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Of Colours and Scales

Professor Banton’s headlining contribution to this symposium is further evidence of his tireless devotion to pushing the bounds of our thinking, of his thinking, on questions related to racism. Like all his work on the topic, the current article displays an erudite knowledge of the ways in which ‘race’ and its cognates operate in a dizzying array of historical and geographical coordinates. But it is not his reading of the empirical record with which I would like (or frankly be able) to take issue. Rather, my interest in this brief reply is in the more general sociological lessons we are meant to take away from Professor Banton’s analysis. Those lessons concern how we as social scientists should undertake our analysis of ‘race’ and associated phenomena. Professor Banton warns that the use of certain analytical tools risks blurring our sociological vision. The tools in question are ‘races’ and lines; Professor Banton’s new and improved replacements for them are colours and scales. The problem is that ‘races’ and lines, whilst in Du Bois’ day perhaps apt for describing a particular social reality, are too blunt for capturing the infinite variation we find in the social world. In their stead, Professor Blanton would have us trade in a line for a scale and give us some colour to replace ‘races’. Adapted from the source document.