Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The role of race in the twentieth century changed according to public conceptions of collective identity and intergroup relations. When ethnic groups were assumed to have impermeable boundaries and a homogeneous core, race was seen as a key determinant of collective identity. The racialization of identity coincided with a politics of exclusionary group solidarity. The de-racialization of collective identity occurred when public policies promoted weak ethnic boundaries and intergroup mixing.Intergroup relations in the twentieth century were shaped by two different public spheres for representing race. The sphere of an open, democratic pluralism of weak group boundaries and strong individual identity sprang from the nation's founding charters. The Declaration of Independence and the constitutions of the revolutionary era institutionalized a republican form of self-government recognizing the capacity of all persons to become citizens regardless of the “accident” of birth. What was common among all individuals was more important than the differences existing between them as members of groups.The revolutionary founding, however, had been preceded by a colonial founding: an encounter across great cultural distances in which English settlers marked a social boundary between civilized and savage, between whites and the Indians and Africans. The coming of the Industrial Revolution that spurred ... log in or subscribe to read full text