Telling the truth about race.

FOR A WHILE NOW, the idea that race should be at the forefront of social justice efforts in the U.S. has been under attack. It's been dismissed as narrow identity politics, or avoided as divisive or distracting from the "real" issue of economic inequality. Two of last year's most bruising policy battles--over affirmative action and immigration reform--provided a fresh round of evidence about why we can't afford not to talk about race.

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In Michigan, campaign strategists trying to defeat Ward Connerly's initiative decided to keep the focus on affirmative action's benefits to women. "All of our research showed that the more you made it about race," one consultant said, "the bigger the gap got." Meanwhile, Connerly himself did not mince words: "Let's face it," he told ColorLines, "when we talk about affirmative action, we're talking about Black people."

He talked about race, and told a story about how affirmative action made Blacks seem weak and lazy by giving them "preferential treatment" at the expense of merit.

With immigration reform, some contend that an economic argument is the strongest one we have--without immigrant workers, entire sectors of the U.S. economy would collapse. But that reality didn't seem to matter enough to move white mainstream voters to support legalization, while the nativist conservative base that burned up the airwaves with hate talk constituted a passionate enough voice to pull legislators toward overloading the reform bill with enforcement measures.

They talked about race, and told a story about a white Anglo-Saxon nation under siege from dark-skinned trespassers.

This was on my mind as we worked on this issue. The same ...