Progressive politics should abandon race entirely as a category

Evidence

If the twenty-first century is to transcend the color line inherited from earlier social, economic, political, and cultural formations, a progressive, forward-looking politics of social justice should embrace the will to abandon “race” as any kind of useful category, alternative or otherwise. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 766

From where I stand there is no need to perpetuate nineteenth and twentieth century notions of racial anything. As Andre Gorz says in Farewell to the Working Class, “The transformation of society… requires a degree of consciousness, action and will. In other words it requires politics” (Gorz, 1982:12). If the twenty-first century is to transcend the color line inherited from earlier social, economic, political, and cultural formations, a progressive, forward-looking politics of social justice should embrace the will to abandon “race” as any kind of useful category, alternative or otherwise. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 766

Categorization

• XREF: Aligned with abolitionist positions that reject race itself rather than merely opposing racism; resonates with anti-identitarian politics discussed elsewhere in the reader’s library on race and social justice.
• SEED: Essay angle: the abolition-of-race versus racial-formation camps as rival definitions of what antiracist politics should target.
• QUESTION: Whether race-abolitionist positions are themselves racialized or retain an implicit claim about who can abandon race.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 766