Moralized character language masked race-coded political exclusion in Indies administration

Evidence

Accusations of “indolence” and “insolence” were substitutable codes for those unsuited and unworthy of political entitlements. Converting the former into usable labor and breaking the political will of the latter not only produced a gridlock on reform. It animated more intense administrative anxiety about the coding of race. Debates about character and capability flourished in this reformist period, in which few projects were implemented and little “happened.” — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 802

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the immodesty articles’ theme that moralizing language functions as coded social sorting. — connects to: Coded anti-public rhetoric can express racial fears without race words — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 582; Color-blind language like ‘community integrity’ could package segregation acceptably — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 189