Racial-skin societies police surface relations while building social structure on racial cement

Evidence

A sociality of the skin paradoxically limits life and its social possibilities – most all that happens in life and at death – to the inflexibilities of the social surface, denying depth and relying on the policing of superficial relation, while grounding the social infrastructure all the way down on nothing but racial cement. A sociality of the skin disposes its subjects to seeing little else, to comprehending pretty much only in terms of its codes even in resistance, to living life largely if not exclusively on its terms. To sustain itself, the sociality of the skin can only fall back on and into a political theology of compulsion. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1502

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Goldberg’s broader argument about racial neoliberalism, and to the paradox of superficiality grounding deep structures. — connects to: Racialized societies compel even resistance into skin-based codes — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 1502