Racing Left and Right: Color-Blind Racism’s Dominance across the U.S. Political Spectrum

ABSTRACT

To date there has been very little scholarship that (1) traces the color-blind rhetoric of liberal or progressive communities, or (2) emphasizes the mainstream, color-blind rhetoric of far-right conservative movements. This article compares the racial politics at two ends of the U.S. political spectrum in order to demonstrate how color-blind ideology constitutes the dominant framework for understanding and discussing race and racial inequality in the United States. This racial ideology transcends political party and ideology, but also motivates individuals to do identity work constructing themselves as transcending racism. Grounded in a racial formations framework, I compare two distinct political locations, one consisting of liberal Democrats and progressives in a diverse urban community and the other among Tea Party organizers in one state, in order to demonstrate the similarities in racial discourse and identities, despite differing political orientations and goals.

KEYWORDS:

• Coded racism
• color-blind racism
• progressives
• Tea Party

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Meghan A. Burke

Meghan A. Burke is Associate Professor of Sociology at Illinois Wesleyan University, where her areas of specialty are social theory and race. Dr. Burke was also recently awarded an ASA Fund for the Advancement of the Discipline grant to host a national Summit on New Frontiers in the Study of Colorblind Racism, which took place in May 2016; she is also Guest Editing an upcoming Special Issue of Sociological Perspectives on this same topic. In 2016, she earned the Midwest Sociological Society Early Career Scholarship Award.