Winant describes the new idea of racial hegemony as one that “operates in societies and institutions that explicitly condemn prejudice and discrimination” (128). How do racial mobility and racial inequality relate? Racial mobility is the ability to move up and down the racial scale, and racial inequality is the lack of equal treatments between groups. Racial mobility is not racism, but it can bring on racial inequality. Nikki S. Lee’s photograph portraying the Asian female among the black community furthermore supports Winant’s claim.
Color- blind racism is contemporary way of thinking about race that justifies and rationalizes racial inequalities. He claims that whites use the frames of color-blind racism to ignore the truths of racial inequality and to minimize the issues that surround it. He explains the terms of each frame of color-blind racism used by whites he goes into specific detail using various stories, examples, and interviews from different white perspectives in order to prove his point. The first point that Bonilla explains is abstract liberalism. Abstract liberalism hides all the institutional policies put in place by a country founded upon slavery, social, political, and economic inequality as if power and privilege is not still in the hands of those generations of the white upper-class who aren’t so far removed from our very recent past of blatant racial violence, economic disinvestment such as (exclusion of Blacks from land-ownership, public accommodations, equal access to jobs, housing, education), and political and legal discrimination (lack of legal help, lack of political representation, criminalization, racial profiling).
In “On the Theoretical Status of the Concept of Race,” Michael Omi and Howard Winant explore the different perspectives of the racial formation process. First, they look at the concept of race as an ideological construct, an illusory idea used to “meet an ideological need.” Omi and Winant refer to another historian, Barbara Fields, and how she interprets race as a tool used to solidify the boundary between freedom and slavery. They criticize the interpretation of race as an illusory construct by saying that it does not consider race-thinking’s salient and ever-present effects on social reality and also ignores the fact that race is an integral part of overall identity. Second, Omi and Winant analyze the interpretation of race as an objective condition, as a biological and scientific order. Overall, they criticize this opinion about race for three reasons: 1) it does not recognize the connection between race classification and racial meaning, which is a social (rather than biological) connection; 2) it does not consider the social and historical implications of the concept of race; and 3) it does not consider the social struggle to define ambiguous racial meanings and identifications.
What is the relationship of “prejudice’ and “discrimination” to the latter three terms? 3. Discuss how the definition of racism has changed over time, and the different ways whites and blacks perceive racism. 4. How does Blauner relate colonialism to a modern racial hierarchy?
Final Essay Questions #1. Explain why anthropologists no longer think the race concept is the best way to understand human variation. There are many anthropologists that argue that race concept is not a scientifically useful term. The reason for this is because race concept is a social construction and race is a relative construct. Arbitrariness of classification varies from place to place and person to person.
Jeff Badu History 281 Section AD1 2/4/13 Paper #1 The Pursuit of Power In the book Whiteness of a Different Color, Jacobson made a strong argument on how race was not only something biological, but a social construction and a forever evolving, unstable process. This means that the color of your skin did not necessarily define who you were, but how society viewed you based on your appearance and actions determined your race. Also, different people such as the Irish faced different obstacles throughout different times in order to gain their citizenship and be socially accepted as “white”. Jacobson’s book does not support the idea that all immigrants encountered the same obstacles with the different examples he provides and the term “whiteness of a different color” refers to how different racial groups were fighting in order to be considered white. Different racial groups had to struggle throughout different time periods in order to gain their “whiteness”.
Craniologists, eugenicists, phrenologists, and Social Darwinists, at every educational level, buttressed the belief that blacks were innately intellectually and culturally inferior to whites. Pro-segregation politicians gave eloquent speeches on the great danger of integration: the mongrelization of the white race. Newspaper and magazine writers routinely referred to blacks as niggers, coons, and darkies; and worse, their articles reinforced anti-black stereotypes” (Pilgrim). The system of Jim Crow was reinforced with racial viewpoints and stereotypes: “whites were superior to blacks in all important ways, including but not limited to intelligence, morality, and civilized behavior; sexual relations between blacks and whites would produce a mongrel race which would destroy America; treating blacks as equals would encourage interracial sexual unions; any activity which suggested social equality encouraged interracial sexual relations; if necessary, violence must be used to keep blacks at the bottom of the racial hierarchy” (Pilgrim). “The Jim Crow laws and system of etiquette were
The Social Construct of Race In this paper, I am going to describe how Sociologists view race as a social construct. I will discuss the history of race and how it became a very important part of society. I will further emphasize how Sociologists and society see race through the color of an individual, and how it has affected people. I will also point out how eugenics is transmitted through bloodlines, the racialization of a new identity, and the importance of being white. Sociologist Robert K. Merton’s theory points out two types of roles that we associate with and the different statuses we can give ourselves.
Harold Ruiz Professor Milton Great Books I March 25, 2013 The Negro’s Place in Nature Even now in today’s society, sadly, we’re still having debates about whether or not all the different races around the world should fall into the category of human species. The word “race” is only just a perception we humans use to identify ourselves because of some our physical differences. On “The Negro’s Place in Nature” by Dr. James Hunt, he and other scientists argue, with their bias scientific approach, whether the “Negro” should be considered human like the European, or a separate species nearer to the ape. Dr. Hunt presents so-called “factual” claims from other scientist, in whom he agrees with, that “the Negro race in some of its characters is the lowest of existing races” [page 6]. As stated earlier, the meaning of the word “race” is merely the categorization of different populations, on earth, among humans.
“How is possible to have this tremendous degree of racial inequality in a country where most whites claim that race is no longer relevant?” (Bonilla-Silva 2) This is the question that drives Eduardo Bonilla-Silva to look further into the racial dynamic of the United States. Bonilla- Silva explains this issue of racism in terms of “color blindness”. He defines this “color blind racism” as a new racism ideology that stems from these powerful explanations that whites use for justifications for the racial inequalities that exist today. (Bonilla-Silva 3) Color-blind racism has become such a strong ideology that it is being used as a tool to keep minorities from reaching new heights. “Shielded by color blindness, whites can express resentment toward minorities; criticize their morality, values, and values and work ethic” (Bonilla-Silva 4).