Criticizing the Discourse Of Race

-- By YoungKim - 27 Feb 2009

A colleague once told me that to acknowledge the preponderance of race in everyday life would be the equivalent of a fish realizing that it is surrounded by water. Regardless of our intuitions, theories, definitions, or beliefs, race is an inevitably pervasive element of the American imagination; it is at once a Miner's Canary, The Problem of the Century. Not surprisingly, few topics of social reality have been subject to as much academic discourse and postulation as race. At varying times and depending upon one’s political stance, it has assumed labels of political race, racial formation, racial essentialism and so on. But does academic discourse on race and its promise of a more egalitarian future even remotely capture the reality of what it means to live in a racialized society? Do we even gain anything from studying the metaphysics and politics of race without listening to how it operates in people’s lives? To me, the resounding answer is no.

Framing the Debate: The Example of Colorblindness

Although colorblindness is in no way exhaustive of the academic theatre of race, the debate that continues to rage over it is exemplary of the polarizing dogmas that characterize modern scholarship on race. At present, we see two distinct camps emerging: advocates of colorblindness, who criticize the divisive effects of recognizing race as a social category, and defenders of race-consciousness, who seek to restore the nexus between race and the allocation of resources and power.

Once the trench-lines are dug and the stage is set, a battle of imaginations ensues. Everyday experiences are grouped and then systematically reduced to statistical analysis (e.g., census studies). Stock stories are replaced by stock theories. Committees are formed and arguments are raised about the nature of race, its historical antecedents and whether it is an amalgamation of other social forces – gender, class, culture – or a purely imagined social construct.

The Meaninglessness of Theoretical Superstitions

It is no doubt to me that scholars of race, who construct these frameworks and diffuse their ideas to the masses, are well-intentioned and attuned to the goal of seeking a remedy to a problem that strikes them personally as wrong (racial inequality and stratification). Yet conspicuously absent within the debate over race is not just whether these theories adequately capture the everyday reality of race, but more importantly whether making these inquiries are even worth anything at all. As I think Felix Cohen would see it, constructing abstract “systems” out of the things we see and do on a regular basis are not fruitful inquiries that get us any closer to a more racially inclusive society.

Take racial profiling, for example. If we see a cop unreasonably abusing and detaining a juvenile black, does it matter whether one labels this an individualized expression of a stereotype (colorblindness) or the reinforcement of hierarchies of privilege (race-consciousness)? Resolving the debate certainly does not help the juvenile, who ends up in prison regardless of how we codify his experience. Even from the standpoint of the enraged observer, the reality that she has experienced race in a way that solidifies her conviction to fight racism is not adequately captured by some abstract theory of racial progressivism.

The compulsive need to hammer out some intrinsic quality to race so as to better understand and control its consequences is tantamount to the worst form of scholarly “magic.” And in the never-ending feud to determine which framework more effectively “captures racism”, the science of race becomes tragically detached from the reality of race.

The View from the Ground: Toward a Functional Approach

As a student, I have always prided myself on my ability to apply frameworks of analyses to “racial projects” at the individual and macro-level. Two months ago, however, I found myself in San Francisco’s drug court witnessing a deep racial divide separating the room: the white judge, sheriff, stenographer and prosecutor on one side, and the deep sea of black and brown seated at the other. It occurs to me now that I had processed the entire scene as an experience with race itself, touching off a fervent desire to do something to change it. Whether the event was actually a product of “institutional racial hegemony” or some other theoretical abstraction, however, meant no difference to how I felt in the courtroom. The desire to mobilize was driven simply by the witnessing of a powerful racial moment with my own two eyes.

The problem with racial discourse is not just a philosophical one. Magical theories on racial “systems” are often accompanied by equally abstract principles about how best to mobilize social action and effectuate policy. It seems to me here that Robinson’s insights are particularly useful. Perhaps instead of resorting to theoretical superstitions to resolve our insecurities about the future of race, we should instead be taking a trip to the jailhouse ourselves; to put our ears to the ground and actually listen to how people are experiencing race.

Conclusion

If “a thing is what it does”, it seems obvious to me that racism cannot be “explained away” by some morally neutral theory about social organization – it is at its heart something that affects us deeply, incites our anger and drives us to action. The Civil Rights movement has been subject to endless anthropological and sociological data-mining, none of which seem to recognize the simple reality that people saw something wrong and decided to band together to change it. I very much doubt, for example, that Martin Luther King was driven to action by some abstract theory about how best to envision the future of race in America. More likely, he heard the stories of those around him and made the simple but noble decision that something needed to be done. For those of us who want to challenge racism, perhaps we should be doing more of the same.

• In the end, I have the feeling that this essay is a complex and subtle attempt to win an argument against no opposition. It's not clear to me that anyone is motivated to disagree with your conclusions (I certainly am not), and it's not apparent to me that anything has been said or thought in the course of the essay that would justify disagreement. Your basic attitude appears to be that a great deal of disputing has gone on in the past, most or all of which is irrelevant; the conclusions which follow from your "functional" approach don't seem to be at odds with anything except a "I don't see no racism around here" position, which we are almost all likely to reject out of hand. So perhaps the most useful step you could take in improving the paper is to show what objections to your point of view you think are worthy of discussion, and to discuss them.

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