 Locke is doubtful of the prospects of a thorough-going racial eliminativism. He writes: “I believe that a word and an idea covering so indispensable, useful, and necessary a grouping in human society will never vanish, never be eradicated, and that the only possible way in which a change will come about will be through a substitution of better meanings for the meanings which are now so current under the term.” (Locke, 1992, 84–85) This is a clear articulation of Locke’s racial substitutionism. He rejects eliminativism as the appropriate response to problematic conceptions of race or pernicious race practices and creeds. But Locke, unlike Du Bois, is not clearly a racial conservationist. He argues that prevailing conceptions of race are illegitimate, present race practices are pernicious, and contemporary race creeds unjust.