Mark Q. Sawyer

Contentious Pluralism: The Public Sphere and Democracy

What do peasants in eighteenth-century England, African Americans in Reconstruction-era Virginia, mothers in Nicaragua and Argentina, and contemporary transnational activists have to do with one another? They all illustrate instances where marginalized groups challenge a lack of democracy or the limitations of existing democracy. Democracy is both a process and a product of struggles against power. Both the social capital literature and literature that focuses on democracy as a product of institutions can undervalue the actions of regular people who imagine a democratic world beyond anything that actually exists. The four cases examined in this article demonstrate that marginalized groups use a variety of performative and subversive methods to uproot the public sphere from its exclusionary history as they imagine, on their own terms, democratic possibilities that did not previously exist. In so doing, they plant the seeds of a more egalitarian public politics in new times and places. This process is “contentious pluralism,” and we ask political scientists in all subfields to look to popular movements and changing political structures as they explore the promise of democracy and to rethink the gap between democracy as an ideal and the ways in which people actually experience it. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the roar of its waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without demand. It never did and it never will. —Frederick Douglass Quotation from Dawson 2001, 259.

Contesting Politics as Usual: Black Social Movements, Globalization, and Race Policy in Latin America

The intensification of ethno-racial protest in Latin America has led to the adoption of targeted legislation for Black and indigenous populations, signaling a new moment in race politics in this region. Existing literature has failed to account for this shift either because it held that race was not salient in Latin America, or it presumed that racial hierarchy existed, but that the obstacles to Black mobilization were insurmountable. We argue the literature must contend with this new reality of what we call “Black politics” in Latin America. While impediments to race-based mobilization, which are rooted in color-blind nationalism, the fluidity of identity, and poverty, do in fact exist, we argue that Black social movement organizations have overcome some of these obstacles. We examine the development of Black social movements in a number of Latin American countries, focusing specifically on the political contexts in which they emerge, their articulation, the nature of their claims, and measures of their effectiveness. We argue that despite many obstacles to Black mobilization in Latin America, Black organizations are beginning to constitute viable political interest groups. In all of the cases that we analyze, we find that Black social movement organizations have been effective not only in bringing about symbolic and material policy changes, but have also shaken national ideologies of mestizaje and racial democracy. We also contend that while Black social movements in Latin America are very much rooted in domestic politics, transnational networks and international institutions are central to the articulation and effectiveness of these movements.

Racial Democracy in the Americas A Latin and U.S. Comparison

The “racial democracy” (Iberian exceptionalism) thesis claims that racial prejudice in Latin America is not only lower than that found in the United States but is essentially absent altogether. We explored the plausibility of this thesis by the use of both explicit and implicit prejudice measures among Blacks and Whites from the United States and three Caribbean nations. In general, the results showed significant racial prejudice against Blacks and in favor of Whites in all four nations. African Americans were the only participants not to show significant implicit prejudice either in favor of or against Blacks. In addition, North Americans (i.e., participants from the United States) displayed lower implicit and explicit racial prejudice than participants in each of the three Latino nations. Overall, the results clearly contradicted the thesis of racial democracy and suggest that Latin America may not be nearly as egalitarian as some have argued.

CUBAN EXCEPTIONALISM: Group-based Hierarchy and the Dynamics of Patriotism in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba

This paper examined the interface between “racial” and national identity from the perspective of two competing theoretical frameworks: the ideological asymmetry hypothesis and the thesis of Iberian Exceptionalism. In contrast to previous results found in the United States and Israel, use of survey data from Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba showed some support for both theoretical positions. Consistent with the asymmetry thesis, there was strong and consistent evidence of racial hierarchy within all three Caribbean nations. However, contradicting the asymmetry hypothesis and more in line with the Iberian Exceptionalism perspective, there was a general tendency for all “races” to be equally attached to the nation in both the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. Somewhat unexpectedly, Cuban Blacks tended to be slightly more positively attached to the nation than Cuban Whites. These results suggest that the precise interface between racial and national identity will be acutely influenced by the specific socio-political context within each nation.

A BLACK MAN IN THE WHITE HOUSE

Race and patriotism were recurring themes during the 2008 presidential campaign that were used to highlight differences between Barack Obama and his opponents. Yet we know little about how racism and patriotism ultimately affected support for Obama among Whites. Appeals to working-class Whites, a lot of which were thinly veiled allusions to Obamas race and perceived lack of patriotism, also figured prominently in the campaign. Accordingly, this paper explores how racism and patriotism shaped support for Obama, as well as the extent to which the effect of each is moderated by class. We find that rising symbolic racism dampened his support among Whites, as did patriotism. Moreover, we find the effects of patriotism on support for Obama were contingent upon class.

Contesting Politics as Usual

Latin America has long been exalted as a racial paradise, a region free of ethnic and racial conflict. Still, in the past decade, ethnic and racial issues have gone from invisibility to full exposure as black and indigenous social movements have become central to mainstream politics in the region. In the case of Latin America’s black population, scholarship must now shift from trying to find “invisible” blacks to understanding contemporary social issues affecting these populations and the social movements that have begun to address them.1 With the increasing visibility of racial inequalities and with the emergence of policies such as affirmative action in Brazil, we can now begin to discuss “black politics” in Latin America as being linked to social movements and black nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Although there are many historical examples of black resistance and organization in this region, such initiatives have multiplied in recent years as black organizations have emerged and challenged the state in new ways. These shifts in Latin American politics are taking place within the context of increased globalization, making transnational networks and advocacy key components in their articulation. We examine the complex ways that movement leaders oscillate between organizing at the national and international levels. We find that Afro-Latin American leaders are involved in many transnational networks of Afro-descendants, which they see as stemming from similar histories of slavery in the Americas as well as similar conditions of marginalization, discrimination, and inequality today. This new configuration of domestic and transnational social movements should be considered under the rubric of “black politics” and as an emergent field of study in itself.

WE DIDN'T CROSS THE COLOR LINE, THE COLOR LINE CROSSED US Blackness and Immigration in the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and the United States

We examine the interlinked migrations between the Dominican Republic and Haiti, between the Dominican Republic and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and, finally, migrations from these three countries to the United States. The literature tends to draw stark differences between race and racism in the United States and the nonracial societies of Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. However, although Blackness is a contextual category, through analyzing how “Black” migrants are racialized using these three contexts, we find that there is a simultaneously global and local derogation of “Blackness” that places Black migrants at the bottom of socioeconomic hierarchies. Further, these migrants remain largely outside of conceptions of the nation, and thus Blackness is constructed as a blend of racial phenotype and national origin, whereby native “Blacks” attempt to opt out of Blackness on account of their national identity. This dynamic is particularly true in the Caribbean where Blanqueamiento , or Whitening, is made possible through a dialectical process in which a persons Whiteness, or at least his or her non-Blackness, is made possible by contrast to an “Other.” Consequently, we argue that immigration becomes a key site for national processes of racialization, the construction of racial identities, and the maintenance of and contestation over racial boundaries.

Comparative Perspectives on the African American Experience

Cuba is a close neighbor to the United States, at once residing 90 miles and a vast world away. Despite the nations’ deep historical connections, academics have often perceived racial politics in Cuba to be a world removed from those in the United States. This article suggests that analytically critical issues in African American politics can be better understood by a deep look at Cuban racial politics, and it investigates what the United States can learn from examining race relations in post-revolution Cuba. There are central features of race and politics in Cuba that provide important lessons for the United States. First, Cuba demonstrates that racial progress is not linear and is often fragile. Second, Cuba provides us with a profound opportunity to understand how identity and transnational forces—such as U.S. proximity to Cuba and the latter’s close relationship to the Soviet Union and Africa during the Cold War—play central roles in race and politics, which are often wrongly considered to be issues driven solely by domestic forces. Finally, Cuba demonstrates how states often have conflicting and contradictory interests with regard to race that greatly complicate efforts to explain a nation’s race relations. Although these are important factors analytically, they do not explain the large role that Cuba plays in America’s—and the world’s—imagination. Aside from the dynamic persona of Fidel Castro, Cuba is a curiosity for a variety of reasons. It is unique in the Western Hemisphere as a country with a history of slavery and segregation that takes a Marxist/Leninist approach to alleviating racial and social inequality. At the same time, Castro and Cuba have befriended many different groups across the African Diaspora and in the Soviet bloc. This manifestation of the internationalist anticolonial struggle in Cuba

Commentary: On Black Leadership, Black Politics, and the U.S. Immigration Debate

Black leadership has failed to grasp what is at stake in the debate and struggle over anti-immigration legislation. There are social, economic, and moral grounds calling for Black people to take a stance on the side of immigrant populations. The responsibility for Black people to be the guiding light for freedom and human dignity is clearly revealed in the work of DuBois. The Black perspective is unique for recognizing when people are conceptually placed outside the “American” people. Some Latinos have helped foster confusion by attempting to identify Latinos as just another “ethnic” group to distinguish them from the Black “racial group.” Among other shortcomings this conceptualization fails to recognize “Afro-Latinos.” The creation of a service Latino underclass threatens the well-being of the whole working class and organized labor. As the Latinos expose the hypocrisy of U.S. society, Black people must join them in righteous struggle. Black people are the most egregious victims of that hypocrisy.

Du Bois's Double Consciousness versus Latin American Exceptionalism: Joe Arroyo, Salsa, and Negritude

I has been tempting for observers to use Du Bois’s ideas of double consciousness to contrast U.S. race relations from those in Brazil and Cuba. In those cases, Du Bois’s theory becomes a paradigmatic representation of the inability of the United States to accept U.S. Blacks’ basic humanity, while the obvious patriotism of Blacks in places like Cuba and Brazil becomes a clear sign that racial politics there differ in important ways that contradict Du Bois’s proposition (Glasco, 1992). However, I will contend in this essay that both the positions of Blacks in Latin America and the United States are more nuanced both on the ground and as they relate to Du Bois’s theory of consciousness than most readings would allow for. By not applying Du Bois to racial politics in Latin America we obscure the struggles of Afro-Latinos for political, cultural, social, and economic equality and misread the legacy of Black U.S. politics. I propose that the elegance of the construction of double consciousness is capable of capturing the differing dimensions of inclusion and exclusion in Latin America and the U.S. By invoking Du Bois’s Double Consciousness in relation to Latin American racial politics we are able to reconnect Latin America to the African Diaspora and build a bridge for critical engagement of Black politics in Latin America. Consequently, I also argue that denying the existence of double consciousness in Latin America obscures the struggles of African descended peoples in Latin America and leaves little possibility for understanding assertions of Black identity and challenges to racial oppression and inequality. While this paper is motivated by a substantive interest in racial politics in Latin America, I hope to equally provide a framework to consider comparative racial politics and theoretical issues of comparison more broadly. I argue that one can apply what Political Sci-