Neoconservatives recoded the state itself as a threatening black institution

Evidence

These attacks on affirmative action reveal a deeper critical concern for neoliberals troubled over race. In the US, neoconservative critics of the state implicitly identify it as representing blackness and the interests thought most directly to advance black life (the book’s cover image most directly and dramatically represents this sense of inverted threat). As a result both of at least moderately serious application of anti-discrimination legislation and of affirmative action policies, the state became the single largest employer of African Americans. The perception among critics of these programs accordingly devolved into the view that black people are either employed because the beneficiaries of affirmative action or they are supported by welfare. In short, from the 1970s on, the state increasingly came to be conceived as a set of institutions supporting the undeserving (recall the identification of Bill Clinton as “the first black President,” first by Toni Morrison but taken up quickly by neoconservatives out to do him in). Fear of a black state is linked to worries about a black planet, of alien invasion and alienation, of a loss of the sort of local and global control and privilege long associated with whiteness. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1763

Categorization

• XREF: Direct evidence for the reader’s threatened-privilege hypothesis: the state is perceived as captured by a subordinate group, inverting the privilege hierarchy and triggering mobilization. — connects to: Neoconservatism began as a rightward racial realignment breaking with the civil rights movement — Michael Omi, Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 56; Post-civil-rights conservatives perceived the state as serving black Americans; Attacking the state restricts black advancement while avoiding the racist label (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Post-civil-rights conservatives perceived the state as serving black Americans #corroborates (0.90)
• Postsegregation white conservatives perceived the state as serving black Americans #corroborates (0.90) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 444
• Neoconservatism began as a rightward racial realignment breaking with the civil rights movement #expands (0.85) — Michael Omi, Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 56
• Conservatives attacked state capacity to curtail antiracist policy without appearing racist #expands (0.82) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 445
• Attacking the state restricts black advancement while avoiding the racist label #expands (0.80)