Racism precedes and produces race, not the reverse

Evidence

Karen E. Fields and Barbara J. Fields argue in Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life that racism produces the myth of race. Racism is real, but race is not. Race is an idea, not a material fact. However, increasingly, even those who challenge racism have come to treat race as a reality whose borders are not only fixed and unchanging but also require policing. Race seems real. But this is an effect of racecraft. — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 52

Racecraft is … the process by which racism becomes race … . You don’t start with the perception of people being different and then out of that grows racism. You start with racism; you start with the double standard, which is a practice and also an ideology, and out of that race emerges. You learn to recognize people as belonging to a race because you have been in the rituals of racism with them. — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 32

Categorization

• DEFINE: The ‘racecraft’ borrowing the reader is tracking — establishes that race’s apparent reality is an effect of social practices.
• XREF: The explicit Fields sisters citation the reader flagged; core to comparing with Aziz’s historical argument. — connects to: Races are produced by racism, not by biology — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 76; Racism produces races, and racism predates anti-Blackness — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 60; Race is a product of racism, not its cause. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 107 (+13 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 52; Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 32

Broader Connections

• Race is a product of racism, not its cause. #corroborates (1.00) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 107
• Race is a product of racism, so groups are racialized rather than racial. #corroborates (0.98) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 107
• Races are produced by racism, not by biology #corroborates (0.97) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 76
• Racism produces races, and racism predates anti-Blackness #corroborates (0.96) — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 60
• Racism predates anti-Blackness and produces each distinct race. #corroborates (0.95)
• Race emerges from prior racist practice, not from perceived difference #corroborates (0.94) — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 32
• Racism generates race through repeated practice, not difference perception. #expands (0.92)
• Race exists only as a specter produced by racism, not as reality #corroborates (0.92)
• New racial identities can form in response to racism itself #expands (0.82) — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 51
• Treating race as a fixed biological category replicates the racism it opposes #expands (0.78)