Radical Future Pasts: Untimely Political Theory

7. Distinguishing Racial Presence from Racial Justice

217 7 Distinguishing Racial Presence from Racial Justice The Political Consequences of Thinking Aesthetically Cristina Beltrán If life does indeed present such depth and complexity, then creativity is not the exclusive prerogative of the divinely inspired poet or individual hero but is an aspect of ordinary existence. —Peter Euben, Corrupting Youth Thinking Creatively about Our Complex Racial Present Making sense of race in America today requires a tolerance for paradox. Yes, advocates of racial justice and equality can point to visible, tangible progress, with enhanced opportunities in many areas of life for historically marginalized and underrepresented populations. Today’s public realm exhibits more racial and gender diversity than ever before, with a growing number of women, African Americans, and Latinos serving at the highest levels of government.1 But racism and xenophobia continue to shape America’s political landscape, from virulent anti-immigrant rhetoric, laws, and statutes to racially charged slurs depicting President Barack Obama as “foreign born,” a socialist, a secret Muslim, or all of these things. More significantly, persistent racial disparities related to issues of incarceration, education, public health, and poverty all speak to the ongoing existence of inequal- 218 Cristina Beltrán ity conditioned by forms of structural racism that continue to plague American society.2 Thus, the paradox: despite increased diversity in the halls of power, the vast majority of people of color continue to struggle with entrenched power dynamics that place real constraints on individuals’ and communities’ lived opportunities and future possibilities. The growing presence of a diverse elite whose enhanced opportunities exist alongside widespread and deepening inequality has important implications for how we understand the dynamics of identity and racial politics today. In politics, the heightened presence of women and people of color on the public stage is a very recent occurrence, yet its novelty is blunted by a liberal logic that, despite its historic exclusions, continually reframes equality and inclusion as something familiar and commonplace. Rather than acknowledging the discriminatory racial and sexual histories that led to current political disenfranchisement, today’s public rhetoric affirms a universal commitment to equality by emphasizing our increasingly diverse body of elected and appointed representatives. The celebratory (and selfcongratulatory ) rhetoric surrounding Obama’s election as the nation’s first black president is the most vivid example of this phenomenon, but recent discussions of Hillary Clinton as U.S. secretary of state, Eric Holder as attorney general, and Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor as Supreme Court justices also illustrate this dynamic.3 In all these cases, the relative novelty of such gender and racial diversity, articulated through liberal narratives of progress, often works to shut down (rather than open up) opportunities to reflect on the long-standing forms of inequality and exclusion that have led to the unaccustomed diversity of our present. For many Americans, such enhanced presence is proof that we have collectively moved beyond prejudice and inequality and now live in a “postfeminist” and “postracial” era, with institutions that are now fundamentally fair and accessible. In all these examples, racial presence is quickly presumed to signify not only racial progress, but racial justice. Although I am in no way persuaded that “postracial” language captures our current political condition, I do believe that some assertions of the postracial serve as recognition that today’s racial politics demands creative thinking regarding the complex moment we find ourselves in. For example, it is becoming increasingly difficult to speak of African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latinos as easily generalizable communities when diversity continues to expand by region, education, ethnic subgroup, religion, im- Distinguishing Racial Presence from Racial Justice 219 migration status, language, class, age, gender, and sexual orientation. Such distinctions have a huge impact on subjects’ political priorities, interests, and practices. And although moments of mass political agreement certainly occur (e.g., black voters’ overwhelming support for Obama and Latino oppositiontoimmigrantbashing ),thesecommunitiesareregularlyexperienced as a series of publics and counterpublics that exist in cooperation, conflict, and competition with one another. So we are in no way at a point “after race,” but I would argue that the growth and heterogeneity of these populations —combined with our current paradoxical state of inclusion, inequality, and opportunity—require scholars to build on past insights while working to rethink the politics of racial justice anew. In an effort to consider our paradoxical present, this essay draws on aesthetic theory to examine the relationship between racial justice, racial presence, and the politics of...