Ladelle McWhorter

On the morning of February 11, 2015, the lead editorial in the New York Times was entitled “Lynching as Racial Terrorism.” I took great pleasure in it. I did not actually read the editorial. What gave me pleasure was the title, which affirmed the analytic and genealogical position I took on lynching in my last book: Lynching in the early twentieth century in this country, I argued, was a technique not of sovereign power but of disciplinary power; its exercise was decentralized, and its terrifying effects were felt in the bodies of entire populations who regulated their conduct accordingly—such is terrorism...

In “Society Must Be Defended” Foucault examines 17th century race war discourse not so much in order to understand 20th century racism or concepts of race but primarily because it constitutes an historical example of an attempt to think power without a head or king. This essay examines his account of race war discourse and the sources he used to construct it. It then takes issue with his claim that early race war discourse can be separated from 18th and 19th century racisms. Finally, it returns to the question of power and argues that the effect of the 1976 lecture series was to dislodge the sovereign model of power but also the model of power as war