We have reached a stage in our discussion of race at which the analysis might typically break off. Initially, we considered styles of thought on race, which were found wanting insofar as each one – in different ways and for different reasons – proved inadequate to the task of conceptualizing this vexatious object. Yet when observed from a different angle, these styles of thought all pursue a rational reconstruction of the existence of race, its conditions of emergence, persistence, and potential denouement. We have also sought a rational reconstruction of race as an object of inquiry, but with a critical difference. Our reconstructive analysis has redefined the object as belief in racial ideas, as a set of logical relations binding together the components of the racial ensemble and reinforcing the belief in race (i.e., racial ideas); and, furthermore, we have highlighted how the reproduction of the racial ensemble is carried out in conscious ways. In our discussion of the politics of memory, we have shown how the belief in race is made real through the remembrance of a racial past that is organized in relation to social groups and concerns of the present. This would ordinarily be enough to satisfy the requirements of research in social theory: the re-description of the theoretical object for the purpose of resolving hitherto existing problems.