Racial democracy rendered structural inequality invisible and individualized

Evidence

The legacy of a racial democracy that insists on racial incorporation in the name of a new national “race” while privileging euro-mimesis and blanqueamiento/branqueamento offered an early experimental prototype for neoliberal raceless racism to emulate and extend. Racial democracy was supposed to produce a new nation amalgamated into a single and singular racial identity through miscegenation, racial intermarriage, and formal equality. It served at the same time to render significant racially marked substantive inequalities – in income, wealth, educational and employment access, criminalization, residential quality, and the like – beyond the reach of reform or redress, if not altogether invisible. Racial democracy throughout Latin America thus has meant democracy in which the historical legacy of racially inequitable structures is inscribed but indiscernible, embedded but intangible, urgent but untouchable. In democratizing substantive inequalities, racial democracy made them seem a matter purely of personal choice or individualized effort. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1223 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Liberal democracy’s neutral ideals mask racial and gendered domination — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 406; Campaign finance dependency structurally undermines formal democratic inclusiveness — Philip Pettit, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and…, 878; Democratic equality cannot exist without a correlate of inequality and exclusion — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 173 (+10 more)

Broader Connections

• Racial democracy made inherited racial inequalities appear to be personal choices #expands (0.95) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1223
• Racelessness individualizes and personalizes what is actually structural racism #expands (0.92)