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A CRITIQUE OF POSTRACIALISM

Conserving Race and Complicating Blackness Beyond the Black-white Binary1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 July 2014

Kathryn T. Gines*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, The Pennsylvania State University
*
Corresponding author: Professor Kathryn T. Gines, Penn State University, Department of Philosophy, 242 Sparks Building, University Park, PA, 16802. E-mail: ktg3@psu.edu

Abstract

This article offers a critique of the very claim that we live in postracial times, and examines the residue of old systems of racism intermeshed with new forms of racism that perpetuate systematic institutional racism. I argue that to combat institutional racism we need post-racism rather than postracialism. Additionally, I reject the Black-white Binary as the singular or even primary paradigm for understanding racism in order to challenge narrow conceptualizations of racism. Finally, I argue for a more nuanced and complex analysis of Blackness.

Type
Race in a “Postracial” Epoch
Copyright
Copyright © Hutchins Center for African and African American Research 2014 

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