The Radicalization of Race

Abstract Loïc Wacquant's “A Checkerboard of Ethnoracial Violence” offers a sharp analysis of racial violence, highlighting its varying forms, functions, and scales. We aim to enrich Wacquant's framework by unpacking the idea of cumulative radicalization. Originally developed in Holocaust studies, this concept allows one to specify connections between different forms and functions of violence by interrogating the interplay between different levels of analysis. It also sheds light on why the scale of violence sometimes shifts in destructive ways and provides mechanisms for why racialized boundaries lend themselves to mass murder. Deeper engagement with cumulative radicalization transforms checkers into simultaneous chess, as it helps us formulate a multilevel theory of violent escalation.