Jack Turner - Awakening to Race: Individualism and Social Consciousness in America

Jack Turner is assistant professor of political science at the University of Washington and a member of the Washington Institute for the Study of Ethnicity, Race, and Sexuality. He is the editor of A Political Companion to Henry David Thoreau.

The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637

The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London

2012 by The University of Chicago

All rights reserved. Published 2012.

Printed in the United States of America

21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 1 2 3 4 5

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-81711-8 (cloth)

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-81712-5 (paper)

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-81714-9 (e-book)

ISBN-10: 0-226-81711-3 (cloth)

ISBN-10: 0-226-81712-1 (paper)

ISBN-10: 0-226-81714-8 (e-book)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Turner, Jack, 1975

Awakening to race : individualism and social consciousness in America / Jack Turner.

pages ; cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-81711-8 (cloth: alkaline paper)

ISBN-10: 0-226-81711-3 (cloth: alkaline paper)

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-81712-5 (paperback: alkaline paper)

ISBN-10: 0-226-81712-1 (paperback : alkaline paper)

[etc.]

1. Race awarenessPolitical aspectsUnited States. 2. United StatesRace relationsPolitical aspects. 3. Social justiceUnited States. 4. IndividualismUnited States. I. Title.

HT1521.T875 2012

305.800973dc23

2012003671

This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.481992 (Permanence of Paper).

JACK TURNER

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS CHICAGO AND LONDON

Moral reform is the effort to throw off sleep.

HENRY DAVID THOREAU, Walden (1854)

We are capable of bearing a great burden, once we discover that the burden is reality and arrive where reality is.

JAMES BALDWIN, The Fire Next Time (1963)

Contemporary American race talk is stagnant. All too often conversations about race break down into simplistic debates pitting advocates of self-reliance and personal responsibility against analysts of historical inheritance, structural constraint, and inequality of opportunity. The sense that we need to move beyond such debates motivates this book. I look backward to a tradition of American thought that has a richer, more complex understanding of the interrelationship between history, social context, and personal freedom. This tradition forms the basis of a new perspective I offer on citizens responsibilities to combat racial injustice.

My debts are many. K. Anthony Appiah, Patrick J. Deneen, Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., Stephen J. Macedo, and Cornel West helped launch this project. Each in his own way also taught me how to be a scholar. George Katebs ongoing counsel has been indispensable. My colleagues in the Department of Political Science at the University of Washington have been amazingly supportive. Thanks are due especially to Matt Barreto, Christine Di Stefano, Luis Fraga, George Lovell, Jamie Mayerfeld, Michael McCann, Naomi Murakawa, and Christopher Parker. Several graduate students and undergraduates have been influential interlocutors: Deepa Bhandaru, Carla Bryant, Lawrence Cushnie, Eric Hagarty, Ferris Lupino, Annie Menzel, Heather Pool, Allison Rank, Rachel Sanders, Kirstine Taylor, and Irene Yoon. Rachel served as primary research assistant for this project. Her literature reviews were prodigious, her observations perceptive, and her editing meticulous. Allison helped with last-minute details. Christopher Towler tabulated survey data. The Princeton University Center for Human Values, Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, Royalty Research Fund at the University of Washington, and Washington Institute for the Study of Ethnicity, Race, and Sexuality (WISER) provided grant and fellowship support.

I am deeply indebted to colleagues who carefully commented on the penultimate version of the manuscript: Lawrie Balfour, Eddie Glaude, George Kateb, Christopher Lebron, Melvin Rogers, Jennifer Rubenstein, Joel Schlosser, George Shulman, and Chris Turner. Others who provided crucial feedback over the years include Eric Beerbohm, Charles Beitz, Cristina Beltrn, Jane Bennett, Eduardo Cadava, Jillian Cutler, Mary Dietz, Thomas Dumm, Michael Frazer, Robert Gooding-Williams, Amy Gutmann, William Howarth, Sharon Krause, Melissa Lane, Jackson Lears, Isis Leslie, Alan Levine, John Lombardini, John Lowe, Daniel Malachuk, Shannon Mariotti, Stephen Marshall, Benjamin McKean, Susan McWilliams, the late Wilson Carey McWilliams, Sankar Muthu, Alan Patten, Jennifer Pitts, Andrew Polsky, Ethan Schoolman, John Seery, Amy Shuster, Anna Marie Smith, Simon Stow, Nicholas Tampio, Ian Ward, Keith Whittington, and Alex Zakaras.

Lawrie Balfour deserves special thanks for her encouragement andmore importantlyher example. Years of conversation with Melvin Rogers have been splendid and bracing. The teaching of David W. Blight, Bill Bruce, Thomas Dumm, Robert Gooding-Williams, and Barry OConnell inspirits this work. I hope I do them justice. Stephen M. Wrinn gave expert advice about approaching publishers. I have tremendously enjoyed working with the remarkable people of the University of Chicago Press: Michael Brehm, Siobhan Drummond, Melinda Kennedy, Rodney Powell, Jennifer Rappaport, Carol Saller, and especially John Tryneski. The anonymous reviewers were generous and insightful. All mistakes are my own.

Portions of appeared as Awakening to Race: Ralph Ellison and Democratic Individuality, in Political Theory 36, no. 5 (2008): 655682 ( 2008 Sage Publications). I thank the editors and publishers for permission to reprint.

The love and support of Alex Clarke, Barry Cutler, Marika Cutler, and Tracy King are precious gifts. Jillian Cutler, Luke Turner Cutler, Max Turner Cutler, and Nora Turner Cutler provide daily evidence of the joy and beauty of life. I am especially grateful to Jillian for her wisdom and strengthening companionship. I remember my father, Jack Turner, Jr. (19372002), with love. I dedicate this book to my mother, Chris Turner. The first to teach me antiracism, she made everything possible.

JT

Seattle, Washington

March 2012

FIGURE 1. Asked on Election Night 2008 by CNN anchor Anderson Cooper what the election of the first African American president meant for America, William Bennett responded, Well, Ill tell you one thing it means. As a former secretary of education, you dont take any excuses anymore from anybody who says the deck is stacked.

No more excuses was a common refrain in the aftermath of Barack Obamas historic election. The refrain expressed the sense of many pundits and citizens that African Americans had complained too much for too long about racial injustice, and that the election of a black president proved that race was no longer a real obstacle to success in the United States.

The no more excuses chorus was symptomatic of a larger trend in American politics: increasing insistence that racial injustice is a thing of the past, and that any remaining racial inequality results from the failure of African Americans and Latinos to be personally responsible and take advantage of opportunities.