A sobering portrait of the United States’ divided racial politics.

For nearly two decades, Rogers M. Smith and Desmond King have charted the shifting racial policy alliances that have shaped American politics across different eras. In America’s New Racial Battle Lines, they show that US racial policy debates are undergoing fundamental change. Disputes over colorblind versus race-conscious policies have given way to new lines of conflict. Today’s conservatives promise to protect traditionalist, predominantly white, Christian Americans against what they call the “radical” Left. Meanwhile, today’s progressives seek not just to integrate American institutions but to more fully transform and “repair” pervasive systemic racism.

Drawing on interviews with activists, surveys, social network analyses, and comprehensive reviews of federal, state, and local policies and advocacy groups, Smith and King map the memberships and goals of two rival racial policy alliances and delineate the contrasting stories each side tells. They also show that these increasingly polarized racial policy alliances are substantially funded on both the Left and Right.

Placing today’s conflicts in theoretical and historical perspectives, Smith and King analyze where these intensifying clashes may take the nation in the years ahead. They highlight the great potential for mounting violence, as well as the remaining possibilities for finding common ground.

List of Figures and Tables

Part 1. America’s Racial Battles: An Overview
Chapter 1. America’s New Racial Battle Lines
Chapter 2. Racial Orders as Institutional Orders: Race, Class, and Intersectionality

Part 2. The Protect Alliance
Chapter 3. The Rise of the Protect Policy Alliance: New Actors, New Money, Resurgent Causes
Chapter 4. The Conservatives’ Story: Who and What to Protect
Chapter 5. The Protect Alliance at Work: Policies and Reforms

Part 3. The Repair Alliance
Chapter 6. The Rise of the New Repair Groups
Chapter 7. The Repair Story and Transformative Visions
Chapter 8. Today’s Repair Alliance: Current Initiatives across Policy Regimes

Part 4. The Rough Roads Ahead
Chapter 9. Lessons for and from Theories of Racial Politics
Chapter 10. Views from the Battleground: Paths and Prospects for America’s New Racial Politics

Acknowledgments
Appendix A: Research Strategies and Methodologies
Appendix B: Organizations in the Protect Alliance
Appendix C: Organizations in the Repair Alliance
Notes
References
Index