Oppositional movements win by rearticulating common sense, not by armed insurrection

Evidence

The task faced by any oppositional movement engaged in a “war of position” is to delegitimate the hegemonic system and to erode or undermine consent. By rearticulating political and cultural “common sense” in such a way that the excluded, oppressed, and exploited sectors of society can achieve their own legitmacy, their own inclusion, the opposition develops counterhegemony. It seeks to attain the rights, justice, and political power that its supporters had earlier been denied. “War of position” is thus a prolonged struggle for the adherence of the general population and the achievement of political power, generally without insurrection or armed struggle. — Michael Omi, Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 145

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines Gramsci’s war of position and counterhegemony as deployed in racial politics.
• XREF: Builds on Gramsci’s hegemony concept used throughout the chapter’s racial formation framework. — connects to: Appeals to common sense and proportion serve reigning power, not truth — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 84; Nonviolent civil disobedience tactics won concessions from a resistant federal government — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 281