This paper seeks to scrutinize the most recent definition of racialization, as proposed by Adam Hochman, and interrogate its utility as a productive analytic for social scientists. Due to theoretical conflations between race and racism, and analytical conflations of groupness and category, racialization functions as a tautological descriptive rather than an agenda-setting theoretical framework for scholars studying race. The most recent definition of the concept cannot, and does not try to, account for a mechanism for the process of racialization. Such an accounting is a necessary component of any conceptualization that aims to help identify the origins of racialization. Second, in the absence of locating an agent or mechanism, the concept is tautologized: racialization, with an inability to locate a mechanism, offers itself up as the mechanism. Third, this tautologizing leads to a profound conflation of racialization offered as both a descriptive and a causal concept. Not only does this conflation halt the analytic capacity of the term as it applies to social scientific uses, but this conflation proves harmful for the anti-realist agenda as proposed by Hochman. By conflating analyses of causality with description, the latest definition of racialization unknowingly countersigns a uniquely American ideological conception of race; that is, the latest definition allows a description of the appearance of race to stand in for an explanation for race.

本文试图仔细审查 Adam Hochman 提出的种族化的最新定义，并询问其作为社会科学家的生产性分析的效用。由于种族和种族主义之间的理论混淆，以及群体性和类别的分析性混淆，种族化作为研究种族的学者的同义反复描述而不是议程设置理论框架。该概念的最新定义不能也不会试图解释种族化过程的机制。这种解释是任何旨在帮助确定种族化起源的概念化的必要组成部分。其次，在没有定位代理或机制的情况下，这个概念是同义反复的：无法定位机制的种族化将自己提供为机制。第三，这种同义反复导致种族化的深刻混淆，作为描述性和因果性概念。这种混淆不仅停止了该术语在社会科学用途中的分析能力，而且这种混淆证明对霍克曼提出的反实在论议程有害。通过将因果关系分析与描述混为一谈，种族化的最新定义在不知不觉中与美国独特的种族意识形态相呼应；也就是说，最新的定义允许对种族外观的描述来代替种族的解释。但事实证明，这种混淆对霍克曼提出的反现实主义议程有害。通过将因果关系分析与描述混为一谈，种族化的最新定义在不知不觉中与美国独特的种族意识形态相呼应；也就是说，最新的定义允许对种族外观的描述来代替种族的解释。但事实证明，这种混淆对霍克曼提出的反现实主义议程有害。通过将因果关系分析与描述混为一谈，种族化的最新定义在不知不觉中与美国独特的种族意识形态相呼应；也就是说，最新的定义允许对种族外观的描述来代替种族的解释。