Racial Reparations against White Protectionism: America's New Racial Politics

Author(s):  
Rogers M. Smith ◽  
Desmond King

Abstract After more than half a century in which American racial politics has been structured primarily as a clash between two rival “racial orders” or “policy alliances,” the longstanding coalitions are transforming into ones centered on significantly new themes. The racially conservative “color-blind” policy alliance is, under the leadership of President Donald Trump, becoming an alliance promising “white protectionism.” The “race-conscious” policy alliance is, with the mobilizations around the slogan of Black Lives Matter, becoming an alliance focused on “racial reparations” to end “systemic racism.” These new, even more, polarized racial policy alliances have counterparts across the globe, and they are likely to shape political life for many years to come.


Daedalus ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 140 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rogers M. Smith ◽  
Desmond S. King ◽  
Philip A. Klinkner

Modern American racial politics remains sharply divided over racial policy issues, with coalitions of political activists, groups, and governing institutions aligned on opposing sides. A “color-blind” policy alliance urges government to act with as little regard to race as possible. A “race-conscious” alliance argues that policies should aim to reduce material racial inequalities and that race-targeted measures are often needed. These modern racial policy alliances are strongly identified with the two major parties; as a result, they contribute to modern political polarization. In a predominantly white electorate, color-blind policies are far more popular than race-conscious ones. President Barack Obama has responded by stressing goals of national unity and foregrounding color-blind policies, while quietly choosing among them on race-conscious grounds and adopting limited race-targeted measures. It remains to be seen whether his approach can succeed in reducing material racial inequalities or immunizing him from charges of reverse racism. It also faces challenges at home and abroad for privileging American national interests above multicultural and internationalist concerns.



2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 621-638
Author(s):  
Richard Johnson

AbstractMany commentators have described Barack Obama as a ‘deracialized’ politician. In contrast to ‘racialized’ Black candidates, deracialized politicians are said to deemphasize their Black racial identity, downplay the racial legacies of American inequality, and favor race-neutral over racially targeted policies. Puzzlingly, this narrative of Obama’s racial politics sits incongruously with his political curriculum vitae, spent largely in contexts which are difficult to describe as deracialized. This article holds that commentators have misjudged Barack Obama’s racial politics by conflating a contingent electoral strategy with a deeper expression of Obama’s racial philosophical commitments. In explaining these commitments, the article finds the deracialized/racialized framing inadequate. Instead, it favors the typology of racial policy alliances situating Obama within the “race-conscious” policy alliance rather than the “color-blind” alliance. By returning to the site of Obama’s political development, Hyde Park in Chicago, the paper uncovers a tradition of racial politics in which Blacks formed coalitions with progressive Whites but also embraced Black racial identity, acknowledged the enduring legacies of slavery and Jim Crow, and supported targeted policies to overturn these racial legacies. The article argues that Obama was an inheritor of this tradition.



Author(s):  
Doug McAdam

The tumultuous onset of Donald Trump’s administration has so riveted public attention that observers are in danger of losing a historical perspective. Trump’s rhetoric and behavior are so extreme that the tendency is to see him and the divisions he embodies as something new in American politics. Instead, Trump is only the most extreme expression of a brand of racial politics practiced ever more brazenly by the Republican Party since the 1960s. His unexpected rise to power was aided by a number of institutional developments in American politics that also have older roots. In the spirit of trying to understand these historical forces, the chapter describes (a) the origins and evolution of the exclusionary brand of racial politics characteristic of the Republican Party since the 1960s, and (b) three illiberal institutions that aided Trump’s rise to power, and that, if left unchanged, will continue to threaten the survival of American democracy.



2020 ◽  
pp. 027614672098171
Author(s):  
June N.P. Francis

This essay poses the question do Black Lives Matter to marketing? Putting the spotlight on research in marketing reveals the multiple ways in which the field has neglected a most pressing issue of our time—structural and systemic anti-Black racism. The global rallying cry in the Black Lives Matter protests alerts us to the urgency for transformative change in all spheres including the marketing academy. Macromarketing is particularly poised to lead this change given the commitment to justice in marketing systems and concerns with the bilateral impact of marketing on society. This essay issues a call to action to re-historize the role of transatlantic slavery, for researchers to be reflective in addressing systemic racism, and for the academy to adopt anti-racist strategies to propel this scholarship from the periphery of marketing thought to its core.





Author(s):  
Д. Пол Шафер

We are going through a very challenging period in human history. Not only has the COVID-19 pandemic had a disastrous effect on people and countries in all parts of the world, but also many other dangerous and life threatening problems have to be addressed and overcome, especially the environmental crisis, huge disparities in income and wealth, systemic racism, and conflicts between different genders, groups, regions, countries, and cultures. In order to come to grips with these problems, and others, it is imperative to make transcendental and not just transformational changes in our lifestyles, values, worldviews, actions, behaviour, and ways of life. The key to this lies in creating an effective balance between materialism and spiritualism, as well as placing a much higher priority on the cultivation of spirituality in our lives in the traditional and contemporary sense. Not only will this make it possible to reduce the colossal demands we are making on the natural environment – largely because most spiritual activities are "human intensive" rather than "material intensive" and therefore don’t consume as many natural resources as most other activities – but also it will enable present and future generations to experience a great deal more exuberance, exhilaration, and ecstasy in life without having to resort to drugs and other substances and devices to create "highs" and "peak experiences" because spiritual activities achieve this naturally. Many of these activities involve participating in causes that are greater than ourselves, joining protest movements aimed at creating more equality and justice in the world, going within ourselves to discover who we really are and what we were intended to realize in life, broaden and deepen our experiences in the arts, cultures, and the cultural heritage of humankind, and engage in explorations in nature and the natural realm that are capable of bringing us into contact with the sublime and possibly even the divine.



Author(s):  
Cameron Leader-Picone

This coda briefly addresses the election of Donald Trump and the implications of an increasingly visible white nationalist movement on the arguments of the book. The coda also analyzes elements of the Black Lives Matter movement to argue that while much of the optimism of the post era has been mitigated, several of its major theoretical strains—the emphasis on individual agency over racial identity, the turn towards racial identity as performance—remain critical to understanding current activism. It also explains the influence of theoretical frameworks such as intersectionality and Afropessimism on current movements. The coda also looks briefly towards growing and ongoing trends in African American literature, like Afrofuturism.



This chapter analyzes the viability of the selected case studies in legitimizing or mainstreaming their goals and ideology, as well as paths to success and/or failure. The chapter provides prescriptions for both movements and highlights obstacles that may impede each from achieving stated goals or solidifying political victories (electoral, legislative, or ideologically within the wider society). The phases of social movement theory first promulgated by Herbert Blumer is explained in this chapter as a method of considering future movements. The success of American social movements is traditionally marked by legislative victories or codification of change (which is what Black Lives Matter is seeking), while contemporary movements have been successful at achieving electoral victories (that of Donald Trump); this chapter explores that dichotomy as well.



Author(s):  
Simon Wendt

The conclusion provides a brief discussion of the DAR’s significance vis-à-vis the historiography of American conservatism and gender. While it remains to be seen how recent developments will affect the DAR’s commemorative, educational, and patriotic activism in the years to come, its history reminds us that the Daughters played a vital role in shaping and disseminating conservative notions of nationalism that continue to reverberate in the new millennium. This chapter examines the organization’s activities in the twenty-first century; in particular, it tries to explain why so many American women, including numerous African Americans, continue to join the organization and what it means to be a Daughter of the American Revolution during the era of Donald Trump.



Never Trump ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 240-248
Author(s):  
Robert P. Saldin ◽  
Steven M. Teles

This concluding chapter highlights how the Republican Party has been substantially transformed by the experience of having Donald Trump at its head. The president's reelection in 2020 would only deepen that transformation. Deep sociological forces—in particular, a Republican Party base that is increasingly white, working class, Christian, less formally educated, and older—will lead the party to go where its voters are. What Trump started, his Republican successors will finish. Just as parties of the right across the Western world have become more populist and nationalist, so will the Republicans. That, of course, bodes poorly for most of the Never Trumpers, who combined a deep distaste for Trump personally with a professional interest in a less populist governing style and a disinclination to see their party go ideologically where he wanted to take it. Ultimately, the future is unwritten because it will be shaped by the choices of individuals. Never Trump will have failed comprehensively in its founding mission, which was to prevent the poison of Donald Trump from entering the nation's political bloodstream. However, it is likely to be seen, in decades to come, as the first foray into a new era of American politics.



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