Racial secularization displaces sovereign control from state to privatized economic forces

Evidence

Secularization replaces the symbolic commitments of race through which authorized citizenship recognized itself as empowered citizens under apartheid, as Talal Asad might say, for less partial, more universal symbols of state commitment and loyalty: the multi-colored flag, the hymn-like anthem Nkosi sikelel iAfrika, Madiba himself (Nelson Mandela) who above all else stands for apartheid’s demise. … Racial absolutization played a central role in expressing and extending modern sovereignty, defining whose life was worthless and whose was to be encouraged, a register for privilege, power, indeed, life’s limit, expendability, and extension itself. The shift from sacralization to secularization for which racial southafricanization today stands reveals that the neoliberalizing of race displaces that sovereignty from the state to the realm of the economic, diffusing it from state authority to less identifiable, at once more open and less resistible structural forces. The constitutional constraints on state sovereignty are circumvented to some degree by the privatization of social power. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1628

Categorization

• XREF: Connects directly to the reader’s threatened-privilege and contact/institution gap research: the displacement of racial domination into privatized economic spheres parallels the institutional discrimination that persists despite equal-citizenship surface. — connects to: Race gained social hegemony as religion declined, becoming a secularized civic theology — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 1345; Racial secularization removes absolutist racial rule without ending race’s social force — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 1612; Neoliberalizing race moves sovereign power from state to market — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 1630 (+3 more)
• QUESTION: Does the privatization-of-social-power mechanism replicate across identity axes, or is the specific South African post-apartheid sequence (constitutional constraint + privatized economy) a race-specific path?

Broader Connections

• Neoliberalizing race moves sovereign power from state to market #corroborates (0.95) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1630
• Neoliberalism shifts racial discrimination into the privatized sphere where the state cannot intervene #corroborates (0.90)
• Racial secularization removes absolutist racial rule without ending race’s social force #expands (0.85) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1612
• Racial absolutism enacts Schmittian sovereignty while liberal constraint represents a rival bounded sovereignty #complicates (0.75) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1627