I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation (Prophetic Christianity)

by Chanequa Walker-Barnes

social constructivist arguments are generally unhelpful in ameliorating modern racism. It made more sense to rely upon them during the civil rights movement, when the main argument for Jim Crow segregation was that Blacks and other people of color were ontologically inferior to Whites. In that case, an ontological argument required a constructivist rebuttal. Social constructivism was the argument used to expose the wizard behind the curtain. It was designed to establish the normality and full humanity of people of African descent by offering scientific evidence that racial identities are grounded in social, cultural, and historical rather than biological realities. Today—hardcore supremacists notwithstanding—it is rare to find people making explicit arguments about inferiority based upon biology or genetics. Nowadays people tend to invoke color-blind racism.