New Racism

[Valin]

New Discourses

James Lindsay

2/24/20

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New Discourses Commentary

“New racism” (sometimes “neo-racism”) is an uncommonly used term within Social Justice that means either the same thing as cultural racism or very nearly the same thing. In short, the pessimistic idea of “new racism” within critical race Theory is that as older, more overt forms of racism (like biological racism and legally institutionalized racism – see also, institutional racism) became unacceptable or illegal (largely decades ago), racism did not end or even diminish much but changed form to focusing upon cultural elements of “black culture” (see also, blackness, anti-blackness, whiteness, and mask). Under new racism, black culture (meaning a particular cultural form most common with black Americans) is seen as less valuable and less prone to success than white culture (cultural racism and model minority), is steadfastly associated with people of African descent or origin (see also, identity-first), and is identified as the primary reason for the persistence of achievement gaps in which black people have worse outcomes on average than those of other racial groups (see also, meritocracy).

This view is typical of the pessimism about progress that fundamentally characterizes critical race Theory, which often begins with the “pillar” view that racism is ordinary and permanent in American society (short of a race-based social revolution). Critical race Theory maintains that racism doesn’t really diminish so much as it gets hidden more successfully, particularly as whites realize that it is in their social and economic interests to mask it (see also, interest convergence). This leads it to take different, more diffuse forms. These include economic legacies from past eras (leading it sometimes to be described as “past-in-present” racism) in addition to the shift in focus to subtler aspects like culture (as compared against biology and law).

Since new racism is so profoundly interested in the idea of how racism shifts to culture while insisting that racism hasn’t improved, it bears mentioning that reifying race through culture is another foundational effort of critical race Theory (see also, identity-first). When Kimberlé Crenshaw famously wrote that “I am Black” means something important and something more than “I am a person who happens to be black,” and claimed the difference lies in identifying and forwarding what it means to be black (culturally, especially in terms of systemic oppression – see also, intersectionality, standpoint epistemology, and positionality), she was creating the platform upon which this issue increases in relevance and becomes salient, essentially by the mandate of Social Justice Theory. This move was strategic for Crenshaw so as to complexify and advance identity politics.

It was also strategic more broadly at least in part because cultures are deemed impossible to criticize under a broader (postmodern) rubric of (somewhat modified) cultural relativism, upon which critical race Theory also relies. More specifically, cultures with lower social position with relationship to systemic power dynamics in society cannot be criticized or understood properly by those with more, but the opposite is not true. This creates an advantageous double standard that Social Justice is happy to exploit in virtually any situation (see also, strategic racism).

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[Valin]

And now the other view (This is going to hurt your head BAD

Our New Postracial Myth

The postracial idea is the most sophisticated racist idea ever produced.

Ibram X. Kendi

June 22 2021

About the author: Ibram X. Kendi is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and the director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research. He is the author of several books, including the National Book Award–winning Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America and How to Be an Antiracist.

The signposts of racism are staring back at us in big, bold racial inequities. But some Americans are ignoring the signposts, walking on by racial inequity, riding on by the evidence, and proclaiming their belief with religious fervor. “America is not a racist country,” Senator Tim Scott said in April.

Black babies die at twice the rate of white babies. Roughly a fifth of Native Americans and Latino Americans are medically uninsured, almost triple the rate of white Americans and Asian Americans (7.8 and 7.2 percent, respectively). Native people (24.2 percent) are nearly three times as likely as white people (9 percent) to be impoverished. The life expectancy of Black Americans (74.5 years) is much lower than that of white Americans (78.6 years). White Americans account for 77 percent of the voting members of the 117th Congress, even though they represent 60 percent of the U.S. population.

From the July/August 2018 issue: Being Black in America can be hazardous to your health

Just as you can recognize an impoverished country by its widespread poverty, you can recognize a racist country by its widespread racial inequity. In the United States, Black college graduates owe an average of $25,000 more in student loans than white college graduates. Native Americans die from police violence at three times the rate of white people; Black people die at 2.6 times the rate; and Latino people die at 1.3 times the rate. In the United States, racial inequity is widespread by any measure.

And yet, some don’t want the American people to stop and see. They don’t want our kids to learn about the racism causing racial inequity. They are trying to ban teaching it in schools; Florida passed the latest such ban last Thursday.

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