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Ethos.
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Politcs?
VIRGINIA R. DOMINGUEZ
conceptual and the political with the racial. But as my comments will
Let me begin with a key point in Larry Hirschfeld's article that I find,
support and underwrite the objectification of "race," that is, the often
Virginia R. Dominguez is Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Center for International and Comparative
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94 * ETHOS
For example, if the truly interesting questions turned out to be what kind
racialism and racism as "two distinct cultural practices" (p. 63). Commit-
not either/or possibilities. And they all suggest the mutual implication and
neously to scholarly communities that at best pass each other in the night,
even though they share a common concern with "race" and with forms
of inequality long structured in terms of "race." Yet his effort has slips
and cracks that call into question-at the core-the very viability of a
says that "we need simply to turn each approach on its head" (p. 64), but
This reading may surprise Larry Hirschfeld, but I rely heavily on his
own words at key moments in his article. For example, at the end of the
introductory section of the article (where he frames, sets up, and arguably
mind," whereas the latter view race as "a category of mind because it is
tionship, and arguing that there are two identifiable sets of scholars,
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opposite directions. And in both cases Hirschfeld believes one thing gets
izing race first and foremost as "a singular, unique category of mind" (p.
"would like to go further and propose that racial essentialism is not only
[Race] has in it-in its psychological core-a naturalizing and essentializing potency
that makes it a particularly powerful political trope. Instead of seeing this potency as
done, it makes more sense to argue that the political environment recruits a particular
way of viewing and reasoning about human difference, because this particular way of
viewing the world has important consequences for how readily a system of power and
adds, and ends the paragraph, with the statement "race is a category of
and recruit race because it is easy to think. In doing so, our cognitive
indeed a critique of much of the literature that he sorts into two camps,
Tied to this position are two analytic concepts he works with that can
offer clarity and utility. One is his proposition about "human kinds," the
other about underdetermination. But also tied to this position are two
premises, specifically about race, that I find problematic and are probably
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96 * ETHOS
racial thinking is: (1) that "race" is easy to learn, and (2) that race is
natural category of mind (p. 74, for example), and it is clear that he means
that it is not necessary, not the only, and not a cognitively inevitable way
calls "the human kind competence" (p. 75) and the historically, politi-
mine any particular system of social referencing. Social belief does not
spring from a human kind module, it is enabled and guided by it. In order
to produce a system of social belief, the human kind module must make
racial classification. The point can be culled from other parts of Larry
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stances is there in the paper but largely in his description of points made
nous" to the formation of racial thinking. (For example, see the implicit
But race is, in fact, not easy to learn. Which system of racial
tuted. There are several, and they coexist sometimes even in one society,
through conquest or migration are often puzzled and "misread" the signs.
agreed on how many different "races of mankind" there are, nor what
censuses have never agreed either, even in the context of the United
criteria, which ones to rely on more and which less when they coexist
not, as well as when to stop racializing some named population and when
to racialize another.
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98 * ETHOS
research. But I disagree that the data he has included in this article
support the view that "race is easy to learn." The short descriptions
offered about the actual design of the two research projects discussed, of
drawn. Yet a number of the details concerning research design that are
offered in the article suggest that more modest claims and inferences are
a role in children's lives. I believe him and his research when he explains
what he does mean-that is, "that race plays little role in shaping
sources under children's control are distributed" (p. 81). But this says
little about the political significance and valence, to use Hirschfeld's term,
determining what resources children may have under their control, and
what habits learned at home, what fears and what privileges those same
interesting, but it warrants careful and further research and not yet the
kinds of claims Hirschfeld makes here about race as common and recur-
apparently begin with the assumption that there are "blacks" and
"whites," and that they are easily and readily identifiable. We are not told
what pictures the children were shown, but I suspect they were pictures
white and middle-class community, and there was no indication that the
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that of the community at large" (p. 88). Hence, these were studies done
have indeed by age three learned (1) that there are these human kinds
called "black" and "white," (2) that these human kinds are visibly quite
distinct from each other, (3) that "black" and "white" are obvious refer-
ences to the lightness or darkness of skin color, (4) that in other respects
children are all very much alike, and (5) that it is wrong to think that
"blacks" are inferior. If I am correct, then, the studies say a fair amount
about social and political and class relations in the contemporary United
cans. They also say a great deal about how much the children have yet to
learn" and in certain periods and regions also "predicated on the visible."
to careful scrutiny.
REFERENCES CTED
1990 Racisms. In Anatomy of Racism. David Theo Goldberg, ed. Pp. 3-17. Minneapolis:
Crapanzano, Vincent
1985 Waiting: The Whites of South Africa. New York: Vintage Books.
Dominguez, Virginia
1986 White By Definition: Social Classification in Creole Louisiana. New Brunswick, NJ:
1995 Invoking Racism in the Public Sphere: Two Takes on National Self-Criticism.
Identities 1(4):325-346.
Hall, Stuart
Handler, Richard
1988 Nationalism and the Politics of Culture in Quebec. Madison: University of Wisconsin
Press.
Labelle, Micheline
l'Universite de Montreal.
Levi-Strauss, Claude
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100 ? ETHOS
Sahlins, Marshall
Wade, Peter
1993 Blackness and Race Mixture in Colombia: The Dynamics of Racial Identity in
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