Historicist racism masks ongoing subjugation as cultural poverty

Evidence

Third, while it may seem obvious in all three cases that antiracist struggle is also antiracial struggle, this connection in fact is not always so straightforward or clear. Consider the shift from racial naturalism to historicism, from the inherent inferiority claim fueling racial slavery and apartheid to the claim of historical immaturity and unskilled ineptitude, even if admitted moral equality, underpinning much of the white and bourgeois abolitionist movement, condescending anticolonialisms, and the less affirming expressions of the affirmative action debate. Or consider yet again and more recently the begrudging white ceding of political power in the face of apartheid’s demise. In the historicist and postapartheid instances, whites no longer bedeviled blacks by explicit insults of inherent ineptitude so much as they damned them to ongoing impoverishment by dismissals of their lingering lack of skill rationalized away by claims to cultural poverty. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 113 (#expands, via linked claim)

The politicians who interned thousands and thousands of Japanese Americans in concentration camp conditions were racists. The Governors of Arkansas and Alabama, who said segregation today and forever, these were racist. In times gone by, the racists were far from hesitant to say who was superior and who was inferior (invariably whites at the top, blacks at the bottom, Native Americans, Asians, and Latinos in between); and they were far less hesitant to implement laws to support this, and to organize the distribution of jobs, pay, housing, and education to ensure that this remained the case (Wilson, 1978). Here it is possible to see racism as the content of an ideology, or as prejudice, or as discriminatory actions; racism here is both individual and group intentions, and institutional and systematic outcomes; and racism was perpetrated by politicians and judges, the police, managers of companies, and individual citizens with malicious intent and for personal gain. These kinds of racisms were outright, explicit and clear. Racism was a ubiquitous set of beliefs and practices that systematically devalued the lives of people of color, and ensured that they were treated worst. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1815 (#complicates, via linked claim)

But to the latter—the radical intelligentsias—it was also an unacceptable one, one subsequently denied. Nevertheless, it insinuated itself into their thought and their theories. And thus, in the quest for a radical social force, an active historical subject, it compelled certain blindnesses, bemusements that in turn systematically subverted their analytical constructions and their revolutionary project. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 213 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: European historicism made racial difference explain subordination instead of colonial power. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 263; Understanding material disparities requires tracing historical inferiorizing discourses — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education: Toward Diverse,…, 1240; Racial historicism replaced biological inferiority claims with cultural poverty excuses — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 113 (+12 more)

Broader Connections

• Racial historicism replaced biological inferiority claims with cultural poverty excuses #expands (0.95) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 113
• Past racism was explicit, intentional, and institutionally systematic #complicates (0.74) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1815
• Racialism subverted radical theories by blinding them to an active historical subject #complicates (0.72) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 213