From California to Michigan: Race, rationality, and neoliberal governmentality

Communication and Critical/ Cultural Studies

Volumn 7, Issue 4, 2010, Pages 401-422

  Jones, Bradley ^a   Mukherjee, Roopali ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN   (United States)

^b CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK   (United States)

Author keywords

Affirmative Action; Neoliberalism; Policy Discourse; Race Gender; State

Indexed keywords

EID: 79960473831     PISSN: 14791420     EISSN: 14794233     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/14791420.2010.523431     Document Type: Article

References (111)

1. In the decade between the success of the CCRI in 1996 and in Michigan in 2006, we have witnessed similar debates over the fate of affirmative action programs in Florida, Texas, Washington, and Nebraska. In the immediate aftermath of the CCRI, grassroots organizing efforts to get popular initiatives on state ballots modeled closely after the Californian measures were reported in as many as 21 states nationwide and at the federal level. See Lou Freedberg, "GOP Trying to Ban Affirmative Action", San Francisco Chronicle, June 18, 1997, A1.
2. William H. Honan, "Efforts to Bar Selection Based on Race: Moves Are Made Across the Nation", New York Times, March 31, 1996, A14.
3. Mark Hornbeck, "Engler quiet on racial quotas", Detroit News, May 18, 1998, D1.
4. Herbert A. Sample, "Prop. 209's Backer Has New Goals", San Diego Union-Tribune, November 10, 1998, A10.
5. Sam H. Verhovek and B. Drummond Ayres, Jr., "The 1998 Elections: Voters Back End to State Preferences", New York Times, November 4, 1998, B2.
6. See Jodi Melamed, "The Spirit of Neoliberalism: From Racial Liberalism to Neoliberal Multiculturalism", Social Text 89, no. 24 (2006): 1-24.
7. Jodi Melamed, "The Spirit of Neoliberalism: From Racial Liberalism to Neoliberal Multiculturalism", Social Text 89, no. 24 (2006), 1.
8. Jodi Melamed, "The Spirit of Neoliberalism: From Racial Liberalism to Neoliberal Multiculturalism", Social Text 89, no. 24 (2006), 1.
9. See Andrew Barry, Thomas Osborne, and Nikolas Rose, Foucault and Political Reason: Liberalism, Neo-Liberalism and the Rationalities of Government (London: Routledge, 1996).
10. Michel Foucault, "Governmentality", in The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, ed. Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon, and Peter Miller (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 87-104.
11. David Theo Goldberg, The Racial State (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2002).
12. David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on Racial Neoliberalism (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009).
13. Nikolas Rose and Peter Miller, Governing the Present: Administering Economic, Social and Personal Life (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2008).
14. Ann Laura Stoler, Race and the Education of Desire: Foucault's History of Sexuality and the Colonial Order of Things (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995).
15. Katharyne Mitchell, "Geographies of Identity: Multiculturalism Unplugged", Progress in Human Geography 28 (2004): 642.
16. Roopali Mukherjee, "Regulating Race in the California Civil Rights Initiative: Enemies, Allies and Alibis", Journal of Communication 50 (2000): 27-47.
17. Roopali Mukherjee, "Regulating Race in the California Civil Rights Initiative: Enemies, Allies and Alibis", Journal of Communication 50 (2000), 33-9.
18. Earlier, in 1998, voters in the state of Washington approved Initiative 200, an anti-affirmative action measure that closely resembled the CCRI, and was consequently referred to as the "son of 209" in press accounts nationwide. See "Initiative 200: Another Blow to Affirmative Action", Star Tribune, November 7, 1998, 18A. The MCRI, then, is properly one among a family of anti-affirmative action siblings, each produced by a specific combination of political lineage and discursive circumstance.
19. "Excerpts from Justices' Opinions on Michigan Affirmative Action Cases", New York Times, June 24, 2003, A24.
20. "Excerpts from Justices' Opinions on Michigan Affirmative Action Cases", New York Times, June 24, 2003, A24.
21. "Excerpts from Justices' Opinions on Michigan Affirmative Action Cases", New York Times, June 24, 2003, A24.
22. In the Supreme Court's decision in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978), Justice Lewis F. Powell staked out the constitutionality of the "diversity rationale" that permitted the use of race as a "plus factor" in admissions decisions. Simply put, in the language of constitutional law, race can be permissibly considered in admissions decisions when its use is "narrowly tailored" to promote a "compelling governmental interest" in promoting diversity. The Bakke Court allowed race to be taken into account "as one factor among many" in individualized evaluations of applicants, that is, as a "plus factor" within competitive admissions policies.
23. In 1997, voters in Houston rejected a similar initiative that many attributed to the inclusion of language indicating it would "end affirmative action programs. " See NAACP, "Affirmative Action History", http://www.detroitnaacp.org/publicpolicy/affirmative.asp (accessed February 17, 2005). Given that public polls find consistently that Americans are opposed to racial quotas but strongly sympathetic toward affirmative action, the inclusion of the term in ballot summaries for the CCRI had earlier yielded a prolonged court battle between the California Attorney General who was charged with wording the summaries and CCRI opponents who argued that a ballot summary that made reference to "preferential treatment" but remained silent on "affirmative action" misled voters by making the language of the measure more palatable than it might have otherwise been to voters.
24. See Harriet Chiang, "Judge Wants 'Affirmative Action' in Prop. 209 Summary", San Francisco Chronicle, August 2, 1996, A22.
25. John Howard, "Supreme Court Upholds Lundgren on Prop. 209: Ruling Bars Language Describing it as Repeal of Affirmative Action", The Fresno Bee, August 13, 1996, A3. Mukherjee, "Regulating Race in the California Civil Rights Initiative", 29.
26. S. D. Melzer, "Michigan Meets Malcolm X: Governor Granholm Joins Forces with a Trotskyite Group to Suppress Democracy", Wall Street Journal, August 11, 2005, A13.
27. Nebraska Civil Rights Initiative, "Yes on 424!" http://www.nebraskacri.org/ (accessed March 21, 2009).
28. Tim Hoover, "Amendment 46 Fizzling Out", Denver Post, November 7, 2008. http:// www.denverpost.com/ballotissues08/ci_10920596 (accessed March 21, 2009).
29. See, for example, Judith Butler, "Uncritical Exuberance", November 5, 2008, http:// www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/11/05/18549195.php (accessed June 2, 2009).
30. Bill Fletcher, Jr., "Obama*History, Challenges and Possibilities", November 6, 2008, http://www. BlackCommentator.com (accessed June 2, 2009).
31. Salim Muwakkil, "The Squandering of Obama", In These Times, July 14, 2007, http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3268/ (accessed August 22, 2010).
32. Adolph Reed, Jr., "Obama No", The Progressive, May 2008, http:// www.progressive.org/mag_reed0508 (accessed August 22, 2010).
33. Adolph Reed, Jr., "Where Obamaism Seems to be Going", July 16, 2008, http://www.blackagendareport.com (accessed June 2, 2009).
34. David R. Roediger, How Race Survived US History: From Settlement and Slavery to the Obama Phenomenon (London: Verso, 2008).
35. "Roundtable: From King to Obama: Race in America", Social Science Research Council, April 4, 2008, http:// www.ssrc.org/raceinamerica (accessed June 2, 2009).
36. Paul Street, Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics (Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2008).
37. Jonathan Tilove, "For Scholars of Race, an Obama Dilemma", Seattle Times, August 13, 2008, http://seattletimes.nwsource. com/html/nationworld/2008109755_scholars13.html (accessed August 22, 2010).
38. Kent A. Ono and John M. Sloop, "Critical Rhetorics of Controversy", Western Journal of Communication 63 (1999): 526-38.
39. Kent A. Ono and John M. Sloop, Shifting Borders: Rhetoric, Immigration, and California's Proposition 187 (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2002), 19.
40. David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An Inquiry into the Origins of Social Change (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1990), 121-89.
41. Nikolas Rose and Peter Miller, eds., "Political Power Beyond the State: Problematics of Government", in Governing the Present: Administering Economic, Social and Personal Life, (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2008), 53-83.
42. See Pierre Bourdieu, Acts of Resistance: Against the Tyranny of the Market, (New York: New Press, 1999).
43. David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).
44. Aihwa Ong, Neoliberalism as Exception: Mutations in Citizenship and Sovereignty (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006).
45. For a genealogical account of how state dependency came to be racialized and gendered in the US, see Nancy Fraser and Linda Gordon, "A Genealogy of 'Dependency': Tracing a Keyword of the US Welfare State", in Justice Interruptus: Critical Reflections on the Postsocialist Condition (London: Routledge, 1997), 121-50.
46. Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism.
47. See also Margaret R. Somers, Genealogies of Citizenship: Markets, Statelessness, and the Right to Have Rights (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). Likewise, in "The Strong Neo-liberal State: Crime, Consumption, Governance", Theory & Event 8, no. 3 (2005): 1. Paul A. Passavant argues that rather than weakening the power of the state, neoliberalism has instead spurred proliferations in state tactics of governance, both repressive and ideological, that coalesce around twin priorities of punishing crime and managing consumption. It is important to note too that neoliberalism has additionally created powerful structural and ideological barriers that significantly limit the possibility of an oppositional politics.
48. See Somers, Genealogies of Citizenship, 66-92 for a discussion of neoliberalism as market fundamentalism and its relationship to religious fundamentalisms.
49. Nancy Fraser and Linda Gordon, "Contract versus Charity: Why is There No Social Citizenship in the United States?", in The Citizenship Debates: A Reader, ed. Gershon Shafir (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1998), 113-30.
50. See also Somers, Genealogies of Citizenship.
51. For a discussion of ethopolitics and the governing of responsible communities, see Nikolas Rose, "Community, Citizenship and the ThirdWay", American Behavioral Scientist 43 (2000): 1395-411.
52. See Henry A. Giroux, "Spectacles of Race and Pedagogies of Denial: Anti-Black Racist Pedagogy under the Reign of Neoliberalism", Communication Education 52 (2003): 191-211.
53. Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 339.
54. Melamed, "The Spirit of Neoliberalism", 13-20.
55. See Roopali Mukherjee, The Racial Order of Things: Cultural Imaginaries of the Post-Soul Era (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2006), 198-230.
56. Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, "'New Racism,' Color-Blind Racism, and the Future of Whiteness in America. " in White Out: The Continuing Significance of Racism, ed. Ashley W. Doane and Eduardo Bonilla-Silva (New York: Routledge, 2003), 271-84.
57. See Lisa A. Flores, Dreama G. Moon, and Thomas K. Nakayama, "Dynamic Rhetorics of Race: California's Racial Privacy Initiative and the Shifting Grounds of Racial Politics", Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 3 (2006): 181-201.
58. Charles A. Gallagher, "Color-blind Privilege: The Social and Political Functions of Erasing the Color Line in Post Race America", Race, Gender & Class 10 (2003): 22.
59. Thomas K. Nakayama and Robert L. Krizek, "Whiteness as Strategic Rhetoric", in Whiteness: The Communication of Social Identity, ed. Thomas K. Nakayama and Judith N. Martin (London: Sage Publications, 1999), 87-106.
60. Catherine R. Squires, Dispatches from the Color Line: The Press and Multiracial America, (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2007).
61. For a discussion of cultural recognition as a precondition for full democratic participation, see Seyla Benhabib, "From Redistribution to Recognition? The Paradigm Change of Contemporary Politics", in The Claims of Culture: Equality and Diversity in the Global Era (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), 49-81.
62. Nancy Fraser, "From Redistribution to Recognition? Dilemmas of Justice in a "Postsocialist" Age", in Justice Interruptus: Critical Reflections on the Postsocialist Condition (London: Routledge, 1997), 11-40.
63. Mitchell, "Geographies of Identity", 642.
64. Mitchell, "Geographies of Identity", 642.
65. The neoliberal moment has seen the depoliticization of formerly politicized identities often associated with the new identity-based social movements (i.e., "post-feminism", "postsoul"). On the other hand, some collective identities and solidarities (political affiliation, religion, national belonging) have thrived under this particular formation of neoliberalism and neoconservatism. For a further discussion see Wendy Brown, "American Nightmare: Neoliberalism, Neoconservatism, and De-Democratization", Political Theory 34 (2006): 690-714.
66. See also Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism, 81-5.
67. Brown refers to the way in which political differences are recast in public discourse as cultural differences. See Wendy Brown, Regulating Aversion: Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008), 19.
68. Giroux, "Spectacles of Race and Pedagogies of Denial", 192.
69. Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 335-7.
70. See Melamed, "The Spirit of Neoliberalism", 1-24.
71. For an example of this type of critique, see Walter Benn Michaels, The Trouble with Diversity: HowWe Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality (New York:Metropolitan Books, 2006). Nancy Fraser, on the other hand, has argued for an understanding of how both culture and political economy "work together to produce injustices. "
72. See Justice Interruptus, 3.
73. Giroux, "Spectacles of Race and Pedagogies of Denial", 199.
74. Flores, Moon, and Nakayama, "Dynamic Rhetorics of Race", 184.
75. Howard Winant, cited in Flores, Moon, and Nakayama, "Dynamic Rhetorics of Race", 184.
76. Melamed, "The Spirit of Neoliberalism", 1.
77. Melamed, "The Spirit of Neoliberalism", 1.
78. Flores, Moon, and Nakayama, "Dynamic Rhetorics of Race", 192.
79. Flores, Moon, and Nakayama, "Dynamic Rhetorics of Race", 195-6.
80. Melamed, "The Spirit of Neoliberalism", 16.
81. Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 360-1.
82. Mukherjee, "Regulating Race in the California Civil Rights Initiative", 33-9.
83. Mukherjee, "Regulating Race in the California Civil Rights Initiative", 35.
84. Mukherjee, The Racial Order of Things, 41-5.
85. Squires, Dispatches from the Color Line, 75-82.
86. This neoliberal positioning has also informed strategic moves to discredit one of the MCRI's most visible detractors, By Any Means Necessary (BAMN). BAMN was described by conservative commentators in the mainstream press as a "radical, socialist group" displaying contempt for democracy. See Thomas Bray, "Beware Using 'Racist' Label in Racial Preferences Battle", Detroit News, August 17, 2005, http://www.michigancivilrights.org/ media/bray16Aug2005.pdf (accessed February 17, 2006).
87. Anthony Dick, "Uncivil 'Civil-Rights' Group: BAMN vs. Equality", August 18, 2005, http://www.nationalreview.com/ comment/dick200508180831.asp (accessed February 17, 2006).
88. Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, "Statement Regarding BAMN National Chairman's Intimidation Tactics", June 13, 2006, http://www.michigancivilrights.org/6_13_06_pr.html (accessed January 11, 2009).
89. Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, "Detroit's Radical City-Funded 'African Town' Business District", September 26, 2004, http://www.michigancivilrights.org/media/09262004-africatown. pdf (accessed February 17, 2006).
90. Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, "MCRI Puts End to Minority Group Fighting for Race Preferences", October 6, 2004, http://www.chetlyzarko.com/business/10062004-infightingpress-release.pdf (accessed January 11, 2009).
91. Ward Connerly, "End the Race Party: Identity Politics Will Get the GOP Nothing Good", National Review Online, September 30, 2005, http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/ connerly200509300813.asp (accessed February 17, 2006).
92. For further discussion of multiracialism as a challenge to the white/black binary, see Lauren Berlant, The Queen of America Goes to Washington City: Essays on Sex and Citizenship (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997), 175-220.
93. Squires, Dispatches from the Color Line, 101-24.
94. David Theo Goldberg, Racial Subjects: Writing on Race in America (London: Routledge, 1997), 61.
95. Flores, Moon, and Nakayama, "Dynamic Rhetorics of Race", 189-90.
96. Mukherjee, The Racial Order of Things, 77.
97. Ward Connerly, "Taking it to Michigan: Announcing the 'Michigan Civil Rights Act",' July 8, 2003, http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-connerly070803.asp (accessed February 17, 2006).
98. Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, "Michigan Civil Rights Initiative Challenges Governor Granholm, Politicians for Real Solutions", January 19, 2005, http://www.michigancivilrights. org/media.html (accessed February 17, 2006).
99. Ward Connerly, "End the Race Party. "
100. Ward Connerly, "End the Race Party. "
101. Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, "Some Women's Groups Show Inconsistency on Race/ Gender Preferences Issue, MCRI", September 8, 2004, http://www.michigancivilrights.org/ media/womensgroup-press-release.pdf (accessed February 17, 2006).
102. Barbara Grutter, "Announcement of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative", July 8, 2003, http://www.michigancivilrights.org/grutter.htm (accessed February 17, 2006).
103. Barbara Grutter, "Announcement of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative", July 8, 2003, http://www.michigancivilrights.org/grutter.htm (accessed February 17, 2006).
104. Ward Connerly, "Taking it to Michigan. "
105. Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, "Michigan Civil Rights Initiative Will End College Admissions' Discrimination Against Women", December 21, 2004, http://www.chetlyzarko. com/business/12212004-male-achievement.pdf (accessed January 11, 2009).
106. Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, "Some Women's Groups Show Inconsistency. "
107. See Berlant, The Queen of America Goes to Washington City, 1-24 for a discussion of the politicizing of the intimate sphere and its relationship to the project of infantile citizenship.
108. Ward Connerly, "The Q-Word & American Realities", National Review Online, December 1, 2005, http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/216129/q-word-american-realities/ward-connerly (accessed October 15, 2010).
109. Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, "Study: Law Schools Hurt Minority Students Through Preferences", November 11, 2004, http://www.michigancivilrights.org/media/law-schoolrelease. pdf (accessed February 17, 2006).
110. Ward Connerly, "Taking it to Michigan. "
111. Thanks to one of our anonymous reviewers for bringing this issue to our attention.