We hear much talk about the advent of a "postracial" age. The election
of Barack Obama as President of the U.S. was held by many to be proof
that we have once and for all moved beyond race. The Swedish government
has even gone so far as to erase all references to race from its
legislative documents.
However, as Ferguson, MO, and countless social statistics show, beneath
such claims lurk more sinister shadows of the racial everyday,
institutional, and structural racisms persist and renew themselves
beneath the polish of nonraciality. A conundrum lies at its very heart
as seen when the election of a Black President was taken to be the
pinnacle of postraciality.
In this sparkling essay, David Theo Goldberg seeks to explain this
conundrum, and reveals how the postracial is merely the afterlife of
race, not its demise. Postraciality is the new logic of raciality.