The Multiplicity of Race Structures Theory: Going Back to the Black Sociological Tradition to Revitalize Structural Theorizing on Race

Abstract

Structural and postcolonial theories of race and racism typically center Whiteness as the primary organizing force within racialized social systems. In these frameworks, White supremacy functions as the dominant schemas and resources that empower White logics, while racialized minorities are positioned as constrained and limited in power, resources, and agency. This framing contributes to the presumptions that racialized minority communities and their racial organizations lack their own valid schemas and resources. However, this hyperfocus on Whiteness and its relational “other” restricts our understanding of minoritized race structures as generative, autonomous, and theoretically significant and generalizable. It also overlooks the schemas and resources produced through the unique cultural experiences that minoritized individuals bring into their racial organizations and classificatory systems. Grounded in a Black sociological approach, we present the Multiplicity of Race Structures Theory (MRST) as a framework for understanding structural power within, and across, race structures. MRST argues that (1) race structures are multiplicitous and exhibit a dual nature of agency and constraint; (2) there are continuities of cultural knowledges transmitted intergenerationally that co-create race structures alongside other social structures; (3) the relationship between social agents and structures generates situated schemas and resources, which are shaped by the specific context of a given race structure. This theory provides scholars with a new analytical lens to understand how Black people and other minoritized actors create, sustain, and transform organizations through their own race structures. And how racial power in those structures are looted.