Treating race as mere ethnicity obscures racism and blames victims.

Evidence

The normalization of racialized relations of exploitation has been effected through the superimposition of ethnicity upon racial constructs of difference. By functioning as an ethnicized construct, creolite renders invisible the racial basis of power in colonial and postcolonial society. As a construct devoid of racial (as opposed to color) referents, it has allowed upward mobility to those who would otherwise be located lower down in the racial hierarchy. The acquisition of the cultural capital of European knowledge locates the “dark skinned” in the upper reaches of power, privilege, and authority. This hides the fundamentally racial character of Creole discourse of difference. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3199 (#expands, via linked claim)

Broadly speaking, there were two possible reasons why reform did not effectively reduce racial inequality and difference and facilitate social and political inclusion under the “American creed”: Either U.S. society was unwilling to tackle the endemic racial injustices that prevailed within it, or people of color were unwilling to grasp the opportunities newly becoming available. Ethnicitybased approaches could not accept the former view; was this and as a consequence of Nixon’s (1968) “southern strategy” and party realignment, ethnicity theory was pushed to the right. — Michael Omi, Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 55 (#expands, via linked claim)

Second, an advocacy of hybridity carries with it the imputation that all group-based identities are essentialist. This is most clearly demonstrated in the conflation of ethnicity and nationalism with racism which, as so-called “rooted” identities, are all treated with equal disparagement … But while ethnic and national categories may be essentialized in the same way as “race” categories have been historically, they need not always be. Nor are ethnic relations necessarily hierarchical, exploitative, and conflictual in the same way that “race relations” invariably are … In similar vein, Werbner (1997b) has argued that the politics of ethnicity, which objectifies communities situationally and pragmatically with regard to questions of redistributive justice in the public sphere, can be clearly distinguished from the violent essentializing of racism. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 917 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Treating race as a form of ethnicity enables blaming the victim. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 702; Recasting race as ethnicity allows a racial hierarchy to persist unnoticed. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3199; Ethnicity need not be essentialist or hierarchical in the way race categories are — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 917 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Recasting race as ethnicity allows a racial hierarchy to persist unnoticed. #expands (0.95) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3199
• Ethnicity theory blamed people of color rather than structural injustice for failed reform #expands (0.92) — Michael Omi, Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 55
• Ethnicity need not be essentialist or hierarchical in the way race categories are #complicates (0.78) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 917