The Changing Racial RegimeMatthew Holden, Jr. The National Political Science Review is the official publication of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists. The Review's purpose, as described by Matthew Holden in his introduction, is to "lead to new information, insights, and findings" into the social and political status of African Americans. The volume is not exclusionist or narrow. It integrates essays that could stand alone, as they initially were written, according to the method and theory of the author in question. As presented here, however, they also lend themselves to a broader treatment of race and the political order. The present volume combines essays expressly focused on African Americans, Africa, and the African diaspora. At the same time, it contains essays about broad generic subjects such as budgeting and interest groups, written with no explicit racial relevance. Holden integrates these essays under the theme of the changing racial regime. The integrating concept is the old word "regime," which political scientists have used in many situations before to define such more or less persistent, though not necessarily permanent, orders of precedence. If no significant benefits and no significant burdens could be forecast by knowledge of the social identity called race, then the regime could be seen as non-racial. In American experience, the regime was, at one time, purposeful and sustained white advantage. The "white race" and its preferential standing, was central to virtually all institutional practice - public and private. The significant contemporary question is the degree of change in the racial regime. Some proceed with the assumption that a large degree of change has occurred in the American political system. The view of other contributors is that the system still sustains racial stratification. In its very internal dialogue, this volume presents a panorama of current work by political scientists, African American and other, on the character of the American political system. The Changing Racial Regime is an essential resource for political scientists, black studies specialists, and scholars and policy analysts of race relations in the United States. |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
1987 general election activists affirmative action African Americans agenda American Political analysis areas argues Boston budget Bunche campaign challenges Chicago city's civil rights coalition colonial Congress constitutional County Croson cultural decisions democracy Democratic discrimination disparity fact-finding studies district DuBois economic effect electoral ethnic federal firms Florida Florida Supreme Court Frazier FRELIMO habeas habeas corpus Ibid ideology issues Justice Latinos legislative liberal majority Mandela mayor McCleskey ment Minority Business Moreland Ndebele Negro NPSR organization organizational paradigm party patterns percent percentage peremptory challenges Plato Plato's Political Science Political Science Review population presidential problems race racial Rehnquist Court RENAMO represent Republican retention elections retention vote rolloff Roxbury set-aside programs Shaw Shaw's Shona significant slavery social South Carolina Southern spending strategy Supreme Court tion tive University Press urban variables voters Voting Rights Act wards Washington York Zimbabwe
Popular passages
Page 29 - ... yet many have been so situated, that they might have availed themselves of the conversation of their masters ; many have been brought up to the handicraft arts, and from that circumstance have always been associated with the whites. Some have been liberally educated, and all have lived in countries where the arts and sciences are cultivated to a considerable degree, and have had before their eyes samples of the best works from abroad.
Page 276 - In a really equal democracy, every or any section would be represented, not disproportionately, but proportionately. A majority of the electors would always have a majority of the representatives; but a minority of the electors would always have a minority of the representatives. Man for man, they would be as fully represented as the majority.
Page 30 - States," being taken up : Mr. SHERMAN opposed the election by the people, insisting that it ought to be by the State Legislatures. The people, he said, immediately, should have as little to do as may be about the government. They want information, and are constantly liable to be misled.
Page 96 - No voting qualification or prerequisite to voting or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied by any State or political subdivision in a manner which results in a denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color, or in contravention of the guarantees set forth in section 4(fX2), as provided in subsection (b).
Page 96 - A violation of subsection (a) is established if, based on the totality of circumstances, it is shown that the political processes leading to nomination or election in the State or political subdivision are not equally open to participation by members of a class of citizens protected by subsection (a) in that its members have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice.
Page 30 - This government will commence in a moderate aristocracy ; it is at present impossible to foresee whether it will in its operation produce a monarchy, or a corrupt oppressive aristocracy ; it will most probably vibrate some years between the two, and then terminate in the one or the other.
Page 29 - Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me that in memory they are equal to the whites ; in reason much inferior, as I think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid : and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous.
Page 14 - We use the term racial formation to refer to the process by which social, economic, and political forces determine the content and importance of racial categories, and by which they are in turn shaped by racial meanings.
Page 23 - You are, all of you in this land, brothers. But when God fashioned you, he added gold in the composition of those of you who are qualified to be Rulers (which is why their prestige is greatest); he put silver in the Auxiliaries, and iron and bronze in the farmers and the rest.