Denouncing race itself becomes the new racism’s containment tactic.

Evidence

Cordial racism trades on race without naming it as such. For where no race, no racial harm. So no racism. Evaporation alchemizes the structural into the individual, the pernicious into the cordial, the public behind the veil of ignorant privacy, racisms into the virtues of mestizaje/mesticagem. Into mixture. Mergence is emergence from the chilling fog of race – into denial, the left behind, the new untouchable, the shadow of the shadow. We no longer need to do anything about this, for there is nothing to do. And there is nothing to do because the index to the condition is no longer. No longer thinkable, so no longer to be bothered about. A new day. Race is so … yesterday, racism so … not us. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1798

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘evaporation’ and erasure of the index anticipates Obama-era and post-racial claims (chapter 3); also ‘colorblindness’ critiques elsewhere in the book. — connects to: Racism now operates through sympathetic representation and self-denial — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media: Race…, 498; Colorblind ideology reframes race consciousness itself as the racism to be ended. — Michael Omi, Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 241
• SEED: Potential essay: ‘the index to the condition is no longer’ as a device — abortion bans, CRT bans, trans erasure all erase the vocabulary naming the harm.

Broader Connections

• Colorblind ideology reframes race consciousness itself as the racism to be ended. #corroborates (0.88) — Michael Omi, Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 241
• Racism now operates through sympathetic representation and self-denial #corroborates (0.82) — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, 498