ABSTRACT
This chapter reflects on the status and thrust of African-American politics by viewing them through the conceptual and analytical lens of ethnicity. It provokes scholarly and practical discourse about African-American politics from a fresh, and perhaps controversial, perspective which might in turn lead to consideration of some of the issues raised and implied herein in a more structured research agenda. The chapter discusses the ethnic experience in America as a means of rounding out an analytical canvas against which to contemplate the evolving status of blacks in the United States and the state of black politics. The structuralist or instrumentalist perspective holds that much of ethnic identity and resulting ethnic mobilizations stem from processes of modernization which bring different groups together in sustained, competitive interactions. The primordialist and structuralist perspectives stand at opposite ends of a continuum of explanations and analytical engagements of the phenomenon of ethnicity.
