity. The
liberal democratic impulse seeks to reduce societal conflict by sponsoring pub-
lic conversations and multicultural dialogues. It seeks not a rejection of eco-
nomic globalization but its constructive engagement, with the goal of building
political cultures of human rights. The most attractive quality of the liberal per-
spective is its commitment to multicultural social change without resorting
to violence.
The radical egalitarian tendency of global antiracists speaks a discourse about
inequality and power. It seeks the abolition of poverty and the realization of
universal housing, health care, and educational guarantees across the non-
Western world. It is less concerned about abstract rights and more concerned
about concrete results. It seeks not political assimilation in an old world order
but the construction of a new world from the bottom up.
Both of these tendencies exist in varying degrees in the United States, as well
as throughout the world, and now define the ideological spectrum within the
global anti-apartheid struggle. Scholars and activists alike must contribute to
the construction of a broad front bringing together both the multicultural lib-
eral democratic and radical egalitarian currents representing globalization from
below. New innovations in social protest movements will also require the de-
velopment of new social theory and new ways of thinking about the relation-
ship between structural racism and state power.

In its original form, this chapter was presented as a paper under the title
“Structural Racism and U.S. Democracy” at the research conference “Racism
and Public Policy,” sponsored by the United Nations Research Institute for
Social Development at the United Nations World Conference Against Racism,
Durban, Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa, September 4, 2001. Revised and ex-
panded versions of the paper were presented at the conference “Changing
Terrain of Race and Ethnicity: Theory, Methods, and Public Policy,” spon-
sored by the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy and the Depart-
ment of Sociology at the University of Illinois, Chicago, October 26, 2001;
and at the conference “Race and Globalization,” sponsored by the Institute
for Research in African American Studies, Columbia University, October 31,
2001. I would like to thank the Aspen Institute for its support in the devel-
opment of several concepts expressed here as part of its Structural Racism
Project.
234 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

REFERENCES
Davis, Angela. 2003. Are Prisons Obsolete? New York: Seven Stories Press.
———. Forthcoming. Punishment and Democracy: Essays on the Prison
Industrial Complex. New York: Pantheon Press.
DuBois, W. E. B. 1970. W. E. B. DuBois Speaks: Speeches and Addresses,
1890–1919, edited by Philip S. Foner. New York: Pathfinder Press.
Guglielmo, Thomas. 2003. White on Arrival. New York: Oxford University
Press.
Harris, Cheryl I. 1993. “Whiteness as Property.” Harvard Law Review 106(8):
1710–91.
Ignatiev, Noel. 1995. How the Irish Became White. New York: Routledge.
Mamdani, Mahmood. 1996. Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the
Legacy of Late Colonialism. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Marable, Manning, and Leith Mullings. 2003. African-American Thought:
Social and Political Perspectives from Slavery to the Present. Lanham, Md.:
Rowman & Littlefield.
Okihiro, Gary. 2001a. The Columbia Guide to Asian American History. New
York: Columbia University Press.
———. 2001b. Common Ground: Reimagining American History. Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Roediger, David. 1991. Wages of Whiteness. London: Verso.
Smith, Andrea. 2001. “The Color of Violence.” ColorLines 3(4): 14.
 10
RACIAL EXPLOITATION AND THE
WAGES OF WHITENESS


Charles W. Mills

DISCUSSIONS IN THE academy in general, and in philosophy in particular, of

racial injustice have come a long way over the past decade or two. More senior
African American philosophers in normative theory, such as Bernard Boxill
(1984/1992) and Howard McGary (1999), can testify far better than I can
how little interest there was in these matters only a few years ago, and how the
torch was kept burning by a few figures, mostly blacks such as themselves, but
with a scattering of white progressives. From being a strictly fringe concern,
the issue of reparations has become sufficiently mainstream for city councils
across the country to take a position on the question and for “white” univer-
sities to debate the matter. Unfortunately, very little of the credit for this
development can go to mainstream white philosophy, despite the fact that
philosophers are by their calling supposed to be the group professionally con-
cerned about justice as a concept and an ideal, and indeed the book regarded
by many as the fountainhead of the Western tradition, Plato’s Republic, is fo-
cused single-mindedly on that very subject. Instead, it is black intellectuals,
black activists such as Randall Robinson, and community groups such as
N’COBRA, the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America, who
deserve the credit. Yet there is certainly enough blame to go around—one would
not want to pick just on one’s own profession. The indictment for (relative) his-
toric silence on the question of racial justice can be extended to American so-
cial and political theory in general, not merely social and political philosophy,
but mainstream American sociology and mainstream American political sci-
ence. (Depending on how one defines “mainstream”—and from the racial mar-
gins, pretty well everything else looks mainstream—this judgment also holds
true for a lot of orthodox left theory in these fields, not just liberalism, since
Marxists have tended to dissolve the specificities of these racial problems into
236 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

the general oppression of capital, with socialism then being plugged as the uni-
versal panacea.)
How do we correct this situation? In this chapter, extrapolating the line of
argument I have articulated elsewhere in my work, I want to make some sug-
gestions toward the development of a possible long-term theoretical strategy
for remedying this deficiency. My recommendation is that we (1) retrieve and
elaborate, as an alternative, more accurate global sociopolitical paradigm, the
concept of white supremacy; (2) develop an analysis of a specifically racial form
of exploitation, in its manifold dimensions; (3) uncover and follow the trail
of the W. E. B. DuBois–inspired concept of the “wages of whiteness”; and
then (4) locate normative demands for racial justice within this improved de-
scriptive conceptual framework.

“WHITE SUPREMACY” AS AN ALTERNATIVE PARADIGM

At least since Marx’s time, if not long before, it has been a cliché that major
political battles are ideological battles also, struggles over rival understandings
of the sociopolitical order and conflicting framings of the crucial issues. Norm-
ative debates about right and wrong, justice and injustice, typically involve not
merely axiological clashes but rival pictures of the factual: competing narra-
tives of what has happened in the past and what is happening right now, alter-
nate descriptive frameworks and interpretations. The ignoring of race as a
global issue in American sociopolitical theory—I distinguish “global” from,
say, “local” discussions of race in subsections of a field such as the sociology of
race relations, urban politics, or affirmative action debates in applied ethics—
is made possible by a certain conception of the American polity and social
order. With appropriate disciplinary adjustments for the particular subject in
question (whether sociology or political science or political philosophy), this
picture provides the common overarching framework of debate in the field:
the United States is conceptualized as basically an egalitarian (if a bit flawed)
liberal democracy free of the hierarchical social structures of the Old World.
This profoundly misleading picture is Eurocentric in at least two interesting
ways: (1) it focuses on the Euro-American population, those we call “whites,”
and takes their experience as representative, as the raw material from which to
construct theoretical generalizations; (2) it draws on a set of theoretical para-
digms drawn from European sociopolitical theory—the classic writings of the
great figures in European sociology and modern political thought, centered on
class as the primary social division, and either not recognizing race as an emer-
gent structure in its own right or biologizing it. The New World is being in-
tellectually grasped with the tools of the Old World, and with reference to the
Old World’s transplanted population, an operation thus doubly blinded to
the possibility that the experience of expropriated reds, enslaved blacks, an-
nexed browns, and excluded yellows may be sufficiently different as to war-
 RACIAL EXPLOITATION 237

rant the development of a new tool kit and, accordingly, a new paradigm. To
the extent that race is not ignored altogether, it is naturalized or marginalized,
and the nonwhite non-nation is assimilated in theory to the white nation.
The results can be seen in the typical silences and evasions of these disci-
plines. In an article giving a historical overview of American sociology, for ex-
ample, Stanford Lyman (1993, 370–71, 397) argues that from the very start
the discipline has had a “resistance to a civil rights orientation”:

Race relations has been conceived of as a social problem within the domain of so-
ciology ever since that discipline gained prominence in the United States; however,
the self-proclaimed science of society did not focus its attention on the problem of
how the civil rights of racial minorities might be recognized, legitimated, and
enforced. . . . Indeed, tracing the history of the race problem in sociology is tan-
tamount to tracing the history and the central problem of the discipline itself—
namely, its avoidance of the issue of the significance of civil rights for a democratic
society. . . . The reformist solution to social problems . . . rests upon a rational ap-
proach to modifying the structures of a society that is regarded a priori as funda-
mentally sound with respect to its basic values and norms. . . . Sociology, in this
respect, has been part of the problem and not part of the solution.

In political science, similarly, Rogers Smith’s (1997, 15, 17, 27) recent
important and prizewinning book Civic Ideals outlines the various ways in
which the most important theorists of American political culture, Alexis de
Tocqueville, Gunnar Myrdal, and Louis Hartz, have managed to represent
racism as an “anomaly” within a polity conceived of as basically egalitarian:

When restrictions on voting rights, naturalization, and immigration are taken into
account, it turns out that for over 80 percent of U.S. history, American laws de-
clared most people in the world legally ineligible to become full U.S. citizens solely
because of their race, original nationality, or gender. For at least two-thirds of
American history, the majority of the domestic adult population was also ineligi-
ble for full citizenship for the same reasons. . . . Although such facts are hardly
unknown, they have been ignored, minimized, or dismissed in several major in-
terpretations of American civic identity that have massively influenced modern
scholarship. . . . All these Tocquevillian accounts falter because they center on re-
lationships among a minority of Americans—white men, largely of northern
European ancestry—analyzed in terms of categories derived from the hierarchy
of political and economic status such men held in Europe. . . . [Writers in the
Tocquevillian tradition] believe . . . that the cause of human equality is best served
by reading egalitarian principles as America’s true principles, while treating the
massive inequalities in American life as products of prejudice, not rival principles.
238 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

Finally, in my own discipline, philosophy, it is notorious—at least among

black philosophers—that racial justice has been a major theme or subtheme
of hardly a single one of the numerous books on justice by white philosophers
written in the three decades since the revival of political philosophy following
John Rawls’s (1971) work. One must conclude either that racial justice is of
no concern to them or that they think it has already been achieved.
How are such evasions possible in a country built on Native American ex-
propriation and hundreds of years of African slavery, followed by 140 years of
first de jure, and now de facto, segregation? An interesting essay, or even a
whole book, in the sociology of belief (or here, more accurately, the sociology
of ignorance) could certainly be written on this question. But briefly, one
would need to highlight the role of historical amnesia (the suppression, or the
downplaying of the significance, of certain facts), the group interests and non-
representative experience of the privileged race (what cognitive psychologists
would identify, respectively, as hot and cold factors of cognitive distortion),
and, crucially, a conceptual apparatus inherited, as I said, from European socio-
political theory, for which race is marginal. So the problem is by no means
confined to philosophy but is much broader, though in philosophy (for home-
team reasons, I want to make sure that we get the credit for something) it is
worst of all, because of the much greater possibilities for abstracting away from
reality provided by the non-empirical nature of the subject.
Consider my own discipline, then. In philosophy it becomes possible for what
some see as the most important work in Anglo-American political philosophy
of the twentieth century, or even the most important work in twentieth-century
political theory period, A Theory of Justice, to be written by an American, John
Rawls, and yet make next to no mention of the centrality of racial injustice to the
American polity. Defenders will, of course, tell me—I have had these debates
before—that that is because Rawls expressly set out to do a book in ideal theory.
My response would be to ask why he chose to do this, considering that the role
of normative inquiry is presumably ultimately to intervene in our own, mani-
festly non-ideal world. I would also suggest, though I suppose this verges on the
ad hominem, that it is only those whose experience is one of privilege who would
find it so natural to deal purely with “ideal” theory in the first place. After all,
having mapped out the ideal theory, shouldn’t the natural next move be to apply
this theory to social reality so as to generate concrete prescriptions for making it
more just? Moreover, in the three decades since the publication of Rawls’s book,
why have so many white philosophers followed his lead? As my colleague Tony
Laden has pointed out to me, having done an Ethics review essay on a five-
volume collection of articles on Rawls’s work that includes no less than eighty-
eight papers from the past three decades, only one of these essays—by the African
American philosopher Laurence Thomas—deals with race (see Laden 2003;
Richardson and Weithman 1999). Why has nobody done for race what Susan
Moller Okin (1989) did with Rawls’s apparatus for gender, and imagined what
 RACIAL EXPLOITATION 239

kind of social structure you would prescribe from behind the veil if you knew
how people of color were disadvantaged by white supremacy? For that matter,
why are European imperialism, African slavery, Native American expropriation,
Jim Crow, and so on, not part of the “general facts” about society and history
knowledge of which you take with you behind the veil? How is it that in a book
that appeared in 1971, whose chapters were being written and circulated in the
1960s, during a time of national civil rights protest, from the mainstream
NAACP to the more radical Black Panthers, we get no whiff of these struggles,
no consideration—over the span of six hundred pages—of what the implica-
tions might be if the “basic structure” is itself unjust?
And from a black point of view, of course, Rawls’s (1993) later work is even
less helpful, in that the focus has shifted from the distributive concerns, which
at least provided some opening for philosophers of color, to what I think most
of us feel to be a largely irrelevant, profoundly non-urgent, and sleep-inducing
debate about whether a just and stable society is possible when citizens are
divided by their adherence to reasonable but incompatible doctrines. In a
post–Cold War United States where liberalism (in the broad, antifeudal sense)
is obviously hegemonic, this is hardly a pressing matter. Of far greater impor-
tance from the point of view of justice, one would think, are the growing divi-
sions between rich and poor of all colors and the decades-long retreat from
whatever weak corrective measures had been implemented in the 1970s and
1980s to address the legacy of de jure racial domination, which many black in-
tellectuals have seen as the betrayal of the “Second Reconstruction.”
So there has been a debilitating “whiteness” to mainstream political phi-
losophy, in terms of the crucial assumptions, the issues typically taken up, and
the mapping of what is deemed to be the appropriate and important subject
matter. And my claim is that the transdisciplinary framing of the United States
as an if-not-quite-ideal-then-pretty-damn-close-to-it liberal democracy, par-
ticularly in the exacerbatedly idealistic and abstract form typical of philoso-
phy, has facilitated and underwritten these massive evasions on the issue of
racial injustice. Accordingly, I have suggested in my own work that to counter
this framing we need to revive “white supremacy” (which is already being used
by many people in critical race theory and critical white studies) as a descrip-
tive concept (Mills 2003). Normative questions, as pointed out earlier, hinge
not merely on clashes of values but on rival factual claims, both with respect
to specific incidents and events and with respect to determining and con-
straining social structures. And particularly when challenges are coming from
the perspective of radical political theory (for example, Marxism, feminism,
critical race theory), it may well be the case that most or all of the work in
claims about injustice is being done by the divergent factual picture put for-
ward rather than different values. Marxism is famously associated with anti-
moralism, but for those Marxists who have sought to make a normative case
for the superiority of socialism, the appeal has often been made with reference
240 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

to standard liberal norms of equality and well-being. (Indeed, some Marxist

theorists have argued that there are no distinctively socialist values—that in-
sofar as Marxism has a normative critique of capitalism, it is basically parasitic
on liberal-democratic norms.) And while there are numerous varieties of fem-
inism, the most important kind historically has obviously been mainstream
liberal feminism, which has simply sought to extend liberal values across the
gender divide. So the point is that one can utilize mainstream values to ad-
vance quite radical demands: the key thing is to contest the factual picture with
which mainstream theorists are operating. With the feminist concept of pa-
triarchy and the Marxist concept of class society, women and the left have been
better able to intervene in mainstream discussions of justice, because they have
also contested the factual picture that has framed these discussions.
My claim, then, is that African American philosophers and others working
on race, and critical race theorists more generally, should make a comparable
theoretical move: challenge the mainstream liberal “anomaly” framing of race
by developing the concept of white supremacy. Doing so would have several
advantages.
To begin with, just on the level of words, this is the term that was tradi-
tionally used to denote white domination, so one would be drawing on a vo-
cabulary already established and familiar (see Fredrickson 1981). Feminists
had to appropriate a term (“patriarchy”) with a somewhat different sense and
shift its meaning; Marx had to provide an analysis of class society not merely
in terms of rich and poor but, more rigorously, in terms of ownership of the
means of production. So both are being employed as terms of art. But in the
case of race in the United States, “white supremacy” was the term standardly
used. What would now be necessary, of course, would be to give it a more de-
tailed theoretical specification than it has hitherto had, to map in detail its var-
ious dimensions, and to try to work out its typical dynamic.
Second, and more importantly, the term carries with it the connotation of
systematicity. Unlike the current, more fashionable “white privilege,” “white
supremacy” implies the existence of a system that does not just privilege whites
but is also run by whites, for white benefit. As such, it is a global conception,
including not just the socioeconomic but also the juridical, political, cultural,
and ideational realms. Thus, it contests—paradigm versus paradigm—the lib-
eral individualist framework of analysis that has played, and continues to play,
such an important and pernicious role in obfuscating the real centrality of race
and racial subordination to the polity’s history.
Finally, by shifting the focus from the individual and attitudinal (the dis-
course of “racism”) to the realm of structures and power, the concept of white
supremacy facilitates the highlighting of the most important thing from the
perspective of justice, which is how the white population benefits illicitly from
their social location. Current debates about “racism” are hindered by the fact
that the term is now used in such a confusingly diverse range of ways that it is
 RACIAL EXPLOITATION 241

difficult to find a stable semantic core. Moreover, the dominant interpretation

of white racism in the white population is probably individual beliefs about
innate nonwhite (particularly black) inferiority and individual hostility toward
people of color (especially blacks). Given this conception, most whites think
of themselves as nonracist—one positive thing about the present period is that
nobody wants to be a racist, though this has also motivated a shift in how the
term is defined—while still continuing to hold antiblack stereotypes. But in
any case, with the decline in overt racism in the white population, the real issue
for a long time has not been individual racism but, far more important, the re-
production of white advantage and black disadvantage through the workings
of racialized social structures. The idea of white supremacy is intended, in part,
to capture the crucial reality that the normal workings of the social system con-
tinue to disadvantage blacks in large measure independently of racist feeling.
Insofar as, since Rawls, our attention as philosophers concerned about justice
is supposed to be on the “basic structure” of society and its functioning, the
concept of white supremacy then forces us to confront the possibility that the
basic structure is itself systemically unjust. Corrective measures to end racial
injustice would thus need to begin here.
However, the term also has one major and, some might argue, insuperable
disadvantage. Apart from sounding “extremist” to white, and perhaps some
black, audiences, it will just seem flagrantly inaccurate, a description that (if this
much is conceded) may once have been true but is no longer so. White su-
premacy for most people will be identified with slavery, the hoods of the Ku
Klux Klan, “White” and “Colored” signs, legal segregation and discrimination,
police dogs attacking black demonstrators, and so on. So considerable spade-
work will have to be done in arguing that the key referent of the term is white
domination and in demonstrating that white domination can persist in the ab-
sence of overt nonwhite subordination, white terrorism, and legal persecution.
But there is a sense in which such spadework would have to be done regardless
of the term chosen, inasmuch as individualist analyses of the sociopolitical
order, which deny the existence of structures of domination (not just for race
but in general), are hegemonic in the popular mind. So this would be an ideo-
logical obstacle to be overcome no matter what term is chosen. And in the case
of race, by contrast with class and gender, one should in theory at least face a
somewhat easier task in convincing people, since although the society is rou-
tinely thought of as classless (or—the same thing—middle-class) and gender
domination is seen as natural, it cannot (one would think) be denied that peo-
ple of color were long legally suppressed. So even if whites are reluctant to con-
cede the continuing existence of white supremacy, the concession that it once
existed provides at least some theoretical foothold, since one can then make an
argument (if no more than this) that it would have to have left some legacy.
Finally, I would claim that philosophers have a distinctive role to play in an-
alyzing white supremacy (see Mills 2003). Obviously, crucial work would have
242 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

to be done at the empirical level, in sociology and political science. But inves-
tigations and formulations at a higher level of abstraction would be invaluable
also. My model here, of course, is Marx’s analysis of capitalism, which, as we
recall, moved back and forth between the empirical and the philosophical.
Think of all the articles and books there have been in Marxist theory over the
past hundred years, looking at such issues as philosophical anthropology, class
exploitation, the role of class ideology, the influence on cognition of class divi-
sion, fetishism, naturalistic mystification, and so on. My belief is that white su-
premacy has been sufficiently important as a social reality over the past few
hundred years, and has been sufficiently influential in shaping human beings,
that a parallel abstract philosophical investigation on race will turn out to be
equally fruitful. The loftily meta-theoretical vantage point of philosophy could
then provide the insights about human existence, value, and cognition that are
peculiar to the discipline, but informed (unlike the ostensibly colorless “view
from nowhere”) by the realities of white domination.

RACIAL EXPLOITATION
I now want to turn specifically to the idea of racial exploitation and draw a com-
parison between racial and class exploitation, since it will be illuminating for us
to consider both their similarities and their differences. Exploitation is, of
course, central to Marxist theory, since what distinguishes his analysis of capi-
talism from that of liberal theorists is that for him it is necessarily an ex-
ploitative system. Exploitation is not a matter of low wages or poor working
conditions, though these will, of course, make it worse. Rather, exploitation has
to do with the transfer of surplus value from the workers to the capitalists. To
the extent that there is a normative critique in Marxism, then, it relies centrally
on the claim that this relation is an exploitative one. Moreover, it is not just
capitalism but class society in general that is exploitative, which is why we need
to move toward a classless society. Finally, the exploitative nature of the system
does not reside in class prejudice, in hostile views of the workers, but rather in
their systemic disadvantaging by this transfer of surplus value through the wage
relation. If Marx is right, class exploitation is normal, not requiring extra-
ordinary measures, but flowing out of the routine functioning of the system.
The claim that capitalism is necessarily exploitative historically rested on
the labor theory of value, and with the discrediting of this theory, it has be-
come harder to defend. The left-wing economist John Roemer (1982) has for
many years been developing a revisionist view of exploitation, but his devel-
opment of the notion is quite far from traditional conceptions. For Marx,
exploitation was a real relationship, not merely an artifact of mathematical ma-
nipulation, and was linked with proletarian agency: it was in part precisely be-
cause of their exploitation that the workers were supposed to develop class
consciousness, form trade unions, and ultimately participate in a movement
 RACIAL EXPLOITATION 243

to overthrow capitalism. So exploitation provides both an explanation for

the logic of domination and a potential basis for its political overcoming.
Marxism’s pretensions to being a social science hinge in part on claims about
the centrality of exploitation and how it organizes bourgeois and proletarian
interests, thus generating behavioral uniformities that Marx thought could be
expressed in social laws. And his theory is not merely a holistic, social-systemic
one that opposes the “Robinsonades” of liberal theory, but famously a materi-
alist, and thus a realist, one. Note that (1) analyses of a social-systemic kind
need not be materialist, since they can be idealist—for example, seeing every-
thing in terms of language or discourses—and (2) materialism is a species of
realism rather than coextensive with it, since while political realists claim that
determination by group interests is crucial, they do not necessarily identify
those interests as material ones. For Marx, though, what are supposed to make
the sociopolitical wheels go round are class interests of a material kind, tied to
economic advantage.
The case I want to make is that racial exploitation can provide a parallel, even
superior, illumination and that it is greatly advantaged over the Marxist con-
cept by not being tied to a dubious economic theory. Comparatively little work
has been done on the concept of racial exploitation. I think this is because it has
fallen between theoretical and political stools in an interesting way. In his re-
cent book on “mutually advantageous and consensual exploitation,” Alan
Wertheimer (1996) points out that though the term “exploitation” is routinely
tossed around, mainstream liberal theorists have had surprisingly little to say
about it: “Exploitation has not been a central concern for contemporary polit-
ical and moral philosophy.” He suggests that there are at least three reasons for
this silence: the concept’s guilt-by-association with Marxism; the aforemen-
tioned post-Rawlsian focus on ideal theory; and the fact that whereas exploita-
tion is typically a “micro-level wrong” characterizing individual transactions,
“much of the best contemporary political philosophy tends to focus on macro-
level questions, such as the just distribution of resources and basic liberties and
rights” (Wertheimer 1996, ix, 8). (The presumptive contrast in this last point
arguably vindicates my earlier claim about the racially sanitized picture of the
United States dominant in mainstream normative political theory. Do not
macro-level questions about the unjust “distribution of resources and basic lib-
erties and rights” arise from the history of American white supremacy? Can it
not be argued that racial exploitation has been national and structural?)
On the other hand, where Marxists have looked at race, as another author,
Gary Dymski (1997, 335), points out in a left-wing anthology on exploita-
tion, they have typically reduced it to a variant of class exploitation: “Race has
been virtually ignored in Marxian theorizing about exploitation. Race is as-
sumed to enter in only at a level of abstraction lower than exploitation; and
anyway, since minorities are disproportionately workers, racial inequality is
simply a special case readily accounted for by a racially neutral exploitation
244 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

theory.” And this, of course, is part of a larger problematic pattern of Marxist

theory: its failure to recognize race as a system of domination in itself (see
Robinson 1983/2000; Mills 2003). Indeed, this is well illustrated by one of
the classic texts of Marxism, Lenin’s (1916/1996) Imperialism: The Highest
Stage of Capitalism. Someone from the Third World (someone like me!) who
had never read this pamphlet might come to it thinking from its title that
Lenin is going to talk about the role of race and racism in First World impe-
rialist exploitation of its colonies. But in fact Lenin barely refers to race at all.
For him, the populations in the colonial world suffer the exploitation of fi-
nance capital, which is merely an exacerbated variant of the exploitation typ-
ical of wage labor. So what one has is a “quantitative” change—it is the same
thing, but worse. The idea that racial exploitation could have qualitatively dis-
tinct dimensions, that racial exploitation could crucially involve the active par-
ticipation of white workers both in the metropole and in the colonies, is not
envisaged by Lenin. Racial domination is subsumed under capitalist domina-
tion, and no separate theorization of its distinctive features is recognized as
necessary. If we utilize the orthodox base-superstructure taxonomy, then the
materialist region of society, which is the most important, “determining” part,
is the base—the relations of production that encapsulate class relations of
domination. Insofar as race is recognized, then, race would be at best part of
the superstructure, a set of ideological relations. Even when race is cashed out
in terms of superexploitation, the process is still assimilated to class exploita-
tion in that the “race” in question is thought of as a differentially subordinated
section of the working class and the exploitative relation involves getting extra
value for the bourgeoisie.
So neither in mainstream liberal theory nor in oppositional Marxist theory
has racial exploitation been properly recognized and theorized. And I am sug-
gesting that we redress this theoretical deficiency and follow up on the insight
expressed by W. E. B. DuBois (1935/1998) seventy years ago, in his now-
classic Black Reconstruction in America, when he spoke of the “public and psy-
chological wage” enjoyed by white workers. The idea represents a conceptual
breakthrough, since at a time (even more than now) when Marxist theories ef-
fectively monopolized accounts of exploitation—and of course long before
what we now know as “critical white studies” had come into existence—
DuBois was tentatively raising the possibility of whiteness as a system of ex-
ploitation in itself: that whiteness paid (see also DuBois 1920/1995). In
keeping with the shift in the radical academy over the past two decades from
Marxism to poststructuralism, much of the recent literature on whiteness, as
Ashley Doane (2003) and Margaret Andersen (2003) complain in their intro-
ductory essays in White Out: The Continuing Significance of Racism (Doane
and Bonilla-Silva 2003), focuses on the discursive, the cultural, and the per-
sonal testimonial. This is not to deny, of course, that whiteness has numerous
aspects and that the orthodox left of the past was deficient (following Marx’s
 RACIAL EXPLOITATION 245

own footsteps) in its handling of what were dismissed as “superstructural” issues.

But DuBois’s own insight was in terms of political economy, and the discussion
arguably needs to be brought back to these fundamentals. The concept of
“white privilege,” Cheryl Harris’s (1993) notion (following Derrick Bell) of
whiteness as “property,” and George Lipsitz’s (1998) idea of a “possessive in-
vestment” in whiteness can all be seen as indebted to DuBois’s original insight.
Yet though this subsection of the field is well established, comparatively little
has been done, so far as I know, to develop and articulate the conceptual map-
ping of the structure they presuppose. And within the African American schol-
arly community, DuBois’s (1903/1996) concept of “double consciousness,”
from The Souls of Black Folk, has received far more attention than the wages
of whiteness. So I am arguing that we need to redress this imbalance.
Before getting into the analysis, though, we have to deal with some pre-
liminary objections.
It might be objected, to begin with, that racial exploitation cannot exist be-
cause races do not exist. If, as the growing scholarly consensus in anthropology
on the question agrees, races have no biological existence, then how can they
be involved in relations of exploitation, or for that matter any other relations?
And here, of course, the standard answer from critical race theorists is that races
can have a reality that, though social rather than biological, is nonetheless
causally efficacious within our racialized world. From the fact that race is so-
cially constructed, it does not follow that it is unreal (see Haslanger 1995; Mills
1998; Sundstrom 2002).
Secondly, however, it might be claimed that insofar as race is socially con-
structed, then it is to the constructing agent that causality and agency really
have to be attributed. In historical materialist versions of this claim, for ex-
ample, it might be insisted that class forces, and ultimately the ruling class, the
bourgeoisie, are the real actors. (So we could think of these as two Marxist
reasons—though they come in other theoretical varieties also—apart from
simple myopia, to deny racial exploitation: races do not exist in the first place,
or if their social reality is grudgingly conceded, then, as a fallback position, this
reality is reduced to an underlying class reality.) But even if Y is created by X,
so that there is generating causation, it does not follow that Y continues to be
moved, either wholly or at all, by X, so that there may not be sustaining and
ongoing causation. In other words, even if we concede (and an argument would
be necessary to prove this) that race is originally created by a class dynamic, this
does not mean that race cannot attain what used to be called, in Marxist
theory, at least a “relative autonomy” (if not more), an intrinsic dynamic, of its
own. One of the key books in initiating the current flood of “whiteness” lit-
erature was David Roediger’s (1991/1999) study of white American workers,
The Wages of Whiteness, and the significance of his paying tribute to DuBois
in his title was precisely because his conclusion was that these workers’ white-
ness was a real social fact about them, one that played a crucial role in their
246 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

motivations and actions. So social “whiteness”—the belief that one is a mem-

ber of the privileged race—and the institutional reflections of this belief are
causally efficacious.
Finally, it might be objected that “whites” come in all classes, different gen-
ders, and divergent nationalities, that there are power relations and great power
differences among them, and that they also are exploited. But the claim that
racial exploitation exists does not commit one to the claim that its benefits are
all necessarily distributed equally, so if some whites get more than others, this
is still consistent with the thesis. Nor does it require that all whites be equally
active in the processes of racial exploitation—some may be both actors and ben-
eficiaries, while others are just beneficiaries. Finally, as should be obvious,
claiming that racial exploitation exists does not imply that it is the only form of
exploitation. All of us will have different hats, and so it will be not merely pos-
sible but routinely the case that people are simultaneously the beneficiaries of
one system of exploitation while being the victims of another, as with white
women, for example. Society can be thought of as a complex of interlocking
and overlapping systems of domination and exploitation, and I am by no means
asserting that race is the only one. My claim rather is that it is an undertheorized
one and that it has repercussions for holding the overall system together that
are not generally recognized.
Let us contrast race and class exploitation, then. To begin with, assuming
that the dominant position on the origins of race is correct, race is a product
of the modern period, so that racial exploitation is limited to the last few hun-
dred years and is much younger than class exploitation, and even more so by
comparison with gender exploitation. Moreover, it is a historically contingent
form of exploitation: while it is almost impossible to imagine the development
of human society having taken place without class and gender hierarchy and
exploitation, the fact that race might never have existed in the first place im-
plies that racial exploitation might never have existed.
Suppose we use the terms R1 and R2 for the races involved, respectively
dominant and subordinate. (Obviously, it is possible to have more than two
races involved—think of apartheid South Africa and the role of “Coloreds”—
but we will make this simplifying assumption.) Now, to begin with, it needs
to be pointed out that the mere fact that two races are involved in relations of
exploitation does not mean it is a relationship of racial exploitation. Racial ex-
ploitation is, as emphasized, just one variety of exploitation, and if it is a nec-
essary condition that races be involved in the transaction, it is not a sufficient
one. For it could be that the relations between R1 and R2 are simply standard
capitalist relations. Imagine, say, that a group of capitalists from one racial
group hires a group of workers from another racial group, but race plays no
role in the establishment or particular character or reproduction of the rela-
tions of exploitation. What is also required is that the relations of race play a
role in the nature and degree of the exploitation itself. What makes racial ex-
 RACIAL EXPLOITATION 247

ploitation racial exploitation, then, is not merely that the parties to the trans-
action are races, but that race determines, or significantly modifies, the nature
of the relation between them. (Note also that it is not necessary for racial ex-
ploitation that the parties in every transaction be of different races, for it could
be that the overall structure of R2 subordination allows for a few R2s to par-
ticipate in the exploitation of their fellow R2s, for example, the small number
of black slaveholders in the South.)
In what does this determination or modification consist? We are a bit hand-
icapped here by the fact that the transaction has to be described in suitably
general terms, encompassing (as I will soon argue) such a wide range of possi-
bilities. But I suggest that the paradigm case of racial exploitation is one in
which the moral/ontological/civic status of the subordinate race makes possi-
ble the transaction in the first place (that is, the transaction would have been
morally or legally prohibited had the R2s been R1s) or makes the terms sig-
nificantly worse than they would have been (the R2s get a much poorer deal
than if they had been R1s). And the term “transactions” is being used broadly
to encompass not merely cases in which R2s are directly involved but also (and
this is another significant difference from classic class exploitation) cases in
which they are excluded. In Marx’s vision of class exploitation, surplus value is
extracted through the expenditure of the labor power of the working class, so
obviously the workers have to be actually working for this transfer to take
place. But I want to include scenarios in which R2s are kept out of the trans-
action but are nonetheless exploited, because R1s benefit from their exclusion
(for example, in the case of racial restrictions on hiring). For me, then, racial
exploitation is being conceptualized so as to accommodate both differential
and inferior treatment of R2s (for example, lower wages) and their exclusion
where they should legitimately have been included (for example, the denial of
the job in the first place).
Now, it needs to be noted that the role of R2 normative inequality is in sharp
contrast to Marx’s vision of class exploitation under capitalism. In the class sys-
tems of antiquity and the Middle Ages, the subordinate classes did indeed have
a lower normative status. But capitalism, as the class system of modernity, is
distinguished by the fact that these distinctions of ascriptive hierarchy are lev-
eled. So in Marx’s discussion of capitalism, the whole point of his analysis—
what made capitalism different from slave and feudal modes of production—
was that the workers nominally had equal moral status. Hence his sarcasm in
Capital about the freedom and equality that obtain on the level of the relations
of exchange being undercut at the level of the relations of production. But at
least juridically, that freedom and equality are real. So it is not that the subor-
dinated are overtly forced to labor for the capitalist class (as with the slave or
the serf), since such coercion would be inconsistent with liberal capitalism.
Rather, it is the economic structure that (according to Marx anyway) coerces
them, reduces their options, and forces them to sell their labor power.
248 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

But in what I suggest is the paradigm case of racial exploitation, the R2s do
not have equal status, which implies that bourgeois-democratic norms either
do not apply to them at all or do not apply fully. In both liberal and many
Marxist theories of racism, this has usually been represented as a return to the
premodern. But as various theorists, including myself, have argued, it is better
thought of in terms of the modern, but within the framework of a revised nar-
rative and conceptual framework that deny that egalitarianism is in fact the
universal norm of modernity (Mills 1999). In other words, to represent racism
as a throwback to previous class systems accepts the mystificatory representa-
tion of the modern as the epoch when equality becomes the globally hege-
monic norm, when in fact we need to reject this characterization and see the
modern as bringing about white (male) equality while establishing nonwhite
inequality as an accompanying norm. In Rogers Smith’s (1997) language,
racism is not an “anomaly” in the global system but a norm in its own right.
What justifies African slavery and colonial forced labor, for example, is the
lesser moral status of the people involved—they are not seen as full humans in
the first place. If in the colonies blacks, browns, and yellows are coerced by the
colonial state to work, while in the metropole, according to Marxist theory,
white workers are compelled by the market to work, this is not a minor but a
major and qualitative difference.
Now, one of the straightforward implications of this is that, by contrast
with class exploitation, racial exploitation in its paradigm form is straightfor-
wardly unjust by deracialized liberal democratic standards. By contrast, in the
Marxist tradition, as is well known, there has been a general leeriness about
appealing to morality and a specific leeriness about appealing to justice, be-
cause of the dominant meta-ethical interpretation of Marx as a theorist dis-
dainful of ethical norms and hostile to justice in particular as a putatively
transhistorical value. So some Marxists have repudiated moral argument in
principle as a return to a supposedly discredited “ethical” (as against “scien-
tific”) socialism. But if one does want to make a moral case for socialism, some
theorists have argued, one has to appeal to freedom rather than justice, or to
social welfare, or to Aristotelian self-realization. A discourse of rights is not
amenable to prosecuting the proletarian case insofar as bourgeois rights are
being respected. (One can, of course, appeal to positive “welfare” rights, but
these are far more controversial in the liberal tradition.) And such an argument
would have to rely on factual and conceptual claims that were obviously highly
controversial even then—and far more so now in a post-Marxist world—
about capitalist economic constraint undermining substantive freedoms, or
people as a whole doing better under socialism. By contrast, the striking fea-
ture of demands for racial justice in the paradigm cases of racial injustice is that
they can be straightforwardly made in terms of the dominant discourse, since the
whole point of racial exploitation is that (at least in its paradigm form) it trades
on the differential status of the R2s to legitimate its relations. For example,
 RACIAL EXPLOITATION 249

contrast the proletarian struggle with the black struggle in the United States.
The banner under which the latter has been organized has typically been the
banner of equal rights: for civil rights—indeed for human rights—and for
first-class rather than second-class citizenship. But it would be far more diffi-
cult to represent the struggle for socialism as a struggle for equal rights, since
it would, of course, be denied that capitalist wage relations are a violation of
workers’ rights.
So in the first instance (in the period of overt white supremacy), what jus-
tifies racial exploitation is that the R2s are seen of lesser human worth, or zero
worth. They have fewer rights, or no rights. A certain normative characteriza-
tion of the R2s is central to racial exploitation in a way that it is not to class
exploitation in the modern period.
But apart from this paradigm form, there is also a secondary derivative form,
which becomes more important over time (so there is a periodization of vari-
eties of racial exploitation, with the different salience of different kinds shifting
over time) and which arises from the legacy of the first kind. Here the inequity
does not arise from the R2s’ being still stigmatized as of inferior status, or at
least such stigmatization is not essential to the process. White supremacy is no
longer overt, and the statuses of R1s and R2s have been formally equalized (for
example, through legislative change). Of course, the perception of R2s as infe-
rior, as not quite of equal standing, may continue to play a role in tacitly under-
writing their differential treatment. But it is no longer essential to it. Rather,
what obtains here is that the R2s inherit a disadvantaged material position that
handicaps them—by comparison with what, counterfactually, would have been
the case if they had been R1s—in the bargaining process or the competition in
question. At this stage, then, it is possible for them to be treated “fairly,” by the
same norms that apply to the R1 population. Nonetheless, it is still appropri-
ate to speak of racial exploitation, because they bring to the table a thinner pack-
age of assets than they otherwise would have had, and so they will be in a weaker
bargaining position than they otherwise would have been. Whites are differen-
tially benefited by this history insofar as they have a competitive advantage that
is not the result—or not completely the result—of innate ability and effort, but
the inheritance of the legacy of the past. So unfairness here is manifest in the
failure to redress this legacy, which makes the perpetuation of domination the
most likely outcome.
I would also claim (and will elaborate in the next section) that another cru-
cial difference between class and racial exploitation is that the latter takes place
much more broadly than at the point of production. (Here, of course, I am re-
ferring to Marx’s classic conceptualization; in Roemer’s revisionist view, this
contrast will no longer be as sharp.) For insofar as racial exploitation in its par-
adigm form requires only that the R2s receive differential and inferior treat-
ment, this can be manifested in a much wider variety of transactions than
proletarian wage labor. Society is characterized by economic transactions of all
250 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

kinds, and if race becomes a normative dividing line running through all or
most of these transactions, then racial exploitation can pervade the whole eco-
nomic order. Moreover, it is not just the market that is involved, but the ac-
tive role of the state, not merely in writing the laws and fostering the moral
economy that makes racial exploitation normatively and juridically acceptable,
but in creating opportunities for the R1s not extended to the R2s and making
transfer payments on a racially differentiated basis.
Another important difference is that whereas Marx’s analysis of class ex-
ploitation was focused on economic benefit, the transfer of surplus value from
worker to capitalist, I would claim that racial exploitation has crucial addi-
tional dimensions beyond the economic. Indeed, this is encapsulated in
DuBois’s phrase itself, since the whole point he was making was that white-
ness garners wages other than the straightforwardly economic. The peculiar
character of race as a social structure and its perceived intimate link with what
one essentially and biologically is make possible a variety of benefits greater
than those typical of class exploitation.
Finally, whereas it is, of course, Marx’s famous claim that capitalism needs
to be abolished to achieve the end of class exploitation (since a capitalism that
did not extract surplus value would liquidate itself), racial exploitation is at
least in theory eliminable within a capitalist framework. That is, it is possible
to have a nonracial capitalism, either because races do not exist as social enti-
ties within the system or because, though they do exist, there is no additional
racial exploitation on top of class exploitation. Since we live in a postcommu-
nist world in which Marx’s vision seems increasingly unrealizable, with no at-
tractive socialist models to point to, this conclusion is welcome because it
implies that the struggle for racial justice need not be anticapitalist. Particularly
in the United States, of course, such an ideological designation has historically
been a heavy handicap—see Seymour Lipset and Gary Marks’s It Didn’t
Happen Here: Why Socialism Failed in the United States (2000)—and in the
present time period more so than ever before. The long-entrenched hostility
to black demands need not, then, be compounded and redoubled (or some far
greater multiple) by the additional antipathy to communism, to black and red
together. One simple formulation of the political project would be as the de-
mand for a nonracial—or non-white-supremacist—capitalism. (Representing
white supremacy as a system in its own right, with its distinctive modes of
exploitation, has the virtue of clarifying what the real target is.)
However, I qualified the term “eliminable” with “in theory.” The counter-
argument that needs to be borne in mind, coming from the left in particular,
is that while a nonracial capitalism could certainly have developed in another
world, the fact that the capitalism in our world has been so thoroughly racial-
ized from its inception means that racial inequality has long been crucial to its
reproduction as a particular kind of capitalist formation. Logical distinctions in
theory between U.S. capitalism and white supremacy are all very well, but their
 RACIAL EXPLOITATION 251

fusion in reality into the composite entity of white-supremacist capitalism

makes any political project of attempting to separate the two a nonstarter, in
part because of the reciprocal imbrication of class and race, class being racial-
ized, race being classed. I will not say anything more about this counterargu-
ment, but it should be noted as an important objection to the whole project.
To summarize then. By comparison with class exploitation, racial exploita-
tion (1) benefits R1s generally, not just the capitalist class of the R1s; (2) dis-
advantages R2s generally, not just the working class of the R2s; (3) involves
the causality and agency (albeit to different extents) of R1s besides the capi-
talist class; (4) is in its paradigmatic form straightforwardly wrong by (dera-
cialized) liberal norms; (5) includes economic transactions other than labor;
(6) typically involves the intervention and/or collusion of the state; (7) extends
to other spheres of society besides the economic; and (8) could in theory be
eliminated within a capitalist framework.

THE WAGES OF WHITENESS

The discussion so far has been very abstract. Let us now move to the level of
the concrete.
In the United States members of the privileged race, the R1s, are, of course,
whites. There will be a core whiteness that is relatively clear-cut and a penum-
bral whiteness that is fuzzier. A significant part of the burden of the whiteness
literature over the past decade has, of course, been the emphasis on the his-
torically variant character of whiteness, and various books—most famously
Noel Ignatiev’s How the Irish Became White (1995) but also Karen Brodkin’s
How Jews Became White Folks (1998) and Matthew Frye Jacobson’s Whiteness
of a Different Color (1998)—have tracked the shifting boundaries of the white
population. And part of the motivation for aspiring to and becoming white is
precisely so that one can benefit from this exploitation.
Now, Roediger’s phrase is a bit misleading insofar as it is limited, if taken lit-
erally, to “wages” and the white working class. But one could also speak illumi-
natingly, focusing on different kinds of relationships, of whiteness as property,
whiteness as a joint-stock company, the interest on whiteness, the rent on white-
ness, the profit on whiteness, the residuals on whiteness, the returns on whiteness,
and so on. The point is that racial exploitation is manifest in many more eco-
nomic relations than just that of wage labor. So if we retain the phrase for the
sake of convenience and its historic resonances, we must remind ourselves that
we are not talking just about wages.
Let us now go through some concrete examples to put some flesh on these
abstractions (see Oliver and Shapiro 1995; Lipsitz 1998).

• Native Americans are cheated out of their land. They are not given a
fair price in the first place, or the original deal is reneged upon, or their
252 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

understanding of what they were signing away was mistaken because of

deliberate deceit, and so on.
• Africans are enslaved at a time when slavery is dead or dying out in the
West. (Obviously, if Africans were enslaved in the ancient world, as they
were, there was nothing racial about this, since race played no role in their
enslavement—indeed, at the time they did not even have a race.)
• Blacks freed from slavery are conscripted into “debt servitude” as share-
croppers, from which they can never get free, since the plantation owner
forces them to buy goods he provides, at higher prices, and weighs the cot-
ton they produce himself, so that at the end of each year they owe more
than before.
• Blacks are not permitted, or only permitted to a far lesser extent, to stake
their claim on lands opened up by the settling of the West. (This illustrates
the complexities of racial exploitation, since had they been allowed to do
so, they would, of course, have been participating in the exploitation of
Native Americans.)
• Male Chinese immigrants are forced to pay a head-tax for admission into the
United States, at a time when no such tax is imposed on white immigrants.
• Black children are given an inferior education by state governments, with
most of the resources going to white children.
• Blacks are given higher sentences than whites for comparable crimes so that
they can supply a population of convict lease labor in the South.
• Black enterprises are not permitted access to white markets.
• Black enterprises are burned down or otherwise illicitly driven out of busi-
ness by white competitors.
• Blacks pay higher rent in the ghettos for housing.
• Blacks pay more for inferior goods in the ghettos.
• White workers refuse to admit blacks into their unions.
• Blacks, Mexican Americans, and Asian immigrants hired in jobs are paid
less than white workers would be.
• Blacks, Mexican Americans, and Asian immigrants hired in jobs are not
promoted or are promoted at differential rates and to lower levels than
whites with comparable credentials.
• Black candidates with superior credentials are turned down in favor of
white candidates.
• Black candidates with inferior credentials are turned down in favor of white
candidates, and the reason their credentials are inferior is that they have had
 RACIAL EXPLOITATION 253

poorer schooling and poorer opportunities at every step of the way than
they would have had if they were white.
• Black performers are forced to sign contracts on worse terms than white per-
formers because they have no alternative company to give them a better deal.
• Black performers sign contracts with worse terms because they are not suffi-
ciently educated to know better, and racism explains their inferior knowledge.
• Blacks and Latinos do not get a chance to compete for certain jobs in the
first place because racially exclusionary word-of-mouth networks restrict
notice of these jobs to white candidates.
• Federal money earmarked for Native Americans ends up in white hands
instead.
• Transfer payments from the state (for example, unemployment benefits,
welfare) are not extended equally to the black population, either through
overt racial exclusion or because the terms are carefully designed to exclude
certain jobs in which blacks are differentially concentrated. The Federal
Housing Agency (FHA), established under the New Deal, discriminates
against would-be black homeowners, thereby denying them access to the
main route to wealth accumulation by the middle class. The Wagner Act
and the Social Security Act “excluded farm workers and domestics from
coverage, effectively denying those disproportionately minority sectors of
the work force protections and benefits routinely afforded to whites”
(Lipsitz 1998, 5).

Now, there are several things about this (very short) list that should be
striking.
One is the diversity of examples of racial exploitation. Even focusing just
on the economic aspect, we can see how many ways there are for racial ex-
ploitation to manifest itself. Thus, there is a sense in which, far from being a
theoretical appendage or minor codicil to Marxism’s view of class exploitation,
racial exploitation is much broader and should long ago have received the
theoretical attention it deserves. Marx’s focus was on just one relation because
he was working within a framework in which it was assumed (since he was really
talking about the white population) that normative status differentials had
been eliminated, so that exploitation had to take place in a framework of the
transaction of equals. Once one rejects this assumption, one comes to recog-
nize that the relation can manifest itself in any economic transaction, or any
transaction with economic effects, and thus is ubiquitous. And this is one of
the very important ways in which Marxism is Eurocentric: in its failure to con-
ceptualize how broadly exploitation as a concept can be shown to apply once
one takes the focus off the white population.
254 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

Secondly, notice the cumulative and negatively synergistic effect of these

transactions. It is not merely that blacks (for example) are exploited serially in
different transactions, but that the different forms of exploitation interact with
one another, exacerbating the situation. For example, blacks receive inferior ed-
ucation, thereby losing an equal opportunity to build human capital, thereby
losing out in competition with white job candidates, thereby having to take in-
ferior jobs, thereby having less money, thereby being disadvantaged in dealings
with banks that are already following patterns of discrimination, thereby being
forced to live in inferior neighborhoods, thereby having homes of lesser value,
thereby providing a lower tax base for schooling, thereby being unable to pass
on to their children advantages comparable to those of whites, and so on. It is
not a matter of a single transaction, or even a series, but a multiply interacting
set, with the repercussions continually compounding and feeding back in a
destructive way.
But what has been negative for blacks has been very beneficial for whites.
The point of utilizing the political economy category of “exploitation,” as
against just talking with a liberal vocabulary about the “unfairness” of discrim-
ination against nonwhites, is, as emphasized at the start, to shift the discussion
from the personal to the social-structural, so that we can start seeing white
supremacy as itself a system for which this “wage” is the motivation. Melvin
Oliver and Thomas Shapiro’s prizewinning Black Wealth/White Wealth (1995),
judged by many to be one of the most important books on race of the last two
decades, argues that to understand racial inequality, its origins, and its repro-
duction, wealth is a far better investigative tool than income. As they point out:

Whites in general, but well-off whites in particular, were able to amass assets and
use their secure economic status to pass their wealth from generation to genera-
tion. What is often not acknowledged is that the accumulation of wealth for some
whites is intimately tied to the poverty of wealth for most blacks. Just as blacks
have had “cumulative disadvantages,” whites have had “cumulative advantages.”
Practically, every circumstance of bias and discrimination against blacks has pro-
duced a circumstance and opportunity of positive gain for whites. When black
workers were paid less than white workers, white workers gained a benefit; when
black businesses were confined to the segregated black market, white businesses
received the benefit of diminished competition; when FHA policies denied loans
to blacks, whites were the beneficiaries of the spectacular growth of good housing
and housing equity in the suburbs. The cumulative effect of such a process has
been to sediment blacks at the bottom of the social hierarchy and to artificially
raise the relative position of some whites in society. (Oliver and Shapiro 1995, 51)

And if one were to go back to slavery and Native American expropriation

and track the financial consequences of these institutions and processes for the
 RACIAL EXPLOITATION 255

respectively racialized populations, the size and ubiquity of the white wage
would be even greater. Whites will sometimes receive the wage directly, by
themselves participating in these transactions, but far more often they receive
it indirectly—from their parents, from the state and federal governments,
from the general advantage of being the privileged race in a system of racial
subordination. The transparency of the connection between race and social
advantage or disadvantage also has implications for social consciousness. Marx
famously claimed that capitalism was differentiated from slave and feudal modes
of production by the seemingly egalitarian nature of the transactions involved:
the “fair exchange” between worker and capitalist requires conceptual labor to
be revealed as (allegedly) inequitable. As a result, the subordinated workers
often do not recognize their subordination—capitalism is the classless class
society. By contrast, the transparency of racial exploitation, certainly in its par-
adigm form, means that the R2s will usually have little difficulty in seeing the
unfairness of their situation. If Marxist “class consciousness” has been more often
dreamed of by the left than found in actual workers, “racial consciousness” in
the subordinated has been far more evident historically.
Finally, I should also say something briefly about non-economic varieties of
racial exploitation. One will be cultural. What I am thinking of here is the rep-
resentation of some important cultural innovation or breakthrough as owing
to the R1s when it really comes from the R2s. In other words, I do not just
mean that the R1s differentially and unfairly profit from such innovations in
material terms, but that, in addition, R1s claim them as their own. Native
Americans, for example, often point out that many agricultural products that
have now become worldwide staples were originally developed through their
farming techniques, but that they are not given credit for them. The contro-
versy over the relation between ancient Egypt and ancient Greece remains un-
resolved, and Martin Bernal’s (1987) claims that a “black Athena” (in a black
tradition long predating him, indeed going back to the nineteenth century) was
written out of the record by racist scholarship has been subjected to fierce and
unyielding criticisms by the scholarly establishment in classical studies (see
Lefkowitz and MacLean 1996; Bernal 2001). The payoff from cultural ex-
ploitation is, of course, the positioning of one’s race as superior for being dif-
ferentially endowed with talents and abilities.
There are also specific gendered dimensions to racial exploitation where
racism intersects with sexism. The sexual exploitation of black women under
slavery and into the post-Emancipation period is well known. Black women
were differentially forced into prostitution because of the lack of respectable
economic opportunities for them. Some feminists, such as my colleague Sandra
Bartky, have argued for a distinct form of exploitation of the affective labor of
women. Insofar as generations of white children in the South were raised with
black “mammies,” one could see this as a peculiarly racialized form of affective
labor exploitation.
256 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

Finally, I would like to suggest, admittedly more fancifully (but what else is
philosophy for?), that we could also talk about “ontological” exploitation. In
Marx’s 1844 Manuscripts, he represents the relation between worker and capi-
talist not merely in terms of the growing wealth of the latter and the growing
poverty of the former, but also in terms of their respective “beings”: “So much
does labor’s realization appear as loss of realization that the worker loses real-
ization to the point of starving to death. . . . Whatever the product of his labor
is, he is not. Therefore the greater this product, the less is he himself . . . the
more values he creates, the more valueless, the more unworthy he becomes”
(Marx and Engels 1975, 272–73). I would claim that this exploitative transfer
of being moves from the metaphorical to the (almost) literal in the case of par-
adigmatic racial exploitation, since in this period nonwhites, particularly blacks,
were seen as of lesser, or close to zero, human worth. They were, in the vocab-
ulary I have used elsewhere, “subpersons” rather than persons (Mills 1997).
And this subpersonhood, as a result of racial exploitation, increasingly becomes
materially grounded—that is, it is a matter not merely of stigmatized represen-
tations of blacks but of the literal destruction of black being by slavery and
colonial forced labor, regimes under which people were often worked to death
and were at all times reduced to a condition beneath the human. Thus, it is not
only that whites are depicted as the superior race, beings of a higher order, but
that this depiction begins to seem true in a world in which they dominate the
planet and become the exemplars of the human.

RACIAL JUSTICE
The articulation of such a framework would, I claim, greatly facilitate discus-
sions about racial justice. Instead of focusing exclusively on “racism,” our at-
tention would shift to illicit white benefit. The ideal for racial justice would,
quite simply, be the end to current racial exploitation and the equitable redis-
tribution of the benefits of past racial exploitation. Obviously, working out the
details would be hugely complicated, and in fine points impossible, but at least
on the level of an ideal to be simply stated, and by which present-day society
could be measured, it would give us something to shoot at. In dialoguing with
the white majority, the imperative task has usually been to convince them that,
independently of whether or not they are “racist” (however that term is to be
understood), they are the beneficiaries of a system of racial domination and that
this is the real issue, not whether they have goodwill toward people of color or
whether they owned any slaves. The concept of racial exploitation is designed
to bring out this central reality. Relying not on dubious claims about surplus
value, it derives its legitimacy from the simple appeal to the very normative val-
ues (albeit in their inclusive, race-neutral incarnation) to which the white ma-
jority already nominally subscribes. And because it encompasses a derivative as
well as a primary form (exploitation inhering not in the assumption of unequal
 RACIAL EXPLOITATION 257

normative status but in the continuing impact of the unfair distribution of as-
sets resulting from that original normative inequality), it can handle transac-
tions seemingly just but actually inequitable because of the legacy of the past.
That is not to say that it will not be very controversial; obviously it will be very
controversial and will be militantly and furiously opposed. But such hostility
goes with the territory and will greet all attempts to prosecute the struggle for
racial justice, no matter what conceptual banner is chosen to fly over it. At least
the advantage of selecting this framework is that it appeals to norms central to
the American tradition (if not normally extended to blacks) and a factual
picture for which massive documentation, at least in broad outline, can be
provided. In addition, the macro, big-picture, social-systemic analysis—the
emphasis on the structural dynamic—locates it in the same conceptual space as
the famous “basic structure” that, since Rawls, has been the central focus of dis-
cussions of social justice. Thus, we would be better positioned, as I emphasized
at the start, to pose the simple and crucial challenge to mainstream white the-
orists: what if the basic structure is itself unjust because it is predicated on racial
exploitation? Both from the mainstream liberal perspective, then—the norma-
tive focus on the justice of foundational institutions—and from the nonmain-
stream left perspective—the political economy of a system of exploitation and
how it shapes political, juridical, and ideological realms—we are considerably
advantaged by developing the concept of white supremacy as a theoretical
framework intended to compete with (most importantly) liberal individualism
and (less importantly) orthodox Marxist class theory.
Moreover, another signal virtue of approaching things this way is that it
would provide a more realistic sense of the obstacles to achieving racial justice.
It is a standard criticism of normative political philosophy, especially from
nonphilosophers, that the authors of these inspiring works give us no indica-
tion at all as to how these admirable ideals are to be realized, of how we are to
get from A to Z. By contrast, in the left tradition—at least the non-amoralist
strain of it—the claim has always been that the strength of a materialist ap-
proach is that it not only articulates ideals but shows how they can be made
real, that it unites description and prescription by identifying both the barri-
ers to a more just social order and the possible vehicles for overcoming those
barriers. If race and racism are thought of in the standard individualistic terms
of irrational prejudice, lack of education, and so on, then their endurance over
so many years becomes puzzling. Once one understands that they are tied to
benefit, on the other hand, the mystery evaporates: racial discrimination is, in
one uncontroversial sense of the word, “rational,” linked to interest. Studies
have shown that the major determinant of both white and black attitudes on
issues related to race is their respective perceptions of their collective group
interests—of how, in other words, their group will be affected by whatever
public policy matter is up for debate (see Kinder and Sanders 1996). (To
repeat an earlier point of comparison with class: the role of group interests
258 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

in determining consciousness, which was Marx’s hoped-for engine of prole-

tarian revolution, is far more convincingly borne out, at least in the United
States, for race than it is for class.) Rational white perception of their vested
group interest in the established racial status quo can then be understood as
the primary reason for their resistance to change.
But, as with orthodox left theory, a materialist, or at least realist, privileg-
ing of group interests as the engine of the social dynamic also opens up the
possibility of progressive social change. The natural constituency is, of course,
the population of color, who would be the obvious beneficiaries of the end or
considerable diminution of white supremacy. But given their minority status
both in straightforward quantitative terms and, more important, the qualita-
tive dimension of access to social sources of power, they will clearly not be able
to do it on their own. I suggest there are two main political strategies for re-
cruiting a smaller or larger section of the white population to the struggle. The
left strategy, which comes in a classic Marxist version as well as a milder, left-
liberal and social-democratic version, would seek to split off those whites who
benefit less from white supremacy and try to persuade them that they—or per-
haps they and their children (the appeal might be more convincing in terms
of long-term outcomes)—would be better off in an alternative nonracial so-
cial order, socialism for Marx, social-democratic redistributivist capitalism for
liberals. The strategy would be to appeal to group interests as well as justice,
the latter, alas, not having historically proven itself to be that efficacious as a
social prime mover. White workers, for example, would be asked to compare
their present situation not to that of blacks in this actual system, RS, but to
what their situation would be in a counterfactual nonracial system, ∼RS, the
presumption being that a convincing case can be made that though they do
gain in this present order, they lose by comparison to an alternative one.
Indeed, with the massive upward transfer of wealth in the booming 1990s, fol-
lowed by the collapse of the last few years, some theorists might argue for
increasing interracial class convergence (see Wilson 1999). The other, more
centrist political strategy would try to appeal to the white population as a
whole, the argument this time being that in a sense racism hurts everybody,
given the costs of racial exclusion (the expenses of incarcerating the huge prison
population, the untapped resources of marginalized racial groups), and that
from an efficiency point of view the overall GDP would be greater in a non-
racist United States.
It might be felt, understandably enough, that there is something ignoble,
perhaps even demeaning, about such arguments and that the case for racial
justice should be made on moral grounds alone. I am in sympathy with such
a feeling, but I want to differentiate two ways of presenting these arguments:
(1) the demand for racial justice cannot be justified on purely moral grounds,
and (2) the motivation for the white majority to implement racial justice can-
not be activated on purely moral grounds. Endorsing the second does not
 RACIAL EXPLOITATION 259

commit one to endorsing the first. The struggle for racial justice is indeed a
noble struggle, and on moral grounds alone its completion is indeed justifi-
able. But unfortunately—whether as a general truth about human beings or
as a more contingent truth about human beings socialized by racial privilege—
I do not think the historical evidence supports the view that many whites will
be effectively motivated purely by such considerations. Philip Klinkner and
Rogers Smith’s (1999) important recent book, The Unsteady March, for ex-
ample, makes what is to my mind a convincing historical case that major racial
progress in the United States has depended, whether in the Revolutionary
War, the Civil War, or the Cold War, on the contingent convergence of a
white elite or white majoritarian agenda with black interests, and in the pres-
ent time period, absent such convergence, we are in for more rollback.
I want to conclude by pointing out a possible obstacle to interest-based
theoretical optimism about the possibilities for the realization of a nonracial
social order—that is, an obstacle apart from the obvious ones (familiar from
the 1980s discussions of proletarian rationality) of transition costs as a factor
in one’s calculations, the temptations of free-riding, and the simple preference
for the comfortable familiar rather than the dangerous unknown. The multi-
dimensionality of the wages of whiteness means that it is possible for the ben-
efits to come apart and be in opposition to one another in a way not found in
straightforward working-class computations of gain under socialism. Material
benefit does not necessarily include any relational aspect to others, but bene-
fits of a political or status or cultural or “ontological” kind do. In other words,
if it has become important to whites that they be politically dominant, have
higher racial social status, enjoy the hegemonic culture, and be positioned “on-
tologically” as the superior race, then the threatened loss of these perks of
whiteness may well outweigh for them the gains they will be able to make in
straight financial terms in a deracialized system. One can only be white in re-
lation to nonwhites. So some or many whites may calculate, consciously or un-
consciously, that by this particular metric of value they gain more by retaining
the present system than by trying to alter it, even if by conventional measures
they would be better off in the alternative one. It may well be, then, that apart
from all the other problems to be overcome, this simple fact alone is powerful
enough to derail the whole project.
Nonetheless, the important thing is obviously to get the debate going, so
that discussion of these issues in an increasingly nonwhite United States can
move from the margins to the mainstream. Facing up to the historically
white-supremacist character of the polity and the society will be an impor-
tant conceptual move in facilitating this debate, and philosophy, committed
by its disciplinary pretensions to both Truth (getting it right) and Justice
(making it right), can and should play an important role in bringing about
this paradigm shift, even if—or rather especially since—it has been culpably
absent so far.
260 THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF RACE AND ETHNICITY

This chapter was originally presented as a paper at a conference, “The Moral Legacy
of Slavery: Repairing Injustice,” sponsored by the Department of Philosophy,
Bowling Green State University, October 18–19, 2002. It was subsequently pub-
lished in Martin and Yaquinto (2003) and is reprinted here with permission.

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 INDEX


Boldface numbers refer to figures and tables.

accumulation, unjust, 226 American Indians: census racial cate-

action, lack of, 50, 58 gory, 131; citizenship of, 191, 192;
activism, political, 27–28, 88, 197, Directive 15 racial category, 128; ex-
229–30, 258–59 ploitation of, 210, 251, 255; inter-
advantage, whites’ unjust, 208–9, racial marriage, 169; multiracial
240–41, 256–57 identification, 138, 144, 145, 145;
AFDC (Aid to Families with population statistics, 126, 135–36;
Dependent Children), 24 within tri-racial stratification system,
affirmative action, 86–87, 157 150, 151
Africa, 231–32 Americanism, 172n1, 195
African Americans. See blacks Andersen, M., 244
African Methodist Episcopal Church, 90 Anti-Defamation League, 217
agency, 26, 194, 198–99, 245 antiracist theory, 205, 232–33
Aid to Families with Dependent apartheid, global, 232
Children (AFDC), 24 apathy, about race, 44, 50–59
Akaka, D., 131 A Place for Us (APFU), 129
Alaskan Natives, 128, 131, 132 Argentines, 158, 159, 160, 162, 164
Alexander, M., 61–62n4 Asian Indians: citizenship, 228; educa-
Al-Khazraji, St. Francis College v., 128 tional attainment, 159, 161; as hon-
Almaguer, T., 198 orary whites, 150, 174n11; income,
ambivalence, about race, 22 158; occupational status, 163
AMEA (Association of Multi-Ethnic Asians: census identification, 128, 131,
Americans), 129, 130, 147 132, 141; citizenship, 193, 228; col-
America in Black and White lege degree attainment, 77; discrimi-
(Thernstrom and Thernstrom), 17 nation against, 175n18; educational
American colonies, 190, 195, 225 attainment, 158, 159, 161; high
American Creed, 17, 191, 194 school graduation rates, 77; income,
264 INDEX

158; interracial marriage, 169; school graduation rates, 77; housing

Latinos’ attitudes toward, 166; multi- discrimination, 215; incarceration
racial identification, 135–36, 144, rates, 96, 99; income, 158; interracial
145; native vs. foreign-born distinc- relationships, 21–22, 169; and
tion, 164; occupational status, 159, Latinos, 165, 166, 168; multiracial
163, 174n14; pan-ethnicity of, 91, identification, 135–36, 138, 144,
94, 164; population (1960), 126; 145; occupations, 81–82, 162; politi-
racial attitudes, 166–67; religious in- cal participation, 197; public school
stitutions and affiliations, 91, 94; seg- population, 75; racial attitudes, 171;
regation patterns, 69, 72–73, 170; slavery, 206, 207, 208, 210, 212–13,
within tri-racial stratification system, 213, 232, 252; social trait survey,
150. See also specific group 18–20; within tri-racial stratification
assimilation theories, 194, 203–4 system, 151; unjust impoverishment
Association of Multi-Ethnic Americans of, 208–9; voting rights, 192; in
(AMEA), 129, 130, 147 white-collar jobs, 80
attitudes, about race, 2, 3, 55–58, Black Wealth/White Wealth (Oliver and
165–68, 171. See also prejudice Shapiro), 254
aversive racism, 45 black-white divide, 31, 171
blanqueamiento, 154
Baldwin, J., 52 blue-collar jobs, 81
banking industry, 71 Blumer, H., 27
Bar-Tal, D., 51 Board of Education, Brown v., 74, 124
Bernal, M., 255 Bobo, L., 166, 168
Bertrand, M., 84 Bolivians: educational attainment, 159,
birth cohort analysis, of multiracial 160; income, 158; living in U.S. vs.
identification, 143–44 Bolivia, 174n12; occupational status,
Black Identities (Waters), 31 162; racial identification, 164
The Black Image in the White Mind Bollinger, Grutter v., 157
(Entman and Rojecki), 22 Bonilla-Silva, E., 156, 217
black nationalism, 227 Borjas, G., 85
blackness, 228 Boxill, B., 235
Black Power (Ture and Hamilton), 207 Brazil, 149, 152, 174n9
Black Reconstruction in America Breaking Down Walls (Washington and
(DuBois), 244 Kehrein), 89
blacks: agency of, 26, 194, 198–99, Brewer, M., 49
245; Asians’ attitudes toward, Brown, E., 197
166–67; on biggest community prob- Brown v. Board of Education, 74, 124
lem, 14–15; census (2000) identifica- Bureau of Justice Statistics, 96, 101
tion, 131, 132; citizenship of,
191–92; collective memory of, 217; California, 24
college degree attainment, 77; earn- Cambodians, 158, 159, 161, 163
ing trends, 83; educational attain- capitalism: Marxist critique of, 194,
ment, 159, 160; equality dilemma, 208, 219, 242, 247; nonracial possi-
194; equality likelihood views, 33; ex- bility, 250–51
ploitation and oppression of, 206–8, Carmichael, S., 207
210, 212–14, 215, 218, 252–53; Carmines, E., 16–17
felon disfranchisement, 102; high Carter administration, 125, 128
 INDEX 265

Catholicism, 87–88, 91–92, 94 of, 61n3–4; problem of, 58, 171

Census, U.S.: (1970), 126–27; (1980), colorism, 153, 171–72
128; (1990), 128–29; (2000), 130, Congress of Racial Equality (CORE),
131, 132–45, 155; counting of pris- 230
oners, 102; Hispanic category, Conley, D., 72
228–29; Spanish-origin question, Constitution, U.S., 192, 193, 229
134 construction industry contracts, 125
Chambers, S., 174 corporate diversity initiatives, 86–87
Chan, S., 174n14 Costa Ricans, 158, 159, 160, 162, 164
Charles, C., 30, 37n8, 69, 73, 170 court decisions: affirmative action, 157;
Charlotte Mecklenburg County, Swann citizenship, 192; employment dis-
v., 124 crimination, 125; federal spending to
Cherry, R., 85 qualified minority firms, 125; inter-
children, with incarcerated parents, 101 racial marriage, 129; meaning of race,
Chileans, 158, 159, 160, 162, 164 128; school segregation, 74, 124
Chinese: citizenship, 193; educational court sentencing policy, 98–100
attainment, 159, 161; exploitation Cox, O., 207
of, 252; as honorary whites, 150; in- crime rates, 98
come, 158; occupational status, 163; criminal justice system, 95–104, 226
population (1960), 126 Cubans: attitudes toward blacks and
choice, inequality as result of, 45, 69–70 Asians, 166–67; educational attain-
Christianity, 90, 94 ment, 159, 160; income, 158; inter-
churches, 87–94 racial marriage, 169; occupational
citizenship: everyday practices vs. formal status, 162; racial identification, 164;
structures, 196–99; historical roots of residential segregation, 169
exclusion, 188–93; and inequality, cultural deficiencies, 51
187; sociological conception of, 199; cultural exploitation, 255
theoretical explanations for exclusion- cultural racism, 45
ary practices, 193–96 culture of opposition, 78
Citrin, J., 24
Civic Ideals (Smith), 195, 237 Davis, A., 207
Civil Rights Act (1964), 125 Dawson, M., 31, 32
civil rights movement, 43, 123, 225 delegitimization, 51
Civil Rights Project, 76 democracy, 25–26, 194, 225
Civil War, 192, 219 Democratic Party, 25
class: exploitation vs. racial exploitation, desegregation, of schools, 74, 75–76,
242–51; Marxist theory of, 194, 208; 124
research considerations, 32 determinate sentencing, 98–100
collective memory, 217 Devine, P., 46
college degree attainment, 77 The Dignity of Working Men (Lamont),
Collins, S., 84 28
Colombians, 164 Directive 15, 128, 130
colonialism, 207, 216, 218, 224, 244 discrimination: against Asians, 175n18;
colonies, in America, 190, 195, 225 employment, 84, 125, 215; in hous-
color-blind racism: corporate diversity ing market, 70–71, 215; against im-
initiatives as, 87; definition of, migrants, 211. See also racism;
45–46, 156; and inequality, 50; irony segregation entries
266 INDEX

diversity, 86–87, 227 lative effects of, 254; examples of,

Doane, A., 244 210, 251–53; impact of, 212–15;
Dominican Republic, 173n7 “ladder” metaphor, 204; ontological
Dominicans, 164, 169 form, 256; racial vs. class exploita-
Douglass, F., 206, 208 tion, 242–51; theory of, 206–8; of
Dovidio, J., 43 and by whites, 246; of women,
Dred Scott v. Sanford, 192 207–8, 255
drug-related offenses, 96, 98–99, 226
DuBois, W., 207, 209, 216, 224, 244, Fair, B., 58
245, 251 Fair Housing Act (1968), 68
Duke Power, Griggs v., 125 Farley, R., 69
Dymski, G., 243 Federal Housing Agency (FHA), 253
felons, 101, 102
economic inequality, 72, 82–83 feminist theory, 194–95, 207, 230, 240,
education, 74–80, 104 255
educational attainment, 138, 145, Fernandez, C., 129, 147
158–59 Fields, B., 15
EEOC (Equal Employment Fifteenth Amendment, 229
Opportunities Commission), 125 Filipinos: in collective black group, 151;
elections, 104, 124, 127, 200 discrimination against, 175n18; edu-
Ellen, I., 70 cational attainment, 159, 161; in-
Ellis, J., 25 come, 158; occupational status, 163
Emerson, M., 93 Flores-Gonzáles, N., 165
emotions, 49–50 focus groups, 13–15
employment: blacks’ status, 226; court Fordham, S., 78
decisions, 125; discriminatory prac- Forman, T., 217
tices and barriers, 80–87, 125, Fortune, 86
199–200, 215; Executive Order Fourteenth Amendment, 192
8802, 230; exploitive practices, 252; Frankenberg, E., 76
federal intervention, 56, 60; hiring freedom, 225
practices, 84, 86, 125; occupational Freyre, G., 152
analysis, 80–82, 159, 162–63 Frymer, P., 25
enrichment, whites’ unjust, 208–9, Fullilove v. Klutznik, 125
240–41, 256–57
Entman, R., 22 Galeano, E., 204
Equal Employment Opportunities Gallagher, C., 46
Commission (EEOC), 125 Gallup Survey, 60
equality, 33, 194, 225. See also inequality Gans, H., 31
Eschbach, K., 175n18 Gatherings in Diaspora (Warner and
Essed, P., 207 Wittner), 92
evangelical Christians, 88–89 gendered racism, 207–8
exclusion, from citizenship, 190–200 Germany, 55
ex-convicts, 101, 102 Giddens, A., 194
exploitation or oppression: of African Gilens, M., 25
Americans vs. other immigrants, global apartheid, 232
217–19; of American Indians, 210, globalization, of race relations, 156,
251, 255; cultural forms, 255; cumu- 231, 236
 INDEX 267

Gonzalez, J., 219 ignorance, 52

governmental expenditures, on criminal immigrants and immigration: discrimi-
justice system, 96 nation against, 211; imperialistic de-
government jobs, 81 mand for, 219; labor market effects,
Graham, S., 128–29, 130, 147 85–86; national-origin quotas, 126;
Green v. New Kent County, 124 race-based restrictions, 193; and reli-
Griggs v. Duke Power, 125 gion, 90–92
Grutter v. Bollinger, 157 imperialism, 207, 218–19, 232
Guadalupe Hidalgo, Treaty of (1848), Imperialism (Lenin), 244
196 incarceration: consequences of, 100–102,
Guatemalans, 158, 159, 160, 162, 164 103; of racially disproportionate popu-
Guglielmo, T., 228 lation, 98, 99, 230; rates of, 95–96
income, 82, 157–58
Hacker, A., 214 income inequality, 72, 82
Hamilton, C., 207 Indian Citizenship Act (1924), 192
Harding, J., 48 Indians, Asian. See Asian Indians
Harris, A., 195 Indians, Native American. See American
Harris, C., 225–26, 245 Indians
Harris, D., 70 indigenistas, 173n8
Hawaiians, 131, 132, 137–38, 141, inequality: and citizenship, 187; and
143 color-blind racism, 50; ignorance
health issues, 226 about, 52; of income, 72, 82; in labor
high school graduation rates, 77 markets, 80–87; in Latin American
hiring practices, 84, 86, 125 countries, 152; personal choice of,
Hirschfeld, M., 205 45, 69–70
Hispanics. See Latinos or Hispanics Institute for Social Research (ISR), 55
Hispanidad, 154 institutionalization, of racism and sex-
Hmong, 151, 158, 159, 161, 163 ism, 207
Holt, T., 15, 18, 34 integration, of churches, 89–90
homeownership, 214 integration, of schools, 74, 75–76, 124
Homestead Act, 213 integrationist movements, 227
Hondurans, 164 intelligence, stereotypes about, 168
honorary whites, 150, 175n18 interracial relationships, 21–22, 138,
Horton, W., 23–24 139–41, 147, 169
Housing and Urban Development Iraqis, 128
(HUD) Department, 30 ISR (Institute for Social Research), 55
housing issues, 30, 68–74, 214, 215
human capital theory, 83–84 Jackman, M., 18
Japanese: citizenship, 193; educational
identity. See racial identity attainment, 159, 161; as honorary
ideology: adaptive capacity of, 34; whites, 150; income, 158; occupa-
antiracist theory, 205, 232–33; defi- tional status, 163; population (1960),
nition of, 61n2, 215–16; laissez-faire 126; regional difference in segrega-
racism, 17–22, 34, 61n3, 87; mesti- tion, 198
zaje ideology, 154. See also color- Jeung, R., 91
blind racism Jews, 128
Ignatiev, N., 228 Jim Crow era, 196, 198
268 INDEX

jobs, 80, 81. See also employment tion, 128, 134, 139, 155, 161, 164,
Johnson, D., 168 165–66, 174n15; religious affiliation,
Johnson administration, 125 92, 94; residential segregation pat-
justice. See racial justice terns, 69, 72–73, 169; school segrega-
tion patterns, 76; within tri-racial
Katz, D., 50 stratification system, 150, 151. See
Katz, M., 51 also specific group
Kehrein, G., 89 law enforcement, 14–15, 97
Kennedy, R., 17, 138 Lee, C., 76
Kenny, L., 52 Lenin, V., 244
Kerber, L., 190 Levin, J., 50
Kim, C., 31 Lewis, A., 61n4
Kinder, D., 37n10 liberalism, 195
King, M., 58, 88 Lieberman, R., 24
Kirschenman, J., 84, 85 Lincoln, A., 219
Klinkner, P., 31, 259 Lipsitz, G., 245
Klutznik, Fullilove v., 125 loans, mortgage, 71, 73–74, 214
Knowledge Networks, 36n7, 37n12 Locke, J., 190
Koreans, 150, 158, 159, 161, 163 Losing the Race (McWhorter), 17
Kramer, R., 49 Loving v. Virginia, 129
Krysan, M., 69 Lyman, S., 237

labor markets. See employment Mamdani, M., 224

ladder of exploitation and oppression managers, prejudicial attitudes of, 29
metaphor, 204 marriage, interracial, 21, 138, 139–41,
Laden, T., 238 147, 169
laissez-faire racism, 17–22, 34, 61n3, 87 Marshall, T., 190
Lamont, M., 28 Martínez-Echazabal, L., 152
land ownership, 213–14 Marxism: on exploitation, 208, 219,
language minority, 127 242–43, 246–51, 253, 256; on liberal
Laotians, 151, 158, 159, 161, 163 democracies and capitalist rule, 194;
Latin America, 152–55, 204 and white supremacy paradigm,
Latinos or Hispanics: and blacks, 165, 239–40
168; and Catholic Church, 88, Matsui, R., 128
91–92; census category creation, McConahay, J., 37n10
228–29; census identification, McGary, H., 235
126–27, 134, 139; college degree at- McKee, J., 194
tainment, 77; Directive 15 category, McKinney, N., 129
128; educational attainment, 158, McWhorter, J., 17
159, 160; electoral redistricting, 127; Meertens, R., 44
high school graduation rates, 77; Mehta, U., 190
housing discrimination, 215; immi- mentoring, 85
gration flows, 219; incarceration mestizaje ideology, 154
rates, 96; interracial marriage, 169; Mexicans: attitudes toward blacks and
occupational status, 159; public Asians, 166–67; citizenship, 196,
school population, 75; racial atti- 198; discrimination in labor market,
tudes, 165–66, 167; racial identifica- 199–200; educational attainment,
 INDEX 269

159, 160; income, 158; interracial Oboler, S., 165

marriage, 169; occupational status, occupations, 80–82, 159, 162–63
162; racial identification, 127, 164, O’Connor, A., 36n5
198; segregation, 169, 196–97 Office of Federal Contract Compliance
Meyer, S., 68 Programs (OFCCP), 86, 125
Middle Eastern Americans, 150 Office of Management and the Budget
Miller, N., 49 (OMB), 128, 130–31
Mills, C., 26 Ogbu, J., 78
Mississippi, 199 Okihiro, G., 228
modern racism, 37n10, 45 Okin, S., 238
Monitoring the Future Survey, 53, 59 Oliver, M., 71, 72, 254
Moran, R., 169 OMB (Office of Management and the
mortgage loans, 71, 73–74, 214 Budget), 128, 130–31
Moynihan, D., 126 omission, 50, 58
Mullainathan, S., 84 opposition, culture of, 78
Mullings, L., 226 oppression. See exploitation or oppression
multiracial identification: by birth co-
hort, 143–44; census (2000) mea- Pacific Islanders, 128, 131, 132
surement, 132–39; children of mixed Panamanians, 158, 159, 160, 162
marriages, 139–41; movement for in pan-ethnicity, 91, 94, 164
1990s, 128–32; origins of, 124; out- Pateman, C., 189
comes of, 156–54; regional differ- personal choice, inequality as result of,
ences, 141–43 45, 69–70
Myers, K., 217 personality disorder, prejudice as, 48
Myrdal, G., 194, 204, 213, 215 Peru, 174
Petri, T., 130
National African American Election Pettigrew, T., 22, 44, 49, 50–51
Study (2000), 37n12 Philadelphia Plan, 125
National Association for the philosophical considerations, of racial
Advancement of Colored People justice, 235, 238–42
(NAACP), 123, 230 pigmentocracy, 151, 153
National Crime Victimization Survey, 98 Plato, 235
nationalism, black, 227 plea-bargaining, 99–100
National Omnibus Survey, 37n9 police behavior, 14–15, 97
national-origin quotas, 126 policy issues: collective mobilization
Native Americans. See American Indians around, 229; educational opportuni-
Naturalization Act (1790), 228 ties and residential segregation, 80;
Neckerman, K., 84, 85 role of race and racism, 16, 24–25
Negri, A., 173n3 political activism, 27–28, 88, 197,
Negro March on Washington, 229–30 229–30, 258–59
neighborhood revitalization, 73 political ads, 23–24
networks and networking, 84–85 political candidates, 23–24, 25
New Kent County, Green v., 124 political participation, 104, 197
New York City, 35n3 political parties, 25
9/11/01, 32, 172n1, 231 politics: and prejudice, 22–26, 27; racial
Nineteenth Amendment, 193 identity construction, 224–25; role of
Nixon administration, 125, 127 race and racism in, 16
270 INDEX

population statistics, 126, 135–36, 155 1–2; schools’ “teaching” about, 79;
poverty, 36n5, 51 social construction of, 15; theoretical
Prager, J., 61n2 issues, 16
preference, inequality as result of, 45, Race, Crime, and Public Opinion
69–70 Study, 36n7
prejudice: current trends, 217; defini- Race and the Invisible Hand (Royster), 85
tions of, 46–48; focus group exam- race relations: concerns about, 54, 59;
ples, 13–14; in Latin American globalization of, 156, 231, 236; inter-
countries, 152; measurement of, 44, racial relationships, 21–22, 138,
61n1; as personality disorder, 48; po- 139–41, 147, 169; research consider-
litical issues, 22–26, 27; in post-civil ations, 204; as social problem, 237;
rights era, 43–44; racial apathy as within tri-racial stratification system,
form of, 44, 50–58; rationality of, 168–70
48–49; research issues, 49; stereo- racial apathy, 44, 50–59
types and stereotyping, 17, 18–20, racial attitudes, 2, 3, 55–58, 165–68,
168, 217; subtle vs. blatant, 49–50. 171. See also prejudice
See also discrimination; racism racial categories, 5. See also racial iden-
prisons. See incarceration tity; tri-racial stratification system
private, vs. public realm, 189 racial data: Directive 15, 128, 130. See
private schools, 76 also Census, U.S.
privilege, of whites. See white privilege racial identity: in 1960s, 124–26; in
professional jobs, 80 1970-1980s, 126–28; census (2000),
profiling, 97 132–45; and civil rights movement,
Project RACE (Reclassify All Children 123–24; future of, 171; of Latinos or
Equally), 129, 147 Hispanics, 134, 139, 155, 161, 164,
property, whiteness as form of, 226 165–66, 174n15, 228–29; political
property ownership, 213–14 construction of, 224–25; schools’
protest activities, 27–28, 88, 197, “teaching” about, 79. See also multi-
229–30, 258–59 racial identification
Protestant churches, 92 racial ideology. See ideology
public, vs. private realm, 189 racial inequality. See inequality
public schools. See schools racialization, 227–28
public sector jobs, 81 racial justice: historical silence on, 235,
Puerto Ricans: attitudes toward blacks 238; reparations, 215, 230, 231, 235;
and Asians, 166–67; educational at- theoretical framework for, 256–59
tainment, 159, 160; income, 158; racial profiling, 97
interracial marriage, 169; occupational racial resentment, 37n10, 45
status, 162, 174n13; population racial statistics, failure of, 31.
(1970), 126; racial identification, See also Census, U.S.
164; residential segregation, 169 racial stratification, in Latin American
countries, 152–55. See also tri-racial
quotas, of national origin, 126 stratification system
racial tolerance, 123
Rabinowitz, H., 198 racism: as anomaly, 237; definition of,
race: changing nature of, 31; existence 17, 45; doubts about, 16–17; forms
of, 245; Marxist theory, 244; mean- of, 45; gendered racism, 207–8; insti-
ing of, 1; research considerations, tutionalization of, 207; laissez-faire
 INDEX 271

racism, 17–22, 34, 61n3, 87; origins Sartre, J., 228

of term, 205; policy issues, 16, Sawyer, T., 129
24–25; as product of individual be- Schermerhorn, R., 48–49
liefs, 199; structural racism, 224–33; schools: federal intervention in, 56, 59;
symbolic racism, 27–29, 45; theoreti- outcomes, 77–78; policy implica-
cal issues, 16. See also color-blind tions, 80; quality of, 77–78; and
racism; systemic racism racial identity, 79; segregation,
Randolph, A., 229–30 74–76, 78–79, 105, 124
Rawls, J., 238–39 Schultz, G., 125
Reagan administration, 86, 125 Schuman, H., 22
real estate industry, 68, 70–71 SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership
Reclassify All Children Equally (Project Conference), 90
RACE), 129, 147 Scott, A., 85
Reconstruction, 225 Sears, D., 24, 37n10
redlining, 71 segregation, legal and de facto forms
relationships, interracial, 21–22, 138, prior to Civil Rights Act, 196–97,
139–41, 147, 169 198, 213
religion, 87–94 segregation, occupational, 84
reparations, 215, 230, 231, 235 segregation, religious, 88–89, 93
republicanism, 195 segregation, residential: causes of,
Republican Party, 25 69–72; and educational opportuni-
Republic (Plato), 235 ties, 80; by racial group, 169–70;
research considerations: class, 32; and school segregation, 105; self-
laissez-faire racism, 34; prejudice, 49; segregation argument, 29–30; trends,
race, 1–2; race relations, 204; religion 30, 68–69; whites as most segregated,
across racial-ethnic groups, 93; social 52–53
science failure, 16, 26–31 segregation, schools, 74–76, 78–79,
resentment, 37n10, 45 105, 124
residential segregation. See segregation, Semyonov, M., 55
residential sentencing policy, 98–100, 252
résumés, 84 September 11, 2001, 32, 172n1, 231
rights, three types of, 190–91 sexism, 199, 207
Ringer, B., 195, 196 sexual exploitation, 255
Robinson, R., 235 shade discrimination, 176n19
Rodgers, W., 85 Shapiro, T., 71, 72, 254
Rodríguez, C., 155, 165 Simpson, K., 129
Rodríguez, S., 149 slavery: definition of, 232; Douglass on,
Roediger, D., 228, 245 206, 208; economic value of slave
Roemer, J., 242 labor, 213; as exploitation, 207, 210,
Rojecki, A., 22 252; impact of, 212–13
Roman Catholic Church, 87–88, Sleeper, J., 16
91–92, 94 Smith, A., 230
Royster, D., 85 Smith, C., 93
Smith, E., 29, 49
Saito, L., 164 Smith, J., 84
Salvadorans, 158, 159, 160, 162, 164 Smith, R., 26, 31, 188, 190, 193, 195,
Sanford, Dred Scott v., 192 196, 237, 248, 259
272 INDEX

Sniderman, P., 16–17, 18 Thomas, L., 238

social class. See class Tidwell, B., 130
social contract, 26, 189 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 193
social interaction. See race relations tokenism, 84
social psychology, 61n1 tolerance, 123
social science, failure of, 16, 26–31 Torres, K., 37n8
Social Security Act, 253 tracking, employment practices, 84
The South, 75, 138 transformation movement, 227
South Africa, 173n5 transnationalism, 231, 232
South Americans, 169 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848),
Southern Christian Leadership 196
Conference (SCLC), 90 tri-racial stratification system: Asian self-
Spanish-origin census question, 134 classification, 164–65; consequences
St. Francis College v. Al-Khazraji, 128 of, 171–72; in Latin American coun-
State University of New York at Albany, tries, 153; Latino self-classification,
30 161, 164; map of, 150–51; objective
Steele, C., 37n8 data for, 157–59; racial consciousness
Steinberg, S., 157 evidence, 165–68; social interaction
stereotypes and stereotyping, 17, 18–20, evidence, 168–70; subjective data for,
168, 217 159–61
sterilization, 230 Tulia, Texas, 35n3
“Stranger in the Village” (Baldwin), 52 Ture, K., 207
structural racism, 224–33
subtle prejudice, 49–50, 51 underclass, 156
subtle racism, 45 underemployment, 81
suburbanization, 73 undeserving poor, 51
Swann v. Charlotte Mecklenburg unemployment, 81, 84
County, 124 Universal Negro Improvement
symbolic racism, 27–29, 45 Association (UNIA), 229
sympathy, 22, 44, 51 University of Maryland Survey Research
Syrians, 228 Center, 37n9
systemic racism: definition of, 205–6; University of Michigan, Institute for
emergence of, 203; exploitative prac- Social Research (ISR), 55
tices, 206–8; ideological considera- unjust enrichment, 208–9
tions, 215–16; reproduction of The Unsteady March (Klinkner and
racism over time, 209–15; unjust Smith), 259
impoverishment and enrichment, Urban League, 130
208–9
vampire metaphor, 204–5
Taiwanese, 158, 159, 161, 163 Vanman, E., 49
teachers, 77, 78 Venezuelans, 164
Terror, War on, 103 Vickerman, M., 171
terrorism, 232 victimology, culture of, 17
A Theory of Justice (Rawls), 238 victims, blaming of, 46
Thernstrom, A., 17, 29 victims, of crime, 98
Thernstrom, S., 17, 29 Vietnamese: in collective black group,
Thicker Than Blood (Zuberi), 31 151, 170; educational attainment,
 INDEX 273

159, 161; income, 158; occupational of, 211, 246; social science approach,
status, 163 26; vs. white supremacy, 240
Virginia, Loving v., 129 whites: collective memory of, 217; edu-
vocational schools, 85 cational attainment, 159, 160; ex-
voting: blacks, 192; elections, 104, 124, ploitation of, 246; high school
127, 200; felons, 102 graduation rates, 77; “honorary,”
Voting Rights Act (1965), 124, 127, 150, 175n18; incarceration rates, 96;
229 income, 158; interracial relation-
ships, 21–22, 169; likelihood of racial
Wachtel, P., 44 equality, 33; multiracial identifica-
wages and earnings, 80, 83, 85 tion, 135–36, 137, 138, 144, 145;
wages of whiteness, 244, 251–56 neighborhood preference, 70; occu-
Wagner Act, 253 pational status, 162; prejudicial atti-
Waldinger, R., 85, 86 tudes of, 13–14, 28, 29, 43–44;
Wallman, K., 128, 130 public school population, 75; racial
war, 31–32, 103 apathy of, 53–58; racial attitudes,
Warner, S., 92 167; residential segregation, 52–53;
War on Terror, 103 school segregation, 76; stereotypes of
Washington, R., 89 blacks, 18–20; within tri-racial strati-
Waters, M., 29, 31, 175n18 fication system, 150; unjust enrich-
wealth accumulation, 72, 213–14, 226, ment of, 208–9, 240–41, 256–57
254 white supremacy, 34, 156, 172, 231,
Weinberger, C., 127 239–42
welfare dependency, stereotypes about, Williams, R., 48
168 Williams, T., 213
welfare programs, 24–25 Williamson, P., 217
welfare reform, 24–25 Willie Horton, 23–24
Wells-Barnett, I., 207 Wilson, W., 17, 85–86
Wertheimer, A., 243 Wittner, J., 92
West Indians, 151, 175n18 women: citizenship of, 188, 190, 191,
“We the People” and Others (Ringer), 192–93; exploitation of, 207–8, 255;
195 political participation of black
white-collar jobs, 80 women, 197
“white flight,” 69 Woods, T., 130
white identity, 216 work-related issues. See employment
whiteness, 188, 226, 239, 244–45, The World and Africa (DuBois), 209
251–56 World Conference Against Racism,
whitening, 154 231, 232
White Out (Doane and Andersen), 244
white privilege: and color-blindness, 46; Zhou, M., 176n18
examples of, 226; inheritance of, zoning ordinances, 68
210–11; maintenance of, 156; scope Zuberi, T., 31