Early antiracism’s black-white focus was reductive and essentialist, obscuring multiple racisms.
Evidence
However, in developing this broadly critical response, multiculturalists have also more recently come to face another, perhaps more intractable problem - a problem brought on to some extent by this very process of accommodation with antiracist theory. For example, the privileging of racism over other forms of discrimination in early conceptions of antiracism resulted in an increasing preoccupation with “color racism” and the black-white dichotomy. This, in turn, led to a “grand theory” approach which, in attributing racism as the primary modality in intercultural relations, came to be seen as both reductive and essentialist (see Donald and Rattansi 1992; MacDonald et al., 1989; Modood, 1992, 1998a, 1998b). Such an approach subsumes other factors such as class, religion, and gender, and fails to address adequately postmodernist accounts of identity as multiple, contingent, and subject to rapid change. These emphases in antiracist theory also considerably understate both the multiplicity of racisms and their complex interconnections with other forms of inequality (Gilroy, 1992; Modood, 1998a, 1998b; Rattansi, 1992, 1999). — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 900
Categorization
- XREF: Qualifies CRT’s black-white grounding across the vault; connects to critiques of race reductionism found in vault sources on intersectionality. — connects to: Racism predates anti-Blackness and produces each distinct race.; Race-based antiracism reifies into essentialism once historical openings close — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1705; Slavery, lynching, and segregation each institutionalized a distinct form of racism — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 59 (+3 more)
- DEFINE: Defines ‘grand theory’ antiracism and its reductiveness relative to multiple, contingent identity.
Broader Connections
- Racism predates anti-Blackness and produces each distinct race.
#expands(0.85) - Slavery, lynching, and segregation each institutionalized a distinct form of racism
#expands(0.82) — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 59 - Race-based antiracism reifies into essentialism once historical openings close
#corroborates(0.80) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1705 - Islamophobia and anti-black racism share a kindred source and common targets.
#corroborates(0.78) — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 418 - Antiracist Black Power often just inverted rather than abolished color hierarchies.
#exemplifies(0.75) — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 1023 - Antiracist politics operates as a Gramscian war of position across multiple identity locations.
#expands(0.72) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 253