ABSTRACT
This chapter asks what is the fundamental place of race in the U.S. political order? The chapter argues that asking this question is important because the way we address it provides insight into the meaning and significance of racial politics in the country. The chapter argues that only interpretive political analysis can address the central question and outlines two forms of interpretive analysis – historical narrative and critical frame analysis – that will be illustrated herein. Three prominent historical narrative frames depicting the place of race are sketched out in the chapter: (1) racialization as an aberration from core US political values, (2) commitment to racial hierarchy as one of two competing political traditions or political orders in the historical development of the US (the other tradition or political order being “transformative racial egalitarianism” and (3) race-based settler colonialism as creating and maintaining racialized colonial structures as fundamental to the US political order. The chapter concludes with a critical analysis comparing the three historical narrative frames for making sense of race in US politics.
