A Conversation on Race and Colorism in Social Forces

It is now widely recognized in sociology that racialized inequality is a persistent structural phenomenon that infiltrates every aspect of life. However, at the inception of <em>Social Forces</em> in 1922, dominant perspectives on race and inequality spanned a continuum, from biological racism &mdash; focused on inherent biological inferiorities &mdash; to paternalistic attitudes guided by desires to help those deemed less fortunate. The leadership of the journal originally held similar views (see Kalleberg and Newell 2022). Yet, with significant changes to society, politics, and culture, scholarship published in the journal on race and racism incorporated different perspectives of racialized inequality and helped to capture the consequences of its ubiquity.