What is the Black/White Binary?

(from Critical Race Theory handout on July 16, 2008)

  • a simplistic paradigm of racial relations based on either or
  • promotes a divide and conquer strategy among people of color
  • feeds into the dualism that shaped the U.S. value system (two elements usually oppositional)
  • discourages perception of common interests among people of colour
  • totally ignores the presence in U.S. of other communities of colour (Asian, Latino, Multiracial, American Indian)
  • 3 reasons why binary exists:
  • numbers – AA had been the largest minority population in the country
  • geography-U.S. political culture is White dominated and U.S. centrism prevents country from taking a look at more global issues
  • history-white enslavement of AA provided models for racism that still exists

Latinos and Asian/Pacific Americans are victims of national minority rather than racial oppression (includes language, “aliens”, immigrants)

Delgado, R. (1998). The black/white binary: How does it work? In R. Delgado & Stefancic (Eds.) The Latino Condition: A Critical Reader (pp. 369-375). New York: New York University Press.

Martinez, E. 91998). Beyond Black/White: The racisms of our time. In R. Delgado & Stefancic (Eds.) The Latino Condition: A Critical Reader (pp. 466-477). New York: New York University Press.