Color Consciousness JASON SMITH George Mason University, USA he concept color consciousness is a term used in understanding the complex dimen- sions of race in society. As an example, St. Clair Drake and Horace Cayton’s Black Metropolis (1970) highlighted the signiicance of the “race man” in the Bronzeville section of Chicago. Race men and women were individuals who saw themselves as proud of their race and who engaged in activities to both enhance racial pride and to advance the race in the social hierarchy. he race man concept used by Drake and Cayton helped to observe how race consciousness permeated the lives of black Chicagoans, particularly how this consciousness led to racial solidarity. his consciousness, however, was a direct acknowledgment of their racial status as black Chicagoans saw themselves; a status that was subjected to structural forces that emanated from the Jim Crow system in which they lived. As racial solidarity was one of the consequences of racial consciousness, black leaders sought to harness black discon- tentment in order to advance economic and political objectives. As Drake and Cayton (1970) illustrate, the collective acknowledgment of a group’s racial—or color—position is relative to the dominant power structure that positions whiteness at the center of that structure. As part of the critical race theory movement emanating from the legal ield in the 1980s, the concept of color consciousness scrambles and upsets the status quo position toward understanding inequality. Indeed, color con- sciousness forces us to revisit group relations he Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism, First Edition. Edited by John Stone, Rutledge M. Dennis, Polly S. Rizova, Anthony D. Smith, and Xiaoshuo Hou. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. DOI: 10.1002/9781118663202.wberen172 and interactions from the vantage point of the multiple power structures created and sustained on white privilege as can be seen, experienced, and analyzed in various social institutions. However, rather than focusing solely on static institutions, political sci- entists highlight the importance of “racial institutional orders,” which focus on how institutions are shaped, racially, by the racial ideologies of the coalitions and special inter- est groups that create and maintain them. Sociological research makes a major contri- bution in this area by acknowledging how racism is practiced overtly/covertly at indi- vidual/structural levels; sociological research also advances knowledge in this area by tracing and demonstrating the ways in which race, as a dynamic process, is intricately linked to political struggles. Additionally, sociological research highlights the cultural elements of race and links them to important structural societal dimensions. Currently, a persistent and highly struc- tured racial hierarchy exists in the United States. Such a hierarchy has been central in the country’s political development, from the country’s founding, the longevity of African American slavery and Native American genocide, and the existence of Jim Crow laws and immigrant social segregation. he civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s fought against oppressive and legal racial exclusions. Because racial exclusions per- sisted throughout the 1970s, race-conscious policies (airmative action procedures) were enacted in order to assist in the enforcement of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. However, a conservative backlash was swit in challeng- ing these race-conscious measures, and to launch an attack on what were called, “deviant minority cultures.” his prompted a retreat