Racial Theories in Social Science: A Systemic Racism Critique

308 Pages·2016·3.975 MB·English

by  Sean Elias, Joe R. Feagin

Racial Theories in Social Science
Racial Theories in Social Science: A Systemic Racism Critique provides a
critique of the white racial framing and lack of systemic racism analysis
prevalent in past and present mainstream race theory. As this book dem-
onstrates, mainstream racial analysis, and social analysis more generally,
remain stunted and uncritical because of this unhealthy white framing
of knowledge and evasion or downplaying of institutional, structural,
and systemic racism. In response to ineffective social science analyses of
racial matters, this book presents a counter-approach—systemic racism
theory. The foundation of this theoretical perspective lies in the criti-
cal insights and perspectives of African Americans and other people of
color who have long challenged biased white-framed perspectives and
practices and the racially oppressive and exclusionary institutions and
social systems created by whites over several centuries.
Sean Elias studies racial group divisions and epistemological color
lines in social science, black cultural-intellectual traditions, particularly
black social thought and Louisiana Creole culture, and perspectives and
practices of elites. He has taught at Prairie View A&M University (an
HBCU) and Southern Methodist University (an HWCU) and now
teaches at Colorado Mountain College while completing fieldwork on
the Aspen elite.
Joe R. Feagin, Ella McFadden Professor at Texas A&M University, has
done decades of research on racism and sexism issues. Among his major
books are Systemic Racism (Routledge, 2006); The White Racial Frame
(2nd edn, Routledge, 2013); Racist America (3rd edn, Routledge, 2014);
Latinos Facing Racism (Paradigm, 2014, with José Cobas); and The Myth
of the Model Minority (2nd edn, Paradigm, 2015, with Rosalind Chou).
He is the recipient of the American Sociological Association’s Du Bois
Career of Distinguished Scholarship Award and was the 1999–2000
President of the American Sociological Association.
New Critical Viewpoints on Society Series
Edited by Joe R. Feagin
Racial Theories in Social Science: A Systemic Racism Critique
By Sean Elias and Joe R. Feagin
Raising Mixed Race: Multiracial Asian Children in a Post-Racial World
By Sharon Chang (2015)
Antiracist Teaching
By Robert P. Amico (2014)
What Don’t Kill Us Makes Us Stronger: African American Women
and Suicide
By Kamesha Spates (2014)
Latinos Facing Racism: Discrimination, Resistance, and Endurance
By Joe R. Feagin and José A. Cobas (2014)
Mythologizing Black Women: Unveiling White Men’s Racist and
Sexist Deep Frame
By Brittany C. Slatton (2014)
Diverse Administrators in Peril: The New Indentured Class in
Higher Education
By Edna Chun and Alvin Evans (2011)

Racial Theories in Social
Science
A Systemic Racism Critique
Sean Elias and Joe R. Feagin
First published 2016
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2016 Taylor & Francis
The right of Sean Elias and Joe R. Feagin to be identified as the authors of this work
has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Names: Elias, Sean, author. | Feagin, Joe R., author.
Title: Racial theories in social science : a systemic racism critique /
Sean Elias and Joe R. Feagin.
Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2016. | Series: New critical
viewpoints on society series

Identifiers: LCCN 2015040292| ISBN 9781138645219 (hardback) |
ISBN 9781138645226 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781315628288 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Racism. | Race relations. | Social sciences.
Classification: LCC HT1521 .E455 2016 | DDC 305.8–dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015040292
ISBN: 978-1-138-64521-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-64522-6 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-62828-8 (ebk)
Typeset in Adobe Caslon Pro
by Out of House Publishing
CONTENTS

Preface ix
Acknowledgments xii
Introduction: Post-Racial America and Social
Science: Reality or Myth? 1
Part I Social Sciences’ Historic
Misframing of “Race” 15
Chapter 1 The Twin Births of Social Science
and Race Theory 17
Chapter 2 Race Theory and the Rise of Mainstream
Social Science 37
Part II C ontemporary Mainstream
Social Science and Race Theory 55
Chapter 3 Changes in the Field of Race Studies 57
Chapter 4 Subverting Racial Analysis: Emphasizing
Practice, Groupness, Boundaries, and
Reflexivity 78
vviiii
viii CONTENTS
Chapter 5 Class, Culture, Ethnicity, and
Nationality—Anything But “Race” 102
Chapter 6 Race and the Genome: Biosocial
Theories of Race 130
Chapter 7 Assimilation Theory’s Dominion in Social
Science 150
Chapter 8 A Systemic Racism Critique of Racial
Formation Theory 181
Part III Systemic Racism Theory:
Background and Overview 207
Chapter 9 Critical Black Theory: Foundations of
Systemic Racism Theory 209
Chapter 10 Systemic Racism Theory 248
Conclusion Persisting Systemic Racism,
the Empirical Reality 281
Index 289
PREFACE

In this book we use a systemic racism perspective in making critical
sense of social science race theories in the past and present history of
the United States and certain other Western countries. Several unset-
tling realities in the epistemology and practices of the social sciences
have triggered our analysis of a host of historical and contemporary
racial issues. In the first place, dominant theories and methodologies,
as well as the constructed social worlds and worldviews, of mainstream
social science are often unreflectively white-framed. Second, because of
this dominant and uncritical white racial frame in social science, critical
black theoretical perspectives and critical knowledge of other people of
color have long been silenced, marginalized, or attacked. Subsequently,
due in large part to this interminable neglect of critical black thought
and critical insights of other people of color, necessary and key sub-
ject matter is missing in mainstream social science analysis. Missing are
necessary conceptual concerns such as institutional and systemic rac-
ism, related ideologies and practices of white oppression, and concerted
ideas and actions of whites and white social pathologies historically
embedded in Western societies for several centuries.
An awareness of the ways these societal realities above problematize
dominant knowledge paradigms and practices in the social sciences, and
the fact that too little is currently being done to offset these troubling
realities, are the primary reasons we have written this book. Indeed, until
mainstream social science addresses and corrects numerous major biases,
iixx