RACELINING

How race(ism) limits us and how to break free

Race / Racism

RACELINING

How race(ism) limits us and how to break free

Steve Jarrett-Jordan

Race ideology offers endless resources to keep us divided. News and media sources, bad actors, and politicians all wield weapons of rhetoric for the intended purpose of keeping our allegiances with them. Peace doesn’t pay half as well as division. As evidenced by the financial successes of Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo, division can pay exceptionally well. 

What frequently evades us is the role we play as we move within our perceived groups: racial, religious, political, it doesn’t matter. What we know well is that questioning our supposed group’s beliefs and interests brings with it the threat of social expulsion and ridicule from that “group.”

In the previous paragraph, I indicated skepticism about the existence of racial groups. Indeed, I follow Dr. Sheena Mason’s Theory of Racelessness in professing race skepticism, which means that I do not think distinct races really exist and therefore I refuse to use race as a descriptor. Also in line with Dr. Mason’s theory, I am a race eliminativist, which means that I call for the abolition of race. Think “race-atheist” and you’ll be there. This position does not deny acts of racism and their effects. Race is neither biological nor a social construct, but is instead a set of beliefs about racial superiority and inferiority argued by racist Europeans beginning as early as the 16th century. I refuse to pay their ideas any rent.

What I want to do here is establish a new way of interpreting an old problem, the problem of permitting our beliefs and behaviors to be influenced by both inter-group dynamics, where racism involves one supposed racial group oppressing another, and intra-group dynamics, where racism involves members of a supposed racial group inducing behavioral or cognitive conformity among the group’s own members.

Identifying the rules by which these macabre socio-cultural games play out is crucial to understanding how to win—or rather escape—the ideological wars around race. The game I focus on here is the practice of in-group policing within supposed racial groups. To name this practice, I propose a new term, “racelining.” This term may assist us in finding clarity in situations where a lack of specificity along with the implementation of racial ideology hinders our efforts to end racism. Racelining can be used to dissect racism in real-time and address its inconsistencies. It allows us to begin to peel back the flawed ideology of race, and in effect derail the practice of race(ism). (Note that “race(ism),” a term coined by Dr. Sheena Mason, indicates the mutual dependence of “race” and “racism”: you can’t have race without racism and you can’t have racism without race. Hence. “race(ism).”)

I coined the term “racelining” in my first article published on Adam B. Coleman’s Wrong Speak. Racelining is a way of bringing individuals (and even oneself) “into line” with a preconception or stereotype about the person’s (or one’s own) ‘race.’ In my Wrong Speak article, I described the many circumstances under which we witness the modern construct of race being employed to carry out acts of racism within similar class, cultural, or ethnic demographics, which we often mislabeled as “race.”

My term “racelining” obviously refers to redlining, which is an illegal discriminatory practice in which a mortgage lender denies loans or an insurance provider restricts services to certain areas of a community, often because of the racial characteristics of the applicants.

Redlining was formalized and codified by law in the Jim Crow era. It first originated during chattel slavery in the U.S. as the practice of placing enslaved Americans in the least desirable areas of plantations. This later became the blueprint for redlining. Under Jim Crow, maps were outlined with red ink (hence the term “redlining”) thereby “filtering” entire groups of Americans into or out of specific residential areas based on racialization, ethnicity, and class. 

Racelining, in turn, is the attempt to corral or filter individuals or groups of individuals into ascriptive, racialized categories—that is, an attempt to ascribe to them a racial “type”—on the basis of morphological phenotype and behavioral stereotypes associated with a belief in racial differences that are presumed to exist contrary to the scientific consensus. These supposed racial differences are a conflation of cultural, ethnic, or socio-economic class social norms and a misrecognition of them as “race.” Racialization then permits acts of racism to be carried out against individuals on the basis of presumed racial group membership for the purpose of either subjugating them to a different race or forcing them to conform to the stereotypes of their own supposed race.

My theory of racelining—which is indebted to Dr. Sheena Mason’s Theory of Racelessness—allows us to move into a diagnostic position outside of racial ideology and place ourselves behind a two-way mirror of objectivity, where we can see with exceptional clarity how race and racism continue to function and operate in order to keep people in their presumed racial space. We can then also step over to the other side of that mirror and view how we ourselves interact within the confines of racial ideology.

We see evidence of the effect of racelining upon our own self-conceptions everywhere. For example, in Angel Eduardo’s article, “Stop Calling Me 'White' For Having the Wrong Opinions” he clearly outlines the ways in which people who look much like him treated him as inferior and attempted to degrade his worth as a human being, accusing him of being “white,” simply for not toeing the perceived racial line. Here, it is easy to observe the attempt by others in his racialized group to keep him “in his place.” There’s safety in numbers, as they say, and Angel was threatening the safety of the group by declining to be racialized and thus diminishing its numbers. Early in his article, he spoons the caviar on the cracker—pun unintended—as he demonstrates the process of racelining at work:

And it hurt. I'm Dominican, but was constantly told I didn't act Dominican. And in response to these insults, I made a clown of myself trying to get the “right” clothes and force-feeding myself the “right” music so that “my people” would accept and include me.

Another example of what I call racelining comes from Dr. Sheena Mason’s article, “Theory of Racelessness: A Case for Antirace(ism)”:

Because I look as I do, I can say anything I want to you, mistreat you, cancel you, and yet not be “racist.” In turn, if you look like me, you can cancel me and mistreat me because I do not conform to the box you create for yourself based on race(ism), and you cannot be racist. Our prevailing ideas about the naturalness of race and about the one-sidedness of racism are incoherent. Make it make sense!

Here, she describes the practice of racelining when observed from both sides of the two-way mirror. She stands defiantly outside of race to view racism and as she does, directs us to observe the mystical nonsense of racial ideology and the stubborn-headed attachment we humans have to it, blinding us to they ways in which we perpetuate it. 

In racelining, we see the spirit of Leonard Harris’ “Necro-Being: The Worst Form of Racism” and the types of “death” that racism brings to its victims. This kind of death, as Harris describes it, “can be literal death or it can be the death of incarceration, subjugation, enslavement; anything that removes the living being from the living world…and from furthering the person's motion through time and history.”  I’ve yet to hear a definition of “canceled” more accurate than this. 

Racelining, in essence, cuts off its victims from the communal and social benefits they would have otherwise been awarded by peer acceptance, simply because its victims do not speak, do, or behave as the racialized group expects of them. When we raceline, we disempower individuals and weaponize our opinion over their existence in order to silence their voices, in effect, removing them from society. Racelining “others” us and in that way murders our souls.

This is one aspect of how I envision racelining functioning in practice, helping us connect the dots between the concept of racelining and the practice of redlining. Arguably the worst of it is that we continue to use concepts and philosophies of race created nearly 600 years ago. These concepts and philosophies were created for the express purpose of subjugating and labeling as inferior, racialized Black and Indigenous Peoples in order to force them into slavery. We still use these concepts in our everyday interactions with each other. Here are a couple of examples we have all become familiar with:

“Why are you talking like (insert demographic here) people?”

or

“Why you actin’ like a (insert derogatory term), you ain’t (insert demographic here)!”

These examples of racelining's most easily recognizable forms present to us a small fraction of the near-infinite iterations of how race can be used as both an inter- and intra-group discrimination tactic. Sex, gender, level of attraction, sexual identity, sexual orientation, and even age can play roles in how racelining works. Ascriptive groups are proficient in coercing conformity from their members as a mechanism of uncertainty-reduction within the larger roles of collectivism. That is, in some groups, group members are socialized to want to be able to predict and rely upon certain behavior from other group members, and not to tolerate the ambiguity that comes with deviation.

In one study, “Is in-group bias culture-dependent? A meta-analysis across 18 societies,” Ronald Fischer and Crysta Derham reported on the relationship between in-group bias and culture. They made a link between how we treat others when they fail to fall in line with our desire for group stability. Referencing G.H. Hofstede’s seminal study, they explain that culture-defined uncertainty avoidance is

the extent to which individuals within societies are socialized to avoid uncertain situations by establishing formal rules and structures. Higher uncertainty avoidance is a situational concern with reducing uncertainty, which can be predicted to increase in-group bias. 

Nothing creates more uncertainty than someone who we believe is supposed to support the collectivistic beliefs of “our” group (race in this case), looks like you or I, but chooses to risk our group safety by defying the rules we play by, or worse, threatens to switch sides to the out-group. Hence, the oft-witnessed and highly focused vitriol towards someone who represents our group defying our group's rules. Think of the trope “race-traitor” and you’ll have the example you need. Racelining perceives leaving a group whose focus is that of the racialized group's stereotypical presumed traits for the reduction of uncertainty as threatening to that group's safety and its collective identity.  

The ability to detect racelining is the ability to see, acknowledge, and call out how racial stereotypes are utilized for the purpose of inter- and intra-racial group policing, the result of which is the enforcing of an individual's perceived racial identity for the purpose of social cohesion, expulsion, or manipulation.

The obvious next step forward is to answer the question, how do we escape racelining? We do it first by understanding that there are multiple possible positions on race. Dr. Mason presents six fundamental philosophies of race divided into two categories. The first three describe what we think race is (metaphysical categories) and the second three describe what we choose to do with it (normative categories). In the first category, we have Naturalism, Constructionism, and Skepticism. In the second, we have Conservationism, Reconstructionism, and Eliminativism. According to Dr. Mason, we each hold at a minimum two of these philosophies, one from each group. Those who engage in the practice of racelining implicitly believe that race is, metaphysically, either natural or a really existing social construction; and they believe that we should, normatively, either conserve race as-is or reconstruct it into a “better” form. A Naturalist or Constructionist metaphysical belief coupled with a Conservationist or Reconstructionist normative belief motivates racelining.

The next step is to understand how our own and others’ beliefs about race map onto Dr. Mason’s scheme. This will help us meet others where they are and in that space attempt to craft a new, more sensible dialogue, free of racelining. When we understand the implicit philosophies of race that underlie racelining, we can then see the harm and ridiculousness of racelining’s implementation and reinforcement of race within groups, and understand how racelining extends outwards past the group and into society. We can see how racelining is used by others both inside and outside our perceived group to keep us in our place. We can use it as a tool to assist us in understanding clearly the flaws of modern racial constructs and practices. 

As an example, I am racialized as white. I am placed in that “whiteness” by others because of their attachment to what they believe “white” means, projecting that belief onto me, thereby discounting everything else about who I am. My beliefs, who I love, how I raise my children, my work ethic, my socioeconomic background, political leanings, my DNA heritage, and even how I think, are all non-consensually and ascriptively stamped onto me. While some may perceive this to be a classic act of racism, I must remind the reader that racial distinctions—white, black, etc.—are the tools and machinations of the belief in race, not the facts of race. 

We can no longer continue to stay caught in the false dichotomy of race as the ascription to individuals of inherited superiority or inferiority. To believe in race is an act of racism. As Dr. Mason writes in her book, Theory of Racelessness: A Case for Antirace(ism) (p. 14):

The consistent separation between that metaphysical attachment to a person’s physical being that misaligns with how they are racialized matters…It would help people to recognize that what is being coded and understood as race is actually all of these other particular political, social, and ideological ways of being and seeing that have nothing to do with so-called race categories and more to do with how race(ism) has operated and does operate.

An understanding of the dynamics of racelining can be implemented as a tool to reveal accurately the toxic irony by which we not only use race to endorse racism against individuals and also to draw our attention to the ways in which we continue to use race as a motivating force to continuously create new and insidious ways to justify those acts of racism.  

Racelining and the Theory of Racelessness help us to escape the in-group/out-group bias machine and finally allow us how to break the spell of 500 years of racial ideology and the hate it was designed to produce. To end racism, we must stop giving supremacy to race.

All human beings are granted a spectrum of the greatest gifts their shared human heritage could endow upon them, no one person less than any other, all with different beliefs, all with a unique brilliance that is equally bright. No statement can be clear or more true than this: We are all human, and we are all raceless. This is one of the foundational principles behind race eliminativism and more to the point, where the racelining rubber meets the road.

In closing, it is said that when you are used to abuse, life without abuse just doesn't feel normal because abuse is what’s normal. I argue it is past due time we left the abusive relationship we have been forced into by ideologies about skin color. In doing so, we can access the vast compassion contained within our hearts, and move into a future untethered from the caustic past which continuously seeks to re-enslave us to race. It is time to disabuse ourselves of racial ideology and admit its abuse doesn’t have to be our normal. We can break this cycle and choose not to pass it on to our children. It’s more than possible, and I see no reason why it can’t be achieved within our lifetime. To end racism we have to create and employ new and better tools than those used to create it. Otherwise, we are simply adding floors to the master's house and providing a legacy of ignorance to mortgage it. That’s a house I refuse to live in anymore and perhaps “whiteness” should be the first to be evicted. 

Thank you for reading and thank you to the Journal of Free Black Thought for publishing this article. I hope to see you all on the other side of race.

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Steve Jarrett-Jordan is an amateur writer, podcaster, panelist, and former automotive mechanic now working in the aerospace industry. Steve reads voraciously on topics ranging from race and social issues to philosophy and Russian Communist history.

While Steve's primary focus is on improving men’s rights and destigmatizing men’s mental health, he also advocates for the right of expression, viewpoint diversity, and critical thought. He engages in conversations on today’s important and contentious topics as host of his own YouTube channel, The Shadetree Intellectual, and also serves as panelist and co-host on other podcasts. Read his Substack, subscribe to his YouTube channel, and follow him on Twitter.