Racial and Ethnic Politics & Social Movements and Rebellions
Racial and Ethnic Politics
The Roots of Race and Racism in the US
Racial formation: The sociohistorical process by which racial categories are created, inhabited, transformed, and destroyed.
Racial dictatorship: The elimination of political power for most groups based on race.
Racial rule: A slow and uneven historical process in which “hegemonic” forms of racial rule came to supplant those based on coercion.
Hegemony: The consolidation of rule in a society constituted by a combination of coercion and consent. Ruling groups maintain popular systems of ideas and practices—education, the media, religion, folk wisdom—to advance their goals.
Racial Formation in the United States
British Colonial Rule: 1607–1776
Early Colonial and Antebellum United States: 1776–1865
Reconstruction: 1865–1877
Jim Crow: 1877–1920
Jim Crow w/ Women's Suffrage: 1920–1965
Multiracial Democracy: 1965–2013
Constrained Multiracial Democracy: 2013-present
Eras Summarized:
1607-1776: Absolute British Colonial Racial Dictatorship
1776-1865: Absolute US Racial Dictatorship
1865-1877: US Multiracial Patriarchy
1877-1965: Constrained Racial Dictatorship
1965-2013: Procedural-to-Formal Multiracial Democracy
2013-2025: Formal-to-Procedural Multiracial Democracy
2025-Present: ???
Types of racial discrimination
De jure discrimination: Discrimination established by laws.
De facto discrimination: Subtle forms of discrimination that exist without a legal basis.
Disproportionate impact: The discriminatory effect of some policies, even if discrimination is not consciously intended.
Racial profiling: The practice of singling out people based on physical features such as race or ethnicity.
Cycle of US Racial Politics
Unstable Equilibrium → Crisis → Conflicts → Reforms
US racial politics is an unstable equilibrium.
Encoded in law
Organized through policy-making
Enforced by repressive apparatuses
Absorption
Insulation
Social Movements and Rebellions
What are social movements?
Social movements: Rational attempts by excluded groups to mobilize sufficient political leverage to advance collective interests through noninstitutional means.
Challengers employ “structural power” to disrupt and alter inequitable or discriminatory systems.
Requires challengers to have a “subjective transformation of consciousness”.
What do social movements do?
Divide society into “members” and “challengers”.
Re-politicize the public sphere.
Check the oligarchic tendencies of bureaucracies.
Bring marginalized citizens into the public sphere.
Woodly: social movements are “political swailing”.
How do social movements begin?
Challengers need an opportunity
Generalized political instability
Changes in broad social processes
Challengers need indigenous organizations
Members
Solidary benefits
Communication networks
Leaders
Challengers need cognitive liberation
How do social movements persist?
Challengers may formalize movement activity
Create enduring organizational structure
Draw resources from elite individuals and organizations
Benefits?
Coordinates protest activity
Establishes external support
Risks?
Risks oligarchization of movement
Risk co-potation by outside groups/political elite
May dissolve indigenous support
When do social movements die?
Contraction of political opportunities
Decline of organizational strength
Decline in the salience of movement’s ideas
Increased repression by opponents
What are Rebellions?
Rebellions: Sustained insurgencies in response to systems of entrenched, unequal conditions catalyzed by tangible moments of discrimination.
Are political actions, though often dismissed as riots or mass crimes.
Very often occur alongside or follow social movement actions.
Contemporary rebellions generally occur in cities near economic and political power centers.
When do rebellions occur in cities?
During periods of economic growth
During periods of autocratic governing
When a leader has been in power too long
Under corrupt regimes