Every racial advance gets contained by an adaptive belief in white supremacy

Evidence

Each of these moments of racial progress represents a profound change in the country. America was and is truly different because these events happened. But the extent of the change was always limited by the underlying belief in the supremacy of white people—a belief that adjusted and adapted to new conditions. Niggers became Negroes. Blatant racism became demands for states’ rights, and whites became one ethnic group among many. Black people were now dependent on government handouts and affirmative action, lacking individual initiative and self-reliance. Mass incarceration became the answer to calls for law and order. With each step forward, equally powerful forces pulled the nation back in the direction of the status quo. This is what I think people mean when they say little has changed in America with regard to race. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 81

Categorization

• DEFINE: Concrete instances (Niggers became Negroes; racism restated as states’ rights and law-and-order) illustrate Glaude’s mechanism of how apparent progress gets pulled back to the status quo.
• XREF: connects to: Passing into whiteness pressured every racialized group, not just Muslim immigrants — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 190