Neoliberalism and stories of racial redemption |
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Authors: | George Baca |
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Institution: | (1) Goucher College, Baltimore, MD, USA |
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Abstract: | Two contradicting ideas dominate political discussions of race in the United States. In the first, Americans of all political
stripes glory in the idea that the country's race relations have improved, largely due to changes collectively labeled as
‘the civil rights movement.’ Yet when Americans move their gaze to broader issues—often presumed to be beyond “race”—of economics,
public education, and civic life, they embrace a second, and seemingly opposed narrative of decline. There, social scientists
have wedded this image of social decay into ideas of neoliberalism, which they take to be the state's steady disinvestment
in public goods like education, healthcare, affordable housing and transportation. Though the rise of civil rights and neoliberalism
have overlapped historically, social scientists have shown determined reluctance to make any connection between the two; and
further, few have been willing to see the two processes as interwoven and collaborating in the production of the contemporary
political economic landscape. This essay argues that academic neoliberal discourse has unwittingly functioned to relieve civil
rights institutions of any responsibility for current racial conditions in the US by taking critical attention away from how
federal agencies and local politicians have implemented racial reforms. In the current scenario, neoliberalism is to blame
for undermining or retrenching the nation's commitment to racial equality, and civil rights victories are the victim. Ethnographic
and historical material on race relations in Fayetteville NC, USA, is presented to argue instead that the relationship between
the two turns out to be much more complex.
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Keywords: | Racism Neoliberalism Civil rights |
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