Racial Democracy, Multiculturalism, and Inequality

Abstract

The simplest answer to the question of what a racial democracy would look like is that it would be a society in which racial differences at the level of identity carried with them no race-specific inequalities. The value of the idea of racial democracy is that, by serving as an ideal type, it simultaneously provides a tool of analysis to assess whether or not the racial barriers to equal citizenship have been overcome and a political goal. More specifically, the idea of racial democracy is intended as a concrete concept that can be used to assess the state of democracy in the nation. Those who have been historically disenfranchised and more recently ignored by policy makers and the public alike function as miner’s canaries. They test the atmosphere of the civil sphere to see if democracy can survive. One of its virtues is that it can provide a comparative frame of reference, allowing us to assess the extent to which identity politics remain tied to redistributive politics, and thus measuring the distance we still have to travel to achieve a just, multicultural, and egalitarian social order.