Concluding Observations

These case studies of the Virginia and Illinois regions have been presented with diverging themes of ethnicities and racism. At a practical level, analytic concepts of ethnicities can be employed effectively to understand some places, times, and populations. One should expect change in these social networks, often within just a few decades. For other times, locations, and communities, the impacts of racial ideologies make the analysis of racism a more productive approach. That contrast of ethnicity and racism arises in larger-scale debates concerning the usefulness of these two conceptual frameworks. Researchers have frequently examined the question of whether an analytic concept of racism is better replaced by concepts of ethnic group relations. No consensus has emerged over decades of debates. Scholars in some regions are affected by “post-racial” political agendas that influence them to depart from the terminology of racism in favor of alternative concepts of ethnicities. Such initiatives have impacted researchers in South Africa. They often frame their research within the broader social context of the post-racial policies of the Mandela presidency and later administrations. The U.S. certainly has not entered such a post-racial era.