The Structure of Racialization

The Structure of Racialization (free admission)
It is commonly accepted today that race is a "social construct." But this does not begin to describe what that structure is that has been constructed. Race has been described psychologically as an effect of a racist prejudice, but that begs the question of where the prejudice comes from. Race has been described as a non-issue raised to the level divide-and-conquer strategy in class relations and class struggle, but that begs the question of why that strategy works so well. In order to begin to discern what has been constructed in the guise of race, we must return ot its origins in the continental colonies. There are specific reasons why the modern concept of race developed in those colonies and not in the Spanish, or the British Caribbean colonies. The story of the origin of race, which is really the story of the origin of whiteness and white supremacy, involves a number of historical steps, including the matrilineal servitude statute of 1662, Bacon's rebellion of 1676, the slave codes and slave patrols of the early 18th century, in their significance as politico-cultural phenomena. Once its origins provide a schema for grasping race and whiteness as cultural structures (that is, as a hierarchy of social categorizations defined by whites), its operations throughout US history, and the transformation of its forms, can then be traced. Beyond the variety of forms of racial exploitation and oppression that have succeeded one another (slavery itself, Jim Crow and debt servitude, police profiling and the prison-industrial complex), it is the structure of racialization that can be seen at the foundation of class formations in the US, the peculiar structure of unions, the idea of granting personhood to corporations, the populist bargain between poor white farmers and workers and the white elite, the way the government sold the idea of invading Iraq, etc. SPONSORED BY THE INSTITUTE FOR THE CRITICAL STUDY OF SOCIETY Steve Martinot, Ph.D., has worked as a machinist, truck driver and union organizer, and now teaches in Interdisciplinary Programs at San Francisco State University. His most recent book is The Rule of Racialization (Temple University Press). He is also the translator of Albert Memmi’s book, Racism (University of Minnesota Press).