Multivalent Oppression K - NDI 2015
NEG
1NC Shell
Aff focus on Blackness as explanatory of overarching oppression renders it
impossible to challenge multivalent forms of racism & discrimination,
increasing suffering
Alcoff 6 (Linda Alcoff a philosopher at the City University of New York who specializes in
epistemology, feminism, race theory and existentialism. “Visible identities Race Gender And the
Self” 2006 Oxford Press)
Native peoples were represented∂ as vanquished, disappearing, and thus of no account.∂ Thus,
the paradigm of an antiblack
racism intertwined with slavery does not help to illuminate specific forms and experiences of
oppression, where ideologies often relied on charges of innate evil, religious backwardness,
horde mentalities, the inevitability of extinction, and other projections not used in regard to
African Americans. I will argue that the hegemony of the black/white paradigm has stymied the
development of an adequate account of the diverse racial realities in the United States and
weakened the general accounts of racism that attempt to be truly inclusive. This has had a negative effect on
our ability to develop effective solutions to the various forms that racism can take, to make
common cause against ethnic- and race-based forms of oppression and to create lasting
coalitions, and has recently played a significant role in the demise of affirmative action. I will support
these claims further in what follows. Criticisms Critics of the black/white paradigm have argued that, although all communities of
color have shared the experience of political and economic disenfranchisement in the United
States, there are significant differences between the causes and the forms of this
disenfranchisement. Bong Hwan Kim, a Korean American community leader who has worked both as the director of the Korean Community
Center of∂ East Bay in Oakland and as director of the Korean Youth and Community Center in∂ Los Angeles, blames the black/white binary for disabling
relationships among∂ people of color and even for creating the conditions leading to the Los Angeles civil∂ disaster of April 1992, in which 2300 small
Korean-owned businesses were destroyed∂ by mostly Latino and African American looters. Kim cites the xenophobia marshaled∂ by African American
leader Danny Bakewell before the looting occurred,∂ and argues that the Korean American community had been and continues to be∂ systematically
rendered incapable of responding to such rhetoric because they are∂ not recognized in the media as a player in racial politics.2 Elaine Kim explains:∂ It
is difficult to describe how disempowered and frustrated many Korean Americans∂ felt during and after the sa-i-ku p’ok-dong (the April 29 ‘‘riots’’).
Korean∂ Latinos, Asian Americans, and the Black-White Binary 253∂ Americans across the country shared the anguish and despair of the Los Angeles∂
tongp’o (community), which everyone seemed to have abandoned—the police∂ and fire departments, black and white political leaders, the Asian and
Pacific∂ American advocates who tried to dissociate themselves from us because our∂ tragedy disputed their narrow and risk-free focus on white
violence against∂ Asians. ... [T]he Korean Americans at the center of the storm were mostly∂ voiceless and all but invisible (except when stereotyped as
hysterically inarticulate,∂ and mostly female, ruined shopkeepers.) (Kim 1994, 71–72)∂ Similar
to the Mexican Americans in
Texas, the Korean Americans have been denied the legal or socially recognized category of being a
politicized group at the same time that they are made subject to group-based scapegoating.
Moreover, as this event demonstrates, the black/white paradigm of race is incapable of theoretically or
politically addressing racism among communities of color, or addressing∂ racism, in other
words, that is not all about white people. A response to this line of reasoning might be that it is
white supremacy which is at the root of the conflictual relations among communities of color and responsible for
their acceptance of stereotypes manufactured by a white dominant power structure. Thus, on this reading, what occurred in Los Angeles can be
reductively∂ explained as the result of white supremacy. Although I often find explanatory∂ arguments that focus on political economy compelling, it is
To blame only
white supremacy for what occurred in Los Angeles would deny power and agency to any groups but the
dominant, which is increasingly untrue. However, one could hold a monocausal account of the
genealogy of racism and still acknowledge that racism has multiple targets and a variety of
forms. Supporting the arguments of both Elaine Kim and Bong Hwan Kim, Juan∂ Perea argues that because of the wide
simplistic to∂ imagine cultural conflicts as the mere epiphenomena of economic forces with no∂ life or grounding of their own.
acceptance of the black/white paradigm, ‘‘other racialized groups like Latinos/as, Asian
Americans, and Native Americans are often marginalized or ignored altogether’’ (1998, 361). He points out
that the concerns of Asian Americans and Latinos cannot be addressed through immigration∂ legislation because not all are immigrants. This is one
reason to reject the∂ claim of some ethnic theorists that these groups will follow the path of European∂ immigrants in gradual assimilation and
economic success (the other reason to∂ reject this claim is their racialization or status as nonwhites).3∂ Roberto Suro argues that the black/white
binary forces Latinos and other∂ people of color who are not African Americans to adopt the strategies of civil rights∂ litigation even though these are
‘‘not particularly well-suited to Latinos’’ because∂ Latinos are a much more diverse group (1999, 87). For example, any meaningful∂ redress of
economic discrimination affecting Latinos and Asian Americans will∂ need to disaggregate these groups, as some ‘‘target of opportunity’’ programs
today∂ in fact do, since the gap between median incomes in Filipino and Japanese∂ households, or between Puerto Rican and Cuban households,
makes averaging∂ these incomes useless as an indicator of economic success. Richard Delgado
argues that ‘‘if one’s paradigm
identifies only one group as deserving of protection, everyone else is likely to suffer’’ (Delgado 1998,
370). Current civil rights legislation,∂ 254 Latino/a Particularity∂ in Delgado’s view, has provided legal advantages for African Americans, unwittingly∂
perhaps, over other people of color. I don’t take Delgado to be implying that∂ the legislation has necessarily been very effective in benefiting the
African American∂ population, but that the language of the law, however much it has yet to be∂ applied, is based on the experience of only one group.
Vote negative to endorse a politics of multivalent recognition, it is the only
access to truly transformative politics
Snyder 12 (Greta Fowler, Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Politics, University of Virginia,
”Multivalent Recognition: Between Fixity and Fluidity in Identity Politics”, The Journal of Politics,
Vol. 74, No. 1, January, jstor)
Others might be concerned that widening the meaning of a collective identity—its terms of
membership—dilutes the solidarity group members feel with one another and thereby undermines
a group’s ability to respond effectively to injustice. Tommie Shelby (2005) has convincingly argued, however, that
the solidarity that animates a collective politics can be fostered through a common (though multifaceted) experience of oppression
just as through a strong collective identity. Indeed, this
is the way that Alexander envisions the “ties that bind” black
people and allow her to say “my people”—she suggests that “stories of violence and subsequent responsive group
knowledge and strategy compel us even as we hold onto the understanding of profound differences between African Americans”
(2004, 176–77). Challenging
the assertion that people categorized as black are identical does not
prevent such people from sharing a common identification (Brubaker and Cooper 2000). Of course, serious
political work must be done to convince heterogeneous group members that they share a similar plight (Cohen 1999). Then
again, serious political work must also be done to convince heterogeneous group members that
they share a substantive collective identity. Those engaged in a politics of multivalent
recognition are more aware of and willing to acknowledge the insight of intersectionality
scholars—that “the organized identity groups in which we find ourselves are in fact coalitions, or at least potential coalitions
waiting to be formed” (Crenshaw 1991, 1299)—than are those engaged in a politics of monovalent recognition.8
Critics of identity politics warn that the politics of difference undermines cross-identity coalitions by emphasizing difference (Brown
1995; Gitlin 1996; Wolin 1993). Yet a politics of multivalent
recognition is actually poised to “unburden
groups of excessive ascribed or constructed distinctiveness” (Fraser and Honneth 2003, 47) like the
universalist politics of recognition from which I distinguished it earlier. Highlighting the diversity within identities brings points of
similarity across identities to light. Put otherwise, as the symbolic boundaries of identities are widened—as more and different
people are accepted as “really black”—identities once seen as distinct from one another are now seen as overlapping. While
a
multivalent politics of recognition centers on a single collective identity, it necessarily has
implications across identities. When black feminist men demand recognition, for instance, this
demand has implications for the categories of black, male and female. Moreover, inasmuch as identity
categories are interrelated—think, for example, of the dependence of whiteness on blackness—a multivalent politics of recognition
as engaged in by one identity group will affect another. Participation by
one identity group in the politics of
recognition may be catalyzed by the participation of another identity group: witness the men’s
movement springing from the successes of feminism. But cooperation between identity groups
in a politics of multivalent recognition can be secured by agreement that more capacious
notions of identity can benefit members of all identity groups—including the privileged within
identity groups and members of privileged identity groups. Coalition work is the only hope for
radical transformation in an identity field inasmuch as “resistance on one front in isolation rarely
represents a significant departure from or challenge to the dominant modes of being or
production” (Iton 2008, 103). By drawing attention to similarities across identities, intersectionality, the interrelatedness of
group identities, and the benefits that redound from more capacious notions of identities, a politics of multivalent
recognition can foster the kind of cross-identity coalitions that are necessary to incite radical
changes within an identity field.9 Moreover, actors engaged in a politics of multivalent recognition
are predisposed to coalition work by the understanding that any form of politics—be it intraidentity or cross-identity—requires working across difference. By complicating identities in a
way that encourages cross-identity coalitions, an affirmative politics of recognition can have
transformative effects (Fraser and Honneth 2003).
Links
Link - Blackness as Monovalent Identity
Their discussion of blackness is monovalent- monolithic interpretation of black
identity
Snyder 12 (Greta Fowler, Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Politics, University of Virginia,
”Multivalent Recognition: Between Fixity and Fluidity in Identity Politics”, The Journal of Politics,
Vol. 74, No. 1, January, jstor)
Despite contentious differences in their vision and projection of black identity,3 there was one
striking similarity in the way Panther leaders and Karenga along with BAM artists presented
black people: black people were presented as fundamentally alike. “In the [initial] fight for
representation and recognition,” says Cornel West, “images ‘re-presented’ monolithic and
homogeneous Black communities … These Black responses…assumed that all Black people were
really alike” (1993, 16–17). Demands for recognition by the Panthers and by the US Organization
and those they influenced encouraged the perception that black identity is more “fixed”—more
homogenous, more static—than it can possibly be (Markell 2003; Phillips 2007). The privileging
of a particular monolithic interpretation of black identity had problematic effects in terms of
both intra and intergroup relations. Black people that did not accept US’s philosophy were
rejected as “Negroes”: “the only thing Negroes produce,” Karenga proclaimed derisively, “are
problems and babies” (Ogbar 2005, 94). While progressive in relation to white racism, the Black
Panther Party’s focus on the redemption of black manhood had repressive effects on black
women and gay men (White 1990). The broader extragroup effects of the recognition politics of
the US Organization and the Panthers were ambivalent at best and counterproductive at worst.
Drawing from a vision of Africa that was significantly shaped by (racist) Western readings of
Africa (Brown 2003; White 1990), Karenga reinscribed the “romanticist mythology created by
European ideologies” that associated civilization/reason with whiteness and nature/emotion
with blackness—thereby “giving credence to the oldest of racist stereotypes” (Mercer 1994,
113). In their vehement rejection of black identities represented by Moynihan, McCone, the
southern civil rights protest model, the Nation of Islam and US, the Panthers encouraged
“myopic and simplistic notions of ghetto authenticity” (Ogbar 2005, 122), promoted the
pervasive equation of “black” with “urban poor” (Ongiri 2009, 19) and opened the door for the
association of black men with hypermasculine aggression (Morgan 2006). Both groups sought to
reverse stereotypes in the dominant discourse used to oppress blacks. But as Stuart Hall has
admonished, “to reverse the stereotype is not necessarily to overturn or subvert it” (1997, 272).
Since the symbolic system remains intact—white is to civilization as black is to nature; white is
to reason as black is to emotion—meaning continued to be framed by it (2009, 274). By
emphasizing differences between groups and homogeneity within them, a politics of recognition
“tends to call up its own stereotypes” (Phillips 2007, 31). Given the monolithic nature of the
identity being projected by these groups—black identity as homogenous, static, and wholly
different from white identity—I categorize the kind of politics of recognition engaged in by the
Panthers, Karenga and figures associated with BAM as a politics of monovalent recognition.
While US had some success in revaluing essential blackness and the Panthers had some success
in revaluing authentic blackness, both reinforced problematic stereotypes and a hierarchically
organized symbolic system. Looking to other cultural political realities and possibilities
overlooked by political theorists, however, we find demands for recognition animated by a
different goal than public affirmation of a homogenous, static, and utterly differentiated
conception of a collective identity.
Link – Authentic Blackness
Blackness ideals are monovalent-enables identity as mutually exclusive
Snyder 12 (Greta Fowler, Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Politics, University of Virginia,
”Multivalent Recognition: Between Fixity and Fluidity in Identity Politics”, The Journal of Politics,
Vol. 74, No. 1, January, jstor)
Thanks to the politics of monovalent recognition, positive representations of black identity are
much more common today than they were prior to the Black Power movement. Yet as Elizabeth
Alexander laments, visions of blackness are calcified: “embraceable” black people tend to be
athletes, comedians, musicians and mystics or gurus (Guerrero 1995; Hughey 2009; Page 1997)
while the gangster, the pimp, the hustler, and the welfare queen still dominate the cultural
imaginary (Entman and Rojecki 2001; Tucker 2007). Indeed, in a 2009 review of the state of race
relations, Lawrence Bobo and Camille Charles report that “between half and three-quarters of
whites in the United States still express some degree of negative stereotyping of blacks” (2009,
246). This regime of representation has been produced and reproduced by both racist ideology
and the monovalent recognition movements that sought to challenge this ideology. The 2008
Presidential election provides a compelling example of the way in which “calcified” visions of
group identity are implicated in both the reproduction of the marginalization of black Americans
and repressive intragroup dynamics. Consider the questions that dogged Barack Obama during
his primary—is he “black enough/too black?” One prominent commentator opined that these
questions, asked by both blacks and whites, were borne of the “belief that 50 Cent, not Barack
Obama, represents the real black America” (Coates 2007). Indeed, the notion that “real
blackness” resides “exclusively in the ghetto among the poorest and most disenfranchised of the
African American population”—the notion endorsed by the Black Panthers—“continues to be
pervasive in post-Black Power…culture” (Ongiri 2009, 19). This association undermines the
ability/willingness of both black and white people to see those who identify as black but do not
fit these cultural constructions (i.e., Obama) as “really black.” Moreover, these questions
suggest that “blackness” is incompatible with traits exemplified by Obama—including, as
comments by Joe Biden in January 2007 implied, his articulateness and intelligence (Coates
2007). Presenting a collective identity like “black” as homogenous, static, and bounded as
monovalent recognition movements do enables that identity to be understood as one part of a
symbolic system in which identities are mutually exclusive. And in such a system, as Jacques
Derrida, Stuart Hall, and others have forcefully argued, the traits associated with one group will
always be privileged. Highlighting the multiplicity of black identity and unmooring blackness
from a specific and limited set of characteristics challenges white dominance without promoting
intragroup repression or exclusion. —that all black people are the same. Moving beyond the
symbolic confines set by the hegemonic group or “negating the negation” involves
highlighting the difference that exists within identity categories through demands for
recognition.
Link - Slavery
Their monolithic depiction of Blackness ignores material evidence of
multivalent responses to the condition of slavery
Matthew 11 (Christopher N. Matthews, Hofstra University , African Diaspora Archaeology
Newsletter, 3-1-2011, “The Archaeology of Race and African American”,
http://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2009&context=adan)
The chapter reproduced here is my favorite since it exemplifies how I worked to weave together
cultural, historical, and political economic factors to produce an archaeological interpretation
that highlights both agency and critique. My argument is that capitalism is based on a particular
worldview that supports the agency of actors engaged in society as individuals; thus individual
agency is a key to participation and to the reproduction of the capitalist system. However,
individual agency comes at a price. While many pay this price in labor, debt, and sacrifice,
others, usually those most marginal to the mainstream and thus least able to afford the costs of
participation, developed alternatives that I consider as critiques. These critiques pointed out the
shortcomings and flaws of the system capitalism created, but as 1 show in the book, most of
these critiques failed to generaa te substantial change as they were adopted by people too
heavily invested in that system to see beyond it. My chapter on African Diaspora communities
tells a different story by showing how the material culture of African Americans exhibits astute
and critical readings of racism and the foundations of capitalism that helped to dehumanize
them as slaves and, thus, commodities. Being so marginalized, in other words, African
Americans felt and saw what capitalism most expects from its participants and thus were in a
unique position to develop a critical standpoint against it. I also emphasize the importance of
considering multivalency in the interpretation of African Diaspora materials. The fact that
objects can produce and sustain multiple meanings allowed African Americans to develop
autonomous though partly hidden cultural systems informed but not controlled by the white
capitalists who surrounded them. Similarly, I highlight the value of considering assemblages so
that we are able to consider how artifacts were ordered and related in particular ways that
allow us to see the African American cultural critique of capitalism. Finally, I emphasize the
social value of religious expression. As religion is based in a community of believers I describe
how the material expressions of ritual action and religious belief, from marking colonoware
bowls to experiencing conversion in African American Christianity, informs us about how
communities critical of racism and capitalism were reproduced through time. Ultimately, I argue
that an archaeology of capitalism provides vital insights into the origins and meanings of African
American culture from which America as a whole still has so much to learn.
Link - Black/White Binary
The aff only describes one facet of race but claims that it is a universal approach
– this renders anyone outside of Black/White invisible
Perea 97 [Professor of Law, University of Florida College of Law, Juan, RACE, ETHNICITY &
NATIONHOOD: ARTICLE: The Black/White Binary Paradigm of Race: The "Normal Science" of
American Racial Thought, California Law Review, October, 1997, 85 Calif. L. Rev. 1213, p. 1254]
My objection to the state of most current scholarship on race is simply that most
of this scholarship claims
universality of treatment while actually describing only part of its subject, the relationship
between Blacks and Whites. Race in the United States means more than just Black and White.
It also refers to Latino/a, Asian, Native American, and other racialized groups. Accordingly,
books titled "Race in America" or "White Racism" that only discuss Blackness and Whiteness claim a
universality of scope that they do not deliver. These books offer a paradigmatic rendering of
their subject that excludes important portions of civil rights history. Authors of such books
need to be aware that they promulgate a binary paradigm of race that operates to silence and
render invisible Latinos/as, Asian Americans and Native Americans. Accordingly, they
reproduce a serious harm.
Link White/NonWhite
Collapsing of multiple identities into “non white” erases difference
Bowman 1 (Kristi, prof of law @MSU, JD from Duke, Duke Law Journal “The New Face of
School Desegregation,” http://www.law.duke.edu/shell/cite.pl?50+Duke+L.+J.+1751)
White privilege is reinforced when racial and ethnic groups are conceptualized not as White,
African American, Latino, Asian American, Native American, etc., but instead as White or NonWhite. Acknowledgement of differences among groups disappears in a White-Non-White
paradigm, because instead of allowing racial or ethnic groups to identify themselves by what
they are,238 all Non- [*pg 1787] White groups are explicitly identified by what they are not, and only
by reference to whiteness. Although aspects of a specific Non-White group might be easier to identify than "White
culture," this occurs because White culture is mainstream culture. The culture of a specific Non-White group
appears distinctive because it deviates from the norm. Professor Martha Mahoney notes that a term such as
"racially identifiable" in the context of housing and urban development generally refers "to locations that are racially identifiably
black."239 The same is true in the context of education: racially
identifiable means racially identifiably NonWhite. The White-Non-White paradigm reinforces the power dynamic of the acted and the acted upon, of presence and absence,
of the defining and the defined. The power that Whites receive from their unearned privilege in the
White-Non-White duality "is, in fact, permission to escape [the debate of race] or to dominate."240
When federal courts reinforce this dynamic in the name of school desegregation, they perpetuate the
normalized, mainstream practices and institutions that reinforce racial inequality. It is often these practices and
institutions that are most damaging in terms of perpetuating oppression because they are not usually questioned. They are
conceptualized as just normal.241 In contemporary school desegregation jurisprudence, Whites
are normalized, and all
Non-Whites are collapsed into the category of "other." Like African Americans, Latinos have been the victims of
state-sanctioned educational segregation;242 but if courts gave attention to the present differences between African Americans and
Latinos, courts' remedial orders would likely be structured differently. As will be discussed below, the recognition of Latinos and
African Americans as distinct groups that continue to suffer different harms is easily within reach.
Link – Rejection of State
Rejection of sovereignty is another link – there are groups that strive for
inclusion within the state. Their criticism of the state erases their identity.
Perea 10 (Juan, Cone, Wagner, Nugent, Johnson, Hazouri & Roth Professor of Law, University
of Florida Levin College of Law, An Essay On The Iconic Status Of The Civil Rights Movement And
Its Unintended Consequences, Virginia Journal of Social Policy & the Law, Vol. 18:1, Fall, p. 57,
http://scs.student.virginia.edu/vjspl/18.2/Perea.pdf]
There are important reasons to recognize the Chicano, American-Indian, and Native Hawaiian
struggles for civil rights. With respect to the Chicano and American-Indian struggles, it is important to counter the belief,
demonstrably untrue, that groups other than African Americans are latecomers to civil rights struggle. To the extent that the
legitimacy of civil rights claims rests on a history of struggle—and the African-American Civil Rights Movement suggests that this is
true to a large extent—then the
legitimacy of Latino and American-Indian claims for civil rights
depends on acknowledgement and recognition of their histories of struggle.54 It is also important to
recognize that the substantive content of civil rights for groups other than African Americans may
be different than the civil rights demanded by African Americans. To illustrate, the African-American struggle has
focused on equality and full inclusion in American society. Equality and inclusion are remedies for centuries of
servitude and forced exclusion. American-Indian and Native Hawaiian struggles for civil rights, on the
other hand, focus on the attainment and enhancement of sovereignty. Greater sovereignty for
American Indians and Native Hawaiians is the remedy for the denial of sovereign status historically characteristic
of relations between the federal and state governments and Indian nations. Civil rights in the form of enhanced sovereignty for
indigenous peoples, although different than the civil rights sought by African Americans, remain civil rights. Civil rights are, in
important part, remedies for particular forms of oppression experienced by some peoples. As
advocates for civil and
human rights generally, we do not want to fail to recognize a struggle for civil rights merely
because it differs from the African-American struggle.
Link White supremacy
Obsession with White Supremacy is bad – white racists have mastered that
game. The result of their project is to reinscribe whites as the principal point of
reference.
West 93 (Cornell, Race Matters, p. 98-99]
The project of black separatism -- to which Malcolm X was beholden for most of his life after his first psychic conversion to the Nation of Islam -suffered from deep intellectual and organizational problems. Unlike Malcolm X's notion of psychic conversion, Elijah Muhammad's idea of religious
conversion was predicated on an obsession with white supremacy. The basic aim of black Muslim theology -- with its distinct black supremacist account
preoccupation with white supremacy still
allowed white people to serve as the principal point of reference. That which fundamentally
motivates one still dictates the terms of what one thinks and does -- so the motivation of a
black supremacist doctrine reveals how obsessed one is with white supremacy. This is
understandable in a white racist society -- but it is crippling for a despised people struggling for freedom, in
that one's eyes should be on the prize, not on the perpetuator of one's oppression. In short, Elijah
of the origins of white people -- was to counter white supremacy. Yet this
Muhammad's project remained captive to the supremacy game -- a game mastered by the white racists he opposed and imitated with his black
supremacy doctrine.
Link – Opacity/Fugitivity
Fugitivity is a monovalent recognitionSnyder 12 (Greta Fowler, Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Politics, University of Virginia,
”Multivalent Recognition: Between Fixity and Fluidity in Identity Politics”, The Journal of Politics,
Vol. 74, No. 1, January, jstor)
Like Patricia Williams, I want to maintain that there is a distinction between “good visibility” and
“bad visibility.” Bad visibility, as Williams argues, involves hypervisibility, objectification, making
a spectacle, stereotyping. Good visibility, on the other hand, involves “a recognition of
individuality that includes blacks as a social presence” (Williams 1991, 121). While a politics of
monovalent recognition encourages visibility, the kind of visibility it encourages often ends up
falling on the negative side of Williams’ spectrum. On the other hand, I believe that a politics of
multivalent recognition can make black Americans visible in ways that better their lives.
Alternative
Alt = Endorse Multivalent Blackness
Our alternative should be to endorse multivalent blackness- more nuanced
visions of black identity
Snyder 12 (Greta Fowler, Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Politics, University of Virginia,
”Multivalent Recognition: Between Fixity and Fluidity in Identity Politics”, The Journal of Politics,
Vol. 74, No. 1, January, jstor)
Poet and cultural critic Elizabeth Alexander champions an alternative in her 2004 book of essays
entitled The Black Interior.4 Alexander is explicit about the importance of presence—of
recognition—to African American life and politics (2004, 8). Yet her critique of “narrow
descriptors of blackness” and her concern with “the straightjacketed constraints of racial
ideologies imposed from the mythic within” (Alexander 2004, 204) communicates a wariness of
the politics of monovalent recognition. Writing to black cultural producers, Alexander seeks to
reorient black cultural politics. Alexander opens with the following concern: Visions of black
identity—both self-representations and representations of black identity in the mainstream—
have become “calcified” (2004, ix). Drawing the connections between calcification, oppression
of the group and repression of the individual, Alexander argues that cultivating and accessing
that metaphysical space—“the black interior”—from which complex and nuanced visions of
black identity spring is of the utmost importance. While the black interior harbors racialized
visions of identity—the interior of which Alexander speaks is specifically black—she Alexander
insists that a social identity like black “need not be seen as a constraint” (2004, 5). In the black
interior, black artists have found black “selves that go far, far beyond the limited expectations
and definitions of what black is, isn’t or should be” (5). Only such black selves can combat not
just devaluation, but calcification. Integral to achieving a more capacious notion of black identity
is the proliferation of different identities signified as black. Monolithic versions of blackness
frequently contradict one another (Alexander 2004, 6); this was certainly true of blackness as
represented by the Panthers and US. These groups did not allow the different visions to
peacefully coexist, but Alexander advocates for a world in which different conceptions of
blackness are enabled to coexist side-by-side in contradiction. In this world, people insist on the
importance of “black” as a social identity while embracing the multiplicity of blackness. As the
visions of black identity enabled to sit side-by-side proliferate, Alexander envisions “being black”
going so far as “to be emptied of meaning and reclaimed as possibility” (2004, 8). An abundance
of contradicting meanings renders blackness more malleable. In the absence of a determinate
definition of real blackness, black people are freed of expectations about what black is, isn’t, and
should be, and empowered to realize selves that go “beyond stereotype and romance” (203).
Impacts
No Solvency for racism
aff can never solve white racism
Perea 10 [Cone, Wagner, Nugent, Johnson, Hazouri & Roth Professor of Law, University of
Florida Levin College of Law, Juan, AN ESSAY ON THE ICONIC STATUS OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS
MOVEMENT AND ITS UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES, Virginia Journal of Social Policy & the Law,
Vol. 18:1, Fall, p. 57-58, http://scs.student.virginia.edu/vjspl/18.2/Perea.pdf]
Lastly, recognizing
a fuller scope of civil rights struggles is important in helping us understand
the full measure of unremedied past injustice. If we take no account of denials of civil rights to
Mexican Americans, American Indians, and Native Hawaiians, among other groups, then we
underestimate dramatically the scope of white racism. Every struggle against racism and
oppression deserves recognition. The iconic status of the African-American Civil Rights Movement is a testament to the
power of righteous struggle. While it certainly deserves its hallowed place in our history and our hearts, we should be careful that its
long shadow not obscure the importance of other righteous struggles. If we
care about justice, we should always
be attuned to struggles for greater justice, whether or not they resemble the African-American struggle for civil
rights. As inspiring as the African-American struggle has been, we may find additional
inspiration, and more possibilities for justice, if we cast our gaze beyond the African-American Civil
Rights Movement, gazing further back, further forward, and to the side.
They calcify negative racial classifications
Leong 10 (Nancy, Assistant Professor, William and Mary School of Law, JUDICIAL ERASURE OF
MIXED-RACE DISCRIMINATION, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW, Vol. 59, 59 Am. U. L. Rev.
469, p. 551]
Multiracial individuals have long vexed courts and commentators because they challenge and confound existing
racial categories. Despite the recognition that multiracial individuals have received in some
contexts, the reliance of antidiscrimination jurisprudence on categories has generally excluded plaintiffs
identified as multiracial. This absence obscures animus directed at multiracial individuals.
Moreover, the dominance of racial categories calcifies existing racial classifications and the
stereotypes associated with them, preventing society from moving beyond these arbitrary
categories.
Focus on the black-white binary excludes analysis of racism that affects other
oppressed populations.
Perea 97 (juan, Professor of Law at the University of Florida, "The Black/White Binary
Paradigm of Race: The "Normal Science" of American Racial Thought," Oct. 5, JSTOR]
Paradigms of race shape our understanding of race and our definition of racial problems. The
most pervasive and powerful paradigm of race in the United States is the Black/White binary
paradigm. I define this paradigm as the conception that race in America consists, either exclusively or primarily, of only two
constituent racial groups, the Black and the White. Many scholars of race reproduce this paradigm when they
write and act as though only the Black and the White races matter for purposes of discussing race and social
policy with regard to race. The mere recognition that "other people of color" exist, without care- ful
attention to their voices, their histories, and their real presence, is merely a reassertion of the
Black/White paradigm. If one conceives of race and racism as primarily of concern only to Blacks
and Whites, and understands "other people of color" only through some unclear anal- ogy to
the "real" races, this just restates the binary paradigm with a slight concession to demographics. My assertion is
that our shared understanding of race and racism is essentially limited to this Black/White binary paradigm.27 This
paradigm defines, but also limits, the set of problems that may be recognized in racial discourse .
Kuhn's notion of "normal science," which further articulates the paradigm and seeks to solve the problems perceivable because of
the paradigm, also applies to "normal research" on race. Given the Black/White paradigm, we would expect to find that much
research on race is concerned with understanding the dynamics of the Black and White races and attempting to solve the problems
between Blacks and Whites. Within the paradigm, the relevant material facts are facts about Blacks and Whites. In addition, the
paradigm dictates that all other racial identities and groups in the United States are best
understood through the Black/White binary paradigm. Only a few writers even recognize that they use a
Black/White paradigm as the frame of reference through which to understand racial relations.28 Most writers simply
assume the importance and correctness of the paradigm, and leave the reader grasping for
whatever significance descriptions of the Black/White relationship have for other people of
color. As I shall discuss, because the Black/White binary paradigm is so widely accepted, other racialized
groups like Latinos/as, Asian Americans, and Native Americans are often marginal- ized or
ignored altogether. As Kuhn writes, "those that will not fit the box are often not seen at all."29
Alcoff 6’
Linda Alcoff a philosopher at the City University of New York who specializes in epistemology,
feminism, race theory and existentialism. “Visible identities Race Gender And the Self” 2006
Oxford Press
What I would argue here is that the black/white binary is operating in this case∂ to obscure the real problems. Conservatives argued
that Asian Americans are nonwhite∂ so that their case can be used to dismantle affirmative action for all: if they can∂ get in, we all
can get in. But
this would follow only if the category ‘‘nonwhite’’ is∂ undifferentiated in terms of
how racism operates. Others wanted to argue that Asian∂ Americans are being treated here as
white, and thus have no interest in an antiracist∂ coalition.∂ It is certainly true that it is a white
power structure that privileges such things∂ as test scores. But Asian Americans were still not
actually being treated as whites.∂ Takagi points out that the claims of overrepresentation
conveniently ignored the∂ large disparity between Asian American admission rates and white
admission rates∂ (the percentage of admissions in relation to the pool of applicants), a disparity that∂ cannot be accounted for
by SAT scores or grades. That is, holding scores and∂ grades constant, white individuals were more likely to be admitted than Asian∂
Americans, even if in real numbers on some campuses Asian American acceptances∂ outnumbered whites. (To give one example of
this, the Asian American∂ Student Association at Brown University discovered that between 1979 and 1987∂ there was a 750 percent
increase in Asian applications, even while there was a∂ steadily declining admission rate—from 44 percent in 1979 to 14 percent in
1987)∂ (1992, 28). So there has been a covert quota system operating against Asian∂ American applicants in many university
systems, which is covered over by their∂ high numbers of admission and is no doubt motivated by the same fears of ‘‘yellow∂ 262
Latino/a Particularity∂ peril’’ that were used to justify discrimination in the 1800s. Asian Americans are not∂ seen as white despite
the fact that they have so-called ‘‘white’’ attributes because they∂ are seen as unassimilable; they are suspected of retaining loyalty
to Asian countries∂ and thus of being a threat to ‘‘the nation.’’ The
concern about overrepresentation∂ targeted
Asian Americans exclusively; the only people similarly targeted in the past∂ were Jews, and these
cases are clearly attributable to anti-Semitism. This concern∂ certainly has not been raised in regard to the poor,
who are underrepresented, or to∂ the children of alumni or to athletes, both of whom are overrepresented.∂ Takagi traces the
empirical studies, public discourse, and policy changes∂ prompted by this concern over overrepresentation to the argument that
affirmative∂ action should ignore race and address only class, even though the claim that racism∂ can be addressed in this way can
be easily empirically disproved given the disparity∂ of SAT scores within classes across racial difference.6∂ What this case
demonstrates is not that all nonwhites should be grouped∂ together in all cases of attempts to redress social inequities, but precisely
the∂ opposite: they should not be lumped together. The problems of discrimination that∂ Asian Americans face in higher education
in the United States have had to do with∂ overt policies that apply quotas based on specific forms of racism directed against∂ them.
The
problem of discrimination that African Americans and Latinos have∂ faced in higher
education has to do with the use of SAT scores and the quality of∂ their public education, which is vastly
unequal to that received by whites. Racism∂ is the culprit in each case, but the means and
ideology vary, and thus the effective∂ redress will have to vary.∂ Takagi recounts that some Asian
American activists who wanted to end the∂ unfair quotas on their admission rates called for a
meritocracy of admissions based∂ on SAT scores and grades. But this would block only one form of racism, leaving∂ others
not only intact but ideologically reenforced. Meritocracy is still an illusion∂ highly disadvantageous to African Americans and Latinos.
Thus, strategies that∂ seek to eliminate discrimination, including argumentative strategies used
to defend∂ affirmative action, must either be made specific to certain historically disadvantaged∂
groups or, if they are general, must consider their possible effects on other∂ groups. Only a rich
knowledge of the specific and variable forms of racism in the∂ United States will make such
considerations possible.
Erases Arab Americans
Black/White conceptions erase Arab Americans
Chen, et al., Department of Educational Psychology, University of Texas, 2006
[Grace, Exploring Asian American Racial Identity, Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority
Psychology, Vol. 12, No. 3, p. 461]
The history of race relations in the U.S. reveals that racial minorities have been subjected to
widespread oppression based on the color of their skin (Omi & Winant, 1994; Takaki, 1993). Unfortunately, a
by-product of the Black/White binary model of race relations is that non-Black racialized
groups (e.g., Latinas/os, Arab Americans, Asian Americans, and Native Americans) have been largely
understudied in psychological research on race and racial identity. A starting point of our study is that for
Asian Americans, in particular, a clear distinction must be made between the constructs of racial identity and ethnic/cultural
identity, even as we recognize the overlap and interplay between the two (Helms & Richardson, 1997).
Makes it impossible to challenge Muslim Terrorist representations
Gotanda 11 [professor of law at Western State University College of Law. Coeditor of Critical
Race Theory: The Key Writings that Formed the Movement, he has written on racial theory,
constitutional colorblindness, and Asian American jurisprudence, 2011 [Neil, The Racialization of
Islam in American Law, The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science,
637, September, p. 184]
After 9/11, the “Muslim terrorist” trope altered the American understanding of Islam. This article argues that the
Muslim
terrorist in our popular culture should not be seen as new but within an established tradition
of racializing Asian Americans. The article employs three dimensions of racialization: raced
body, racial category, and ascribed subordination. The raced body is the “brown” body of
immigrants and descendants of immigrants from North Africa, the Middle East, and Central
and Southern Asia. “Muslim” as a racial category has acquired meaning beyond religion and
now also describes a racial category: those whose ancestry traces to countries where Islam is
significant. Linked to that category are the stereotypes of “terrorist,” “spy,” or “saboteur”—
understandings within the tradition of characterizing Asian Americans as permanent,
unassimilable foreigners. Inscribing the linked racial category and ascribed subordination of
permanent foreignness upon the “brown” raced body is the racialization of Muslims into
Muslim terrorists.
Erases Latinos/as
Their characterizations of race that categorize everything as part of a
Black/White paradigm – this excludes Latinas from analysis, which reproduces
racism
Perea 97 [Professor of Law, University of Florida College of Law, Juan, RACE, ETHNICITY &
NATIONHOOD: ARTICLE: The Black/White Binary Paradigm of Race: The "Normal Science" of
American Racial Thought, California Law Review, October, 1997, 85 Calif. L. Rev. 1213, p. 12141216]
[*1214] This Article is about how we are taught to think about race. In particular, I intend to analyze the role of books and texts on
race in structuring our racial discourse. I believe that much writing on racism is structured by a paradigm that is widely held but
rarely recognized for what it is and what it does. This paradigm shapes our understanding of what race and racism mean and the
nature of our discussions about race. It is crucial, therefore, to identify and describe this paradigm and to
demonstrate how it binds and organizes racial discourse, limiting both the scope and the range of legitimate viewpoints in that
discourse. In this Article, I identify and criticize one of the most salient features of past and current discourse about race in the
United States, the Black/White binary paradigm of race. A small but growing number of writers have recognized the
paradigm and its limiting effect on racial discourse. n2 I believe that its dominant and pervasive character has not been well
established nor discussed in legal literature. I intend to demonstrate the existence of a Black/White paradigm and to show its
breadth and seemingly pervasive ordering of racial [*1215] discourse and legitimacy. Further, I intend to show how the
Black/White binary paradigm operates to exclude Latinos/as n3 from full membership and
participation in racial discourse, and how that exclusion serves to perpetuate not only the
paradigm itself but also negative stereotypes of Latinos/as. Full membership in society for
Latinos/as will require a paradigm shift away from the binary paradigm and towards a new
and evolving understanding of race and race relations. This Article illustrates the kind of contribution to critical
theory that the emergent Latino Critical Race Studies (LatCrit) movement may make. This movement is a continuing
scholarly effort, undertaken by Latino/a scholars and other sympathetic scholars, to examine critically existing
structures of racial thought and to identify how these structures perpetuate the subordinated
position of Latinos/as in particular. LatCrit studies are, then, an extension and development of critical race theory (and
critical theory generally) that focus on the previously neglected areas of Latino/a identity and history and the role of racism as it
affects Latinos/as. I identify strongly, and self-consciously, as a Latino writer and thinker. It is precisely my position as a Latino
outsider, neither Black nor White, that makes possible the observation and critique presented in this Article. My
critique of
the Black/White binary paradigm of race shows this commonly held binary understanding of
race to be one of the major impediments to learning about and understanding Latinos/as and
their history. As I shall show, the paradigm also creates significant distortions in the way people
learn to view Latinos/as. I begin with a review of the principal scientific theory that describes the nature of paradigms and
the power they exert over the formation of knowledge. I then analyze important, nationally recognized books on race to reveal the
binary paradigm of race and the way it structures race thinking. After reviewing these popular and scholarly books on race, I analyze
a leading casebook on constitutional law. Like other books, textbooks on constitutional law are shaped by the paradigm and
reproduce it. Then, by describing some of the legal struggles Latinos/as have waged, I will demonstrate that paradigmatic
presentations of race and struggles for equality have caused significant omissions with
undesirable repercussions. Thus, I demonstrate the important role that legal history [*1216] can play in both correcting
and amplifying the Black/White binary paradigm of race.
Answers To
AT: Perm
Starting points matter – all of our link evidence prove they foreclose
multivalent analysis of oppressions, means the perm cant solve
Perm is severance - Their 1ac made exclusive/prioritizing claims about
Blackness like (examples) _______________________________________
The method of the aff doesn’t take into account for violence between
communities - marginalization and disavowal of agency are DAs to the perm
Alcoff 2 Linda Martín, , Professor of Philosophy at Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate
Center, “Latino/as, Asian-Americans and the Black-White Binary,”
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/25115747?uid=3739256&uid=2&uid=4&sid=211024948
40991
Critics of the black/white paradigm have argued that, although
all communities of color have shared the
experience of political and economic disenfranchisement in the U.S., there are significant
differences between the causes and the forms of this disenfranchisement. Bong Hwan Kim, a
Korean American community leader who has worked both as the Director of the Korean Community Center of
East Bay in Oakland, CA, and as Director of the Korean Youth and Community Center in Los Angeles, blames the
black/white binary for disabling relationships among people of color and even for creating the
conditions leading to the Los Angeles civil disaster of April 1992, in which 2,300 small Korean owned busi
nesses were destroyed by mostly Latino/a and African American looters. Kim cites the
xenophobia marshaled by African American leader Danny Bakewell before the looting occurred, and
argues that the Korean American community had been and continues to be systematically rendered
incapable of responding to such rhetoric because they are not recognized in the media as a player
in racial politics.20 Elaine Kim explains: It is difficult to describe how disempowered and frustrated many Korean Americans
felt during and after the sa-i-ku p'ok-dong (the April 29 "riots"). Korean Americans across the country shared the
anguish and despair of the Los Angeles tongp'o (community), which everyone seemed to have
abandoned - the police and fire departments, black and white political leaders, the Asian and
Pacific American advocates who tried to dissociate themselves from us because our tragedy
disputed their narrow and risk-free focus on white violence against Asians ... the Korean Americans at
the center of the storm were mostly voiceless and all but invisible (except when stereotyped as hysterically inarticulate, and mostly
female, ruined shopkeepers .. .).21 Similar to the Mexicans in Texas, the Koreans have
been denied the legal or
socially recognized category of being a politicized group at the same time that they are made
subject to group based scapegoating. Moreover, as this event demonstrates, the black/white paradigm of
race is incapable of theoretically or politically addressing racism among communities of color, or
racism, in other words, which is not all about white people. A response to this line of reasoning might be that it is white
supremacy which is at the root of the conflictual relations among communities of color, and responsible for their acceptance of
stereotypes manufactured by a white dominant power structure. Thus, on this reading, what occurred in Los Angeles can be
reductively analyzed as caused by white supremacy. Although I do find explanatory arguments that focus on political economy often
compelling, it
is far too simplistic, as I think Karl Marx himself knew, to imagine cultural conflict as the mere
epiphenomenon of economic forces with no life or grounding of their own. To blame only white
supremacy for what occurred in Los Angeles would also deny power and agency to any groups but the
dominant, which is increasingly untrue. We must all accept our rightful share of the blame, whatever that turns out
to be in particular instances, and resist explanations that would a priori reduce that blame to zero for communities of color.
Supporting the arguments of both Elaine Kim and Bong Hwan Kim, Juan Perea argues that because
of the wide
acceptance of the black/white paradigm, "other racialized groups like Latino/as, Asian
Americans, and Native Americans are often marginalized or ignored altogether."22 He points out that
the concerns of Asian Americans and Latino/as cannot be addressed through immigration
legislation because all are not immigrants, which is one of the reasons to reject the claim of some ethnic theorists that
these groups will follow the path of European immigrants in gradual assimilation and economic success (the other reason to reject
this claim is their racialization).23
Turn – Permutation footnotes other oppressions, repeats inclusions/exclusions
Perea 97 (Juan , Professor of Law, University of Florida College of Law, Race, Ethnicity &
Nationhood: Article: The Black/White Binary Paradigm of Race: The "Normal Science" of
American Racial Thought, California Law Review, October, 1997, 85 Calif. L. Rev. 1213, p. 12571258]
Paradigmatic descriptions and study of White racism against Blacks, with only cursory
mention of "other people of color," marginalizes all people of color by grouping them, without
particularity, as somehow analogous to Blacks. "Other people of color" are deemed to exist only as unexplained
analogies to Blacks. Thus, scholars encourage uncritical readers to continue to assume the
paradigmatic importance of the Black/White relationship and to ignore the experiences of
other Americans who also are subject to racism in profound ways. Critical readers are left with
many important questions: Beyond the most superficial understanding of aversion to nonWhite skin color, in what ways is White racism against Blacks explanatory of or analogous to
White racism against Latinos/as, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and others? Given the unique
historical legacy of slavery, what does a deep understanding of White-Black racism contribute to understanding rac-isms against
other "Others?" Why
are "other people of color" consistently relegated to parenthetical status and
near-nonexistence in treatises purporting to cover their fields comprehensively? It is time to ask
hard questions of our leading writers on race. It is also time to demand better answers to these questions
about inclusion, exclusion, and racial presence, than perfunctory references to "other people
of color." In the midst of profound demographic changes, it is time to question whether the
Black/White binary paradigm of race fits our highly variegated current and future population.
Our "normal science" of writing on race, at odds with both history and demographic reality,
needs reworking.
AT: “No Link – we’re not politics of recognition”
Aff is form of politics of recognition- demanding recognition of white or the
state
Snyder 12 (Greta Fowler, Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Politics, University of Virginia,
”Multivalent Recognition: Between Fixity and Fluidity in Identity Politics”, The Journal of Politics,
Vol. 74, No. 1, January, jstor)
I will end by highlighting some additional contributions this article makes to the political theoretical literature on recognition. Too
often, the encounter between dominant and marginalized groups has been rendered in overly simplistic ways: marginalized groups
demand recognition from privileged groups; marginalized groups demand recognition from the state. In this article, I offer
a
broader conception of where and how the politics of recognition occurs. We are right to be
skeptical of the argument that the Black Panthers were really demanding recognition of whites
or of the state: the Panthers were primarily directing their message to black people and young,
urban black men in particular. Yet the Panthers did seek to change the white authority structure
and the (intentional) publicization of the Panthers’ symbolic mediations of black identity (Ongiri
2009) made it a force in the struggle over what blackness meant to the American public. Instead of a unidirectional struggle for
recognition, this examination of cultural politics shows that demands
for recognition are part of a
multidirectional struggle for influence over the dominant cultural order, a struggle that occurs in
multiple mediums and multiple sites, at multiple levels and between multiple parties. While the
cultural studies literature enhances political theory by encouraging political theorists to widen their vision of the politics of
recognition thereby altering calculations about the possibilities and pitfalls of this politics, I also believe that greater interaction
between the two disciplines can benefit cultural studies. Integrating the insights of cultural studies into the political theoretical
framework of recognition enables us to specify the links between representation and power/resistance in a way that those engaged
in the discipline of cultural studies often fail to do (see Alvarez et al. 1997, 6). In this article,
I have developed and offered
a normative argument for a standard of political cultural production—multivalent recognition—
that is more nuanced than “positive imagery” (Alexander 2004) and less problematic than “representational
correctness” (Shiappa 2008). Despite the United States’ commitment to formal equality, racial identity
continues to matter. Being identified as black means one is significantly more likely to face
demeaning and constraining stereotypes, suspicion, distrust, poverty, illness, discrimination, and
violence. The hegemony of colorblindness has effectively reconstituted white power by
undercutting political claims made by marginalized groups even as the cultural representations
that underwrite racial inequality continue to circulate (Bonilla-Silva 2009; Snyder 2011). In this context, a
politics of multivalent recognition has an important role to play: challenging white dominance
without incurring the significant costs of internal repression and exclusion.
AT: Coalitions Bad, Erase Blackness
Their ev on coalitions doesn’t account for multivalent analysis that functions
not to erase or subsume difference, but to highlight diversity within identities
while maintaining ability to foreground Blackness
Snyder 12 (Greta Fowler, Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Politics, University of Virginia,
”Multivalent Recognition: Between Fixity and Fluidity in Identity Politics”, The Journal of Politics,
Vol. 74, No. 1, January, jstor)
Critics of identity politics warn that the politics of difference undermines cross-identity
coalitions by emphasizing difference (Brown 1995; Gitlin 1996; Wolin 1993). Yet a politics of
multivalent recognition is actually poised to “unburden groups of excessive ascribed or
constructed distinctiveness” (Fraser and Honneth 2003, 47) like the universalist politics of
recognition from which I distinguished it earlier. Highlighting the diversity within identities
brings points of similarity across identities to light. Put otherwise, as the symbolic boundaries of
identities are widened—as more and different people are accepted as “really black”—identities
once seen as distinct from one another are now seen as overlapping. While a multivalent politics
of recognition centers on a single collective identity, it necessarily has implications across
identities. When black feminist men demand recognition, for instance, this demand has
implications for the categories of black, male and female. Moreover, inasmuch as identity
categories are interrelated—think, for example, of the dependence of whiteness on blackness—
a multivalent politics of recognition as engaged in by one identity group will affect another.
Participation by one identity group in the politics of recognition may be catalyzed by the
participation of another identity group: witness the men’s movement springing from the
successes of feminism. But cooperation between identity groups in a politics of multivalent
recognition can be secured by agreement that more capacious notions of identity can benefit
members of all identity groups—including the privileged within identity groups and members of
privileged identity groups.
AT: Alt Denies Blackness
Our alt is not some vague universalization or emptying of identity, but rather
opens spaces for particular differences within and among Blackness
Snyder 12 (Greta Fowler, Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Politics, University of Virginia,
”Multivalent Recognition: Between Fixity and Fluidity in Identity Politics”, The Journal of Politics,
Vol. 74, No. 1, January, jstor)
Identity claims are integral to this negation of the negation. Yet these demands are neither for
recognition of a universal identity (i.e., human, citizen) nor for recognition of a political identity
that cuts across identity groups (i.e., “the left”). Unlike these forms of recognition politics—
wherein actors deemphasize the identity that marks them as particular—those who seek
multivalent recognition explicitly identify themselves as particular (i.e., as “black”). In other
words, for those engaged in multivalent recognition, “it is not the existence of [identity]
categories that is the problem, but rather the meaning and particular values attached to them”
(Crenshaw 1991, 1297; also see Hancock 2007). Contesting the meaning and values attached to
an identity category requires working with, within, and through a particular identity: it requires
offering “racialized but not delimited” visions of identity.5 While black people engaged in a
politics of multivalent recognition demand recognition as black, they demand recognition as not
only black. They simultaneously demand recognition for other salient aspects of their identity—
demanding recognition as black and…. This “and” can draw attention to the membership of
black individuals other categorical identity groups (black and woman, black and gay, black and
poor, etc.)6 But it also strategically links blackness with traits, values, abilities, talents, and
predilections with which the collective identity has not previously been predominantly
associated. In a politics of multivalent recognition, black feminist lower-class men, black gay
Jews, and rural black working-class single mothers demand recognition of their embodiments of
and claim to blackness, and in turn strategically de-essentialize blackness. They demand to be
recognized as “black” despite the fact that they contradict stereotypes of/about blackness. If a
politics of monovalent recognition aims for fixity and thus transparency (Markell 2003) in
identity, then a politics of multivalent recognition is about unfixing an identity.7
Real visions of blackness come from multivalent views- not only demanding one
category but define themselves
Snyder 12 (Greta Fowler, Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Politics, University of Virginia,
”Multivalent Recognition: Between Fixity and Fluidity in Identity Politics”, The Journal of Politics,
Vol. 74, No. 1, January, jstor)
Some might say that such a politics “dilutes” black identity. But those who would do well to
remember that although strong visions of “real blackness” do have significant effects, they do
not have an anchor in a metaphysical reality. The politics of recognition cannot achieve a
“mimetic correspondence with the ‘real’” in either its monovalent or in its multivalent
incarnations, for, as Cornel West notes, no one has “unmediated access to the ‘real Black
community’” (1993, 18). Seeking to broaden public perception of an identity is not to betray it,
but to recognize the diversity that was always already inherent in it. Alexander has pointed to
the diversity that bubbles under the surface of anthologies that aim to present the black arts
and politics of a time as unified. And as Madhavi Sunder (2001) argues, this diversity is
increasingly breaking the surface: individuals engaged in “cultural dissent” are demanding not
only membership within a particular category, but the right to define it on their own terms.
AT: Alt = Vacating Identity
Alt is not deconstruction of identity
Snyder 12 (Greta Fowler, Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Politics, University of Virginia,
”Multivalent Recognition: Between Fixity and Fluidity in Identity Politics”, The Journal of Politics,
Vol. 74, No. 1, January, jstor)
The unfixing that a politics of multivalent recognition aims to accomplish, however, should be
distinguished from the deconstruction that some anti-identity theorists hope to achieve. Unlike
an anti-identity politics such as that recommended by Monique Wittig (1985), the ultimate
purpose of a politics of multivalent recognition is not to do away with those collective identities
that have been subject to oppression. Whereas Wittig envisions a world without identity (more
specifically, gender) distinctions, those who engage in a politics of multivalent recognition aim
for a world in which identity categories are more capacious. Highlighting the “multivalence” of
the identity category—its multiple meanings, the diversity within—stretches its symbolic
boundaries. Disparate individuals’ demands for recognition of their claim to blackness prompt
group members and members of other identity groups to broaden their understanding of black
identity. In doing so, they complicate the distinctions drawn between black and white,
distinctions that help reproduce inequality. A politics of multivalent recognition operates on the
assumption that we need not do away with identity categories to break down hierarchical
symbolic distinctions and transform identity relations. Unfixing is distinct from deconstruction
that goes “all the way down.” In fact, there are good reasons for sustaining particular identities
as actors engaged in a politics of multivalent recognition seek to do. Certainly, the concept of
race and racial identity has justified the unjust treatment of black Americans. Yet while
implicated in oppression, categorical distinctions like “black” and “white” have a critical role to
play in addressing oppression, enabling individuals to talk about racial injustice and to develop a
sense of “we” (Crenshaw 1991, 1297). Second, even those who do not understand racial
distinctions as natural may view them as inextricable (Young 1990). A politics of multivalent
recognition is premised on the assumption that identities are resignifiable, but not infinitely
reconstructable. Finally and perhaps most importantly, these identities are not simply sites of
oppression but sources of pride and meaning (Bickford 1997; Kompridis 2007, 286). Monovalent
movements insist that black Americans are talented cultural creators; multivalent movements
reinforce this point, while suggesting that multiple and disparate black identities spring from the
cultures created by black Americans. In light of the inherent and strategic importance of black
identity, not to mention its indelibility, those engaged in a politics of multivalent recognition are
not only concerned with demonstrating the contingency of identity as are those engaged in a
strategy like parodic subversion (Butler 1999). A politics of multivalent recognition is equally
concerned with the revaluation of an identity category as a whole. Elizabeth Alexander, for
example, refrains from presenting certain poems in certain spaces due to her sense that the
poems would reinforce problematic stereotypes. Those engaged in a politics of multivalent
recognition seek to change blackness’ valence by changing its connotative field of reference. To
delegitimize a symbolic system that marginalizes black people, they must bring greater visibility
to specific ways of realizing black identity.
The idea of multivalent thinking forces us to challenge assumptions of identity
Snyder 12 (Greta Fowler, Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Politics, University of Virginia,
”Multivalent Recognition: Between Fixity and Fluidity in Identity Politics”, The Journal of Politics,
Vol. 74, No. 1, January, jstor)
As I hope this argument demonstrates, even those actors who agree that demands for
recognition are simply a means to the end of equality can deploy these demands in different
ways, with different effects: even if essentialism is deployed strategically, it invites a
monovalent reading of identity and the problems associated with it. The distinction between
multivalent and monovalent recognition offers a more nuanced picture of what Iris Young calls
the “politics of positional difference” (2007), thereby enabling political theorists and actors to
specify and attend to the range of problems facing those who engage in the politics of
recognition. Additionally, the idea of a politics of multivalent recognition forces us to rethink our
assumptions about recognition politics and identity politics. While presenting the politics of
recognition as a kind of identity politics, I have resisted Nancy Fraser’s conclusion that identity
politics reifies identities. The concept of multivalent recognition not only distinguishes the
politics of recognition from the politics of authenticity and the politics of essentialism, it
presents recognition as a means to address their problematic consequences. On the other hand,
I present multivalent recognition as distinct from deconstructive anti-identity approaches. In its
multivalent form, the politics of recognition has the potential to transform identity relations
while maintaining identities.
AT Black white Binary Good/Necessary
Binary structure is wrong – Look through a lens of multivalent oppression
Westmoreland 13’
Peter Westmoreland Doctrine Race political and social professor at the university of Miami Area of specialization in Continental Early
Modern Rousseau “Racism in a Black White Binary: On the Reaction to Trayvon Martin’s Death”
Can this outcome be right? Does racism require a binary structure? Let us consider three
proposals. First, we may make choices to reject the binary (as Perea and Alcoff do). We can
attack it in at least two ways philosophically. First, we can recognize that Foucault’s argument is
subject to rebuttal. One approach would question whether the texts he examines are
representative of the dominant race paradigm of the time. In the philosophical discourse on the
formation of the race concept, for example, we have influential thinkers such as Kant, Hegel,
and de Gobineau who reject binary thinking. Rousseau, on whom Foucault relies, models the
people as sovereign-subjects in an explicit attempt to subvert binaries in the state’s structure.
We could perhaps write a counter-history of the relationship between race and the state that
eschews the binary; possibly it shows up but does not have the influence Foucault suggests.
Another version of the first proposal would emphasize the black-white binary’s arbitrariness and
contingency. Once we diagnose the paradigm, distinguishing races outside its terms according to
their own voices and concerns can mitigate the binary’s force. Similarly, I would note that the
binary structure is a contingent feature of our race discourse’s history, even on Foucault’s
scheme, and we can move against binary race thinking through practical advancement of the
concerns of races outside the terms of the binary. This response assumes that the binary, while
powerful, is not incontrovertible and can be separated from the “us versus them” war structure.
Let us now pursue a second proposal: we accept the binary structure of racism. We have seen
there are positions, evidence, and arguments indicating that race discourse has a binary
paradigm and that this has been the case since the origins of modern racism. If race discourse is
binary and we act to destroy the binary, then, we may not be opening the door to identifying
new forms of racism. Instead, we destroy the historical meaning of race altogether with the
result that all oppression is detached from racialization (for better or worse). Conversely, we
may rigidly circumscribe the boundaries of racism to one binary structure or another, which
allows us to think some oppression outside of racialization. Either way, we may then move
beyond thinking oppression predominately in racial terms. We may ask whether some forms of
oppression, although taken as forms of racism, may be better addressed through nonracial
discourses. (I have already indicated that nativism may not fit the concepts of racial
oppression.)19 Now, though, we may uncover a new conceptual tension. The first proposal lets
race remain a hegemonic concern (as it is for Perea and Alcoff), which means that forms of
oppression that do not suit the race model of discourse may be covered over. The second
proposal protects nonracial oppressions from racialization, but it deemphasizes race discourse
and the binary so that actually racist oppression may be overlooked. I do not believe there is a
resolution to this tension. However, I also do not believe that we need one. Thus, a third
proposal: What we need to do is recognize that there is a tension. Rather than empowering
the reduction of forms of oppression to racisms or rejecting the binary or tightly limiting its
scope, we realize that there are many forms of oppression. Some will suit racial analyses
completely or partly; others will not. We must actively reflect on sites and instances of
oppression to determine which modes of oppression are in operation and provide the best
resources we can manage. We have many possible modes of analysis for the Trayvon Martin
case: anti-black racism, racism between minorities, cultural insensitivity, Stand Your Ground
laws, the culture of fear, the culture of policing, the voicelessness of children, and so on. All of
these topics and others deserve our consideration if we are truly to generate justice for Trayvon
Martin and other victims. Some concerns may merit racialization and others may not. Reflection
on such diverse concerns is not easy or failsafe, but at the least it means that we may take
advantage of all available resources to identify effectively victims, modes of oppression, and
options for relief. The third proposal is a significant advance beyond previous positions. If
pursued rigorously it has the potential to delimit what counts as racial and nonracial oppression
so that we may recognize and pursue proper responses. The racism pluralist’s move to expand
the concept of racism does not give nonracial oppressions focused consideration, which leaves
open the problem of giving race hegemonic status; that is, pluralist analyses raise the fear that
all forms of oppression may be coded as racial. At least, the third proposal requires us to
consider strategically where race begins and ends so that we do not overlook or crush into the
discourse of race nonracial oppression. What proposal three does, in effect, is open the air for
the voices of victims to speak and be heard with more clarity, which I believe is the intent of
racism pluralists. What proposal three does not do is concretely demarcate racial and nonracial
forms of oppression, which is both a strength and a weakness. Salient details will vary case to
case. Firm determinations may not be possible in many cases, but recognizing that difficulty is
itself something that the third proposal helps to enable by calling our attention to the
multivalent nature of oppression. As thinkers have recognized that race discourse in the United
States is pluralistic, the black-white binary paradigm has become both untenable and common.
By taking the binary seriously, the structure of race and racism will fundamentally change. What
comes is uncertain, and may not be for the better, but if we are sensitive to both racial and
nonracial considerations we have a chance to attend to once hidden modes of victimization. We
owe this to all victims, including Trayvon Martin.20
Black/white binary fails- 4 reasons
Nakagawa 13’
Scot nakagawa, 9-4-2013,Nakagawa is a Lifelong political activist, community organizer,
organization builder."Race Beyond Black and White: Four Reasons to Move Beyond the Racial
Binary,"
With that in mind, here are four reasons to move beyond the black-white racial binary: 1.
Ignorance of our multi-racial history is the enemy of civil rights. Here’s an example. In the 1990s,
the evangelical right rose to power in part through exploiting widespread homophobia. But,
while they appeared to be narrowly targeting LGBT people, they were using those attacks on
LGBT rights to simultaneously talk about civil rights more generally. They did so by contrasting
LGBT people with blacks who they said have a “legitimate” claim to civil rights because, they
argued, blacks were able to pass a litmus test of suffering and morality without which civil rights
cannot be conferred. Therefore, civil rights are special rights. The success of that argument
relied upon the widespread belief among what we nowadays refer to as “low-information
voters,” that civil rights are black rights, not American rights that have historically been withheld
from black people. Right wingers exploited this confusion and doubled down on it, inciting antiblack racism by claiming these (black) rights were being taken too far by a civil rights lobby LGBT
people wanted a piece of because it had captured control of Congress. 2. We are all profiled
differently by race, but all of the different ways in which we are profiled serve the same racial
hierarchy. For instance, in the 1960s, just as the civil rights movement was cresting and black
urban uprisings were dominating the news cycle, news stories appeared profiling Asian
Americans as a model minority. That profile, which privileged Asians as a super-minority that
was “out-whiting the whites,” claimed that Asians in the U.S. had managed to climb to success
not through protest nor by way of “riots,” but through hard work and quiet cooperation with
the powers that be. This story of Asian success begged the question, if Asian Americans can do
it, why can’t black people? The media provided the answer: blacks aren’t succeeding because
they’re a “problem minority.” Ever since, the model minority myth has been used as a lever of
racial injustice on the fulcrum of anti-black racism. 3. Race is central to the struggle over
citizenship in America. The contest over voting rights, for instance, is a fight about citizenship
rights, who has them, and who gets to decide in the matter just as much as is the question of
the right to citizenship of new immigrants, including those without documents. At the center of
these fights is a struggle over nationality, power, and control that revolves around race. We will
never resolve these questions until we are able to grapple broadly with the issue of race and
citizenship as regards all people of color. Until then, we are all just fighting different battles in
the same war, but without the common cause necessary to build a winning coalition. 4. In order
to achieve racial equity, we need to complicate our understanding of race. The black-white
racial binary is as much a part of the fiction of race in America as dubious science about brain
size and intelligence. The truth may not, by itself, set us free, but it might at least get us headed
in that direction. As we head toward a “majority-minority” future, we’d do well to acknowledge
the complexity of the story of race in America. Just ignoring it might be good for ratings, but it
won’t make it go away.
AT: Binary is Correct
7 reasons wrong with the white/black binary
Alcoff 6’
Linda Alcoff a philosopher at the City University of New York who specializes in epistemology,
feminism, race theory and existentialism. “Visible identities Race Gender And the Self” 2006
Oxford Press
Just as the protection of the∂ right of property advantages the propertied, and the protection of free speech∂ ‘‘increases the
influence of those who are articulate and can afford microphones,∂ TV air time, and so on ... the Equal Protection Clause produces a
social good,∂ namely equality, for those falling under its coverage—blacks and whites. These it∂ genuinely helps—at least on
occasion. But it leaves everyone else unprotected∂ (1998, 370–71).∂ Put in more general terms, these arguments can be summarized
as follows:∂ 1)
The black/white paradigm has disempowered various racial and ethnic∂ groups from
being able to define their own identity, to mark their difference and∂ specificity beyond what
could be captured on this limited map. Instead of naming∂ and describing our own identity and social circumstance,
we have had descriptions∂ foisted on us from outside.∂ 2) Asian Americans and Latinos (among others) have
historically been ignored∂ or marginalized in the public discourse in the United States on race
and racism.∂ This is a problem for two reasons, first, because it is simply unfair to be excluded∂ from what concerns one, and
second, because it has considerably weakened the∂ analysis of race and racism in the mainstream
discussions. To explain the social∂ situation of Asian Americans or Latinos simply in terms of their
de jure and de∂ facto treatment as nonwhites is to describe our condition only on the most
shallow∂ terms. We must be included in the discussions so that a more adequate account∂ can
be developed.∂ 3) By eliminating specificities within the large ‘‘black’’ or nonwhite group, the∂
black/white binary has undercut the possibility of developing appropriate and effective∂ legal
and political solutions for the variable forms that racial oppression can∂ take. A broad united
movement for civil rights does not require that we ignore the∂ specific circumstances of
different racial or ethnic identities, nor does it mandate∂ that only the similarities can figure into
the formulation of protective legislation. I∂ will discuss an example of this problem, one that
concerns the application of∂ affirmative action in higher education, at the end of this chapter.∂ 4)
Eliminating specificities within the large ‘‘black’’ or nonwhite group also∂ makes it difficult to
understand or address the real conflicts and differences within∂ this amalgam of peoples. The
black/white paradigm proposes to understand all∂ conflicts between communities of color
through antiblack racism and white supremacy,∂ when the reality is more complex.∂ 5) For all
these reasons, the black/white paradigm seriously undermines the∂ possibility of achieving
coalitions. It is obvious that keeping us in conflict with each∂ other and not in coalition is in the
interests of the current power structure.∂ I would add to these arguments the following two.∂ 6)
The black/white binary and the constant invocation of all race discourses∂ and conflicts as
between blacks and whites has produced an imaginary of race in∂ this country in which a very
large white majority confronts a relatively small black∂ Latinos, Asian Americans, and the BlackWhite Binary 255∂ minority. This imagery has the effect of reenforcing the sense of inevitability
to∂ white domination.∂ This is not the reality of racial percentages in almost any major urban center∂ in the country today.
Nonwhites outnumber whites in New York, Miami, Chicago,∂ Atlanta, and Los Angeles, and come very close in San Francisco, Dallas,
and∂ Washington, D.C. There is thus a real potential for a major shift in political power,∂ but there are two main challenges before
this shift can take place. The first is the∂ ability of nonwhites to unite and to also make common cause with progressive antiracist∂
whites. The second is the Electoral College. The original intent of the∂ Electoral College was to protect small states and also to create
a buffer between∂ the hoi polloi and the government, but the current effect of the Electoral College,∂ given these changed
demographics, has the added ‘‘advantage’’ of disenfranchising∂ the occupants of cities generally and people of color specifically
from influencing∂ national electoral outcomes. The fact is that if the popular vote determined∂ elections, the cities would have the
determining numbers of votes, since this is∂ where the majority of U.S. citizens now live and where the trend of movement is∂
toward. The numbers and concentrations of people of color in the United States∂ means that we are quickly moving past the politics
of recognition, in which people of∂ color must clamor for recognition from the all-powerful majority, and reaching the∂ politics of
power negotiation, in which we can negotiate from a position of power∂ rather than having to rely exclusively on moral appeals.
The white majority will not∂ maintain its near hegemonic political control as new configurations
of alliances∂ develop.4 Moreover, the white majority is far from monolithic, splintering most∂
notably along gender and class lines: the gender gap has widened in electoral∂ politics along
with the gap between union and nonunion households, with droves∂ of white women and white
union members voting the same as the majority of∂ people of color.∂ Thus, thinking of race only
in terms of black and white produces a sense of∂ inevitability to white domination and thus a
sense of fatalism, even though the facts∂ call for the opposite. I believe this issue of imagery is
very significant: it affects∂ people’s choices, voting (or nonvoting) practices, and the level of energy they are∂ willing to devote
to political activism. By opening up the binary imagery to rainbow∂ images and the like, as Jesse Jackson did with great effect in his
presidential∂ campaign, we can more accurately and thus helpfully present the growing and∂ future conditions within which political
action and contestations will occur. This∂ is in everyone’s interests (or at least, the majority’s).∂ 7) The
next argument that I
would make in regard to the black/white binary is∂ that it mistakenly configures race
imagistically as exclusively having to do with∂ color, as if color alone determines racial identity
and is the sole object of racism.∂ Equating race with color makes it seem as if all the races other
than black and∂ white must be lined up between them since they clearly represent the polar
extremes.∂ There is certainly a racist continuum of color operating in this and in∂ many
countries, but my point is that this continuum is not the only axis by which∂ racism operates.∂
Some have taken the horrific hierarchy of adoption preferences in the United∂ States, that runs
basically from white to Asian to Latino to black, as representative∂ 256 Latino/a Particularity∂ of
a continuum of color. Related to this idea is the claim that Asian Americans and∂ Latinos are
closer to white and will eventually ‘‘become’’ white. Let me address this∂ latter idea first. The claim that Asian
Americans and Latinos will become white is∂ first of all premised on the assumption that we have two choices of racialized∂
identities: white and black. The assumption presupposed is then that if a group is not∂ economically and politically located at or near
the bottom of the society, which the∂ black/white paradigm associates exclusively with ‘‘blackness,’’ then such a group is∂ assumed
to have achieved ‘‘whiteness.’’ But class does not perfectly map onto race:∂ the poor come in all colors. Moreover, there is
significant racial and class variety∂ within each of these large amalgamated groups with highly variant median incomes.∂
Binary is wrong-doesn’t account for any other races other than black and white
Alcoff 6’
Linda Alcoff a philosopher at the City University of New York who specializes in epistemology,
feminism, race theory and existentialism. “Visible identities Race Gender And the Self” 2006
Oxford Press
Wanting to avoid this outcome, however unlikely it∂ Latinos, Asian Americans, and the BlackWhite Binary 249∂ might be, the court decided to embellish on the arguments made in appeal.
Justice∂ Charles J. Murray interpreted legal precedent to argue that the terms ‘‘black’’ and∂
‘‘white’’ are oppositional terms, from which he concluded that black must mean∂ nonwhite and
white must exclude all people of color. Thus, by the law of binary∂ logic, Chinese Americans,
after having become Native American, then also became∂ black.∂ Of the many questions that
one might like to go back and pose to Charles∂ Murray, perhaps the most obvious is the
following: if black and white are oppositional∂ terms, then, instead of black meaning nonwhite,
doesn’t it just as logically∂ follow that white could mean nonblack, in which case all people of
color except∂ African Americans would be white? This conclusion is no more or less fallacious
or∂ absurd than Murray’s conclusion that black means nonwhite. That such an idea∂ was,
apparently, beyond the imagination of the court at that time begins to reveal∂ the strategy at
work here. Defining whites as only those without one drop of ‘‘other’’∂ blood has been a tool to
maintain a clear and distinct border around white identity.∂ On the other hand, the borders of
other identities—their distinctiveness from each∂ other—are not important for the law to
define and maintain. The controlling term∂ here is not race but whiteness. To be black is to be
nonwhite, but this equation is∂ not reversible if one is using the usual meaning of ‘‘black’’ today,
since for Murray∂ ‘‘black’’ includes virtually every Asian American, Latino, Native American,
and∂ mixed race person as well as all those of African origin. Although this case began∂ with a
strategy to link the Chinese to American Indians, it ends in a ruling that∂ prescribes a
black/white binary. The ruling essentially allowed the state to make∂ one all-purpose argument
against the civil and political rights of nonwhites, thus∂ increasing the efficiency with which it
could maintain discrimination.∂ Asian Americans and Latinos have been tossed back and forth
across this∂ black/white binary for 150 years (see Haney Lo´pez 1996; Lee 1993; G. Martinez∂
1998; Okihiro 1994; Omi and Winant 1986; C. Rodrı´guez, 2000). To continue with∂ the example
of Chinese Americans, in 1860 Chinese Americans were classified as∂ white in Louisiana. By
1870 they were classified as Chinese. But in 1900, the∂ children of Chinese and non-Chinese
parents were reclassified as either white or∂ black. Other states had similarly convoluted
histories of classification. In 1927 the∂ U.S. Supreme Court ended this confusion and defined the
Chinese as nonwhite,∂ thus more firmly subjecting them to all the segregationist and Jim Crow
legislation∂ then in effect. Similar stories of variable racial classification can be told about∂
Mexicans in Texas and in New Mexico, Japanese in California, and other groups.∂ Needless to
say, the variable classifications tell a story of strategic reasoning in∂ which arguments for legal
discriminations are deployed against people of color by∂ whatever opportune classification
presents itself in the context.∂ Contrary to what one might imagine, it has not always or even
generally been∂ to the advantage of Asian Americans and Latinos to be legally classified as
white.∂ An illustration of this is found in another important legal case decided by the U.S.∂
Supreme Court in 1954, just two weeks before they issued the decision in Brown vs.∂ Board of
Education. The case of Hernandez v. Texas involved a Mexican American∂ man convicted of
murder by an all-white jury and sentenced to life imprisonment∂ (G. Martinez 1998; Suro 1999).
His lawyer appealed the conviction by arguing that∂ 250 Latino/a Particularity∂ the absence of
Mexican Americans on the jury was discriminatory, making reference∂ to the famous Scottsboro
case in which the U.S. Supreme Court overturned∂ (after many years) the conviction of nine
African American men on the grounds of∂ an absence of African Americans from the jury. But in
the Hernandez case, the∂ Texas Supreme Court ruled that Mexicans were white people of
Spanish descent,∂ and therefore that there was no discrimination in the all-white makeup of the
jury.∂ Forty years later, Hernandez’s lawyer, James DeAnda, recounted how he made his∂
argument appealing this ruling:∂ Right there in the Jackson County Courthouse, where no
Hispanic had served on∂ any kind of a jury in living memory because Mexicans were white and
so it was∂ okay to bring them before all-white juries, they had two men’s rooms. One had a∂
nice sign that just said MEN on it. The other had a sign on it that said COLORED∂ MEN and below
that was a hand-scrawled sign that said HOMBRES∂ AQUI [men here]. In that jury pool,
Mexicans may have been white, but when it∂ came to nature’s functions, they were not. (Suro
1999, 85)∂ In fact, in Texas not only were Mexicans subject to Jim Crow in public facilities∂ from
restaurants to bathrooms, they were also excluded from business and community∂ groups, and
children of Mexican descent were required to attend a segregated∂ school for the first four
grades, whether they spoke fluent English or not.∂ Thus, when they were classified as nonwhite,
Latinos were overtly denied certain∂ civil rights; when they were classified as white, the de facto
denial of their civil rights∂ could not be appealed.∂ Although the U.S. Supreme Court overturned
the Texas court’s decision in∂ the Hernandez case, its final decision indicated a perplexity
regarding Mexican∂ American identity. The court did not want to classify Mexicans as black, and
it∂ didn’t want to alter the legal classification of Mexicans as white; since these were∂ the only
racial terms the justices thought were available, they ended up explaining∂ the discrimination
Mexicans faced as based on ‘‘other differences,’’ left undefined.∂ Thus, oddly, the court upheld
that there was racial discrimination against Mexicans,∂ but it denied that Mexicans constituted
a race (Haney Lo´pez 1998, 182–83).∂ One clear lesson to be learned from this legal history is
that race is a construction∂ that is variable enough to be stretched opportunistically as the
need arises∂ in order to maintain and expand discrimination. Racism, in other words, molds∂
racial categories to fit its design. And the legal history also shows that white supremacy∂ has
moved Latinos and Asian Americans around the classification schema∂ for its own benefit.
Nonetheless, one might take these legal cases to indicate that∂ discrimination against African
Americans was the paradigm case that U.S. courts∂ stretched when they could to justify
discrimination against other nonwhites, and∂ thus to provide support for the black/white
paradigm of race.∂ Modeling Arguments∂ The distinguished historian John Hope Franklin made
such an argument at the first∂ official meeting of the Race Relations Commission, which was
convened by former∂ U.S. President Bill Clinton to advance his initiative for a national dialogue
on race.∂ Latinos, Asian Americans, and the Black-White Binary 251∂ Franklin maintained that
‘‘racism in the black/white sphere’’ developed first in∂ North America when slavery was
introduced in the Jamestown colony in 1619 and∂ has served as a model for the treatment of
race in the United States. Attorney Angela∂ Oh, also serving on the commission, argued against
Franklin on this point, using∂ the example of the uprising of April 29, 1992, in Los Angeles to
show that the specific∂ history and racist treatment of Asian Americans needs to be accounted
for in order∂ to understand the complex varieties of racism that sparked that event. ‘‘I just want
to∂ make sure we go beyond the black-white paradigm ... because the world is about∂ much
more than that,’’ she said (see Wu 2002, 32–35). Frank Wu, commenting on∂ this exchange,
tries diplomatically to unite both Oh and Franklin’s points. He∂ affirms that ‘‘African Americans
bear the greatest burden of racial discrimination’’∂ but adds that the Los Angeles uprising needs
to be understood in relation both to∂ African American history as well as Korean American
history (and, I would add,∂ Latino history, since Latinos were the largest number of persons
arrested). Wu∂ advocates the following commonsense approach:∂ Whatever any of us
concludes about race relations, we should start by including all∂ of us. ... Our leaders should
speak to all individuals, about every group, and for∂ the country as a whole. A unified theory of
race, race relations, and racial tensions∂ must have whites, African Americans, and all the rest,
and even within groups∂ must include Arab Americans, Jewish Americans, white ethnicities, and
so forth.∂ Our theory is an inadequate account otherwise. (Wu 2002, 36)∂ The question Wu
does not address directly is whether the continued acceptance of∂ the black/white paradigm,
what Oh is contesting and Franklin is defending, will∂ allow such a comprehensive account.∂ To
say that racism has been modeled on slavery might or might not entail a black/∂ white binary,
depending on how much is presumed in the concept of ‘‘modeling.’’ But∂ the reality of race and
racism in the North American continent has been more∂ complicated than black/white since the
initial conquest of native peoples by European∂ Americans. Slavery was itself an idea put
forward by Columbus when he suggested∂ that the indigenous population could be enslaved in
order to bring profits to the∂ Spanish crown because the amount of gold and silver here was
initially found wanting.∂ The concept of race itself was inspired in large measure without a
doubt by the∂ ‘‘discovery’’ of native peoples and the subsequent debates among learned
Europeans∂ about their nature, their humanity, and their rights. Later on, emerging legal
practice∂ developed typologies of rights based on typologies of peoples, such as the
exclusionary∂ laws concerning testimony in court, as mentioned earlier, which grouped
‘‘blacks,∂ mulattoes, and Native Americans.’’ The Chinese laborers brought to the West in the∂
1800s were subjected to very specific rulings restricting their rights not only to vote or∂ own
property but even to marry other Chinese. This latter ruling outlasted slavery and∂ was justified
by invoking images of Asian overpopulation, another quite specific racist∂ ideology. To control
their reproduction, Chinese women were allowed to come as∂ prostitutes but not as wives, a
restriction no other group faced.∂ The Mexicans defeated in the Mexican-American War were
portrayed as cruel∂ and cowardly barbarians, and although the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo
ratified∂ in 1848 guaranteed for the Mexicans who stayed in the United States full rights of∂ 252
Latino/a Particularity∂ citizenship, like the treaties with Native Americans neither local
governments nor∂ the federal courts upheld the Mexicans’ right to vote or respected the land
deeds∂ they held before the treaty (see Acun˜ a 1988; Shorris 1992). By the time of the∂
Spanish-American War of 1898 the image of barbarism used against Mexicans was∂ consistently
attributed to a Latin Catholic heritage and expanded for use∂ throughout Latin America and the
Caribbean, thus subsequently affecting the∂ immigrant populations coming from these areas as
well as justifying U.S. claims of∂ hegemony in the region (Mignolo 2000). The so-called Zoot Suit
riots in Los∂ Angeles in 1943 targeted Mexican Americans and their ethnically specific style of∂
dress. The attempts made to geographically sequester and also to forcibly assimilate∂ Native
American groups were not experienced by any other group, and had their∂ own ideological
justifications that combined contradictory images of the Great∂ Chain of Being with the
romanticized Noble Savage.
AT: Black/White IS Origin
Even if their history lesson is correct, white supremacy is not a zero sum game,
their focus makes tackling other aspects of racism impossible
Perea 97 (Juan, Professor of Law, University of Florida College of Law, RACE, ETHNICITY &
NATIONHOOD: ARTICLE: The Black/White Binary Paradigm of Race: The "Normal Science" of
American Racial Thought, California Law Review, October, 1997, 85 Calif. L. Rev. 1213, p. 12541255]
One could object to my conclusions on the grounds that White racism against Blacks has operated
for a much longer time than racism against Latinos/as or Asians, and therefore the former
problem needs to be studied and remedied first. English enslavement of Blacks can be traced to the early 1600s,
well before the nationhood of the United States. n207 Encounters between Anglo and Mexican people did not begin on a large scale
until the 1830s, as Whites moved west into Texas and other parts of the Southwest that, at the time, were parts of Mexico. n208 To
a large extent, the Black/White binary paradigm of race has developed precisely because of the historical priority in time of White
racism against Blacks and because of the nature of the exploitation that slavery caused. The
question is whether the
earlier deployment of White racism against Blacks in the United States justifies the binary
approach in race scholarship and thinking today. I cannot see scholarly efforts to understand
and remedy White racism in all its forms as a "zero-sum game," in which efforts to understand
other forms of White racism somehow take away from efforts to understand and remedy
White racism against Blacks. My goal is not to take away anything from the study of White racism against Blacks.
Rather, it is to identify some limitations of this study and to add to these studies the study of White racism against
other racialized American groups. Stated simply, we must study and understand White racism in all its
forms. Indeed, here lie some of the possibilities for coalition and for solving some of the problems that resist solution under our
current scholarship. n209
AT: Panthers not Monovalent
Panthers are monovalent-Panthers reduced to a single dominant essence
Snyder 12 (Greta Fowler, Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Politics, University of Virginia,
”Multivalent Recognition: Between Fixity and Fluidity in Identity Politics”, The Journal of Politics,
Vol. 74, No. 1, January, jstor)
Critics may say that the vision of the Panthers, US, and BAM I offered above is reductive. In
response, I want to revisit the Panthers. While Panther leaders are in part responsible for
promulgating the monovalent identity widely associated with them, I agree that this
characterization does not do justice to a dynamic organization. The popularity of this
characterization points to structural obstacles to the politics of multivalent recognition. In
contrast to the group’s image as hypersexualized, hypermasculine aggressive revolutionaries,
women constituted a significant portion of the Panthers’ membership. Sacrifices by women like
Ericka Huggins and Angela Davis prompted a transformation in the gender politics of the
Panthers (Matthews 1998, 282); a woman—Elaine Brown—ultimately headed the Panthers. The
sexual politics of the Panthers also evolved over time. In August 1970, Huey P. Newton preached
solidarity with the Gay Liberation Movement, saying “the term ‘faggot’…should be deleted from
our vocabulary, and especially we should not attach names normally designed for homosexuals
to men who are enemies of the people.” (Newton 1970). Nor was the agenda of the Party static.
Although originally styled as a paramilitary organization—the Black Panther Party for SelfDefense—over time the group became increasingly concentrated on its “survival programs.”
Survival programs included free breakfast for children, free health clinics, transport to visit
relatives in prison, political education programs, and more. Unlike paramilitary operations, the
types of activities involved in the survival programs have traditionally been coded as feminine.
Few if any would agree that the Black Panther Party achieved a feminist or queer ideal. Even
when the official rhetoric of the party cut across the image of black identity initially projected by
leaders, the diversity within black identity continued to be glossed over—in his 1970 speech
concerning the women and gay liberation movements, for instance, Newton presented woman,
gay and black as separate rather than overlapping identities. Yet at the same time, the Party was
certainly more complicated—and presented a more complicated image of black identity—than
was widely projected. In a content analysis of 163 articles about the Panthers found in major
national magazines and newspapers over an 11- year time span, Edward Morgan found that the
“the Panthers are reduced to a single, dominant essence” (2006, 331). The mainstream media—
including some 300 journalist cooperating with COINTELPRO efforts (Morgan 2006, 329–30)—
broadcast images of “brash, gun-toting, profanity-spewing blacks” (Ogbar 2004, 67). By freezing
the Black Panthers at their origin, the mainstream media were deeply complicit in promoting
the monovalent conception of identity initially projected by the Panthers. The media itself is not
monolithic and certainly alternative stories about the Panthers were told through outlets like
The Black Panther (the Party’s community news service). Despite this, it remains the case that
those engaged in the politics of multivalent recognition are likely to face significant challenges
not only in establishing support for and in strategizing how to promote a multivalent view of
identity, but also in the dissemination process. That the mainstream media would present a
predominantly monovalent view of black identity rather than a multivalent one should not be
surprising. Many media formats privilege the simple and the sensational over the complex and
challenging. Moreover, gatekeepers and decision makers in the culture industry are often
members of the hegemonic racial (gender, sexual) identity group with vested interests in
maintaining their power. The example of the Black Panthers is a potent reminder that the
success of a politics of multivalent recognition depends not only on political actors’ intentions,
but also on media outlets. In other words, while cultural, this politics is not without its structural
prerequisites.
AT: Snyder Only about Race
Snyder talks about recognition and feminist recognition not only about race
Snyder 12 (Greta Fowler, Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Politics, University of Virginia,
”Multivalent Recognition: Between Fixity and Fluidity in Identity Politics”, The Journal of Politics,
Vol. 74, No. 1, January, jstor)
To conclude, I want to clarify several aspects of my argument and offer some final thoughts
about how it contributes to the literature on recognition and identity politics. First, though I
have focused on one identity group in elaborating the distinction between monovalent and
multivalent recognition politics, I believe it to be useful in the interpretation and assessment of
the cultural identity politics of other groups. Shane Phelan (1989), for instance, offers a detailed
description and trenchant critique of a monovalent lesbian feminist recognition politics, for
instance. On the other hand, the early gay pride movement exemplifies the politics of
multivalent recognition in its commitment to “unity through diversity” (Armstrong 2002, 26).
AFF Answers
Perm
Do Both: mono- and multi- valent shift over time
Snyder 12 (Greta Fowler, Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Politics, University of Virginia,
”Multivalent Recognition: Between Fixity and Fluidity in Identity Politics”, The Journal of Politics,
Vol. 74, No. 1, January, jstor)
Though the gay pride movement was committed to “unity through diversity” in theory,
however, it was homogenous (overwhelmingly white, male, middle-class, etc.) in practice
(Armstrong 2002, 136). While the Black Panthers initially projected a monovalent view of black
identity, both the theory and the practice of the organization transformed over time -- yet these
changes were not reflected in predominant representations of the Panthers. These points
highlight the following considerations in the categorization and assessment of recognition
politics. First, both political ideology and political practice are important in determining whether
an example of recognition politics is monovalent or multivalent; both should be considered.
Second, attention should be paid both to the nature of the demands for recognition as well as
the way in which these demands are interpolated by the culture industry. Finally, recognition
movements are not static: the nature of demands for recognition made by a group may change
over time, moving nearer to or farther from the multivalent or monovalent pole.
Alt fails
Alternative fails 2 reasons- civil rights and inside outsider binary
Brooks and Widner 12’
Roy L. Brooks and Kirsten Widner,Brooks is a senior editor of the Yale Law Journal, clerked for the
Honorable Clifford Scott Green of the U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, and practiced corporate law with
Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York City. He joined the USD School of Law faculty in 1979. Widner is a
Post fellow in law worked as a director of policy and advocacy at Emory law and got a degree in law form
University of San Diego∂ In Defense of the Black/White Binary: Reclaiming a Tradition of Civil Rights
Scholarship, 12 Berkeley J. Afr.-Am. L. & Pol'y 107 (2010). ∂ Available at:
http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/bjalp/vol12/iss1
Furthermore, by arguing that black scholars should abandon the black/white binary (i.e., not
focus on white-on-black racial problems), critical theorists, most of whom are non-black, 3 are
unintentionally disrespecting a venerable tradition of black scholarship.14 African American
scholars as diverse as (at times) Derrick Bell, the "father" of Critical Race Theory,' 5 Michael Eric
Dyson and Cornel West, civil rights liberals,' 6 Glenn Loury, a civil rights moderate-conservative,
17 and John Hope Franklin, perhaps the greatest African American scholar of the last half of the
twentieth century18 (whose public disagreement with an Asian scholar over the black/white
paradigm was highly publicized), 19 not only write within this tradition but also have helped to
shape it. Equally essential to this scholarly tradition are the enduring works of the late Judge A.
Leon Higginbotham, the nation's first scholarly African American judge and the seminal writings
of W. E. B. Du Bois, the nation's first (and still greatest) civil rights scholar. 2 ' This tradition of
African American scholarship laid the foundation for the NAACP's successful litigation strategy
against school segregation. 22 In addition to civil rights scholarship, criticism of the black/white
binary extends to civil rights law. Delgado and Stefancic explore the following scenario: Imagine,
for example, that Juan Dominguez, a Puerto Rican worker, is told by his boss, 'You're a lazy
Puerto Rican just like the rest. You'll never get ahead as long as I'm supervisor.' Juan sues for
discrimination under a civil rights-era statute designed with blacks in mind. He wins because he
can show that an African American worker, treated in a similar fashion, would be entitled to
redress. But suppose that Juan's coworkers and supervisor make fun of him because of his
accent, religion, or place of birth. An African American subjected to these forms of
discrimination would not be able to recover, and so Juan would go without recourse.23 Thus,
the critique of the black/white binary proceeds on two levels-civil rights scholarship and civil
rights law. This article considers both critiques. We consider the critique based on civil rights law
in Part II. There, we contend that the critics of the binary have misread the extant law. As one of
the authors has noted in a previous work, "Courts generally recognize that discrimination on the
basis of a foreign trait, such as accent, is actionable under Title VII as discrimination on the basis
of national origin.' 24 The point is, our most important civil rights laws apply to all racial groups,
including whites, without any precondition that non-black racial groups analogize their situation
to that of blacks. The Reconstruction Amendments to the Constitution-the Thirteenth,
Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments 25-which provide the foundation for modem civil rights
law,26 the 1964 Civil Rights Act,27 and modem-day case law 28 all reach far beyond the
black/white binary. To the extent that asymmetrical civil rights statutes have been enacted in
the decades after the 1964 Civil Rights Act, these laws have been responsive to non-blacks,
including the disabled,29 women,30 and older workers. 3' Civil rights law recognizes multiple
binaries rather than a single binary. We turn in Part III to the theoretical arguments regarding
the black/white binary. Here, we argue that African-American scholars have not suggested that
non-black racial groups should be accorded second-class civil rights status. Rather, AfricanAmerican scholars of any stature embrace the multiple-binary approach reflected in civil rights
law. The fact that black scholars focus on white-on-black racial problems in their scholarship is
natural given their experiences as black Americans and the tradition of black scholarship. Yet,
critical theorists have attacked this tradition of black scholarship on anti-binary grounds. We
address the three most compelling anti-binary criticisms offered by critical theorists: (1) the
binary ignores the histories of other racial groups, thereby distorting our understanding of civil
rights history; 32 (2) it ignores interest convergence and thus threatens natural alliances among
outsiders, especially people of color; 33 and, related to the latter criticism, (3) it is predicated
upon a false notion of "black uniqueness."3 4 In considering each of these criticisms, we argue
that the black/white binary-which, again, is most properly understood to mean the focus on
white-on-black racial problems makes very good sense to African Americans based on their
racial reality. Those who would reject the binary, and would have black scholars do likewise;
have simply ignored this fact of life. Why can 't binaries co-exist in civil rights scholarship as they
do in civil rights law? We conclude with two arguments in Part IV. First, contrary to what they
claim, critics of the black/white binary are, in reality, not arguing for the dissolution of all
binaries, but, instead, are arguing for a particular binary. They seek to replace the black/white
binary in civil rights scholarship with an insider/outsider binary. The latter not only reflects a
monolithic view of racial identity, 5 it also subordinates African Americans by trivializing the
black ethos and presuming to tell African-American scholars what to write about. Second,
criticism of the black/white binary is, at bottom, a claim regarding racial priority. While some
critics of the black/white binary may have hoped that the priority issue could be avoided by
simply moving beyond the black/white binary, 36 that simply has not been the case. Among
outsider groups, competing claims and conflicts have not and will not disappear. 37 Hence, the
questions become: Does it make moral, historical, political, or sociological sense to give priority
to African Americans in the realm of civil rights when their interests clash with the interests of
other civil rights groups? Have the descendants of slaves earned the right to claim priority
because they have suffered the longest and still remain at "the very bottom of the well," to
borrow a metaphor from critical theory? Former President Bill Clinton, a liberal, and James Q.
Wilson, a conservative scholar, answer these questions in the affirmative. Clinton states, "If we
can address the problems between black and white Americans, then we will be better equipped
to deal with discrimination in other areas." 38 Similarly, Wilson writes in the aftermath of
Katrina that: "The main domestic concern of policy-engaged intellectuals, liberal and
conservative, ought to be to think hard about how to change these social weaknesses. Lowerclass blacks are numerous and fill our prisons, and among all blacks the level of financial assets is
lower than it is for whites. any blacks have made rapid progress, but we are not certain how." 39
While saving until another day the construction of a formula that might facilitate the ranking of
civil rights claims in particular situations, we do argue here that any such formula should not
necessarily favor African Americans because of the simple fact that they are not at the very
bottom of the well across the board. However, such a formula should take into account the
relative severity and duration of each group's deprivation of rights or equality in various
situations.
Brooks and Widner 12’
Roy L. Brooks and Kirsten Widner,Brooks is a senior editor of the Yale Law Journal, clerked for the
Honorable Clifford Scott Green of the U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, and practiced corporate law with
Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York City. He joined the USD School of Law faculty in 1979. Widner is a
Post fellow in law worked as a director of policy and advocacy at Emory law and got a degree in law form
University of San Diego∂ In Defense of the Black/White Binary: Reclaiming a Tradition of Civil Rights
Scholarship, 12 Berkeley J. Afr.-Am. L. & Pol'y 107 (2010). ∂ Available at:
http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/bjalp/vol12/iss1
The idea that African Americans should incorporate other racial histories in their scholarship so
as not to ignore those histories is thinly supported. Asian and Latino/a scholars, for example, do
not need African-American scholars to validate their work, which is exceptionally good. °2
Similarly, although incorporating other racial histories into African-American scholarship may
enrich one's perspective on racism, this exercise is typically not a prerequisite for understanding
civil rights or the black ethos-nor is it necessary for addressing black issues. To illustrate the
point, we refer to Mendez v. Westminister School District of Orange County.10 3 This case is
often cited by LatCrits to illustrate the indispensability of Latino/a history in understanding the
history of school desegregation that culminated in Brown .104 In Mendez, the court overturned
a school segregation statute applicable to Mexican-American students, a decision that predated
Brown I by a few years. While interesting, the case is neither necessary nor sufficient in
explaining Brown I or in understanding the NAACP's legal strategy. Mendez was a Ninth Circuit
opinion, so its precedential value is low compared to that of the Supreme Court cases
traditionally regarded as the predecessors of Brown 1.105 Nor was Mendez as significant as the
scholarship that informed the NAACP briefs. 0 6 Furthermore, even these Supreme Court cases
and scholarly works have little probative valu in explaining why the Court decided Brown I the
way it did.'0 7 Indeed, contemporary scholarship on Brown I that omits the geopolitical and
other extra-legal factors that underpin the opinion is insufficiently theorized. 08 Authors who
write about their own racial experiences are not necessarily signaling ignorance about other
racial experiences. These writers are merely taking advantage of their unique position to get the
story out more accurately and with greater insight. In fact, Professor Delgado himself rather
enthusiastically embraced this position in his influential article, "The Imperial Scholar:" [I]t is
possible to compile an a priori list of reasons why we might look with concern on a situation in
which the scholarship about group A [outsiders] is written by members of group B [insiders].
First, members of group B may be ineffective advocates of the rights and interests of persons in
group A. They may lack information; more important, perhaps, they may lack passion, or that
passion may be misdirected. B's scholarship may tend to be sentimental, diffusing passion in
useless directions, or wasting time on unproductive breast-beating. Second, while the B's might
advocate effectively, they might advocate the wrong things. Their agenda may differ from that
of the A's, they may pull their punches with respect to remedies, especially where remedying A's
situation entails uncomfortable consequences for B. Despite the best of intentions, B's may have
stereotypes embedded deep in their psyches that distort their thinking, causing them to balance
interests in ways inimical to A's. Finally, domination by members of group B may paralyze
members of group A, causing the A's to forget how to flex their legal muscles for themselves.'
AT other race oppressions
Prefer white black binary biggest problem and has happened for the longest
Brooks and Widner 12’
Roy L. Brooks and Kirsten Widner,Brooks is a senior editor of the Yale Law Journal, clerked for the
Honorable Clifford Scott Green of the U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, and practiced corporate law with
Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York City. He joined the USD School of Law faculty in 1979. Widner is a
Post fellow in law worked as a director of policy and advocacy at Emory law and got a degree in law form
University of San Diego∂ In Defense of the Black/White Binary: Reclaiming a Tradition of Civil Rights
Scholarship, 12 Berkeley J. Afr.-Am. L. & Pol'y 107 (2010). ∂ Available at:
http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/bjalp/vol12/iss1
Critical theorists reject the black/white binary in large part because they reject the notion that
African Americans have always been and continue to be the most racially subordinated group in
America. 144 Professor Delgado, for example, argues that all racial minorities must avoid "the [s]iren
[slong of [u]niqueness. ' According to Delgado, the seductive idea of uniqueness can "predispose a minority
group to believe that it is uniquely victimized and entitled to special consideration from iniquitous whites.'
46 However, this argument runs contrary to history, as documented by a large body of research. Although
rarely stated in public, 4 7 there is substantial empirical evidence strongly suggesting that African
Americans are unique and, hence, warrant separate (but not necessarily dominant) attention. 148
We shall focus on a few pieces of this evidence: slavery and Jim Crow; the subordination of
African Americans versus Native Americans; lynching; and what can be termed, "the lost
American dream." To begin with, African Americans are the only group to arrive in this country not on,
but under Plymouth Rock. African Americans have encountered and continue to encounter unique
disadvantages that stem from the very way they were brought into American society. 1 49 Unlike most
immigrants who came to the United States voluntarily, blacks were imported in huge numbers
as slaves. Although slavery had existed for thousands of years, the Atlantic slave trade was not
slavery as usual: Slavery in the Americas introduced the troubling element of race into the
master/slave relationship. For the first time in history, dark skin became the social marker of chattel
slavery. And, as a means of justifying this new face-a black face-given to an ancient practice, the slavers
and their supporters created a race-specific ideology of condemnation.150 This new form of
slavery was so much a part of colonial America that the founders addressed it in multiple
provisions of the U.S. Constitution.' 5 1 Thus, the subjugation of African Americans was written
into the fabric of our nation from the very beginning-a situation that no other group has faced.
Although slavery officially ended with the Civil War and the adoption of the Thirteenth
Amendment, the systematic economic exploitation of African Americans continued well into the
twentieth century. As Douglas Blackmon chronicles in his Pulitzer Prize winning book, "Slavery by
Another Name," southern states used an elaborate system of laws "specifically enacted to intimidate
blacks." They also used a variety of other slave-like practices such as opportunistic arrests, sham trials,
convict leasing, and coercive "contracts" to continue supplying white farms and industry with the cheap
black labor on which they relied. 152 In spite of this, critical theorists often dismiss African
American uniqueness by noting that other racial minorities have experienced many of the
injustices blacks have faced. For example, Professor Perea asserts: Mexican Americans were also
segregated in separate but unequal schools, were kept out of public parks by law, were refused service in
restaurants, were prohibited from attending 'White' churches on Sundays, and were denied burial in 'White'
cemeteries, among all of the other horrors of the separate but equal scheme.153 While it is true that all
racial minorities, particularly Latinos/as, have been victims of white oppression, these racialized
experiences are nonetheless quite different from what African Americans have experienced. 54 In our view,
the differences between African Americans and other racial minorities are so great as to outweigh the
similarities. As one of the authors said on a previous occasion: [Bilacks were the main target of slavery and
Jim Crow. No other American group inhabited the peculiar institution. No other American group
sustained more casualties or lengthier suffering from slavery and Jim Crow... [T]his gives blacks a
connection to slavery and Jim Crowboth familial and psychological-that no other racial minority
has. There is a collective memory here that only blacks have.... [U]nlike Asians and Latinos, blacks
did not volunteer for this tour of duty. Blacks were kidnapped from their homeland and brought
to this country by brutal force, the likes of which we have not seen before or since in American
history. In short, although blacks, Asians, Latinos, Native Americans, Indians, and other people of color
are victims of what Joe Feagin calls 'systemic racism' (or the "white-created" paradigm of racial
subordination), they do not experience and hence do not react to racial subordination in exactly the same
way.... White-on-black oppression is just different from other white-oppression syndromes,
whether racial or gender. Patricia Rodriguez has observed, 'White means mostly privilege and black
means overcoming obstacles, a history of civil rights. As a Latina, I can't try to claim one of
these.'" 55 Black Americans carry the weight of the atrocities-slavery and Jim Crow.... 1 56
A2: Delgado
Focus on blackness the problem is growing and decreasing for other racesother races have seen increases in education and success
Brooks and Widner 12’
Roy L. Brooks and Kirsten Widner, Brooks is a senior editor of the Yale Law Journal, clerked for the
Honorable Clifford Scott Green of the U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, and practiced corporate law with
Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York City. He joined the USD School of Law faculty in 1979. Widner is a
Post fellow in law worked as a director of policy and advocacy at Emory law and got a degree in law form
University of San Diego∂ In Defense of the Black/White Binary: Reclaiming a Tradition of Civil Rights
Scholarship, 12 Berkeley J. Afr.-Am. L. & Pol'y 107 (2010). ∂ Available at:
http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/bjalp/vol12/iss1
Professor Richard Delgado argues that binary thinking can harm the group whose interest it
places at the center. It can, for example, pit one disadvantaged group against another to the
detriment of both. This opposition can impair a group's ability to forge useful coalitions and to
leam from other groups' successes and failures.,I I What minority groups should do instead,
Delgado argues, is set up a secondary market in which they negotiate selectively with each
other. This market would take the form of exchanging support for issues important to various
groups, creating win-win solutions whenever possible. Thus, a non-binary framework allows for
racial minorities to approach whites in full force."12 Although Professor Delgado's arguments
are not without merit, they are based on an unproven assumption that identities among racial
minorities are sufficiently monolithic so as to make interracial alliances natural. "The idea would
be," Professor Delgado asserts, "for minority groups to assess their own preferences and make
tradeoffs that will, optimistically, bring gains for all concerned."' 1 3 However, as Professor
Carbado points out, "Non-Black people of color have not always been interested in identifying
themselves with the Black or marginalized side of the Black/White paradigm. In fact, there are
moments in American history when certain Asian Americans and Latinas/os have attempted to
achieve equality by asserting that they are not Black or like Blacks, and/or that they are White."
14 There are costs as well as advantages associated with occupying both ends of the polarity-the
black (or subordinated) end as well as the white (or privileged) end-and non-black racial groups
have often been able to avoid the costs and exploit the advantages.' 15 Self-interest is a
powerful motivating force. Thus, it may be, as Professor Delgado maintains, that all binaries,
including the black/white binary, are narrow nationalisms calculated to cutting the most
favorable possible deal with whites'6-a possibility that African Americans can ill-afford to ignore.
Therefore it is important to explore this possibility more closely to get a sense of how risky it
would be for African Americans to abandon the black/white binary-which spawned the scholarly
tradition and political strategy that together have been responsible for destroying Jim Crow and
forging a racial consciousness from which all racial groups have benefitted." 7 When one looks
closely at the natural-alliance theory-more accurately, the presumed-alliance theory-one comes
to the unhappy conclusion that the theory founders on the shoals of racial reality. In a world of
limited resources, achieving progress on one group's agenda can come at the expense of
another group's agenda. 1 1 8 The game is, indeed, often zero-sum. The racial dynamic between
blacks and Latinos/as, the latter of whom have been the most persistent critics of the
black/white binary,' 19 well illustrates this point. Let us begin with education. Blacks and
Latinos/as both hope to see dramatic improvements in the quality of schools their children
attend. For blacks, this means increasing educational funds to their schools and providing
curricular services that address issues of racial pride, self-esteem, and the other unique needs of
African-American students, especially those of young black males. 20 Likewise, for Latinos/as,
improving the quality of education for their children means focusing on the special needs of
Latino/as children, including bilingual education and expanded coverage of Latin-American
history, which is often tied to immigration concerns.' 21 With the nationwide crisis in public
school funding, the pool of state and federal funds as well as other resources available to meet
these goals is extremely limited. Consequently, funds possibility more closely to get a sense of
how risky it would be for African Americans to abandon the black/white binary-which spawned
the scholarly tradition and political strategy that together have been responsible for destroying
Jim Crow and forging a racial consciousness from which all racial groups have benefitted." 7
When one looks closely at the natural-alliance theory-more accurately, the presumed-alliance
theory-one comes to the unhappy conclusion that the theory founders on the shoals of racial
reality. In a world of limited resources, achieving progress on one group's agenda can come at
the expense of another group's agenda. 1 1 8 The game is, indeed, often zero-sum. The racial
dynamic between blacks and Latinos/as, the latter of whom have been the most persistent
critics of the black/white binary,' 19 well illustrates this point. Let us begin with education.
Blacks and Latinos/as both hope to see dramatic improvements in the quality of schools their
children attend. For blacks, this means increasing educational funds to their schools and
providing curricular services that address issues of racial pride, self-esteem, and the other
unique needs of African-American students, especially those of young black males. 20 Likewise,
for Latinos/as, improving the quality of education for their children means focusing on the
special needs of Latino/as children, including bilingual education and expanded coverage of
Latin-American history, which is often tied to immigration concerns.' 21 With the nationwide
crisis in public school funding, the pool of state and federal funds as well as other resources
available to meet these goals is extremely limited. Consequently, funds Angeles have almost
entirely replaced the unionized African-American∂ workforce with a non-unionized immigrant
workforce.' 6 Even when∂ unionization is not an issue, the results are the same. As Jack Miles
observes:∂ If the Latinos were not around to be [gardeners, busboys, chambermaids,∂ nannies,
janitors, construction workers], nonblack employers would be∂ forced to hire blacks-but they'd
rather not. They trust Latinos. They∂ fear or disdain blacks. The result is unofficial but
widespread preferential∂ hiring of Latinos-the largest affirmative action program in the nation,∂
and one paid for, in effect, by blacks. 127∂ Because of the employment implications of
undocumented immigration,∂ the NAACP, as well as the AFL-CIO, supported the employer
sanctions∂ provision under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. As one∂ NAACP
official said, the sanctions were a way "to keep undocumented aliens∂ from taking the food
from black children."1' 28 African Americans "were∂ competing more directly with Latinos than
with any other ethnic group."' 2 9∂ In addition there have been various political struggles
between African∂ Americans and Latinos/as in Los Angeles. A case in point is the 2001 mayoral∂
race in which blacks voted for a white candidate instead of the Latino candidate∂ whom they
believed to be more interested in strengthening Latino/a political∂ and economic power than in
improving the plight of blacks. For similar∂ reasons, the NAACP objected to the inclusion of
Latinos/as in the 1975 Voting∂ Rights Extension.' 30 A black columnist positioned the matter in a
broader∂ context: "Though we pride ourselves on our leadership role in civil rights,∂
paradoxically, we guard the success jealously. 'We're the ones who marched∂ in the streets and
got our heads busted. Where were they? But now they want∂ to get in on the benefits."" 13∂ '∂
Similar differences exist between African Americans and other racial∂ minorities. For example,
some Asians have sought to exploit the privilege pole∂ of the black/white binary at the expense
of African Americans. As Professor∂ Frank Wu observes, "Racial groups are conceived of as
white, black, honorary∂ whites, or constructive blacks."' 32 He also reminds us that some Asians
have∂ benefited from their "honorary whiteness" and, in so doing, may have∂ "perpetuat[ed]
the problem of race."' Professor Wu's use of the terms "honorary whiteness" and "constructive
blacks" underscores both the constructedness of race and the poles of privilege and
subordination in the black/white binary within which Asians have operated. The latter racial
dynamic forms the basis for the uneasy relationship that has developed between the AfricanAmerican and the Asian-American civil rights agendas since the end of the 1960s. Janine Young
Kim aptly describes this situation: Asian Americans have stood on unstable ground between
'black' and 'white,' falling under the honorary white category in anti-affirmative action
arguments, but considered constructive blacks for the purposes of school segregation or
antimiscegenation laws. To say that Asian Americans have been perceived as honorary whites or
constructive blacks is, however, slightly misleading in that it tends to convey a notion of race
specificity. It is important to keep in mind that although the status of honorary white does affect
identity, recognition, and appellation, its more insidious function is cooptation. For example,
within the economy of affirmative action policy, 'whiteness' encompasses victimization through
'reverse racism' and race-based disadvantage in certain educational or occupational
opportunities. Insofar as a conservative like Newt Gingrich treats Asian Americans as honorary
whites, he refers to common experience under affirmative action, not racial similarity. 34
African Americans do not have this kind of racial flexibility. Phenotype and experience prevent
African Americans from benefitting as much as other racial minorities from the pole of privilege.
African Americans constitute the social marker for disadvantage, stuck at the pole of
subordination. Indeed, African Americans have watched as other racial and ethnic groups with
whom they have aligned in the past 135 have leapfrogged past them in resources and power,
often distancing themselves from African Americans (what Professor Carbado calls "interracial
distancing"' 36) once they obtained a certain level of success. There is palpable concern among
African Americans that Latinos/as, with their increasing numbers and desire for acceptance, are
poised to repeat this process. Like Asians in the context of affirmative action,' 37 Latinos/as
might find interracial distancing to be within their self-interest. To ask African Americans to put
aside this racial history and risk being a stepping-stone for yet another racial group's
advancement may be overly optimistic. This is not to say that African Americans and other racial
groups have never successfully collaborated or can never form mutually beneficial coalitions. As
Professor Perea correctly points out, Keyes v. School District No. 1, Denver, Colorado, 38 a
school desegregation case, provides an example of interest convergence. 39 Likewise, Mendez v.
Westminister School District of Orange County,140 a Mexican-American school desegregation
discussed earlier,' 4 ' shows that African Americans can support Latino/a interests when those
interests converge with African-American interests. 142 But the crucial question is what
happens when the interests clash rather converge? As Latinos/as continue to gain political
strength and as both Latinos/as and Asians continue to become more integrated into the
mainstream culture (becoming more "white" 43), will they find it more advantageous to forge
coalitions with whites, whose experiences and interests they now share, than with African
Americans, whose experiences and interests have become contraposed?
Offense
Calls to “move beyond” black/white binary replicate anti-Blackness
Deilovsky and Kitossa 13 (Katerina Deliovsky, Department of Sociology. Brock University,
Ontario and Tamari, “Beyond Black and White: When Going Beyond May Take Us Out of
Bounds”, Journal of Black Studies 44; 158, http://jbs.sagepub.eom/content/44/2/158)
At first impression, critiques
of the so-called Black/White binary paradigm appear persuasive—but only if one
accepts a priori that race scholarship is dominated by this paradigm and that it functions to restrict how race is
understood, theorized, and addressed. What is more, many claimants of this position contend that African and European American scholars who
employ the so-called Black/White binary paradigm obscure the histories and claims making of Asian, Native, and Latina/o Americans. There
are
problems, however, with proposing a multiracial coalition based on a critique of the so-called
Black/White binary paradigm. One such problem is identified by Jared Sexton (2010), who argues that this call is premised
on the belief "of an 'endemic* black-white model of racial thought" (p. 90). For Sexton, this notion is
"something of a social fiction—one might say a misreading—that depends upon a reduction of the
sophistication of the paradigm in question" (Sexton, 2010, p. 90). If Sexton is correct, and we believe he is, then the call
to move beyond is fundamentally flawed because it is built on an inadequate understanding of
power relations that structure what is, in fact, a black/white Manicheanism. A Manicheanism is a moral and
symbolic framework that constructs the world as polarized by forces of good and evil,
represented in the oppositions between lightness and darkness and between black and white (see
Bastide, 1967; Fanon, 1967; Hoch, 1979; Stone, 1981). Contrary to moving beyond advocates' claim of a Black/White binary paradigm, the black/white
Manicheanism is an
incorporative racial matrix in the psychosocial world of European culture that
gives meaning to a broad range of identities. Furthermore, this misreading and reduction rests on the
presupposition that this call is warranted and that one can move beyond what is posited as a
simple binary. This assumption and call to action needs to be interrogated and deconstructed
not only because the former is erroneous but also because the latter implicitly reproduces antiblackness as a presupposition for multiracial coalition building. We argue in this essay that a deconstruction of the
move beyond discourse reveals that knowledge about racism, but more specifically, anti-black racism, is not substantively advanced and, in fact,
creates two distinct problems. First, by
misreading and misnaming a real historical and contemporary
experience as a paradigm, the discourse creates the false dilemma of needing to move beyond.
Second, the discourse sets up blackness (interestingly enough, not whiteness), and by extension, those
people socially defined as "black," as an impediment to the laudable goals of a multiracial
coalition and complex understanding of race relations in North America. In this way, moving beyond, in terms of praxis (action,
epistemology, and politics), is a discourse based on "bad faith" (Gordon, 1994) toward African-descended
peoples. As noted by Gordon (1994), bad faith is denial of the humanity of the black body and the consistent
imputation of a negative value to it as a means of defining the (non-black) self.
Turn – Excludes Black from the coalition of the alt
Deilovsky and Kitossa 13 (Katerina Deliovsky, Department of Sociology. Brock University,
Ontario and Tamari, “Beyond Black and White: When Going Beyond May Take Us Out of
Bounds”, Journal of Black Studies 44; 158, http://jbs.sagepub.eom/content/44/2/158)
In closing, moving beyond advocates argue that alternatives to the Black/ White binary paradigm are needed to account for changing experiences of race and racism (Martinez,
1993; Omi & Winant, 1994). Uncritical acceptance of the Black/White binary paradigm situates the call to move beyond as questionable and problematic and all the more
in the laudable quest for multiracial alliances, the call to move beyond has
been uncritically accepted as a necessary tactic in the antiracist struggle. Sexton (2008) warns
urgently in need of challenge. Perhaps,
against the "unexamined desire for new analyses and the often anxious drive for political
alliance" (p. 252). Moreover, he calls into "question the motive force of a nominally critical intervention
on the 'black-white paradigm'" (Sexton, 2008, p. 252). If an integral part of this move beyond postulates
that blackness is an epistemic obstacle to effective antiracism politics, does this not imply that
multiracial alliances are "a social formation for which the exclusion of the category of racial
blackness is a sine qua non" (Sexton, 2010, p. 89)? And to exclude racial blackness means, ultimately, to
excise those defined as black from this coalition. In other words, the black body may be counted for more than three fifths of a person
for the antiracist cause, but African people's history and narratives must be checked at the door. Not only does this (implied) excision do a gross disservice to those victimized by
This situates moving
beyond as a faulty and politically harmful episte-mological framework for African-descended
people, and what is more, it is an act of bad faith.1 Without question, there is a need for a complex reading and analysis of racial oppression; however, the refusal
to grant primacy to this "visible epis-temology of black skin" suggests there is more to this call
than an academic pursuit. Put another way, it is one thing to argue that we need a complex understanding of the multiracial makeup of North America; it is
this Manicheanism; it erases their history and obscures how other non-African people of color are affected by it as well as contribute to it.
quite another to frame the black/white Manicheanism as the reason for this lack of scholarly work. To reiterate, pointing the finger at the black/white Manicheanism creates, in
general, two fundamental errors. One, it creates a false problem by confusing and misnaming a real historical and contemporary experience and, as such, grossly simplifies its
complexity. Michael Steinberg (2001) argues. Putting the wrong name on a problem is worse than having no name at all. In the latter instance, one is at least open to filling the
conceptual void. In the first instance, however, words lead us down a blind alley. They divert us from the facets of the problem that should command our attention and . . . lead
It sets up blackness
(interestingly enough, not whiteness), and by extension those people socially defined as black,
as an impediment to the laudable goals of a multiracial coalition and complex understanding of
race relations in the United States. It is disconcerting how the articulation of moving beyond implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) situates blackness as an obstacle or, as
to remedies that are ineffectual or worse, (p. 2) As we see it, in our case, the "worse" leads us to the second fundamental problem:
Sexton (2008) argues, "[standing] in the way of future progress, silencing the expression of much needed voices on the political and intellectual scene" (p. 252). It appears that
It goes without
saying the challenge is not to move beyond but to theorize the black/white Manicheanism through a
critical inquiry that captures its complexity. This complexity must bear in mind how thoroughly saturated is the sociosymbolic structure of
"the force of anti-blackness consistently troubles the myriad efforts at mediation and amelioration among the nonwhite" (Sexton, 2008, p. 253).
racial difference with the determinants of the black/white Manicheanism.9 The black/white Manicheanism "has and continues to situate every subject in U.S. culture within the
panoptic vision of racial meanings" (Weigman, 1995, p. 40). These racial meanings were and are often configured in relation to and against black (and white) racial designations.
Thus, rather than calling to move beyond, it would be more conceptually creative and politically advantageous to work toward analyzing the black/white Manicheanism in a way
to develop an epistemologically deep
understanding of race, racialization, and racism in the North America, the significance of antiblackness must be apprehended, not as a superior form of oppression but as a form that gives
shape and context to the oppression of other racially marginalized groups, while creating a qualitatively distinct
that makes clear the relationship between this Manicheanism and other racially marginalized groups. Thus,
oppression for African-descended peoples. As Jared Sexton (2008) cogently argues, anti-blackness is longstanding and ongoing but also . . . unlike other forms of racial
oppression in qualitative ways—differences of kind, rather than degree, a structural singularity rather than an empirical anomaly. But all of this is not...to participate in the
ranked determination of suffering. It is, instead, to properly locate the political dynamics and to outline the ethical stakes at hand. (p. 245)