A non-residualist reading of the racial question in Florestan Fernandes

Abstract

The aim of this article is to propose a reading of The Integration of Blacks into Class Society by Florestan Fernandes that is, to an extent, contrary to interpretations of this work that perceive the color prejudice as residual or as a mere index of the absence in the black population of the primary habitus which is adequate to the process of differentiation triggered by State and market. We will seek to highlight the elements of this work that, in contradiction with residual tendencies put forward by the concept of cultural lag, point to a set of racial mechanisms that are typical of the coloniality of power, where color prejudice appears as a structuring factor in the division of labor, and therefore not residual or subordinated.