Race operates as sacred violence purchasing order through scapegoats

Evidence

Race accordingly is a perfect exemplification of the sort of sacred violence Achille Mbembe finds critiqued by St. Paul in his Letters to the Galatians. It “purchases order by means of victims and scapegoats,” offering laws of purity, acts of purification, and profanity (as Mary Douglas famously has elaborated it), on one hand, while identifying the sacrificeable, on the other. It licenses violence against those who violate, who fail inherently or even contingently to belong to the sacred community, to the Heavenly City, the City of God. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1349

Categorization

• XREF: Directly connects to the reader’s ‘On Sacrifice: The Real Kind, with Corpses’ article on ritual sacrifice as stabilizer of stratified societies. — connects to: Sacralized racial hierarchy licenses unlimited violence against the demonized. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 1559; Moral panics about racialized criminals resolve economic crises via law-and-order solutions — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 93; Race both drives and expresses violence, property, profit, and power — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 71 (+2 more)
• ADDENDUM: Supports the sacrifice article’s thesis by showing racial exclusion as a modern analog of scapegoating violence.