Abstract
Two contradicting ideas dominate political discussions of race in the United States. In the first, Americans of all political stripes glory in the idea that the country's race relations have improved, largely due to changes collectively labeled as ‘the civil rights movement.’ Yet when Americans move their gaze to broader issues—often presumed to be beyond “race”—of economics, public education, and civic life, they embrace a second, and seemingly opposed narrative of decline. There, social scientists have wedded this image of social decay into ideas of neoliberalism, which they take to be the state's steady disinvestment in public goods like education, healthcare, affordable housing and transportation. Though the rise of civil rights and neoliberalism have overlapped historically, social scientists have shown determined reluctance to make any connection between the two; and further, few have been willing to see the two processes as interwoven and collaborating in the production of the contemporary political economic landscape. This essay argues that academic neoliberal discourse has unwittingly functioned to relieve civil rights institutions of any responsibility for current racial conditions in the US by taking critical attention away from how federal agencies and local politicians have implemented racial reforms. In the current scenario, neoliberalism is to blame for undermining or retrenching the nation's commitment to racial equality, and civil rights victories are the victim. Ethnographic and historical material on race relations in Fayetteville NC, USA, is presented to argue instead that the relationship between the two turns out to be much more complex.
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Notes
In contrast to Lutz’ approach many scholars have examined militarization in a broader view that transcends American ideals. Instead, these studies have shown how military power provided the conditions for the emergence of the modern democratic state (Bensel 1990; Brewer 1989; Gillis 1989; Mann 1993). For the relations between military power and the development of the welfare state (see, Katznelson and Shefter 2002; Klausen 1998; Kryder 2000; Skocpol 1992; Skowronek 1982; Sparrow 1996).
All names are pseudonyms and the identities of the people have been protected.
Fayetteville Observer, sesquicentennial Anniversary, December 1939.
Fayetteville Observer 22, 27 October 1898.
Raleigh News and Observer, 13 November 1898; Cecelski and Tyson (1998, pp. 4–5).
See Oates (1950, pp. 422–423) for a contemporary account of this period.
In his book Southern Progressivism, historian Dewey Grantham shows how disfranchisement was necessary for the New South leaders to impose their economic development plans; also see Link (1992).
Quoted in Haley (1998, p. 215); North Carolina Presbyterian, 17 November 1898.
Josephus Daniels, Raleigh News and Observer, 18 November 1898, in Daniels (1941, pp. 311–312).
Fayetteville Observer, 24 July 1918.
This decision to expand Fort Bragg into one of the nation’s largest military training centers was inspired by President Roosevelt’s Report on Economic Conditions in the South, a scathing indictment of the South, labeling the region the nation’s “Number One economic problem” (Schulman 1994, p. 51). The federal government made this investment in Cumberland County in order to jump-start the economy in an effort to replace its “backward” social structure with democracy and economic prosperity.
Fayetteville Observer, 17 November 1989.
“N.C. Boom Town Called Uncle Sam’s Powder Keg,” Baltimore Afro-American, 8 February 1941.
Fayetteville Observer, 9 April 1954.
Fayetteville Observer, 8 October 1999.
“What’s Great about Fayetteville?: How This Historic City shook off a Bad Reputation and Became All-American,” The State of Fayetteville, October 1985.
“Fayetteville: From ‘decadent’ to ‘All-American.’”
For a more expansive discussion of class politics and struggle among African Americans, see Baca nd
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Baca, G. Neoliberalism and stories of racial redemption. Dialect Anthropol 32, 219–241 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10624-008-9073-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10624-008-9073-6