Color Consciousness

Color Consciousness JASON SMITH George Mason University, USA

The concept color consciousness is a term used in understanding the complex dimensions of race in society. As an example, St. Clair Drake and Horace Cayton’s Black Metropolis (1970) highlighted the significance of the “race man” in the Bronzeville section of Chicago. Race men and women were individuals who saw themselves as proud of their race and who engaged in activities to both enhance racial pride and to advance the race in the social hierarchy. The race man concept used by Drake and Cayton helped to observe how race consciousness permeated the lives of black Chicagoans, particularly how this consciousness led to racial solidarity. This consciousness, however, was a direct acknowledgment of their racial status as black Chicagoans saw themselves; a status that was subjected to structural forces that emanated from the Jim Crow system in which they lived. As racial solidarity was one of the consequences of racial consciousness, black leaders sought to harness black discontentment in order to advance economic and political objectives. As Drake and Cayton (1970) illustrate, the collective acknowledgment of a group’s racial—or color—position is relative to the dominant power structure that positions whiteness at the center of that structure. As part of the critical race theory movement emanating from the legal field in the 1980s, the concept of color consciousness scrambles and upsets the status quo position toward understanding inequality. Indeed, color consciousness forces us to revisit group relations

and interactions from the vantage point of the multiple power structures created and sustained on white privilege as can be seen, experienced, and analyzed in various social institutions. However, rather than focusing solely on static institutions, political scientists highlight the importance of “racial institutional orders,” which focus on how institutions are shaped, racially, by the racial ideologies of the coalitions and special interest groups that create and maintain them. Sociological research makes a major contribution in this area by acknowledging how racism is practiced overtly/covertly at individual/structural levels; sociological research also advances knowledge in this area by tracing and demonstrating the ways in which race, as a dynamic process, is intricately linked to political struggles. Additionally, sociological research highlights the cultural elements of race and links them to important structural societal dimensions. Currently, a persistent and highly structured racial hierarchy exists in the United States. Such a hierarchy has been central in the country’s political development, from the country’s founding, the longevity of African American slavery and Native American genocide, and the existence of Jim Crow laws and immigrant social segregation. The civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s fought against oppressive and legal racial exclusions. Because racial exclusions persisted throughout the 1970s, race-conscious policies (affirmative action procedures) were enacted in order to assist in the enforcement of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. However, a conservative backlash was swift in challenging these race-conscious measures, and to launch an attack on what were called, “deviant minority cultures.” This prompted a retreat

The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism, First Edition. Edited by John Stone, Rutledge M. Dennis, Polly S. Rizova, Anthony D. Smith, and Xiaoshuo Hou. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. DOI: 10.1002/9781118663202.wberen172

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from a race-centered social perspective, and led to theories and discussions by those who declared that race relations would advance and civil rights would prosper if we could put race “behind” us. Those advocating this position were then eager to launch the beginning of the twenty-first century as “postracial” or “color-blind.” In this color-blind world, if race happens to surface as a factor in social inequalities, or is an impediment to participation in various social settings, then it has to be the fault of the individual. As both a theoretical perspective and a political practice, color consciousness works primarily to expose both the centrality and neutrality of whiteness. This exposition highlights and validates the experiences and voices of those of color, bringing perspectives to the table that would otherwise be left out; making the invisible, visible. Color conscious standpoints highlight both the micro- and macro-dimensions of society, acknowledging that a racial hierarchy serves psychic and material benefits. Due to the diversity of experiences that different racial groups have had in the United States, color-blind approaches to issues fail to alter unequal

power positions, power relations, and their effects. Color-blind approaches thus perpetuate and promote racial inequalities and hierarchies in all walks of life, from media diversity to inner-city education. SEE ALSO: Double Consciousness; Eurocentricity REFERENCES Drake, St. Clair and Horace R. Cayton. 1970 [1945]. Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City. New York: Harbinger. FURTHER READING Aleinikoff, T. Alexander. 1991. “A Case for RaceConsciousness.” Columbia Law Review 91(5): 1060–125. Blauner, Robert. 1972. Racial Oppression in America. New York: Harper & Row. Feagin, Joe R. 2010. The White Racial Frame: Centuries of Racial Framing and Counter-Framing. New York: Routledge. King, Desmond S. and Rogers M. Smith. 2005. “Racial Orders in American Political Development.” American Political Science Review 99(1): 75–92. Omi, Michael and Howard Winant. 1994. Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s. New York: Routledge.