Racial Spectacles: Promoting a Colorblind Agenda through Direct Democracy

• Date: 30 June 2011
• Published date: 30 June 2011
• Pages: 133-171
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/S1059-4337(2011)0000055009
• Author: Angelique M. Davis,Rose Ernst

RACIAL SPECTACLES:

PROMOTING A COLORBLIND

AGENDA THROUGH DIRECT

DEMOCRACY

Angelique M. Davis and Rose Ernst

ABSTRACT

Direct democracy by citizen initiatives is often heralded as the avenue for

the true will of the people to be heard. While scholars have debated

whether this leads to a form of Madison’s ‘‘tyranny of the majority,’’ the

debate over the concrete impact of such initiatives on racially margin-

alized groups remains unsettled. We examine a different question about

racially marginalized groups’ interests in this process: the symbolic

assertion of white supremacy expressed through this mechanism of

majority will. We develop the concept of ‘‘racial spectacles’’ to describe

the narrative vehicles that serve to symbolically reassert and reinforce real

existing racial hierarchies and inequalities. We explore the creation of

these spectacles through the initiative process because it is a state-

sanctioned vehicle that enables white dominance. Paradoxically, these

campaigns that purport to be colorblind depend on the enactment of these

racial spectacles. Through an analysis of five statewide anti-affirmative

action initiative campaigns from 1996 to 2008, we explore both macro and

micro political dynamics: public displays of these campaigns as well as

individual, private agency expressed in the public and private act of

Studies in Law, Politics, and Society, Volume 55, 133–171

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ISSN: 1059-4337/doi:10.1108/S1059-4337(2011)0000055009

133

voting; court decisions in initiative litigation as well as individual and

interest group participation in these cases. Ultimately, we argue that this

form of racial spectacle further inculcates the public in the postracial

ideology of colorblindness.

INTRODUCTION

spec ta cle (spe

ˇkut -k l) n. a. Something that can be seen or viewed, especially something

of a remarkable or impressive nature.

b. A public performance or display, especially one on a large or lavish scale.

c. A regrettable public display, as of bad behavior: drank too much and made a spectacle of

himself (Spectacle, 2006).

1

Spectacles are ubiquitous in our politics. From OJ to ‘‘Palin Power,’’ we

are drawn to the fantastic, grandiose, bizarre, and grotesque. Race,

sometimes obvious and sometimes oblique, is often at the core of these

spectacles that captivate the media and public imagination. Far from being

tangential to our understanding of politics, we suggest that these racial

spectacles are a key mechanism of the symbolic reinforcement of white

sociopolitical dominance. Although racial spectacles are generated in a

variety of historical and political contexts, we explore how they are created

through a critical institutionalized and state-sanctioned venue: the initiative

process.

Racial spectacles are displays of racial dominance that publically reassert

and reinforce racial hierarchies. These spectacles rely on public representa-

tions that invoke private fears of domination by racial others. Though these

spectacles are inherently public displays, they are socially constructed

through public and private acts that operate at macro- and micro-levels of

political discourse: they exist due to the synergistic public–private

interaction of collective and individual agency.

Building on work in political science, critical race theory, and sociology,

we offer a new perspective on how racial ideologies, such as colorblind

racism, are propagated through the creation of the particular spectacles we

explore. Our concept of racial spectacles builds on Omi and Winant’s (1994)

theory of racial formation

2

and Murray Edelman’s (1998) account of

‘‘political spectacles,’’ explored later in the chapter. As part of the broader

process of racial formation, these spectacles are the narrative vehicles for the

promulgation of Omi and Winant’s racial projects. And, because we utilize a

critical race theory framework, we argue that white supremacy structures all

ANGELIQUE M. DAVIS AND ROSE ERNST134

politics – including spectacles – in the United States. Moreover, because

temporality is central to the creation of racial spectacles, the contemporary

dominance of the racial ideology of ‘‘color-blind’’ racism (Bonilla-Silva,

2006)

3

assumes heightened importance that warrants closer examination.

We do not suggest that these public displays are more grotesque or

exaggerated than they were in the past, but rather that their symbolic

meaning is contingent upon their historical moment. We use the anti-

affirmative action initiatives to explain our concept of racial spectacles

because, from signature gathering to constitutional challenges, it is a state-

sanctioned mechanism that provides fertile ground for the expression of

simultaneous private and public assertions of white racial superiority. Thus

direct democracy – here in the form of anti-affirmative action initiatives –

serves as an excellent example of the generation of racial spectacles in an

allegedly ‘‘post-racial’’ (Barnes, Chemerinsky, & Jones, 2010) country where

race, paradoxically, plays a central role in politics.

This chapter is divided into five sections: the first section explains how the

initiative process allows for the creation of racial spectacles; the second

section chronicles the rise of anti-affirmative action initiatives in the 1990s;

the third section sets forth our argument about how colorblind racism is

used in anti-affirmative action campaigns to create the racial content of

racial spectacles; the fourth section sets forth our argument regarding the

spectacle component of our concept, including campaign and litigation

tactics; and the fifth section concludes with a discussion regarding the future

of this phenomenon.

TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY? USE OF

INITIATIVE PROCESS TO CREATE

RACIAL SPECTACLES

Fears of a ‘‘tyranny of the majority,’’ most famously articulated by James

Madison (1787) in Federalist 10 concerned a moneyed elite, which are not

the same racial minorities we focus on in this chapter. The relatively fixed

nature of both a moneyed elite and racial minorities, however, make

Madison’s cautions relevant in the case of direct democracy. Since

Madison’s warnings, many scholars have debated the absence of safeguards

for minority groups in the initiative process. While our focus in this chapter

is not on the substantive policy impact of these initiatives on racialized

Promoting a Colorblind Agenda Through Direct Democracy 135