Racial habits are socially arranged valuations standing in the background of action.

Evidence

Clinton’s view echoed Tocqueville’s mistake in its insistence that racism does not fundamentally touch who we are as Americans—that our creed is secure and the problem rests only with ignorance and backwardness, only with the heart; he failed to acknowledge the value gap. Moreover, Clinton refused to see that habit formation is a social issue. It is a reflection of arrangements that incline us to value some things over others, and those habits stand in the background, moving us this way and that. His approach left in place the habits that distort the idea of who we are as a nation. No matter the demographics or the cultural shifts or who happens to be the president, we remain a white nation. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 313

Categorization

• DEFINE: This passage tacitly defines racial habits as arrangements that incline valuation, which the reader explicitly needs.
• XREF: Connects to Tocqueville’s view of America’s creed as secure against racial failings.