Subordinated racial groups actively participate in creating and maintaining hierarchy

Evidence

Surprisingly little attention is paid to the role of the subordinate racial group, perhaps on the grounds that it is whites who create and maintain racial hierarchy. But as a rich and growing historical literature makes clear, the dominated always participate in that process of creation, and not just as helpless victims and objects. Even when they act from a position of weakness and disadvantage, their actions and decisions play a central role in determining the course of historical change. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3583

Categorization

• XREF: Aligns with the book’s broader chapters on agency and resistance — the ‘dominated as co-authors of hierarchy’ theme echoes subaltern studies debates (Spivak, ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’). — connects to: Hierarchy persists through individual, institutional, and subordinate-side processes jointly — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology: Key Readings, 3191; Subordinate groups share the dominant status ranking of their own subordination — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology: Key Readings, 3252; Racecraft naturalizes hierarchy so the subordinated consent to their own subordination — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 461 (+4 more)
• SEED: Article angle: the historical erasure of nonelite agency in racial-formation studies — why scholars wrote as if only elites make race, and what correcting that reveals.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3583