Racial habits conceal racial inequality in plain sight until a spectacle forces reckoning

Evidence

President Obama’s measured talk about race shows how racial habits work in this country. They work by keeping the reality of racial inequality hidden in plain sight. We can only talk about race as spectacle, not in terms of the daily choices we make that cut short the chances of so many black people. Something big has to happen for us to see the problem. It is not enough to indict cops or to convict George Zimmerman (although that would help). We have to get to the root of the problem—and that will require more than conversations that don’t really advance the prospects of black folk, or even fully acknowledge America’s problem with race. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 189

Categorization

• DEFINE: This passage operationally defines ‘racial habits’ as a structural feature that hides inequality in plain sight and only surfaces during spectacles.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing what would count as ‘getting to the root’ beyond conversation — Glaude gestures at policy but the causal chain to undo habits stays vague here.
• XREF: connects to: Formal colorblindness preserves racial inequality in privatized, unnamed form. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 129; Racialized leisure makes the traveler a spectacular sight rather than a spectator — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 531