ABSTRACT
Racial projects connect an interpretation of race in a given historical moment or context to the organization of social structures and everyday practices. Thus, a racial project is simultaneously an interpretation, representation, or explanation of racial dynamics, and an effort to re-organize and redistribute resources along particular racial lines. Under this formulation, anti-affirmative action initiatives, such as Michigan's Proposal 2 and California's Proposition 209, are both racial projects. This chapter focuses on how the ideology of color blindness obscures the racial preferences of "anti-preference" initiatives like Proposition 209 and Proposal 2. The racial preference enacted by color-blind admissions regimes is also discernible from the institutional side of the application process. The chapter then focuses on the autobiographical statements from President Barack Obama to construct a hypothetical personal statement. The foregoing hypothetical suggests that applicants who wish to make race salient "race-positive applicants"#8212;face a number of burdens.
