This is part 9 of a 10-part series by Dr. Charley Flint and Jeff Hitchcock, CSWAC’s founders, on our future direction. We value your time and support.
WEEK 9
The Multiracial Counterpublic, Rising
Sociologists, political scientists, and communications scholars talk about publics and counterpublics.
The term “public” refers to the collective sphere where people discuss and deliberate on common concerns, often involving government, media, and societal discourse. It encompasses the exchange of information and ideas and the formation of public opinion, typically within governments, courts, media and communication networks, business institutions, educational and research institutions, civic and social organizations, and online spaces.
“Counterpublic” refers to groups that create alternative public spheres in response to marginalization, establishing spaces to discuss their concerns, challenge mainstream narratives, and assert their identities. Operating outside or in opposition to the dominant public, counterpublics address issues overlooked or misrepresented by the mainstream discourse.
In the United State, we have the mainstream Eurocentric, white-aligned public. And we have several counterpublics, including a well-developed Black or African American counterpublic.
The Black counterpublic goes back to persons such as Richard Allen of Philadelphia who founded the first Black church in the United States in 1794 and became an inspiration to Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King Jr., and David Walker, whose Appeal, published in 1829, struck terror in the hearts of slave owners. The Black counterpublic grew to include institutions such as the NAACP and HBCUs, and freedom movements across generations. Today it remains a vibrant alternative to mainstream whiteness.
So where is the multiracial counterpublic in the United States? We know multiracial communities are marginalized by white supremacy and the monoracial norm.
Where are the spaces to discuss multiracial communities’ concerns and challenge mainstream narratives?
Where do we affirm our identity as advocates of multiracial community and develop a collective voice asserting our right to do so?
Where does a politically conscious multiracialism, as a countervailing ideology to white supremacy, discover, by dialogue and informed discussion, its best path?
Multiracial community is an orphan. It falls between the larger monoracial formations in our society, none of whom will claim it, nourish it, develop it. If multiracial community is to survive, it must have a home. And like an orphan, it will have to find its own way.
If multiracial community is to endure, then it must begin to recover and lift its own history. That history will not be told until an audience with an appetite calls for it.
Today we see the beginnings of a politically conscious multiracialism among small, often grassroots, groups and individuals. Frequently these groups and persons are engaged in racial justice work. We also see the beginnings of a politically conscious multiracialism among proponents of multiracial democracy with the broader goal of shaping our national political landscape. And we see it in electoral politics at the national level.
What’s missing are the organizations that fall in between the grassroots and the national landscapes. Proponents of multiracial community need to work both upward and downward to fill this unoccupied middle ground with activist and advocacy groups, alternative media and communication networks, educational programs and institutions, cultural and artistic works, religious and spiritual proponents, online presences, mutual aid and cooperative networks, and more.
This can be earnest and joyful work. And it is already underway, waiting for you to find it.
Charley Flint . . . . . . Jeff Hitchcock
Next Tuesday: Where to Now?