ABSTRACT
Each decade in the last half of the twentieth century has presented a peculiar, dynamic brand of politics by African Americans. If we view politics as the struggle over authoritative allocation of scarce resources, it follows that many criteria—including race—affect those decisions. At the turn of the 1990 decade, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the state of national and international economies will greatly determine the nature and results of political demands. Contrary to considerable conventional wisdom, blacks have always attempted to reconcile their socioeconomic demands with those of others. But it should be clear what a "politics of deracialization" is: a means of testing whether the country is prepared to join with blacks in moving toward truly progressive policies. For blacks to switch under such circumstances, without a corresponding switch in Republican party policy performance, would hardly satisfy the real socioeconomic needs of the masses—whatever it might do for the fortunes of a few black elites.
