Ethnicity theory blamed people of color rather than structural injustice for failed reform

Evidence

Broadly speaking, there were two possible reasons why reform did not effectively reduce racial inequality and difference and facilitate social and political inclusion under the “American creed”: Either U.S. society was unwilling to tackle the endemic racial injustices that prevailed within it, or people of color were unwilling to grasp the opportunities newly becoming available. Ethnicitybased approaches could not accept the former view; was this and as a consequence of Nixon’s (1968) “southern strategy” and party realignment, ethnicity theory was pushed to the right. — Michael Omi, Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 55

Categorization

• QUESTION: The excerpt trails into ‘was this’ — the reader may want to chase what the ethnicity approach concluded; the answer (blaming people of color) drives the neoconservative shift.
• XREF: connects to: Treating race as a form of ethnicity enables blaming the victim. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 702; Failed reforms get blamed on poor people’s culture and attitudes — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America:…, 197