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>> 165 5 Not “Post-Racial,” Race-Aware Blogging Race in the Twenty-First Century One troubling omission from the post-racial discourse I have analyzed thus far is the idea of “anti-racism.” I thought it reasonable to expect that, in the news, more folks would refer to anti-racism in some way, shape, or form to argue that we were on the verge of a post-racial society . Whether the term appeared in the context of crediting anti-racist movements or anti-racist education, I thought I would see it more often than I did. Indeed, I did a search for variations on “anti-racism” as part of the initial data collection. I used computer searches to see which key terms appeared most often with “post-racial” between 2000 and 2010. I found that in over 4,000 news items, variants on “anti-racism” only appeared in 45; in contrast, “reverse racist” appeared 70 times, “interracial marriage” popped up in 250 items, and “affirmative action” appeared 400 times. This finding is shocking and troubling. Although most people would agree that “post-racial” means that racism has been eliminated, commentators and journalists didn’t see fit to extol the virtues of anti-racism as they discussed post-racial politicians or cultural consumption. The focus on personal choices’ demographic shifts and gotcha media strategies of the Right seems to have pushed the civic actions of organized, anti-racist people to the margins. 166 > 167 influence and set boundaries for public discourse, media are major players in drawing lines between identity groups and between acceptable ways of doing race, doing citizenship. Furthermore, and importantly , dominant post-racial narratives offer particular modes of doing race and citizenship that do not necessarily represent the interests of people of color. If “racial” citizenship before the civil rights reforms of the 1950s and 1960s meant (fairly) neat divisions between white citizens having extreme social, economic, and political privilege and people of color being brutally oppressed and having access to few, if any, privileges of citizenship, then what does post-racial discourse imagine postracial citizenship to be? The cases presented in the previous chapters suggest a few ways of doing post-racial citizenship, with preferences for the privatization of race overwhelming ideas for reforming or reimagining public-oriented racial practices or performances. As discussed in the first two chapters, one of the main ways to be a post-racial citizen is to ask the government to eliminate race as a category for recognizing its citizens and/or organizing its policies. This neo-colorblindness asks citizens to refrain from declarations of discrimination based on race/ethnicity, and to look for race-blind remedies to racial inequalities in education, housing, employment, and so forth. Similarly, as Justice Sunday III illustrated, post-racial citizens are encouraged to invest in other, ostensibly more legitimate group identities to organize civic interests. Where race is framed as a destructive and divisive mode of identification, other types of identification, such as religion or nation, are framed as sources of solidarity and healing the scars of race. This approach not only oversimplifies categories of identity as singular rather than intersectional, but also requires amnesia from people of color as they consider overtures and outreach efforts based in shared religion or nation. Moreover, while paying lip service to the social construction of race, this discourse continues to essentialize racial identities. At the same time that post-racial discourse frowns on political uses of race, it directs post-racial citizens to “do” race through market consumption and interpersonal relations. Fashionistas, music lovers, and movie-goers are congratulated for mixing it up with racial others. In Parenthood and in news focused on multiracial families, transformations of family demographics are offered as emblems of post-racial 168 > 169 web-based news and opinion resources provide a clear alternative for reimagining racial dynamics in the Obama era. Each of these sites is slightly different, but all are committed to sustained discussions about race and ethnicity in the United States (although there are sometimes references to other parts of the world). ColorLines started as a print magazine, and now maintains a print and online presence. The Applied Research Center (ARC), a non-profit research and advocacy group, provides the home of ColorLines. The webzine features investigative reports, interviews, blogs, and updates from a mix of regular contributors and editors. The site also has links to ARC research papers and advocacy projects. Racialicious is a blog “about the intersection of race and...

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