Studies in Practical Philosophy, Vol.3, No.

1, 2003
Thinking against Race
1
KALPANA SESHADRI-CROOKS
Department of English, Boston College
Over the past decade or SO, most 110tably with the publication ofJu-
dith Butler's Gender Trouble (1990), feminist theory has iIlterrogated
our 11eed to presuppose a universal and knowable ontology of
woman in order to advance a political critique of exclusionary social
and cultural norlns. Butler's 110tion of "constitutive construction"
virtually ended the debate amoIlg femiIlists straddling the fault lines
of essentialism and cOIlstructionism by pointiIlg to the shared as-
sumption of a so-called prediscursive sex that subtellded gellder
identities. The notion that the materiality of the body is the
effect of the citatioll of Ilorms has rejuvenated thinking about sexu-
ality, gellder, the constitution of idelltity, and political strategy (But-
ler 1993,1-91). Butler's radical aIltiontology ofsex can be viewed as
a culmillation of a long tradition within feminist theory of suspicion
toward essentialist discourses as a mode of social control. It seems
only inevitable that such radical aIltiesseIltialism be carried over iIlto
other realms of thought, particularly into race thinking. However, if
one compares the trajectory of feminist antiontological thought to
the work that race theorists have been doing, we will begin to note
some curious differences.
Critical race theorists have not been much preoccupied with ques-
tions of ontology alld esseIltialism.
2
When such questions do arise,
they are too hastily and uIlsatisfactorily resolved. If we consider the
esselltialism versus constructiollism debate, the argumellt that race
1. This essay is a revised version of a paper presented at the annual eonferenee
of Soeiety for Phenonlenology and Existential Thought (SPEP) in Oetober 2000.
The panel was entitIed "Raeial Visibility" and was organized by Linda Aleoff.
2. See for instanee the essays eolleeted in Delgado (1995, 1997); Gregory and San-
jek (1994), Donald and Rattansi (1992), Cohen (1999), Myrsiades and Myrsiades
(1998), Goldberg (1990, 1994 ), etc. Zaek's edited eolleetion (1997) is something of
an exeeption. See her essay in the volunle "Raee and Philosophie Meaning" 29-44.
138 Kalpana Seshadri-Crooks
is a social COllstructioil has IleVer faced the serious challellge from
scientists and political pragmatists that it has iIl the realm of gender.
The issue withiIl race discourse has always beeIl about the degree of
importallce that one should place Oll the idea of race as a socially
produced cOllstructioll. Even more speciflcally, ifJudith Butler's the-
ory of "COIlstitutive construction" were applied to race, Le., the idea
that racial idelltity is performative, and that the regime of racial dif-
fereilce is largely the outcome of the citation of (legal and cultural)
norms, IIOt Oilly could it be received with indifference, but it could
be perceived as a fairly ordinary statement. For most critical race
theorists, questions about racial Olltology do IlOt seem very relevant
to the matter at hand-namely iIlstitutiollal and systemic racism.
One of the reaSOllS why the alltiesselltial critique of race has not
gained much groulld ill critical race studies is perhaps due to the
undue itlf1uellce of moderll scielltific discourse on race. This dis-
course, which since the wars has devoted itself to disprovillg the ex-
istellce of human races, has had the curious effect of bracketillg the
questioll of racial OIltology by seeluing to resolve it. LocatiIlg idell-
tity in genetics, scientists have argued that there is no possibility of
identifyiIlg genes on the basis of racial essellce. In other words,
there is no Caucasian gene or Mricall American gene; there is as
much if 110t more genetic diversity withirl a givel1 racial group thall
amollg various groups.3
The response, however, to such scientific constructiollism, is usu-
ally not "race trouble" but it1differeilce. Scientific theories of race
do not impact the way we live our lives as raced subjects. Race is so
overwhelmingly a discourse of power alld struggle over resources
that the presence, or lack thereof, of scieIltific evidellce for race
makes 110 difference to most of uso It certaiIlly makes very little dif-
ference to the critical race theorist, or the man Oll the street that
race is a social constructioll for which there is no scientific evidence.
What matters, we are told, is his "racial profile." Of course, one can
say that such street wisdom is true for womell and gays as weIl, but
there is a differel1ce because there are political consequences as weIl
to cOlltend with. For women to assert that gender is performative is
to fly in the face of common sellse, but for blacks or other "people
3. Anthony Appiah's essay "The Illusions of Race" in his In lVly Father's House
(1992) sunlnlarizes the biological theories.
11tinking against Race 139
of color" to assert that race is unscientific or merely performative
carl be construed as a verlaI rejection of group solidarity and iden-
tity, alld for whites, a traitorous gesture towards one's race.
4
For ac-
tivists cOl1cerned about racial irlequalities, or lleoracists concerned
with preserving llational particularities, it does not matter that race
is an ullscientific fictioll. Linking race with culture and ethl1icity in
one fluid stroke as "differellce," antiracists alld neoracists alike re-
fuse the possibility that race as a discourse call be disengaged from
ethnicity and culture. What we have in effect is the essentialization
of culture. Raciologists of various persuasions will tell us that race
thinkiIlg, or the presupposition of racial difference, is l10t a ques-
tion of ontology, but of politics and vested interests. 111 other words,
it does not matter politically whether race is biologically determined
or socially or historically manufactured; what matters is racism-the
discriminatioll of peoples Oll the basis of perceived differences.
There is much to be adrrlired in this pragmatic political position.
It is attentive to the effects of history and relations of power as they
impact us ill our bodies. However, what is lost iIl such pragmatism,
even as it purports to stay focused orl the body, is that the willed ig-
norance towards the "olltology" of race, or the studied refusal to erl-
gage the questioll of essentialism seriously, actually produces the
body that is the target of discrimirlation and racism. I suggest that
much of the problem sterns from the donlirlation of science in ques-
tions of racial Olltology. By definiIlg the terms within which questions
ofracial idclltity can be posed, alld by resolving them too quickly, sci-
ellce forecloses the possibility of a serious philosophical erlgagemellt
with race that will impact our strategies apropos racism. Sciellce's dis-
missal of race as a fiction increases the gap betweel1 racial theory
(discourses of biology, anthropology, linguistics) and racial practice
(tlle historical effects of perceived difference). What is elided in
maintail1ing this gap is the fact that insofar as racism is about per-
ceived differences, it fUllctiOllS as a form of kll0wledge, an episte-
mology of human difference that presupposes an ontology that can-
not be easily debullked by science alo11e. What we Ileed is IlOt so
much an engagement with science-its antiolltological stance is wel-
come if inadequate-but a description of the experience of racial
4. On the implications of Caucasians refusing their race see Noel Ignatiev and
John Garvey (1996).
140 Kalpana Seshad'fi-Crooks
identity. It is necessary that we ellgage iIl all allalysis that will explore
our experieIlce of racial differellce as constitutive. It is clear that we
cannot derive a politics from science's dismissal ofrace, or from the-
ories of performativity, and it is equally clear that a cOllfined ell-
gagement with racism or racial politics will 110t address the core of
the problem, which is the presupposition of knowable racial identi-
ties. I suggest that it is necessary that we examine the presupposition
of racial differences not in order to dismiss it, scielltifically speakiIlg,
as a fiction, or offer the explanation that it is performative, or socially
constructed. We could ask, instead, how race, which is Ulldoubtedly
a historical phellomenon, can produce esselltial effects. How do we
come to experience race as something that is marked on the body, as
something inherited, alld prediscursive? Even more poiIltedly, we
should ask why we hold on to the logic of race as a fundamental cat-
egory of difference despite scielltific kIlowledge that race is a fictioll?
I suggest that it is the tenacity of our illvestmeIlt iIl race that should
be allalyzed, alld such aIlalysis may force us to confront those habits
of evasion that we have evolved with regard to the hard questions
about what racial identity meallS to each of uso
The title of my paper is meant to echo the title of Paul Gilroy's
book Against Race (2000). Therein, Gilroy calls for a restoratioll of
political culture through "liberation not only from white supremacy
alone, however urgelltly that is required, but from all racializing
and raciological thought, from racialized seeing, racialized thiIlk-
iIlg, and racialized thiIlkillg about thinkillg" (Gilroy 2000, 40). He
goes on to suggest that "the deliberate wholesale renunciation of
"race" proposed here evell views the appearance of an alternative,
metaphysical humallism premised on face-to-face relations between
different actors-beings of equal worth-as preferable to the prob-
lems of iIlhumanity that raciology creates" (Gilroy 2000, 41). I
couldn't agree more with Gilroy; however, I propose that such lib-
eration will be impossible witllOUt analysis: a philosophically rigor-
ous analysis of race as a logic of difference, and a psychoanalysis of
race as a factor of subject COIlstitution. It is necessary first to ac-
knowledge that race "consciousIless" is fundamelltally a regime of
100kiIlg. I am referring here to the commOll sense of racial logic,
which entails a focus on certain marks of the body-hair texture,
skin color, bone structure-to distinguish amoIlg groups. This com-
mOll sense usually flies in the face of allthropological or more con-
Thinking against Race 141
temporary genetic theories of race that may use criteria other than
appearance for categorizing hlunall beings. As I have already sug-
gested, the discrepancy between the commonsense deployment of
racial categories a11d the historical vagaries of racial theories should
be treated as significant. Contenlporary science may have dispensed
with race as a meaningful category, political and legal opinion may
have reduced race to a social construct, but the common sense of
race, fixated on the phenotype, endures as biological inheritance
that is as plain as rain. To believe we have a racial identity is directly
related to what is considered to be a basic cognitive ability-being
able to tell who is white, black, Asiall, or Hispallic.
MallY others before me, most notably Omi arId WiI1ant (1994),
Michael Ballto11 (1988), a11d David Goldberg (1993) have com-
mented on the arbitrary nature of such visual demarcation. Omi and
Winallt write: "Although the concept of race invokes biologically
based human characteristics (so-called phenotypes), selection of
these particular hllman features for purposes of racial signification
is always and Ilecessarily a social and historical process" (1994, 55).
This is an all-importallt ackllowledgmellt, alld even todaya counter-
intuitive one for those who consider visual perceptioll to be objec-
tive. So far, so good; however, the next step that such theorists take
is to overemphasize the historical flexibility of such categories, which
thereby leads them to conclude that race has 110 essellce; it has no
fixed meallitlg. This leads them to separate race from racism and to
reclaim race as a fundamen tal aspect of social orgallization. I t is not
that I disagree with these conclusions. Yes, race is very much "a con-
cept which signifies alld synlbolizes social conflicts and itlterests by
referring to differellt hUlnall bodies" (Omi and Wina11t 1994,55).
And yes, race is historically mutable, alld socially cOllstructed; how-
ever, as a process of iIlquiry hltO race, these historicist methods fall
short. These critics cite the historical specificity of race as if histori-
cism were inherently a11tiesse11tialist, and effectively corrosive of
popular racial thinking. 111 fact, the historicity of race, I will be argu-
iIlg, reinforces our investmellt itl racial seeing. The te11acious com-
mon sense of visual discrimitlation works to defend against the his-
toricity of race. It's a relatio11 of mutual depelldence. I will be
elaborating tllis POitIt later itl this paper. Race, emphatically, is IIOt
an empty category that history fills with meanirlg. Race, on the con-
trary, is and has always been about the essentializing of culture
142 Kalpana Seshadri-Crooks
through a mutable regime of looking. The academic recogllition of
race as devoid of essence does 110t alter the quotidian practice alld
experience of subjects of race, for whom race contiIlues to function
as an iIlscription on the body-something esselltial, biological that
one sees and reads iIl order to make meaning. The contellt and our
interpretations of that bodily text may be historically mutable, but
the method of reading, or that we read, remains constallt. I suggest
that not enough attelltioll has been paid to the tel1acious continuity
of the epistemology of race. It is, I think, very necessary to ask why
Western culture places such a premium Oll appearallce, why it codes
corporal differences as sigIIificant? If we arrest our allalysis at the
point of observillg that such distinctiollS are superficial and socially
constructed we will succeed iII evacuatirlg race as a concept, but that
is a hollow victory. FUllctionally, such an evacuation serves at best to
mitigate, or at worst to mask the inherently pernicious and illvidious
structure of race as a concept. I will take the risk of assertirlg Ull-
equivocally that race cannot alld must not be distillguished from
racism, and the exclusive focus Oll racism, i.e., the reproduction of
domirlation on the basis ofbodily differellce, without uncovering the
roots of racism in racial thirlking as such, is myopic. The signifiers
race and racism have no dOllbt differiIIg legal and linguistic fUIIC-
tion.s, hut in terms of logical structure they are synonyms.
The epistemology of race is the evidence of one's eyes. Olle more
ofteil thall not sees the other's race as plairlly as olle sees oIle's own
hand. Race, as a system of differellce, relies elltirely UPOIl a regime
of looking for its social and political viability, its resiliellcy. But let me
offer a clarification. It would be amistake to reduce such a reginle
of looking to the deployment of stereotypes. The habit ofvisual dis-
criminatioll of race is not simply the idelltificatioll of the blond,
blue-eyed person as Caucasiall or the dark-skinned person as black;
such a simple logic will rely on an effortless correspondence of sig-
nifier (black) to referel1t (skin). As we all kllOW, visual discrimina-
tion of race is Inuch subtIer thall that. If the other's body is at times
recalcitrant to such cOIlfident readillg of idelltity, one usually has
two choices: one call adjust one's visioll iIl retrospect by recalling
the small giveaways (the essell tialist gesture); or Olle call rationalize
that the persoll is "really" 98% white, but society makes her black
(the cOl1structionist gesture). What both options share, despite their
political distance, is their abili ty to leave the logic of racial seeir1g un-
Thinking against Race 143
touclled. 111 other words, we may ellcounter a very "white" black per-
son and still know that person to be "black," or alterllately we might
regard the person as being "really" white, yet politically black, etc.
The assignation of identity will largely depelld upon one's disposi-
tion toward the "one drop rule." Such knowledge is possible be-
cause, in the first instance there exists a code of discrimiIlatioll that
relies on the narcissism of small differences. In the secolld, despite
our sellse of racial categories as constructs, we can cOlltinue to re-
gard phenotype to be a fairly stable indicator of who is really what.
If the latter is symptomatic of liberal racial thougllt, the former is a
method evolved and perfected by anti-Semitism, a method exhaus-
tively documellted by Sander Gilman (1985) among others. In both
cases, however, it is necessary to perceive the liIlk betweell anti-
Semitic looking and commonsense racial looking in order to grasp
the structure of race as a system of human categorization. Once the
severed link, between anti-Semitic looking and racial seeiIlg in gen-
eral, has been repaired then we call see that the focus of much anti-
racist work-be it American sociology, whiteness studies, various eth-
nic and feminist studies-is limited by its incarceration within the
paradigm of "humall diversity," or race as a nelltral social construct.
There is all unacknowledged contiIluity between the bigot who
picks out the Jew, alld the liberal antiracist persoll WilO has a ready,
welcoming smile for the person of color. The cOlnplicity here is uni-
versal. The bigot and the smiling neighbors are all subject to the
same logic of racial seeing. Whether one is black, white, browll, yel-
low, or red, having a raced identity and acting accordingly (in
frielldship or iIl hostility) meaIlS that we are sllbjected to a logic of
difference that encrypts us at all unconscious level. We believe we
are one or the other race, because we all, despite our varying racial
affiliatiolls al1d political ideologies share the same logic, al1d this
logic, which 1 argue is governed by a certain desire for desire, is
managed by the regime of racial seeiIlg.
111 order to grasp the desire at the fount of the logic of race, I
begiIl by iIlterrogating the most resilieilt aspect of race, Le., its
focus on phenotype. My opelling questioll is simple: Why do we do
it? Why do we insist upon the evidence of our eyes despite scientific
testimollY that race does not exist, and sociolegal, historical argll-
ments that it is socially constructed? Why are we compelled to re-
mark Oll someone's race, why mllst we say "the black man over
144 Kalpana Seshadri-Crooks
there" 01' the mallover there, which usually means the white mall
over there? Why do we attach sigl1ificance to visllal differellce? If
race is really as empty a category as theorists from vastly differiIlg
perspectives have beeIl claiming, thell why do we cOlltinue to dis-
crimiIlate visually, and use it as a mode of categorization alld dis-
tinctiol1? The tenacity of race as a mode of human categorizatioll, I
suggest, is symptolllatic. There is somethiIlg about having a racial
identity that is difficult to give up. And it is this attachmellt to racial
distiIlctions based on appearance beyond llistorical and scielltific
theories that we must aIlalyze as a psychical structure, as a function
of subject COllstitution.
In my book Desiring Whiteness: A Lacanian Analysis of Race (2000),
I develop a theory of race as a factor of subject COllstitution rather
than political 01' legal COllstruction. As I llave already indicated, I
suggest that we need more allalyses of the resiliency and common
sense of race and IlOt more assertiollS of race as an empty social con-
strucL I focus 011 the fundamelltal fact that there seems to be some-
thing about haviIlg a racial idelltity that is difficult to give up-not
so much oIle's own identity, bllt that tlle abstract quantity of race as
a mode of categorizing human beillgs is not easily surrelldered. 111
the following, I offer a gist of my theory of race and racial visibility,
which I have elaborated in my book. 111 the iI1terests of space, I will
not be working through the steps of that argumellt; rather I shall
outline the trajectory of my inquiry to address the anlbivalence that
structures race to iIldicate briefly some of the conclusions 01' gener-
alizatiolls that I arrived at. I should say at the outset that the theory
that I elaborate in my book is a sYllchrollic one. This is inevitable
when one works with Lacall's semiIlars, as his theory of the subject
does not offer a developmeIltal schema. It is useful to think of his
work as preselltillg a dynamic web of structural propositions. I there-
fore do not offer a set of causal relations, Ilor do I pose chicken and
egg questions. What I anl tryiIlg to da is to discerll the constitution
of the raced subject as determined by the logical structure of racial
thought. And I have fOUlld the language of psychoanalysis iIl0rdi-
nately useful for tllis purpose.
Whell one first approaches the questioll of race through the
psychoanalytic lens, particularly through Lacan's theories, there is
much space clearillg to do. There are the rather reduced versiolls
of Lacan in 1970s alld 1980s feminist theory alld film theory that
1ninking against Race 145
have succeeded in presentiIlg Lacan' s teachiIlg as if it could be ell-
capsulated by his early work on the ego alld mirror stage, and
some later concepts such as "the gaze," and "suture." The combi-
nation of femiIlism, film theory, alld a certaiIl Lacan has been
greatly influential, arId it was Oilly a matter of time before critics iIl
cultural studies, who were already deeply iIlfluenced by Althusser,
began deploying terms like the mirror stage alld the gaze, aggres-
sivity, etc., iIl their analyses of the reproductioll of dominant ide-
ology and power relatiol1s. More particularly, with regard to race,
1 found that 1 had 11ecessarily to contelld with the influential per-
spective offered by Frantz Fanon, and certain other critics iIlf1u-
enced by Fall0n and Althusser who emphasize Lacall's mirror
stage to explain idelltity formation.
5
111 justice to them, 1 should
acknowledge that their projects are very differel1t from mine. They
are interested in analyzing the ideology of raCiSlTI, of the repro-
duction of dominance through the categorizatioll of bodies, aIld
not in exploriIlg the structure of race thiIlking as such. Therefore,
these critics begin with the premise that ideology is a specular re-
lation. It is one of perception and hailiIlg. For Althusser, the hege-
mony of the ruliIlg classes (here of White supremacy) is secured
through misrecognition. For Fanon, too, racism and self-llate call
be mapped through a dual mirror relation. His position can be
summarized approximately as folIows: The child perceives a re-
flection of unity and coherellce in the mirror alld misrecognizes
that image fr itself thus forming all ego-its ego ideal; this is the
moment of racializatioll as weIl. The child may observe that it is
black or white aIld that society prefers white to black. The black
child thereupol1 experiellces trallma; the white may experience
paraIloia. It may abject blackness to secure its whiteness, etc. The
logic Olle proceeds by is that of a dual relation in front of the mir-
ror-either abjectioll of the other, or the assumption of an image
that is Il0t oneself as the self. Either way, racial identity is con-
ceived ofas imagiIlary, ego bound and false (Falloll 1967, 155-65).
1 am no doubt caricatllriIlg the positioIl of those who argue that
racial identity is imagiIlary, but the gist of my criticism is that there
are serious problems here in the reading of LacaIl's theory of the
5. See Althusser (1999), Fanon (1967), McC:1intock (1995), Mercer (1994),
Campbell (2000).
146 Kalpana Seshadri-Crooks
mirror stage, alld even more serious consequellces for a theory of
race and antirace politics. Setting aside the technical Lacalliall dis-
cussion on the mirror stage,6 it would be amistake to locate the
formatioll of racial identity at the moment of the constitlltioll of
the ego. This for the sitnple reaSOll that such a move will effectively
render racial idelltity a necessary fUIlction of the subject's as-
sumption of the ego. It would be to arglle, ill the vein of cultural
studies, that the ego is, always already alld everywhere, a racialized
ego, as if that were a useful alld bright political remark. The ethi-
cal burden of my thesis, Oll the contrary, is to provillcialize racial
thiIlkillg, alld to argue tllat the assumptioll of racial ideIltity, or the
constitution of the raced subject, is historically and culturally con-
tillgent. In other words, race may be constitutive of a certain type
of subject, but it is neither llecessary nor universal.
If we want to think about subject constitution ill psychoallalytic
terms, then we must turll to the symbolic. The subject is always a
subject in lallguage, whose ullconscious is structured by a Iletwork
of sigIlifiers that itlscribe his/her uncoIlscious. The subject itl Lacan
is not merely the imaginary ego, but is preeminently the subject of
the unconscious who fillds her place through an identification with
a signifier that stallds in for her in a chain of sigIlifiers. The ego
ideal or the bodily ego is formed through the interventioll of the sig-
nifier that supports the child's introjection of the image. At what
point does race come into the picture? ObviollSly, it has to do with a
sigIlifier, or a chaifl of signifiers that inscribes the unconscious thus
producing the subject. If the subject is to be a raced subject, then
the network of sigllifiers no doubt COIlstitutes the categories of racial
difference. This may iIl and of itself seem a relatively bellign struc-
ture. Each of us is marked by a sigllifier that stands in for us in a
chaill and thereby bestows upon us a racial idelltity alld representa-
tiOl1. However, this canllot be the total picture. The system of racial
sigllifiers call1l0t aIld does flOt make sense without an iIlaugural sig-
nifier, the signifier that subtends and guarantees the system of race,
and that sigllifier is Whiteness. As we all know, the categories of race
cannot make sense, call1lot hold together logically without the con-
cept of Whiteness. Not Oilly am I referriIlg to the asymmetry of the
binary opposition between white and colored, but also to those
6. I take up the nlirror stage in Desiting Whiteness (2000) 30-46.
Thinking against Race 147
other aspects of Whiteness such as immiscibility, homogeneity, alld
its nOlldifferentiatioll in relation to other more differentiated cate-
gories. Other theorists such as Omi and Wirlant (1986) aIld Paul
Gilroy (2000) have remarked upon these functions of Whiteness as
weIl. In short, it is inevitable that we discern Whitelless as the origi-
nal or master signifier that subtellds the system of racial signifiers
and subjects us all equally to its logic. In other words, all of us, black,
white, Asian, Hispallic, or Other, insofar as we believe we have a
racial identity are equally implicated iIl its logic. To be raced is to be
subjected to Whitelless. To discern the structure and logic of race,
however, it is llecessary that we disellgage the concept ofWhiteness
from so-called white people. As Gilroy (2000) and Ian (1998)
have shown, Whiteness canll0t be said to describe the physical or
ideological property of arlY particular group. 111 fact, let us be even
more structural alld discern Whiteness for wllat it iso It is not evell a
concept. I take the liberty to quote myself:
The inaugural signifier ofrace, which I term 'Whiteness," implicates us
all equally in a logic of difference. By 'Whiteness" I do not mean a
physical or ideological property as it is invoked in "Whiteness Studies,"
nor a concept, a set ofmeanings that functions as a transcendental sig-
nified. By Whiteness, I refer to a master signifier (without a signified)
that establishes a structure of relations, a signifying chain that through
a process of inclusions and exclusions constitutes a pattern for orga-
nizing human difference. This chain provides subjects with certain
symbolic positions such as "black," ''white,'' "Asian," etc., in relation to
the master signifier. "Race, " in other words, is a system of categoriza-
tion that once it has been organized shapes human difference in cer-
tain seemingly predetermined ways. (Seshadri-Crooks 2000, 3-4)
This propositioll about the symbolic llature of racial idelltity, is
not, of course, a psyclloanalytical Olle. It does not explain our at-
tachmerlt to racial idelltity, nor does it explaill the resilience ofvisual
discrimination. In order to discern the relatioll between the symbolic
structure ofrace and racial visibility, it is necessary to harlless Lacan's
more nuarlced theory of the subject that he offered ill his later sem-
inars. In the earlier "Rome Report" phase,7 Lacan stressed the sym-
bolic location of the subjecL Here, the subject is a split subject who
7. Lacan's so-called "Rome Report" is published as "Fllnction and Field of
Speech and Language" in Ecrits: A Selection (1977).
148 Kalpana Seshadri-Crooks
is marked by and represeIIted as a sigllifier. The subject is precipi-
tated into the symbolic when its need is alienated into a li11guistically
determiI1ed demand thereby producirlg a residue-llamely desire.
The subject's desire is necessarily attached to what he/she posits as a
primary object, the objet petit, that it once had prior to symbolic alien-
atiorl, the pllrsuit of which will now mark its life's trajectory. In the
later seminars, Lacan stressed the subject's desire (which can be
symptomatic and/or salient) rather than Inerely his/her alienated
C011ditiolI in lailguage. The idiosyncrasy of the humaII subject, he
suggested, is eiltirely the outcome of his or her desire, aIId it is thus
to his objet petit a (the object that one posits as having once had aIId
lost), that we must turn in order to grasp the singularity, the eccen-
tricity of the subject's relatio11 to, or negotiation of the symbolic
order and the big Other of laIIguage. The subject theil is to be un-
derstood as more than his reduction to a signifier in lallguage;
he/she is properly a subject who emerges in the failure of the signi-
fier (Lacan 1998). This relatioII of the subject to lack in the symbolic
order, the fact that there is always something missiIIg in language,
(where the signifiers of olle's desire ca11 OIIly multiply theillselves, or
that language itself is missing the ultimate One that cail guaralltee it)
means that such lack is also the precarious, paradoxical sustenaIIce
of the subject's positioll in tlle speaking world. To put it starkly, the
subject's lack or his desire keeps the flow of language-metaphor
and metonymy-movillg. If the subject were not to lack he would be
psychotic. How is all this related to the structure of race alld our at-
tachment to pheIIotype? The answer lies in the fact that the symbolic
universe of race is llot lackitlg a signifier. Whiteness is its ultimate sig-
llifier arId it determines the subject of race. What is the psychical
function of this iIIaugural sigllifier alld why are we subject to it? I sug-
gest that this defillitive signifier of race promises above all totality. To
be subject to Whitelless is to be operating within a system that prom-
ises the ultimate elljoymellt, jouissallce, of mastery, of a gellocidal
sameness that triumphs over diflerellce. It promises absolute totality
to the subject through a transcelIde11ce of differellce. To believe that
one possesses Whitelless or ca11 embody Whitelless is a form of psy-
chosis, best exemplified by fascism, but for most of us, who are largely
subject to Whiteness as a logical structure, our status as desiritlg sub-
jects is determined by it. The consequeIlce of such a structure can
only be alIxiety if IIOt psychosis.
Thinking against Race 149
Lacan, we may recaIl, suggests that anxiety is caused 110t through a
fear of castratioll 01' of somethillg missing, but rather the opposite
(Lacan, 1998). Anxiety is an affect that Olle experiences whel1 there is
a lack of a lack, 01' rather whell the place that ShOlI1d have beeIl empty
is now filled by an object. I suggest that the sllbject ofrace is primarily
and quintessel1tially a subject of allxiety. There are shelves of literary
and biographical testimony that attest to such affect, alld they are too
numerous for me to cite. Howeve1', speaking iIl strictly structural
terms, I argue that the emergel1ce of an tl1timate signifiel' iIl the place
that should have been empty has two cOl1sequel1ces: (a) if it works as
it intends, as the master signifiel' promisitlgjouissallce, it will produce
an al1xiety marked by ambivalence; (b) If it does not work as it in-
tends, and is instead historicized, then the ellcoullter with the his-
toricity of Wlliteness will produce all allxiety that is marked by dis-
avowal, a defense secured by visual discrimination. Let me elaborate:
The jouissance that is at the core of race, that which the master sig-
nifier stands for-the triumph over difference-is both seductive and
horrific. Seductive because it offers mastery alld totality, alld horrific
because it speIls its own anllihilatioll. The racial symbolic is foullded
on the fantasy of triumphitlg over differellce. To realize that farltasy
would be to llIldermine the very structure on which race is fOUllded.
It is to leave 110 space for desire, for lack. How do we mallage to keep
desire and the fantasy alive withollt realizing it? By producing all ob-
ject-the llltimate grouild of racial differel1ce-the phenotype with
its fixatioll on part objects: hair, skin, bOl'1e. So, we separate race from
racism. Race, we say is the lleutral description of human diversity and
it's a good thitlg, racism is its bad ideological excrescellce. We go fur-
ther; we say race is a social construction, but we also say there are con-
crete visible differel1ces that are cognizable al1d make sense. Even
luore, race, we may say does not exist, but medically alld legaIly, we
may still agree that it is a useful iIldicator for the study of diseases and
distributioll of resources, al1d so on a11d so on.
On the other hand, when Whiteness as the iIlaugural signifiel' of
race is historicized, when it is exposed as Ilothing, as fraudulent,
then its promise ofjouissallce-the access to absolute humanness-
is undermined as weIl. Ellcountering the historicity of race, really
encountering it, can be traumatic Ollce again leavitlg no space for
desire, for lack. To encoul1ter oneself as a construct, as a het-
erOllomous, linguistically determined subject it1 a symbolic universe
150 Kalpana Seshadri-Crooks
that is paradoxically complete without allY place for lack, can be
allxiety produciIlg as weIl. fuld the way such aIlxiety is managed is by
producing an object that will serve as a prophylactic agaillst his-
toricity, 11amely the marks Oll the body, hair, skin, bone. Visible dif-
ference once agaiIl secures the subject of race as a desiriIlg subject.
In both scenarios, the stigmata of race, Ilamely those part objects by
which we distiIlgllish humans functioll as the various objets petit a-
the object cause of desire.
The reason that I place much theoretical sigllificaIlce Oll visible dif-
ferellce is not because I think we should reduce racial thinking to the
regime of the phellotype. Rather, what I am sllggesting is that we take
racial visibility more seriously, alld discern its resiliellce as a logical
fUllction. The regime of raciallooking sustains the core of raciallogic
by balancing the scales of fantasy and historicity. When Olle side or the
other, either the fantasy of gell0cidal sameness or the absurdity of his-
tory, is tipped one way or another, visibility acts as the measure to even
out anxiety. Permitting visibility to thrive permits us to say yes to both
sides. It lets us have our cake and eat it too. We can be theoretically
constructivist yet iIl practice essentialist, or we call be ideologically
alld tlleoretically essentialist alld supremacist, alld yet acknowledge
the practicality of cOllstructed differences. This latter strategy is what
Etienrle Balibar (1991) has ternled Ileoracism. 011 the whole, without
visible difference this system would lose its integrity.
Gur task then is to evolve a politics, all ethics, and an aesthetics that
are based on confounding race as a bodily reference. What we must
strive toward is 110t just all imaginary passirlg where we make it diffi-
cult to categorize human bodies through clothing or speech.
8
We
must work toward a symbolic passing where the subject's relation to
the signifier is itself altered, so that the fUllction of racial visibility col-
lapses. I think preliminary work such as this has already been done by
a writer such as TOlli MorrisOll who will at tirrles strategically withhold
iIlforlnation about racial idelltity in a racially marked textY Not much
work of this sort exists at the moment, because 110t many of us have
tried to think or work outside the paradigm of racial categories.
Fillally, let me elld with a clarification. Whatever I am advocating,
one thillg I am 110t is a so-called "color-blind society." The politics of
8. This is the strategy advocated by Ignatiev and Garvey (1996).
9. See chapters four and five of Desiring Whiteness (2000).
Thinking against Race 151
color blindness, psychoanalytically speakhlg, is that of denial. The
very phrase "color-blilld society" is one that is dear to conservative
factions of our political spectrum who are (or at least feign to be) in
denial over the state of race relatiolls in the United States Advocates
of a color-blineJ society appropriate the social COllstruction of race
rhetoric as an lgenious way to evade all encoullter with their true in-
vestInent in Whiteness. They attempt to belittle racial differellce by
reducing it to the phenotype, and thell deIlying the real sigIlificance
of racial 100kiIlg. It is primarily a political strategy that serves tradi-
tional power hlterests by calling iIltO question the need for socialleg-
islation aimed at redressing racial inequalities alld injustice. To pro-
pose color blindness as a solution is, in my opinion, a form of
evasion; it is to deny the functionality of the logic of race as a Sigllifi-
cant mode of cognizhlg difference. It is thus the farthest from the
sort of al1alysis that 1am advocating that we all engage in with regard
to racial visibility. It is necessary that we analyze the unackl10wledged
sigllificance we give to phenotypal differellces, al1d it is even more
necessary that we fully analyze al1d overcome our irrational cate-
gories of difference based Oll the narcissism of small differences.
However, 1 dOll't think we should stop lookillg at each other, nor
should we stop notiIlg differences as 10Ilg as it is on a fluid COIlti11-
uum of humanity, but we can stop attributing social value and mean-
illg to these differences, and we can stop assiglling idelltity badges on
that basis. A true appreciation alld love of difference, a differellce
without aIlxiety or fanaticism, can Oilly come about through its h011-
est and progressive trivialization.
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