Encountering the Racial State: Black Existentialism and White Indignation

• In Event: 30420 - Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 5: Racial State and City Dynamics

Abstract

Previous conceptions of the racial state highlight the ways in which government engages in producing racialized outcomes, but rarely have scholars highlighted the everyday workings of bureaucratic administration in this process. In this study, I interview a racially diverse sample of small business owners in New Orleans about their encounters with bureaucracy as they open their entrepreneurial endeavors. Though most participants speak of negative state interactions, including confusion, long waits, and feelings of being shuttled around, there were noticeable differences in the emotional tenor of the interviews between white participants and participants of color. White respondents were much more likely to display indignation at their treatment by the state; this, I argue, highlights an expectation of deference that white people have come to expect based on their structural position. Respondents of color, on the hand, were more nonchalant in their evaluations, highlighting the routine nature of their treatment. I ultimately categorize bureaucratic encounters as potentially existential experiences, connecting with seminal works of Black existentialism like Du Bois’s Souls of Black Folk and Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks to highlight that bureaucratic encounter with the racial state is one everyday way that people of color are reminded of their racial other-ness.

Author

• AJ Golio, Tulane University