Moderate racial reform permitted ending legal inequality but forbade positive state action creating equality.

Evidence

It was especially in reference to issues of redistribution that the “moderate” custodians of racial reform drew their boundary line, both in practical terms and in theoretical ones. To undo ofÏcial, explicit, legalized racial inequality was permissible; to create racial equality through positive state action was not. — Michael Omi, Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 239

Categorization

• SEED: An essay angle: the civil rights settlement’s built-in ceiling - why ‘formal equality yes, substantive equality no’ remains the diagnostic divide in American racial politics ever since.