RACIAL SUBJECTS:
WRITING ON RACE IN AMERICA
DAVID THEO GOLDBERG
Hate, or Power? first appeared in American Philosophical Association Newsletter on Blacks in Philosophy (Spring 199S): 1214.
Made in the USA: Racial Mixing n Matching first appeared in American Mixed Race, cd. Naomi Zack (Rowman and Littlefield, 1995), pp. 23756.
Lyrics from Fear of a Black Planet by Public Enemy. Copyright 1988. Def American Songs, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
In/Visibility and Super/Vision first appeared in Fanon: A Reader, eds. Lews Gordon and Tracy Denean Whiting (Basil Blackwell, 1995), pp. 179202.
Whither West? The Making of a Public Intellectual first appeared in the Review of Education/Pedagogy/Cultural Studies (1994): 113.
Wedded to Dixie: Dinesh DSouza and the New Segregationism first appeared in the Review of Education/Pedagogy/Cultural Studies (1996): 23165.
First published 1997 by Routledge
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Library of Congress Catologing-in-Publication Data
Goldberg, David Theo.
Racial subjects: writing on race in America / David Theo Goldberg.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13:978-0-415-91830-5 (hbk)
ISBN-13:978-0-415-91831-2 (pbk)
1. RacismUnited States. 2. United StatesRace relations. I. Tide.
E184.A1G566 1997 | 96-39653 |
305.800973dc21 | CIP |
For the scholarly community of colleague-friends
who made this volume conceivable
TABLE OF CONTENTS
In/Visibility and Super/Vision:
Fanon and Racial Formation
Wedded to Dixie:
Dinesh DSouza and the New Segregationism
T hese essays would not have been possible but for the many and extensive discussions with valued friendsin person, over the telephone, across cyberspace. Regular conversations with Tommy Lott made me rethink, redirect, and refine many of my arguments. Howard McGary encouraged me to clarify points large and small. Visits to and by Paul Gilroy opened up insights otherwise hidden from view. Henry Girouxs invitations led to reviewing both Cornel Wests and Dinesh DSouzas books and his incisive comments on my drafts dramatically improved them. Naomi Zacks invitation led to the writing of the article on mixed race, as did Renee Schroffs to an article on crime and preferences, and Lewis Gordons to the meditation on Fanon. I benefited greatly by presenting ideas on affirmative action and class to a group of colleaguesfaculty and studentsin the School of Justice Studies at Arizona State University, especially from comments by Michael Musheno. Leonard Harriss helpful comments on Hate, or Power? led me to revise it more than once. Herman Gray, in reviewing Taking Stock: Counting by Race for Cultural Studies, made especially helpful suggestions that led to considerable revision of that essay. (Hermans suggestions, it turns out, were more useful to me than to the journal, for though the essay was accepted for publication I found myself more quickly able to publish the piece in this collection than in Cultural Studies. Nevertheless, I appreciate also the critical assistance and encouragement of its editor, Lawrence Grossberg.) Cedric Robinson and Nahum Chandler offered insightful comments on an earlier draft presented at the Warwick University Conference on Race and Modernity organized by Abebe Zegeye and Julia Maxted.
Sally Merry gave me the idea about the framing force of bureaucratic forms that I incorporated into the essay on the census, Taking Stock. I would not have been able to complete this paper without the incredible archival skills of Barbara Lammi, who made it possible for me to make sense of the scattered and inconsistent historical data on racial categories in the census. Vikki Bell prompted me to rethink what I was up to in the Fanon essay, as did presenting it to an audience at San Francisco State University at Anatole Antons invitation.
Between Blacks and Jews grew out of my participation in the Workshop on Black-Jewish relations at Harvard University, directed by Skip Gates. I am grateful for the opportunity to have been party to the often scintillating exchanges among participants in the workshop. In particular, two years of group meetings enabled extensive discussions with Laurence Thomas and Adam Newton from which I have benefited immeasurably.
My colleague Pat Lauderdale offered me a sociological compass I would be loathe to leave at home in any social storm. His insightful comments on earlier drafts of nearly all these essays reduced the probability of embarrassment. If there still be cause for embarrassment the fault is mine alone, due perhaps to not having yet learned to read the compass.
Pietro Toggia provided wonderful research assistance while pushing me to define my views more clearly. The book would never have been completed but for the terrific skill of Kay Korman, my administrative associate, and the supportive staff of the School of Justice Studies as well as Sam Michalowski, whose combined efforts and boundless humor make administrative duties seem neither administrative nor duty-bound. Janet Soper of the Publication Assistance Center, College of Public Programs at Arizona State University again left no stone unturned in producing incomparable camera-ready copy, helped immeasurably by my research assistant Ruth Butler (wordprocessing) and by Pietro Toggia (producing the indexes). I am grateful also to Jayne Fargnoli, the initiating editor on this book, for trusting me so quickly, and to the staff at Routledge, especially Alexandra Mummery and Ronda Angel, for easing me so effortlessly through the production process, and to my friend George Lipsitz for saving me from embarrassment.
Alena and Gaby, still the source of so many thoughts, repeatedly renew the critical spirit, their combined good sense driving me to distinguish good ideas from bad, fresh stories from foul. They continue to suffer through my silences, my absences, and my flights of rhetorical fancy, only bringing me, like Maurice Sendaks midnight baker, back to dawns earth with a loving and laughing bump.
INTRODUCTION:
THE RACIAL FABRIC
B etween January 1995 and October 1996 over one hundred largely black churches throughout the American South were set alight in arson attacks. Little notice was paid publicly or politically until a widely publicized arrest on June 10, 1996, for a fire set a few days earlier in Charlotte, North Carolina. A white girl of thirteen from a wealthy suburb neighboring the church admitted sole responsibility. At the time of her arrest the local police declared that the fire she had started was unrelated to any other, and that she had not been racially motivated but was a seriously disturbed girl involved in teenage satanic activity. The same day two black churches were set alight in Greenville, Texas. Three mentwo white, one Hispanic according to reportswere questioned and released for lack of evidence. Greenville has been the heart of Texan Klan activity historically; twenty years ago a sign welcoming people to town read Home of the blackest land and the whitest people.