African-American Ideas

Liberalism is the second oldest black ideology. Scholars often insert "liberal" as an adjective to describe the political values associated with the incorporativist perspective in order to distinguish this set of discourses from conservative and radical approaches, which also advocate incorporation into U.S. society, albeit for radicals into a fundamentally transformed society. And some variants of nationalism and feminism are decidedly liberal in their political social perspectives. Here incorporative should be understood as synonymous with liberal pluralism.

Smith has argued that liberalism, or incorporativism, is not so much an ideology as a strategy. Applying the logic Anthony Bogues used regarding Quobna Cugoano's Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery to the work of Douglass, DuBois, Charles Johnson, Alain LeRoy Locke (1886–1954), Martin Luther King, Jr., Thurgood Marshall (1908–1993), Mary Frances Berry (b. 1938), and Lani Guiner (b. 1950), among others, illuminates how their critiques of U.S. society stretched the boundaries of liberal pluralism and provided alternative theories of American democracy.

Incorporative approaches advocate structural integration into the U.S. state and political economy, arguing that the inclusion of African-Americans in traditionally white institutions in and of itself constitutes a significant transformation. This is the view that undergirded the legal strategy Charles Hamilton Houston (1895–1950) designed for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) during the 1930s and of the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

Incorporativists are more ambivalent toward inclusion in European-American civil society: they tend to oppose restrictions barring access to traditionally white institutions, but usually oppose dismantling African-American institutions. For instance, Martin Luther King, Jr. never imagined the dissolution of the black church. Historically a few incorporativists, such as Frederick Douglass, have advocated biological assimilation as well as structural integration. Incorporative approaches generally encourage acceptance of bourgeois European-American cultural values and practices, viewing them as quintessentially "modern," even though privately many incorporativists often continue to practice the styles and idioms of African-American culture.

While tension exists between the core components of white liberalism and black incorporativism, particularly regarding individualism and notions of equality—equal opportunity versus equality of results—incorporativists generally share their white colleagues' views on the power of knowledge, the value of diversity, and economic enterprise. Incorporativists are also skeptical of American liberalism's assertions of pluralism, especially the assertion that the U.S. state is neutral regarding racial and ethnic disputes. Although incorporativists are often critical of the practice of American liberalism, they tend to accept most of its values.