Latino/as, Asian Americans, and the Black-White Binary
Author(s)
Alcoff, L. M.
Abstract
This paper aims to contribute toward coalition building by showing that, even if we try to build coalition around what might look like our most obvious common concern – reducing racism -the dominant discourse of racial politics in the United States inhibits an understanding of how racism operates vis-Ã -vis Latino/as and Asian Americans, and thus proves more of an obstacle to coalition building than an aid. The black/white paradigm, which operates to govern racial classifications and racial politics in the U.S., takes race in the U.S. to consist of only two racial groups, Black and White, with others understood in relation to one of these categories. I summarize and discuss the strongest criticisms of the paradigm and then develop two further arguments. Together these arguments show that continuing to theorize race in the U.S. as operating exclusively through the black/white paradigm is actually disadvantageous for all people of color in the U.S., and in many respects for whites as well (or at least for white union households and the white poor).
