Abstract
With the racial progress the nation has made over the past half century, including the growth of the black middle class and the election of a black president, many are now prepared to proclaim the United States a postracial society, where egalitarian values most often prevail; race is no longer a significant barrier to power, privilege, and prestige; and racial prejudice is mostly a thing of the past. When observed ethnographically, the lived experience of race relations suggests a different view and conceptual framework. As the legacy of racial caste, the color line persists in social interaction and is evident in racially determined perspectives and local working conceptions that order race relations and contribute to persistent racial inequality. Indeed, the claim of a postracial society is an ideological discourse that denies continuing patterns of race relations.
This project emerged from the fieldwork that led to The Cosmopolitan Canopy: Race and Civility in Everyday Life (Anderson 2011). The concept of the cosmopolitan canopy highlights the islands of civility located in a virtual sea of segregated living where a diversity of people come together and live civilly. In contemporary U.S. cities, such settings include public parks, farmers’ markets, coffee shops, restaurants, modern workplaces, university campuses, and downtown shopping venues. When people gather in these settings, they typically check one another out and, perhaps for the first time, take the opportunity to observe up close strangers who are different from themselves. Evident in these interactions at times is an underlying tension between ethnocentrism and cosmopolitanism, which by degrees is present in virtually everyone. The cosmopolitan norms and expectations of the canopy encourage its habitués to express their cosmo sides and to keep their ethno sides in check. One’s ability to do so may be difficult, however, depending on the individual’s ethnic or racial identity. As people meet under the canopy, they may find a respite from the city’s social tensions and enjoy what they have in common. Here they may relax, people-watch or engage in a kind of folk ethnography, observing others and, at times, appreciating diverse expressive styles. They may even come to engage members of groups from which they had felt estranged. In this respect, the canopy can be an edifying experience that encourages a more cosmopolitan orientation.
On occasion, the fault lines that underlie such settings suddenly shake this civility, and tensions surface. A person in a racially diverse milieu can draw the color line arbitrarily, giving offense when it is least expected and putting all those who observe the incident on the defensive. Such incidents are typically glossed over, and people go on with business as usual. Race is among the most powerful social boundaries reinscribed in that way. And when the color line is drawn so abruptly, the racial divide can become powerfully illuminated and underscored, with the incident on occasion morphing into a nationally polarizing event. Such poignant incidents provide clear evidence that America is far from being a postracial society. We do not to argue that a caste system of the sort that prevailed under Jim Crow still exists. Rather, we hypothesize that the legacy of this racial caste system remains visible and consequential in the everyday interactions of blacks and whites in the United States, perhaps with unusual clarity in the South. Moreover, these caste-like patterns of racial segregation reflect powerful and deep-seated attitudes that contribute to continuing disparities in residence, education, employment, law enforcement, and health care, as well as to persistent tensions in race relations. We wanted to understand better just how they did so.
To explore these issues of caste and race in contemporary American culture, in fall 2010, Elijah Anderson organized a team of four ethnographic researchers: Anderson, Duke Austin, Craig Holloway, and Vani Kulkarni. Each brought special gifts to this project. Kulkarni, who grew up in India where her family occupied a high caste position, has a wealth of experience in ethnographic work both in South Asia and in the United States. Austin, who recently completed his PhD at the University of Colorado, grew up white in the U.S. Southwest, where he was exposed to a caste-like system of race relations. His parents are among the working class, and his grandparents had been sharecroppers. In this stratification system, African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans, as well as poor whites, occupy subordinate positions. Holloway grew up black and working poor in a small town in Alabama, one of the strongholds of the Confederacy, where the racial system still has strong caste-like features, and attended Tuskegee, a historically black college in the South.
As we began our investigation into what lies behind the persistent racial disparities, we reviewed the massive body of literature on race and caste in America generated by historians,1 sociologists, and social anthropologists over more than a century, and then we distilled what we considered to be the key features of the racial caste system. Most simply, ethnography is defined as the systematic description of culture, representing a group’s shared understandings or “local knowledge” derived from meeting the exigencies of everyday life (Geertz 1983). The ethnographer tries to apprehend and comprehend this local knowledge, including local “definitions of the situation” and the subjects’ working conceptions of the world. With such issues and research questions in mind, Anderson encouraged the group to scrutinize and reflect on the working conceptions of race held by blacks and whites. Since Holloway grew up black in the Deep South, Anderson encouraged him to think about his own upbringing and consider how race figured into the worldview instilled in him. Anderson asked Austin to do the same, but from a white perspective. He encouraged Kulkarni, on the basis of her personal insights and professional expertise on the Indian caste system, to analyze the relevance of caste to studying and understanding race relations in the United States. He encouraged the group to help develop a comprehensive view of two working conceptions of race, one held by blacks, the other embraced by whites.
After our in-depth discussions of the academic literature, particularly the classic ethnographic works Deep South (Davis, Gardner, and Gardner 1941) and Caste and Class in a Southern Town (Dollard 1937), the team made a brief but intensive visit to the South to explore these issues in greater depth and to develop a set of working hypotheses. To engage in our preliminary fieldwork of interracial interactions in public places, we visited Memphis, Tennessee and Blytheville, Arkansas. One reason that we chose to work there is that Anderson has ties to Memphis and Blytheville. He was born on a sharecroppers’ farm located about sixty-five miles northwest of Memphis, and members of his extended family still reside nearby and offered to support our fieldwork. During our visit, they welcomed our team hospitably and shared their observations and understandings of social and historical life in the region.
When we arrived in Memphis, our team dispersed to explore the city’s various neighborhoods. Austin visited white areas of the city and the suburbs, socializing with white people in coffee shops and walking through white and racially mixed neighborhoods. Some of the white people he met warned him to avoid black residential areas and, by implication, black people more generally. Kulkarni visited public spaces such as parks and malls and talked with anyone who would speak freely with her. At times she encountered local South Asians with whom she could converse in Hindi. She also interviewed blacks and whites, who realized that she belonged to neither group. Holloway sometimes accompanied Kulkarni to offer her support, although on occasion they were taken as a mixed, nonwhite couple. He also visited areas of the center city independently and interviewed numerous black people. As the team explored a range of public places, we engaged many residents in conversation about their city and local relations between the races.
One night, our whole team visited Beale Street and hung out there for hours, consuming southern cuisine and listening to the music while watching people interact. The ambiance of Beale Street was fascinating. On this street, at most times of the day and night, blacks and whites alike enjoy a certain level of comfort. The public social setting resembles what Anderson (2011) calls a cosmopolitan canopy. The tourists on Beale Street, both white and black, are generally out for a good time, and their enjoyment can be infectious. The street is lined with eating spots featuring Delta catfish, crabs, barbecued ribs, collard greens, yams, and other delectable dishes. As the diverse crowd of local denizens and out-of-town visitors moves along this storied corridor, live blues provide a rich serenade, as melodic sounds and rhythms waft through the streets, emanating from restaurants or from a common area set back from the sidewalk. This two-block strip is a great place to people-watch as passersby partake of this rich and varied southern culture.
Virtually every eating spot has a black greeter advertising the tasty dishes inside. Most of the employees are also black, but most of the customers are white. On a late summer afternoon, tourists shop for souvenirs or eat lunch and watch whoever is out and about. As nighttime approaches, the scene becomes even more lively. Visitors, interspersed with some locals, trek up and down the street looking for dinner or shows. These two blocks are cordoned off by white sawhorses, and a small contingent of white police officers reminds everyone to keep the peace, or, as some local blacks say, “help the white tourists feel safe.” Their sense of security is vital, for a poor black community is located at the far end of the strip. The beginning of the ’hood is signified first by the police barrier and then by the sporadic presence of black people; further on, the black residential area is visible. This part of the neighborhood is clearly marked as off-limits to white tourists. On the Wednesday night we were hanging out on Beale Street, people were wandering freely in the street. Young and middle-aged folks interacted with complete strangers. Deals were made, liquor and beer flowed, and the blues generated a pleasant cacophony.
The crowd was largely white and male, sprinkled with some white women. Many of these tourists wore country and western attire, donning western boots and denim jeans. A few black men and women were present. They seemed to be on their best behavior, exhibiting civility and politeness. Anderson and Holloway engaged some of the black visitors and workers personally. White couples and singles were joined by an occasional biracial couple—most commonly a black male and a white female—of whom others took little note. The black people moseyed about in parties of three or four, although we also noticed a lone black man now and then. Occasionally a black man and a white man appeared together. The crowded setting meant that people had to navigate carefully to share the sidewalks and avoid bumping into others, but there were no incidents. Everyone was out for a good time. The atmosphere was festive, although people looked others over unobtrusively and, perhaps, wondered about the stories of the diverse people who were here this evening. This cosmopolitan setting could have been in almost any city, North or South.
Here in Memphis, the main event of the day was a motorcycle rally that included black and white bikers. They appeared to be out and about to enjoy themselves, to trade up for a new cycle, to make a deal with an outsider, or simply to see who else was there. The crowd was easygoing, and the casual atmosphere was infectious. A festive mood prevailed, as vendors showed off their wares. A few of the bikers passed out handbills describing their motorcycles and were prepared to haggle over the price if anyone showed serious interest. The motorcycles were strikingly attractive—shiny chrome, reds, greens, and blues, and decorated with all manner of leather seats, fancy mirrors, and other ornaments. A few mimicked antique open-air automobiles, with room for up to two passengers on the side. Some sported brightly colored decals. A Confederate flag was plastered on the back fender of one motorcycle, which seemed to give some blacks pause but was not enough to deter them. In this region people are accustomed to such spectacles, and everyone seemed to ignore this one.
As the night advanced, the crowd grew larger and more unpredictable. Late in the evening, a small group of young black homeboys appeared from the nearby ’hood. They could be distinguished by their urban uniform—bright colors and baggy pants—and their direct, sometimes challenging male swagger. At one point, two young black men canvassed the crowd, passing out handbills to drum up business for a local carwash where they worked. Others simply stood around looking things over. The whites seemed to take their presence in stride as they nonchalantly went about their business. While the scene remained characterized by a casual civility, the presence of the homeboys added a certain edge. Their arrival was most powerfully acknowledged by the police cars and white officers posted at either end of the strip. The city of Memphis, which has a large population of ghettoized black people, has among the highest rates of black poverty and murder in the United States, and much of the local crime problem is assumed to come from places such as the ’hood.
At about 9 p.m., Kulkarni, the light-brown-skinned South Asian female member of our team, and Holloway, the young, brown-skinned African American, walked to the end of the strip toward their car. When they were about to leave the area, Kulkarni approached one of the policemen and asked about tourist information to plan her stay in Memphis. The officer responded politely, and she engaged him in conversation about the city. Then Holloway, who had been standing off to the side, asked the officer about the dogs lying about in the nearby municipal park where their car was parked. A second officer, who had been standing nearby, answered Holloway in an aggressive tone of voice, “It’s a stray!” As he spoke, the officer’s visage became contorted. This striking reaction led Holloway to cut off the interaction with the two policemen. Almost instinctively he turned to Kulkarni, touched her shoulder, and quietly but firmly led her away without speaking a word. Kulkarni was surprised, for she had no idea why Holloway wanted to leave so abruptly. When they had reached what Holloway considered to be a safe distance from the policemen, he explained what had happened. He interpreted the policeman’s behavior as snippy, intolerant, and fraught with racial meaning. Given his childhood socialization in the racial culture of the Deep South, Holloway understood as well as anyone could that the policeman’s behavior was an effort to put him in his place, an instance in which the old South was reasserting itself and, more important, a warning of what was to come if he persisted in his “uppity” behavior. For Holloway, what had just transpired personified the state of race relations in the contemporary South.
In such incidents, the fabric of apparent comity is rent by a display of acute disrespect, warning of the danger in store if the black person persists in this line of behavior. The interaction usually breaks down, as both parties are effectively put on notice—the black person perhaps more than the white—that racial tensions have emerged. The person with the least power in the situation, who is most likely to lose, simply retreats. Holloway’s otherwise pleasant outing ended with an abrupt jolt.
For Holloway, this encounter with the police is a sign of the caste-like system that was formerly centered in the South but can now be experienced throughout the United States. In the past half-century, Jim Crow in all its manifestations, both North and South, was challenged by the civil rights movement and urban rioting, and the subsequent racial incorporation process has generated a large black middle class (see Anderson, this volume). These social changes have altered both the putative social place of black people and their self-conceptions. Although less attention is generally paid to whites’ self-conceptions and understanding of the social order, those have also shifted. This process remains incomplete, and at times blacks who embrace and assert their newfound status are interpreted by some whites as “uppity.” The ongoing racial incorporation process, coupled with the legacy of caste, has given rise to differing and sometimes conflicting perspectives on race relations held by whites and blacks.
A White Working Conception of Race
Growing up white in the Southwest, Austin was socialized and encouraged to develop a certain perspective on race, and on the place of black people in particular. Reflecting on these experiences through a sociological lens, he formulated what we call a white working conception of race. This understanding is based not only on what he learned through close interaction with whites in his hometown but also on his experiences with diverse groups in the North as well as the South. White frames regarding race relations have been thoroughly researched. 2 Austin’s model serves as one of the preliminary hypotheses for our ethnographic inquiry: that a certain assumption of privilege is expressed through a denial of racism that is effectively conveyed through comments such as “I’m not racist,” “Racism is dead,” “It’s just a joke,” “Reverse racism!” or “It’s cultural.” While each of these expressions explicitly or implicitly assumes a postracial world, each can be understood as a reformulation of race prejudice that reifies caste in the post–civil rights era. Through our fieldwork, we realized these biases remain alive and well in Memphis and are worth considering in our future work.
Since the use of overtly racist terms and the open expression of racial bigotry are no longer socially acceptable, statements of prejudice take more diffuse, subtle, and indirect forms. Many whites automatically assert that they are not racist. Though they may disparage the racial caste system, deliberate segregation, and displays of hatred toward members of other racial group, they nonetheless form their own identities through distinctive opposition (Evans-Pritchard 1940), defining “who they are by whom they oppose,” and make claims of difference that position other racial groups lower in the social hierarchy. For instance, many of the white people we encountered in Memphis deemed certain black neighborhoods unfit to live in, rationalizing their observations by commenting on the perceived level of crime there.
Another way whites disclaim their own racism, Austin has observed, is thinking of racism as something that happened in the past but does not exist now. 3 Such people make comments like “Racism is dead,” insinuating that neither the speaker nor anyone else could possibly be racist. They may mention famous black individuals or point to civil interactions between whites and blacks as evidence that racism is dead. “Getting along” may be the order of the day, but the thin veneer of politeness can quickly crack, exposing distrust and disrespect that lurks below. Social gloss (Goffman 1959) is a common feature of public interactions, deflecting scrutiny to such an extent that racists are able to pass as ordinary decent people. Strikingly, blacks who make such observations of their everyday lives risk being accused of “living in the past” or of having “a chip on their shoulder.”
Some whites dodge questions of racism by resorting to discussions of perceived cultural differences to validate their sense of superiority (Blumer 1958). For example, whites claim that blacks have poor parenting skills, so their children lack self-discipline, do poorly in school, and become incarcerated or pregnant when they are still young. Similarly, some whites assert that blacks would be able to do better and live better if they did not spend so much money on frivolous things. A white man in the Southwest told Austin, “You can drive through a black neighborhood and see a messed-up house but a car parked in front with nice rims.” Similarly, a white woman in the mid-South reported that many whites believe that “a lot of people in the predominantly black neighborhood waste their days sitting on their porches instead of looking for a job.” This sort of cultural argument explains racial disparities by contending that whites are raised properly, socialized to be “hardworking” and “thrifty” and, by implication, more self-disciplined than blacks. By identifying perceived deficiencies in the subordinated caste’s culture, whites both normalize white culture and elevate it above the cultures of nonwhites. The cultural argument can even appear to show sympathy for black people while simultaneously blaming them for their position in society. 4
Moreover, although many whites disavow what they consider to be overt racism, some persist in using racial epithets and telling racist jokes and, when called out, claim that they are “only joking.” Relying on the notion that racism is dead, they argue that if racism still existed, the joke or use of the epithet would not be funny, thereby willfully denying the consequences of their behavior. They perpetuate putdowns by freely using stereotypes to insult black people while refusing to acknowledge that they are engaging in racism. Another maneuver to which racist whites resort is the cry of “Reverse racism!” Contending not only that white racism is dead but also that it is whites who are now oppressed (Norton and Sommers 2011); they cite racial preferences or affirmative action in college admissions, job opportunities, and promotions. Many of these whites fail to recognize or acknowledge their own status as resulting from white supremacy or white-skin privilege. They assume that the advancement of black individuals is based on their “taking advantage of inequalities” that are now perpetrated against whites. As a white professional woman in Memphis said, “Sometimes I feel like the minority living and working here.” With such arguments, whites express a proprietary claim to certain privileges and betray a fear that minority groups harbor designs on what they define as their resources (Blumer 1958). In similar fashion, whites complain that their free speech is being endangered by political correctness, such as when the white radio talk show host Don Imus was fired in 2007 for using a racist and sexist slur. They also contend that political correctness allows black people special freedom because, as some of Imus’s supporters put it, “they use racial epithets all the time.”
Finally, as Austin has repeatedly observed, many whites assume that other whites share their working conception of race relations. They seek solidarity with like-minded white people and, indeed, expect whites to agree with them, to be on their side against the outsider who is considered unworthy. This expectation of racial solidarity generates social pressure on other whites to endorse racist or ethnocentric ideas and effectively normalizes whites’ position of power. Whites who disavow an allegiance to maintaining the status quo may speak only in general terms about racism’s virulence, allowing others to assume that what’s being discussed is reverse racism. But when criticism of white power becomes obvious, a white person’s membership in the group becomes tenuous. When white people in Memphis noticed that Austin associated with nonwhites, his in-group status was called into question, and his interactions with white informants became stilted.
On our team’s first day in the city, when Austin was canvassing a white neighborhood, he stopped at a cafe and engaged a young white heterosexual couple in conversation over coffee. As the man and woman in their early twenties detailed the virtues of their neighborhood and spoke about race relations in Memphis, they unselfconsciously related their conceptions of desirable and undesirable neighborhoods, implicitly and at times explicitly warning Austin against going to certain places. The two young whites were not overtly hostile or racist when offering these characterizations; most of their warnings focused on perceived levels of crime and physical safety. Still, the undesirable neighborhoods were black residential areas.
After the young couple and Austin had engaged in pleasant conversation for about an hour, the father of the young man arrived on the scene. He was introduced to Austin and joined the conversation. Interestingly, he reinforced much of what the young couple had just said, warning Austin against neighborhoods that invariably happened to be black. While the racial prejudice that underlay these ascriptions was not explicit, the racial composition of the neighborhoods in question was unambiguous. As Austin and the three locals engaged in what might be described as “white talk,” the issue of race could remain the subtext of the conversation without anyone worrying that he or she might inadvertently offend someone.
That evening over dinner in a nearby restaurant, everyone discussed that day’s fieldwork. About halfway through our meal, the young man’s father appeared at our table quite inadvertently. “Duke!” he exclaimed in surprise, as if to ask, “Who are you?!” Austin was also surprised. After regaining his composure, Austin rose, shook the father’s hand, and introduced him to the members of our team. The father seemed shocked to see him with three people of color, especially after he had been so candid about his attitudes on race and residence in Memphis.
What is particularly interesting about these encounters is the way in which they illustrate what Austin has identified as the white working conception of race, in this instance expressed through conversation that implies a sense of group position (Blumer 1958). At the coffee shop, the three locals and Austin talked as white people, conversing in a way and about subject matter that took their shared social position and outlook for granted. The locals had assumed they were talking “white” and that Austin was “all-the-way” white in his way of thinking as well as in appearance. What the father discovered by accident that evening was that Austin was not as “white” as he had assumed, which was made evident by Austin’s visible involvement with three people of color. This revelation was shocking to the father, but it elegantly underscores the white conception of race as a sense of group position.
A Black Working Conception of Race
Holloway was raised in racially segregated Lafayette, Alabama. Day in and day out, he was reminded of the racial caste system that has persisted there since slavery. When he or his friends made a misstep, they were admonished by their parents, teachers, or ministers, “You’re black, and you already have one strike against you.” This lesson was reinforced not simply by verbal warnings but also by memories of white violence. In the not-so-distant past, the penalty for violating racial norms there could be lynching. Realizing the risks of transgressing racial etiquette instilled in Holloway and his peers a powerful and deep awareness of blacks’ position in the caste-like system. Those messages still resonate for him today, and he examines them through his academic perspective on race relations. While children of any race typically take parental guidance at face value, Holloway has interrogated this teaching sociologically. He has found that the notion that blackness is one strike against a person applies outside the Deep South and helps to construct patterns of racial domination and subordination. Black adults carry this lesson from childhood and continually see it reinforced in everyday life, shaping their own social identity and reminding them that the rules and practices of the racial caste system persist.
After discussing Holloway’s perspective, our team posited a hypothesis: Black people’s working conception of race relations, founded on the “one-strike” rule, serves as a compass as they navigate interactions with whites. This model is directly counterpoised to whites’ idea that racism is dead. This model was confirmed in our ethnographic fieldwork in Memphis and Blytheville; many of the African Americans we interviewed use this working conception in their daily lives. As understood by Holloway and borne out by our team’s research, black people share an understanding that every black person begins life with one strike against him. This view is particularly true in the South but, we strongly suspect, operates across the entire country. Black individuals begin life with a social deficit because of their race and, by implication, because of racial inequality. This pattern can help to explain the significance of race in black peoples’ narrower life chances and diminished quality of life.
Historically, whites in the South have held nearly unlimited power over blacks. To get along, blacks were required to defer. Evidence of patterns of deference and demeanor remain visible to this day, although not as strongly as in the past (Doyle 1937). Our team observed such patterns in the close surveillance that a group of mainly white police made of a group of black adult males who were socializing among themselves on public benches on Beale Street. On another occasion, Holloway observed a more direct and threatening interaction between white police and a black man sitting on a bench looking out at passersby. Two police officers approached and began to interrogate him. One said with mocking jocularity, “Hey, how you doing today? You ain’t killed nobody today, have you?” The other walked up to the man, brought his face up very close, and looked directly into the black man’s eyes. He then held up two fingers and moved them from side to side, as if he were a physician giving a neurological examination to a patient. Throughout this interrogation the man deferred, smiling occasionally and remaining silent. Holloway interpreted this response as a survival tactic based on blacks’ working conception of racial caste.
The message that blacks hear from childhood that “you are born with one strike already against you,” Holloway observes, teaches them that their future prospects and even their very survival depend on actively avoiding incurring any more strikes. They will not simply strike out, as in a game of baseball; they may meet with violence, which can be deadly. Sensible people realize that, because of this preexisting social wound, they must always be vigilant in how they conduct their life to counter this negative presumption. This working conception makes it incumbent on parents to admonish their children that their color is taken as one strike against them. Although it helps black people to navigate a hostile social world, it requires constant self-policing. Finally, it may cut against the most important lesson that parents want to instill in their children—a sense of self-respect and pride in their identity.
In Holloway’s model, to know one’s place and to enact it in the most conservative way is to avoid trouble with white folks and with white supremacy more generally. In this racial caste system, any white person can remind any black person that he or she has one strike and must stay in his or her place. Exclusion, discrimination, stereotyping, and racial profiling are just a few of the tactics that notify blacks of their subordinate position. Everyday messages from the dominant culture constantly remind them of the limitations on their presence and position and the consequences of “uppity” behavior. In Memphis, for example, Holloway talked with a black man who was married to a white woman. During the 1970s, he recounted, when the couple entered a restaurant the white employees would refuse to serve him but would wait on her. He still experiences suspicion and animosity from whites when they learn of his interracial marriage. Any action that implicitly or explicitly expresses the notion that blacks deserve the same freedoms and advantages as whites provokes retaliation, since whites’ own claims to personhood and status depend on the subordination of blacks.
Juxtaposed to the “one strike” rule is the perspective by blacks that for them to be successful in life and fully participate alongside whites in mainstream society you have to be “twice as good.” In addition to admonishing the youth about the social deficit of being born black (“one strike”), parents, teachers, ministers, and other adults in the community instill in them the view that you will not always be accepted as equal or respected for having the requisite level of ability by the dominate culture if you perform only on the same level as they do. And you are sure to be ignored if you do not perform as well comparatively. Though this could possibly create some socialized pressure or performance anxiety for blacks, it has potentially worked to foster a certain level of high achievement. With this heightened level of insecurity (or perhaps in spite of it) about the possibility for success in dominant society, blacks (and other minorities) have managed to gain entry into positions once exclusively dominated by whites. This does not negate the working conceptions of “one strike” and having to be “twice as good” that has been nurtured in blacks. And even when these conceptions are relaxed in what appears to be environments of civility, everyday arbitrary interactions with dominant society awakens them, causing them to resurface to full capacity (Anderson 2011).
There is the sense among some blacks that even though they have reached professional positions in society from which blacks were formerly excluded, some whites, who hold fast to their ideologies and notions of superiority, will not measure them with the same standard as they do their fellow white colleagues. Yes, some blacks have been granted access to high-status positions. But being in these positions in the marketplace can also be viewed as being out of their “social place” (Anderson 2011). This is what our team observed as we interacted and mingled on Beale Street in downtown Memphis. We walked the streets, ate delicious food, and enjoyed leisure in a way in which in the not so distant past only one member of our team would have been able to experience. Though we are all highly educated individuals with years of professional experience, we were confronted by the local authority in a way that made the implicit statement that we, specifically Kulkarni and Holloway, were behaving out of our place. Social interactions such as this serve to confirm the working conceptions held by blacks that they have “one strike” against them and that along with this they have to be “twice as good.” Condoleezza Rice, former U.S. National Security Advisor and Secretary of State, reiterates this notion through her account of growing up in the segregated South and in Denver, Colorado. She noted how teachers would remind their students that they would have to be “twice as good” if they wanted “to succeed.” The segregated public school system in her home state of Alabama was far below the quality of others throughout the country, and both blacks and whites were placed at a disadvantage. However, the “one strike” rule was manifested in that the black schools received fewer resources compared with the white schools. She and her family would later discover that the South is not the only place where the one strike concept was in operation.
Rice’s father moved the family out of the South to Denver after receiving a job in higher education administration at a local university there. As soon as they arrived and began to look for housing, they encountered racism. A local real-estate agent conjured up every excuse possible, except their race, to not rent them a house; “she was finding an excuse not to rent to us because we were black,” Rice stated (2010, 155). The Rice family came to understand through various interactions that race relations in the North were similar to the South, albeit more insidious and not manifested in the same way as in the South. These interactions reinforced for Rice that as a black individual she would have to be “twice as good” to get half as far.
The one-strike lesson instilled in black children and the many later instances in which this conception is confirmed reflect the positional arrangements of a caste-like society. Through myriad daily interactions in places that are predominantly white or controlled by whites, young people learn their place when they are disrespected or subjected to surveillance because of their blackness. When they relate “horror stories” of being singled out because of race, such as being stopped for “driving while black” or harassed as they walk in public places, they reinforce the lesson for all blacks within earshot. Over time, these repeated reminders have a cumulative and profound influence on the self-concept and worldview of black people, young and old. As members of a subordinated group, they must always be keenly aware of their status in relation to the dominant group. Blacks know what most whites expect of them, deference, and they devise strategies for navigating the treacherous shoals of race. They bear this working conception of race in mind in their everyday lives.
The Two Perspectives: A Caste-Like Structural Relationship
Our ethnographic team’s preliminary fieldwork convinces us that the current state of race relations in America is inadequately understood. By considering the caste-like relationships indicated through our research, we hope to deepen the academic discussion of race in America in a way that will further our understanding of one of this country’s most pressing issues. We are especially interested in the relational aspects of white and black people’s working conceptions of race, which may appear to work in opposition to one another but, instead, shape and respond to one another. The white conception rests on two presumptions about race in America: that (1) racism is a thing of the past and no longer negatively affects people of color; and (2) white individuals’ achievements are due not to the color of their skin or any racial privileges they might enjoy but to their own hard work or merit, so programs such as affirmative action are unnecessary and disadvantage whites through reverse racism. In contrast to whites’ view, blacks conclude that they must always keep in mind the one-strike rule and its implications, that (1) because whites can single them out for their race at any time, blacks need to operate in a defensive mode, distancing themselves from other blacks or behavior they fear may make them vulnerable to racist treatment and always being ready to resist racist aggression; and (2) each black person must caution other blacks, particularly children, about the racial caste system, teaching them where blacks fit into it and instructing them in how to navigate it. The point is not only to ensure survival, but to retain as much of their self-respect as possible despite repeated racial insult and injury.
While the white and black conceptions of race appear to entail very different ways of looking at the world, the white view assuming that race is meaningless while the black view countering that race matters, we suspect that they function dialectically. Whites’ assumption of privilege and their deliberate failure to address racism and ameliorate its effects ensure that black people must continually try to remedy the situation that results from the fact of their race. Blacks’ working conception of one strike implicitly manifests a belief that progress is possible. Why else would they recognize the one strike and strive to move beyond it? Our ethnography team aims to investigate the relational and dynamic nature of these two working conceptions and probe their underlying rationales, including their historical bases, their effects on different racial groups, and their contemporary consequences. We propose to examine white and black working conceptions of race relations to go beyond the current assertions, which come largely from white people, that America is a postracial society. For black people, the continued existence of a racial caste system hinders their full participation in American society. Both whites and blacks continue to impart, although in very different ways, messages that the racial caste system persists as a form of stratification that permits whites to retain power, privilege, and prestige. Through additional fieldwork, we seek to explore the hypothesis that racism exists structurally and influences interactions among black and white people today in ways that go beyond the individuals involved and instead replicate older ways of dividing races into castes.
We are aware of the debate about whether race can be understood within the caste framework. The classic social-anthropological works of William Lloyd Warner (1936); John Dollard (1937); 5 and Allison Davis, Burleigh Gardner, and Mary Gardner (1941) employed the term caste to indicate distinction between the two ranked, endogamous, ascriptive racial groups (see also Warner and Davis 1939; Davis 1945). We have considered the work of Oliver Cox (1942, 1945, 1948), who argued that using caste to describe race in America “may be insidiously misleading” because it tends to imply that segregation is “socially right,” in the same way that caste, at the time Cox wrote, was then regarded in India (1948, 544, quoted in Fuller 2011). Louis Dumont, in his classic work Homo Hierarchicus (1966), expressed similar reservations (see also Dumont 1967). Andre Béteille (1991a, 1991b, 2002) and Ursula Sharma (1994, 1999) have also questioned the usefulness of using caste to describe race in America. While learning much from these theorists, we contend that the concept of racial caste remains essential to discussing race because it highlights the continuing significance of ascriptive characteristics such as color and because it helps to describe a social hierarchy constructed on the basis of visible difference (see Berreman, 1960, 1967). We agree with those who contend that race and caste do not function identically, but we believe that using caste as a lens through which to view race relations helps to elucidate structural problems that other theories fail to explain. From the research we have already done, we posit that, at least heuristically, the association of race with caste is a useful way to approach the analysis of contemporary racism, and it is with the race-caste idea that we propose to investigate the structure of race relations in America.
Although the structures of slavery and Jim Crow on which the racial caste system was erected have been transformed over the past century, caste-like race relations may be reproduced amid changing social-historical conditions. It is now commonly understood that while the overwhelming majority of Americans accept the ideal of equal rights and endorse integration, our nation falls far short in practice. Indeed, this disconnect between subscribing to democratic principles and practicing racial exclusion and segregation was at the core of Gunnar Myrdal’s 1944 study, An American Dilemma. Just how this disparity continues and is rationalized despite the considerable gains achieved by the civil rights movement deserves further scrutiny.
The impressions gleaned during our preliminary work suggest that whites balk when blacks’ progress threatens, or seems to threaten, their own hegemonic place. Our team’s experiences in Tennessee and Arkansas underline the notion that caste-like racial relations today are perpetuated by self-fulfilling prophecies and ideological justifications that subtly reinforce the old precept that “white is right” (Jordan 1968). Whites’ continued failure to recognize, come to terms with, and change the structures that afford them privilege result from enduring historical legacies that have outlived the institutions of racial subordination that were foundational to American society. Whites promote false ideas of equality that fail to adequately account for racial history, especially the position of white people (Painter 2010). The white working conception that we have outlined is less an epistemologically grounded formulation than a preconceived idea or, as Jack Katz (this volume) would put it, a form of deliberate ignorance. It functions just as Herbert Blumer (1958) described prejudice decades ago, encompassing feelings of fear, a sense of threat, and a desire to subjugate others. Whites develop conceptions of blacks by virtue of a veil that whites themselves impose, to invoke W. E. B. Du Bois’s famous metaphor (1903/1999). Despite whites’ avowals that they are “colorblind” and “don’t see race” (Bonilla-Silva 2006), they function with a map of race on which they rely to traverse racial relations. For example, when whites cry “Reverse racism!” they recognize race but perceive blacks as having the upper hand. This grievance further marginalizes blacks, since they are seen as black but not as individuals. As subjects who occupy a subordinate position in a caste-like system, their blackness remains a master status (see Hughes 1945). It does not function simply as an either/or, binary phenomenon; rather, racial orientation as well as social acceptance may be a matter of degrees of blackness. The well-known verses come to mind: “If you’re white you’re alright. If you’re yellow, you’re mellow. If you’re brown, stick around. But if you’re black, get back.” 6 We hypothesize that the white working conception is a reformulation of race prejudice that reifies the legacy of caste.
As a way of explaining the evident difference between blacks’ and whites’ ideas of race as it exists today in America, our continued research will, we suspect, confirm that whites and blacks use oppositional methods to decide whether racial progress has occurred and that these two modes of measurement appear at odds or pose a disconnect, to use Richard Eibach’s term (Eibach and Ehrlinger 2006; Eibach and Keegan 2006). While whites may use signs of racial integration as indications of progress (Brodish, Brazy, and Devine 2008), blacks use the real-life standard of their own direct encounters with white ignorance and prejudice to confirm that a racist structure exists. Furthermore, as Blumer put it, these working conceptions are produced and reproduced “in a sense of group position rather than a set of feelings” (1958, 3).
An impressive body of research, most of which is based on statistical evidence of economic and social disparities, demonstrates the persistence of racial inequality and focuses on large-scale structural explanations. Our analytical framework departs from existing scholarship in two important methodological and theoretical respects. We propose to look at race using research that goes beyond statistical measures of racial inequality, for such studies shed little light on the nuances of prejudice as it is enacted in interracial encounters and is embedded in working conceptions of race relations. Our study will use systematic observation, through ethnographic fieldwork of the type we conducted in Memphis and Blytheville, to help elucidate blacks’ and whites’ everyday working conceptions. This methodology enables us to formulate a different theoretical perspective on race relations from that found in much of the current scholarship. Changing racial relations is not merely a matter of trying to increase the numbers of blacks who succeed economically or professionally. Addressing race also means meeting head-on the assumptions held by blacks and whites themselves, framing them within a racial structure and historical context and then suggesting ways to move forward.
The salience of these sociological concepts of racial prejudice as a sense of group position and of the frameworks through which people perceive, interpret, and respond to interracial interaction is evident in everyday experience. Many whites endorse fair play and integration, but not in their own backyard, much less their house. Although the system has been most receptive to people who subscribe to universal values, it allows ample room for those who do not. Those most likely to express racist presuppositions are those whose socioeconomic position is most insecure and who have the least hold or claim on the dominant society to which they desperately hope they belong. People in these groups readily see the upward mobility, or even the mere presence of blacks, immigrants, and others who are different from them, as threats (see Blumer 1958). Democratic ideals are manifest in the gloss that people put on in public, but racism and ethnic particularism lurk just beneath the surface. The claim that America is now a postracial society is an ideological discourse that denies persistent structures and patterns of inequality in race relations.
Footnotes
We would like to thank Renee C. Fox, Aldon Morris, Gerald Jaynes, Charles Lemert, and John Stanfield for their helpful comments.