Analyzing racism requires replacing singular ‘racism’ with plural ‘racisms’

Evidence

In this chapter I explore the changing manifestations of racialized hostility in the United States in the 1990s, in order to interrogate the concept of racism and assess its continued usefulness. I suggest we can understand the continuing role of racialized hostility in the lives of people of color in general, and blacks in particular, in the United States. examine racisms of various kinds - in terms of content, intent, and outcomes on people’s lives. I suggest that the US society is thoroughly racialized - in the distribution of resources, both material and symbolic, and in the organization of group, especially ethnic, identities. Ideas about race remain a primary operating principle in the organization of social life and interactions. This can only be understood by looking at the links with the past; and by focusing on structures, ideologies, and images that are racialized. The best way of doing this is by discarding the antiquated language of the nineteenth century, and developing new concepts for interpreting and explaining the complexities at the start of the twenty-first century. This can be done via the racialization problematic, a framework within which we should reject the old concept of racism, and employ the more sophisticated formulation of racisms. And I provide evidence from one area of US life — museum-plantation sites in the South — that has not been the focus of substantial research, but which offers insights into some of these intricate linkages. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1821

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the ‘racialization problematic’ — shifting from the singular concept of racism to the plural formulation of racisms.