The New Racism: A Critique of James A. Clifton's The Invented Indian

Abstract

a lecture delivered at the University of Colorado's Boulder campus in 1987, black liberation movement leader Kwame Turd (Stokely Carmichael) observed that, In the struggles of the 1960s, we confronted a defining characteristic of American life which was as old as the republic itself. This was a racism which stood proud and defiant, which strutted its stuff in hoods and robes by the light of burning crosses, a racism that ruled through Jim Crow, backed up by the lyncher's rope. We confronted this racism and it's fair to say we defeated it in open battle. The evidence of this is that by the 1970s we witnessed racism in retreat and disarray. For the first time in American history, racism was forced to become a whimpering thing, scurrying timidly from shadow to shadow, slinking about the recesses of white consciousness. He then proceeded to describe what happened next: Here, we made a fundamental error. Having succeeded in driving racism underground, we became comfortable and complacent, falsely believing this hidden creature was dead or dying. Instead of going forward and driving our stake through the heart of the monster, we relaxed and enjoyed ourselves, allowing racism time and space in which to recover from its wounds, to regroup, refit and reenter the fray. And so now it is back, vibrantly resurgent, having analyzed and digested the lessons of its temporary losses in the '60s. Consequently, it is a new and far more sophisticated form of racism which we must confront in the '80s....Racism today, and this will undoubtedly be the case throughout the '90s, no longer travels the road of Lester Maddox, Bull Connor and the Ku Klux Klan. Where the old racism was overt, frankly announcing its hatred and opposition to all peoples of color, the new racism smiles and insists it is our friend. Where the old racism ruled through physical violence, racism in its new form asserts its dominance through sheer mendacity. Racism has become covert in its expression, hiding behind a mask of calm and reason. The key to understanding racism today is that it inevitably parades itself about, cloaked in the garb of anti-racism. It is therefore far more dangerous powerful and difficult to combat than ever before. The book at hand fits neatly into such an assessment. The Invented Indian: Cultural Fictions and Government Policies (Transaction Books, New York, 1990), a collection of essays assembled and edited by University of Wisconsin anthropologist James A. Clifton, purportedly seeks, according to its jacket notes, to help American Indians by utilizing passion, wit and sound scholarship to inject a