Black in the Non-Black Imagination: How Anti-Black Ideology Shapes Non-Black Racial Discourse

This study examines the (re)production of anti-Black ideology in critical discourses on race. Though contemporary critical discourses on race have been concerned with theorizing about the deployment of colorblind racial ideology, this study takes the position that anti-Black ideology is uniquely situated within the United States. Post-Civil Rights critical dialogues on race call for a move beyond the Black/white binary and the need to transcend dualistic racial paradigms. Though a typical critique of colorblind ideology implicates a social structure that oppresses all people of color uniformly, this study argues that the reality of material and social consequences vary depending on the group. The study makes an ideological critique of critical race discourses that purport to move beyond Black/white racial theorizing. It argues that not only is racial binary thinking implicated, but that there is a perpetuation of anti-Black ideology that works to create a non-Black/Black paradigm. This study proposes three frames that construct Blacks as nativists, essentialists and pathogens in the post-Civil Rights era. The methodological approach of this study employs racial realism. Racial realism legitimates studies that explore the patterns of racial dynamics. As an ideological critique, this study unpacks and interprets the presence of dominant ideologies that endeavor to maintain a hierarchical racial order.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies

Year

2011

Author dc:creator

• Howard, Natasha

Contributors dc:contributor

• Allen, Ricky Lee
• Celedon-Pattichis, Sylvia
• Lopez, Nancy
• Rodriguez, Ilia

• Blacks--Race identity--United States
• Race awareness--United States
• Racism--United States
• United States--Race relations

Language dc:language

English

Identifier

https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/educ_llss_etds/14

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalrepository.unm.edu:educ_llss_etds-1013