The Problem of the Color Lines: Studies of Racism and Resistance.

This essay introduces the special issue, which originates from a two-day symposium on race and transnationalism. It proposes a particular angle from which to consider the following seven articles and the study of race and racism in general. In response to sociology and neighboring disciplines’ mounting predictions of ‘Black exceptionalism’ and imminent assimilation of Asians and Latina/os into whiteness/non-Blackness, a two-part alternative approach is briefly suggested: (1) critically engage the most theoretically and politically challenging scholarship in Black studies (notably outside sociology) that asserts the singularity of anti-Black racism; and (2) think through the social positions of non-Black peoples of color in light of and not losing sight of the first part. An overview of the special issue follows. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]