What Constitutes an American Racial Institutional Order? Review Article on America's New Racial Battle Lines: Protect Versus Repair

Following up on their 2011 book, Still a House Divided, Rogers M. Smith and Desmond King argue in America's New Racial Battle Lines: Protect versus Repair, that the United States has recently entered a new racial institutional order. Its battle lines are organized around two alliances, each with social networks, control of some institutions, core political and ideological commitments, and specific policy goals. One alliance seeks to protect the historical and continuing hierarchy in which white people enjoy social, economic, and political dominance; the other seeks to repair American society so that Black people and other people of color become fully equal citizens and participants.