Racing to Justice: Transforming Our Conceptions of Self and Other to Build an Inclusive Society

2 The Color-Blind Multiracial Dilemma: Racial Categories Reconsidered

29 We’re teaching our kids all of it, all their history. My 5-year-old asks, “People who looked like you, why did they treat them so bad?” It’s hard to explain to a biracial child in 2011. In a perfect world, race wouldn’t matter, but that day’s a while off. Sonia Cherail Peeples, quoted in Susan Saulny, “Black and White and Married in the Deep South” Racism is like an eclipse. But unlike a solar eclipse that may blind us, it is more like a lunar eclipse that may cause us to trip in the dark. John O. Calmore, “Exploring Michael Omi’s ‘Messy’ Real World of Race” What are you? What race are you? For some, the answer takes less than half a second; others may need a paragraph to respond; and some may have their own question: Why do you ask? For despite our obsession with race, which sometimes takes the form of an aversion to discussing it, our national discourse on the subject is disturbingly confused, highly charged, and often unproductive. The concept of race is hotly contested anddeconstructedinliterature,law,andpolitics,yetourlanguageseems wooden and rehearsed, and the way that we talk about it in conflict with our stated ideals. All the while, we constantly make assumptions about oneanotherbasedonliteralorfigurativeracialcheckboxes,notonlyasa society, but also as individuals. The racial categories we use are therefore well worth examining, both because of their societal role and because of the intense interest they evoke among thoughtful people. AnumberoftheoriesaboutraceanditsmeaningintheUnitedStates currently compete for primacy. Here I will examine two of them: The The Color-Blind Multiracial Dilemma Racial Categories Reconsidered two Race and Racialization 30 first, the color-blind position, calls for an end to racial categories. The second, the multiracial position, calls for the proliferation of racial categories , with particular attention to expanding multiracial categories. Both positions make similar mistakes, and, more importantly, neither position seriously challenges racism. For this reason, I will also discuss some political implications of the multiracial project as well as the importance , under any categorical scheme, of emphasizing an anti-racist agenda. The Color-Blind Position With strong roots in the political liberalism of the 1960s, especially since Dr. King’s electrifying calls for racial equality and justice for all, the color-blind position continues to receive support from traditional liberalsandfromthosewhobelievethatidentitypoliticsdangerouslyfracture oursociety.1Inrecentdecades,however,neoconservativeshaveadopted the color-blind philosophy and recast it in ways that are often at odds with its original meaning and withliberal social goals.2 This use of colorblindandrace -neutraldiscoursehasgreatlyexpandedtheright’scontrol over the center and even over parts of the liberal political spectrum.3 The raceless proposal is partly rooted in the view that race is a social construct and not a biological fact. Its proponents argue that since we have learned that race is an illusion, we should drop racial categories altogether : minor differences in appearance are irrelevant, and only those whoareeitherracistorbadlymisinformedwouldinsistthatwecontinue to use these pernicious categories. These ideals are popular behind the walls of academia, but they have found a more public voice in law and politics as well. Much of the conservative rhetoric about color blindness rests on the recognition that racial categories are rooted in discredited biology and genetheory.4Thesoonerweremovereferencestoracefromlawandpolitics , the reasoning goes, the better. Indeed, in this camp’s view, we will onlysolvetheraceproblembyeliminatingallracialcategories.Certainly thedisappearanceofracialdiscriminationisanimportantgoal,butaban ontherecognitionofraceisnotitsequivalent,evenifitwereenforceable, or even possible to achieve. Yet, the Supreme Court has already used The Color-Blind Multiracial Dilemma 31 color-blind reasoning to attack the validity of programs such as affirmative action, the redrawing of voting districts, and school desegregation, all of which were specifically designed to achieve greater equality.5 Only fifty-odd yearsafter declaring educationalapartheidunconstitutionalin Brown v. Board of Education, for example, the Supreme Court in Parents Involved cautioned two school districts, Seattle and metropolitan Louisville , about considering race when crafting assignment plans meant to reduce racial isolation and increase public support districtwide.6 Conceptual Position The new right’s position is both conceptual and pragmatic. The conceptual part is the claim that because race does not have a substantial scientific basis, it is only a problematic illusion. The claim that race is an illusion draws on the work of late modernists and postmodernists–particularly that of Omi and Winant–that asserts that race is socially constructed .Theconclusionthatraceisnotreal,however,doesnotcomport with the deeper implications of their insights. Omi and Winant, for example , do not support the position that the collection of data on race can...