Is White Normativity Racist? Michel Foucault and Post-Civil Rights Racism

Even though the American Civil Rights Movement, consolidated the norm of racial equality material inequality between whites and non-whites has persisted. The norm of racial equality meanwhile, has generated a crisis in locating and combating contemporary racism. Michel Foucault's concept of power and his lesser-known work on racism allow us to think through this crisis. His arguments suggest that racism in the post-Civil Rights era operates largely through the abandonment of non-whites to a state of war, which liberal democratic societies, via the social contract, are organized to prevent. Rather than waging war on non-whites, post-Civil Rights America normalizes whiteness. This normalization exposes non-whites to death or the risk of death by forcing them both to fend for themselves and to battle one another; as well as the elements, in a struggle for survival. Polity (2013) 45, 223-244. doi:10.1057/pol.2013.6; published online 8 April 2013