Shade Of Citizenship: Race, Citizenship In Modern Politics

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Shade of Citizenship: Race, Citizenship in Modern Politics A very vexing topic of discussion indeed when it comes to the census and its racial undertones. The census can be defined as the scientific method of collecting data as records for the government or state use for the proper control of public properties. However, what completely alters the whole process is its highly comparative analytical stance adopted which inserts in elements of difference. The census is a crucial political instrument for good governance in the proper administration and organization of data collection of the population. It functions as a tool of differentiation and recognition in its attempt of grouping and segmenting the population/citizens. Therefore, its main dialectics of operation becomes ‘inclusion’ and ‘exclusion.’ Obviously, this inclusion/exclusion binary underpins the highly racist nature of this imposed social stratification. Race becomes the lynchpin of the census debate. Census politics can be read as synonymous to the racial politics, an intrinsic seam of the social fabric and is by far not as innocent as it appears. The fundamental crux of the book under study is therefore to call into question the racial ‘shades’ that permeate censuses. In so doing, Nobles proposes the historical analysis and evolution of two seemingly distinct case studies: US census and Brazilian narrative one. At core of her analysis is the conclusion as to how there is a razialisation process at play. Nobles never fails to highlight the census as a state tool, very much subjective in its state-centeredness and constructed framework. Construction is a politically bias process and in the social make up of the society, the census ends up demarcating categories... ... middle of paper ... ...nd racial discourses. But at present attempts are being made for the census to resist the assimilative stance and asserting the politics of difference of all forms of nuances. Conclusion Census racial categorization is scientifically baseless; an infringement of human rights and Shade of Citizenship can be thus read as a manifesto for the colorblind theory. First time in US history, individuals are able to identity themselves as belonging to more than one race. The ‘Duel Citizenship’ is catering for the growing multiracial proportion of the population. Henceforth, the 19th century pseudoscientific Social Darwinism theory of race is strongly contested restricting access of opportunities to only the privileges. Self valorization and the demonisation of the other (non-white) that was perennial for white supremacy and domination has been reduced to mere fallacy state.

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