Racecraft: Race, Society, and Superstition

While we frequently encounter the phrase "race is a social construction," the concept of race continues to be deeply embedded in our legal systems, cultural practices, and everyday language. Consider legal definitions based on observable characteristics, or the expanding popularity of genetic ancestry testing. According to scholars Karen and Barbara Fields, the persistence of race-thinking stems from racecraft, a repeated series of behaviors and beliefs that confuse racism itself with the concept of race. Racecraft refers to the attribution of inherent qualities to particular groups, whether rooted in biological inheritance or shared values, coupled with the dismissal of the broader social and historical circumstances that actually produce those characteristics. The reference to "witchcraft" is deliberately chosen. Like magic, race's social and political influence does not require actual biological proof; rather, it is the collective acceptance of racial categories that generates its real-world power and consequences. What are the origins of racecraft? How does it function within society? What strategies can we use to overcome this widespread phenomenon?

This course provides an in-depth analysis of how racecraft conflates racism with race, a process the Fields sisters describe as "social alchemy." Over the course of four weeks, we examine key essays from Karen and Barbara Fields' book Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life, engaging critically with their groundbreaking ideas, reexamining race as a social construction, tracing how racecraft has transformed across history and geography, and exploring counter-narratives that challenge race-based thinking. Throughout our discussions, we address fundamental questions: How does the concept of racecraft distinguish itself from traditional understandings of racism? What do the interconnections between race and racism reveal about the utility of race as an analytical framework? Which historical periods and institutional structures have shaped the emergence and persistence of racecraft in the United States? In what ways can racecraft theories help us critique claims of a post-racial America? How might racecraft illuminate our understanding of cultural racism? Where does the racecraft framework create tensions with discussions about Black identity and community pride? How do the Fields' ideas about racecraft intersect with other constructed social categories such as gender, socioeconomic class, and ethnic identity? To what degree do historical and sociological studies validate racecraft theory? How does the social "creation" of race perpetuate systemic inequality and racist structures? The course draws supplementary readings from scholars, including Michael Omi, Howard Winant, Paul Gilroy, Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, W.E.B. DuBois, Kwame Anthony Appiah, and Stuart Hall, among others, to both expand and question the Fields' theoretical contributions.