Racial theory emerges in response to historical upheavals, not abstract curiosity.

Evidence

Theory is driven by demand; by the necessity to explain, account for, and manage (as well as to resist) socio-historical changes. At the close of World War Il, Ashley Montagu and others associated with the United Nations labeled race “man’s most dangerous myth” (Montagu 1945) in direct response to the horrors of Nazi race science. The civil rights upsurge in the postwar period generated the need for new racial theory to address issues of inequality, marginalization, and disenfranchisement. The three paradigms we have discussed— ethnicity (culture)based, class (inequality)-based, and nation (peoplehood)based— all emerged from this historical crucible. — Michael Omi, Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 235

Categorization

• QUESTION: Montagu’s ‘most dangerous myth’ framing predates and contrasts with today’s ‘race is a social construct’ language — worth tracing that genealogy.