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The End of Lace Politics: Key Terms (Video Notes)

WHAT IS RACE?

  • Personal memory and identity of race can be fluid and contested. The author’s mother: Puerto Rican, from the Bronx; described herself in various ways (of color, Puerto Rican, Nuyorican). He initially viewed her through the lens of a black-white binary, but others perceived her differently. A friend called her a black woman; his father later agreed. This raises questions: What does it mean to belong to a race? Is race a scientific fact, self-identification, perception by others, cultural background, or social convention?
  • Question posed: What is race? How should we define it or treat it in policy and identity? The passage invites us to reconsider the very foundations of racial categorization.

THE CONCEPT OF RACE

  • Humans use concepts to map the world, some natural, some socially constructed.
    • Natural concepts map onto nature with precision (e.g., tree, mass in physics). They carve reality at the joints.
    • Some concepts are social constructs created to achieve goals (e.g., the seven-day week) for coordinated social activity.
    • The concept of race falls into a third category: neither fully natural nor fully social, but a social construct inspired by a natural phenomenon.
  • Moon/month analogy:
    • Months are not natural in the sense that nothing in the cosmos inherently begins in February or ends in March. They’re a social construct speedily aligned to the lunar cycle (≈ 29.5 days). If the Moon’s cycle changed, the calendar wouldn’t necessarily follow the same month lengths.
    • This makes months a hybrid: a social construct inspired by a natural phenomenon.
  • Race is similar: a social construct inspired by natural population differences.
  • Natural phenomenon behind race: tens of thousands of years of human migration out of Africa created population clusters with genetic differences; gene pools evolved under different environments.
  • Key points about race as a construct:
    • Clusters of similar genomes exist, but boundaries are blurry and overlap; the clusters are detectable with statistics.
    • The social construct of race has been untethered from the natural phenomenon that inspired it; future genetic discoveries about population structure would not alter the social meaning of race as used in public policy.
  • Implication: Race, as a social category used in society and policy, is a hybrid concept, not a precise natural category.

THE ARBITRARINESS OF RACE

  • Race-based policies often rely on categorization lines that are not scientifically grounded.
  • Examples illustrating arbitrariness:
    • Obama: child of a black mother and a white father; line-drawing decides whether to label him black, white, or mixed; many still call him black due to cultural conventions like the one-drop rule.
    • Asian category includes people from India and Pakistan but not Afghanistan; the boundaries are shaped by policy needs, not genetics.
    • Hispanic category: sometimes treated as a race, sometimes as ethnicity; can be black Hispanic or white Hispanic; impact on college admissions and policies.
  • Notions of who is Asian or Hispanic are culturally contingent and policy-driven, not fixed by science.
  • Specific cases illustrating policy arbitrariness:
    • Christine Combs vs. Steve Lynn: SBA Hispanic-status decisions differed; Combs lacked the appearance or discrimination evidence; Lynn’s Sephardic Jewish Spanish ancestry granted him Hispanic status via appeal, showing how ancestry alone can trump other factors.
    • Kao Lee Yang (Hmong, Asian) was proposed for a fellowship aimed at underrepresented groups but was deemed not underrepresented because she fell into the broad “Asian” category, which is overrepresented in higher education.
  • Data on the Asian category:
    • The Asian category contains a wide range of groups; Pew Research found wider income inequality within Asians than within Blacks or Whites; top-earning Asians earn 10.7 times the lowest-earning Asians; disparities also exist in education levels (e.g., 72 ext{%} of Indians over 25 have at least a bachelor’s degree vs. 9 ext{%} of Bhutanese).
  • The overarching point: Race categories are arbitrary for social policy and resource allocation, yet they have profound, real-life consequences (scholarships, admissions, funding).
  • The central claim: Injustice arises from these arbitrary lines, not from a natural, objective mapping of humanity into fixed races.
  • Conclusion: The arbitrariness of race cannot be easily fixed by redefining categories; the better solution is to move away from racial classification altogether.

WHAT'S BETTER THAN RACE?

  • Race as a proxy for disadvantage is flawed.
  • Practical problem: It’s hard to draw neat, scientifically justified lines for race; lines are chosen for political and administrative convenience rather than scientific justification.
  • Example: If you had to order 100 Americans from least to most privileged to target policy, using socioeconomic proxies (income, wealth, or a combination) would better approximate disadvantage than using race.
  • Key points:
    • Income/wealth is a more accurate proxy for disadvantage than race.
    • Race is a poor proxy for historical victimhood: about one in five Black Americans are first- or second-generation immigrants, meaning many have no direct ancestral connection to American slavery, a proportion expected to grow.
    • Thus, policies aimed specifically at descendants of slavery cannot rely on Black identity as a simple proxy for that history.
  • Anticipated objection and response:
    • Objection: If income/wealth is a better proxy, why not use race as a tiebreaker after accounting for these proxies?
    • Hughes’ response (preview for chapters 5-6): The status quo already uses race as the main proxy; replacing it with better proxies would require a substantial policy overhaul.
  • Historical context: The NAACP and civil rights leaders argued against race-based policy as a tool for social change, arguing race statistics can be sophistical rationalizations when used to justify policy.
  • Proposed alternative: Shift public policy toward more accurate proxies (e.g., socioeconomic status) and move away from race as a primary determinant.
  • Overall aim: Use more precise measures of disadvantage to achieve policy goals without race-based distinctions.

ANTI-RACISM

  • The dream of Martin Luther King Jr. (as invoked in Hughes’ text): a future where people are not judged by race but by character; the “colorblind” ideal.
  • Hughes’ articulation of anti-racism: a future in which public policy and private life treat people without regard to race; a diverse society united by dialogue rather than racial categorization.
  • The colorblind principle: the ethical stance that people should be treated without regard to race, both in policy and in everyday life.
  • Important nuance: Colorblindness is not about ignoring race entirely; it is about consciously disregarding race as a reason to treat people differently or as a basis for policy.
  • Language matters: the phrase I don’t see color can cause confusion; prefer saying I try to treat people without regard to race. Appendix B (referenced) expands on terminology.
  • Neoracism is introduced as a modern contender to colorblindness, arguing that race matters in meaningful, societal ways, but Hughes critiques it for reifying race thinking while claiming to reject biology or theology-based justifications.

THE COLORBLIND PRINCIPLE

  • Core idea: treat people without regard to race in both policy and private life.
  • Colorblindness is a normative stance, not a literal perception claim. It uses a metaphor to describe an ethical stance, akin to describing someone as warmhearted to capture intent rather than physical warmth.
  • The goal is to consciously disregard race as a basis for differential treatment or policy decisions.
  • Common misunderstandings:
    • People say “I don’t see color” but interpret it as literal blindness, which misses the ethical aim.
    • Defenders should articulate the phrase as: “I try to treat people without regard to race.”
  • The text emphasizes that colorblindness seeks to prevent race-based injustice by removing race from the policy equation, not by erasing racial realities from memory or experience.

NEORACISM

  • Definition: a modern form of racism that asserts race matters deeply, but not due to biology; rather, it derives from historical and societal structures and policies that privilege or disadvantage certain racial groups.
  • Neoracists claim race is a social construct while still acting as if race is a natural, determinant category.
  • Rhetorical strategy: invoke figures like MLK or Frederick Douglass to anchor a racial rhetoric, while promoting policies that reinforce race thinking.
  • Examples of neoracist tropes and rhetoric:
    • DiAngelo’s assertion that whiteness embodies racial certitude and that white people should acknowledge and change their racial stance.
    • Ta-Nehisi Coates’ critique of political features that assign limited freedom to those deemed white.
    • Biden’s infamous statement about identifying with a race, implying a conditional alignment with “blackness” for political advantage; contrasted with King’s own emphasis on character over skin color.
  • Key concept: Neoracists use language that sounds anti-racist or colorblind but in practice maintain strong rules about how people of different races should interact, policing language and behavior around race more stringently than traditional racism.
  • The “power construct” debate is central: neoracists claim racism requires power, often implying white people hold power; Hughes argues this is inconsistent with reality (e.g., black mayors, black vice president, black top executives, etc.), and that racial power is not monolithic or fixed.
  • The hardware/software analogy:
    • Humans have an inbuilt tribal hardware to identify with groups.
    • Whether we amplify or tamp down this tendency depends on our cultural software (education, media, politics, etc.). Neoracists allegedly amplify tribal thinking by enforcing strict race-based norms.
  • Civil rights ideals vs neoracist practices:
    • Civil rights leaders emphasized viewing individuals as people, not as members of racial collectives.
    • Zora Neale Hurston argued that race-based notions like race pride and race solidarity are fictions.
    • Hughes argues that neoracists betray King’s and Hurston’s anti-racist emphasis by treating race as a central, enduring category rather than a contingent social phenomenon.
  • Practical implications: neoracism shapes public behavior and policy in ways that resemble old-school racism in practice, even as its rhetoric claims to reject race-essentialism.

THE WAR ON COLORBLINDNESS

  • Anecdotes illustrating contemporary attacks on colorblindness:
    • Blood Heir (Amélie Wen Zhao, 2014): a YA novel featuring a racially diverse cast and a colorblind oppression theme. Zhao faced backlash for describing oppression as colorblind; critics argued it perpetuated anti-blackness within the context of Asian oppression.
    • Zhao paused publication after the controversy; she clarified that colorblind oppression referred to human trafficking in Asia, not a blanket endorsement of colorblindness.
    • In 2020, Kristen Bell published a children’s book The World Needs More Purple People, intended as a metaphor for focusing on shared humanity rather than differences, but critics accused her of promoting colorblindness and cancelled her message.
    • Bernie Sanders, in a 2019 radio interview, suggested voters should choose candidates for their abilities rather than skin color; Colbert mocked the message, echoing a political back-and-forth about colorblindness.
    • King’s own writings show the colorblind ideal in his call to judge by character, not skin color; Colbert’s riff on King’s quote is contrasted with King’s actual view on character and integrity.
  • A behavioral study is cited: asking people to rate a quote on a racism scale (1-5) under different attributions:
    • When the quote is attributed to King, Republicans rate it as less racist (mean around 1) and Democrats similarly (around 1.3).
    • When attributed to Trump, Republicans rate it slightly higher (≈1.4) and Democrats higher still (≈3.4).
    • This demonstrates how attribution to a political figure shapes perceptions of racism.
  • DiAngelo’s portrayal of colorblindness is shown as a caricature by Hughes, who argues that anti-racist critics misrepresent colorblindness as a denial of racism rather than a principled stance to treat individuals without regard to race.
  • The broader message: colorblindness is under social and political attack, often portrayed as naïve or racist. Hughes contends that colorblindness is a rational and necessary stance to reduce race-based discrimination and policy biases.
  • The central ethical tension: colorblindness versus neoracism—how to balance recognizing historical injustices and statistical disparities with avoiding race-based categorization that can entrench divisions.
  • The book’s stance: colorblindness aligns with the civil rights tradition, which sought to move beyond race-thinking to a society where individuals are evaluated by character and merit, not by racial categories.

KEY QUOTES AND REFERENCES (EMBEDDED IDEAS)

  • MLK on the dream: not being judged by color but by character; the broader anti-racist philosophy aligns with judging individuals, not groups.
  • Hurston on race: races have never done anything; individual effort and character are the drivers of achievement.
  • King on interracial marriage: “races do not marry; individuals marry.”
  • DiAngelo’s framing of whiteness and race as a social construct is critiqued for translating social constructs into very concrete expectations and norms.
  • Bernstein’s study on colorblindness and public perception of quotes demonstrates how political framing can shift perceived racism levels.
  • Numerical data to consider:
    • Population income disparities within Asians vs. Blacks and Whites: ext{top-earning Asians} ig/ ext{lowest-earning Asians} = 10.7 times as much; ext{top-earning Blacks} ig/ ext{lowest-earning Blacks} = 9.8 times as much; ext{top-earning Whites/Hispanics} ig/ ext{lowest-earning Whites/Hispanics} = 7.8 times as much.
    • Education levels (2015): 72\% of Indians over 25 had at least a bachelor’s degree; 9\% of Bhutanese did.
    • Representation in government and judiciary: top four most populous U.S. cities with Black mayors; the Vice President and some Supreme Court justices are Black; this challenges the simple power-ownership claim of neoracists.
    • The “one-fourth” criterion for Native American ancestry in policy eligibility: rac{1}{4}.
    • Immigrant status among Black Americans: rac{1}{5} are first- or second-generation immigrants.
    • King’s quote about judging by the content of their character and his warnings against race-based thinking in public life.

CONNECTIONS TO FOUNDATIONAL IDEAS AND REAL-WORLD RELEVANCE

  • Foundations in civil rights: Hughes revisits King, Douglass, Hurston, and other abolitionists to contrast anti-racist, universalist principles with race-based policy thinking.
  • Real-world policy implications: moving away from race as a primary determinant in policy, focusing on concrete proxies like socioeconomic status to address poverty and disadvantage.
  • Ethical and philosophical questions: whether it is possible or desirable to eliminate race from policy entirely, and whether a colorblind framework can adequately address historic injustices without reifying race as a social determinant.
  • Practical considerations: how to design policies that are fair, efficient, and responsive to actual disparities without relying on arbitrary racial categorizations.

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENTS

  • Race is best understood as a hybrid social construct inspired by natural population differences, not a natural, immutable essence.
  • The current system of racial categories is arbitrary and produces unfair advantages and disadvantages in public policy.
  • Using race as a primary proxy for disadvantage is inferior to using more precise proxies like socioeconomic status, wealth, and other measurable factors.
  • The colorblind principle offers a principled alternative that treats individuals without regard to race, aligning with the foundational ideals of civil rights and liberal democracy.
  • Neoracism represents a modern challenge: it asserts the enduring importance of race for social organization while advocating for a social construct perspective that is inconsistent with its practical enforcement of racial norms.
  • Contemporary debates (Blood Heir, The World Needs More Purple People, Bernie Sanders’ comments, public discourse) reveal how colorblindness is attacked in public culture, illustrating the high stakes of how race is discussed and policymaking is designed.

KEY TERMS TO KNOW

  • Colorblindness: the ethical principle that individuals should be treated without regard to race in both private life and public policy.
  • Neoracism: a modern form of racism that asserts race matters deeply for societal reasons but claims it is socially constructed; in practice, it enforces strict racial norms.
  • One-drop rule: a historical criterion used to categorize individuals as Black if they had any non-European ancestry.
  • Socioeconomic proxy: metrics like income, wealth, and education used to gauge disadvantage rather than race.
  • Power construct (as used by some neo-racist arguments): the idea that racism requires power dynamics and that discrimination against a powerful group (e.g., whites) has different social consequences than discrimination against a non-powerful group.

ADDITIONAL NOTES AND APPENDIX REFERENCES

  • Appendix A: Details on population genetics clustering and their relationship to the social concept of race (not fully elaborated in this transcript).
  • Appendix B: Terminology clarifications around colorblindness and related concepts (referenced in the text).
  • The historical arc from slavery and Jim Crow to neoracism demonstrates how policy debates about race have evolved, but the fundamental concern remains: how to construct just and effective policies without reifying racial divisions.
  • The central ethical question remains: can we achieve the goals of reducing inequality and advancing human welfare by removing race from the policy equation, or do we need to adopt more nuanced, data-driven proxies that focus on real-world disadvantages and opportunities?

EXAMPLES AND CASE STUDIES (RECAP)

  • Obama’s mixed heritage demonstrates the arbitrariness of racial labels and how culture and perception influence public categorization.
  • SBA Hispanic-status cases (Combs vs. Lynn) illustrate how ancestry, discrimination claims, and appearance affect eligibility determinations, even when the law uses broad definitions.
  • The Hmong case (Kao Lee Yang) shows misalignment between underrepresentation policy goals and broad-category definitions.
  • Income/education statistics within Asian Americans reveal wide intra-category disparities that challenge the use of race as a uniform policy proxy.
  • Blood Heir controversy highlights conflicts between colorblind narratives and culturally sensitive storytelling in contemporary publishing.
  • Public debates around colorblindness (Kristen Bell, Bernie Sanders) demonstrate the social consequences of colorblind rhetoric in political and cultural discourse.

KEY TAKEAWAY

  • The author argues for moving away from race-based public policy toward metrics that more accurately reflect inequality and disadvantage. He defends colorblindness as a pragmatic, ethical framework for achieving a more just society by focusing on individuals rather than racial categories, while recognizing the emotional and cultural power of race in public life.

– End of notes for the provided transcript excerpt