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Directions: Read Pages 33-74 (Andersen & Collins, 10th…
Directions: Read Pages 33-74 (Andersen & Collins, 10th edition). Then respond to the 10 short essay questions below.
Racial Formation, by Michael Omi and Howard Winant
Omi and Winant refer to a court case, in which a woman sued the Louisiana Bureau of Vital Records to change her racial classification from Black to White, to illustrate both the complexity of defining race and the involvement of the state in organizing and interpreting race. The case demonstrates that race is the result of social and historical processes, not variations in skin color. They define race as a concept that signifies and symbolizes social conflicts and interests by referring to different types of human bodies. Although race is not an objective, biologically determined reality, neither is it a mere illusory concept we can dispense with to enter a utopian “post-racial” society. Instead, race is an element of social structure.
Omi and Winant define racial formation as the sociohistorical process by which racial categories are created, inhabited, transformed, and destroyed. This process involves racial projects that link cultural representations of race with the structures that organize the distribution of social resources along racial lines. They explain that racial projects “connect what race means in a particular discursive practice and the ways in which both social structures and everyday experiences are racially organized, based upon that meaning.”
Racial projects may take place as macro-level social processes, such as state-sponsored policy debates, which assign meaning to race and link that meaning to the role race plays (or should play) in the social structure. Racial projects exist in definite historical contexts and descend from previous racial conflicts. Racial projects can be identified along several analytical dimensions: they occur along various political axes; they can take place at the micro-level of everyday experience as well as the macro-level of policymaking, state activity, and collective action; and they can be analyzed across historical time.
1. What do Omi and Winant mean by racial formation? What role does the law play in such a process?
2. What difference does it make to conceptualize race as a property of social structures instead of as an attribute of individuals?
Color-Blind Privilege: The Social and Political Functions of Erasing the Color Line in Post-Race America, by Charles A. Gallagher
Gallagher argues that a new form of racist thinking, an ideology called color-blind racism, has become dominant among Whites in America. Media and popular culture have created an illusion of equality by reducing race to cultural symbols that are marketed to everyone. Symbols of racial equality are embodied in the images of successful personalities in politics and sports, as well as in commodities as diverse as music, clothing, condiments, and cars. This focus on race as merely symbolic allows a majority of Whites to believe that racial harmony prevails, institutional racism has been eliminated, and race no longer shapes life chances. This myth buttresses the deeply held belief that America is a meritocracy and that therefore any advantages that Whites have now relative to racial minorities are earned advantages, achieved through individual effort. White privilege is thus rendered invisible, and support for programs that address problems caused by institutional racism is undermined.
3. What is a meritocracy? How does a color-blind perspective buttress the deeply held belief that America is a meritocracy?
4. How do media images affect the way that White people think about race and racism, according to Gallagher? How can depictions of racial harmony be racist? How can media images of successful politicians, celebrities and sports figures contribute to racism?
5. What does Gallagher mean when he says that “The new color-blind ideology does not ignore race: it acknowledges race while disregarding racial hierarchy…”? Why might media have a different influence on the thinking of White people than on the thinking of racial minorities?
White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, by Peggy McIntosh
Peggy McIntosh explores the invisibility of racial privilege. She argues that Whites tend to be unaware of the privilege they have as members of the dominant group. To illustrate this point she compares her own experiences with denied male privilege to her own limited perception of the privilege she enjoys because she is White. In an effort to challenge this lack of awareness, she lists forty-six examples of the invisible privilege she experiences in her everyday life that people of Color do not. She points out that these daily benefits of being White make her life easier. For example, the ability to shop without being followed, to count on her skin color not causing suspicion of her financial reliability, or even the ability to find blemish cover to match her skin tone reflects her White privilege. She argues that for Whites these occurrences are largely taken for granted. They are expected, assumed to be the normal experiences of everyday life. For people of Color, however, they are constant reminders of the struggle involved in all aspects of life when one’s position in society is reflected as outside of the norm.
McIntosh identifies positive and negative aspects of privilege; unearned advantage and conferred dominance. The advantage experienced by the privileged group can be unearned, merely as a consequence of their position, or it can be created through dominance yielded because of their position. Both aspects challenge the notion that one’s experience in society is based solely on one’s merit, and recognizing this challenges the denial surrounding systems of privilege and oppression. McIntosh contends that once the privileged can no longer deny the benefits intrinsic to their position, they must then decide to either destroy or maintain the system from which they benefit.
6. How does McIntosh define White privilege?
7. Help me make a list of the privileges you experience based on your racial, gender, or sexual identity. Is it difficult for you to identify your privilege? Why do you think this is the case?
8. Why do you think people deny their privilege?
The Persistence of White Nationalism in America, by Joe Feagin
Feagin explains that the contemporary existence of extreme White nationalist groups in the United States is not a radically deviant occurrence, but a continuation of a White racist history that is extensive, foundational, and systemic. From its foundation, White racist views been prevalent in America, and most of its history has been characterized by legally imposed racial discrimination, which only officially ended with the Civil Rights Act of the 1960s. Since then, little has been done to eradicate the deep continuing impacts of centuries of systemic racism. In recent decades, White supremacist hate groups have continued to respond with violence and hate crimes to the immigration of people of color and the “browning of America,” as well as the election of a Black president in 2008. Moreover, many aspects of their racist framing of society resonates with more mainstream views held by many White Americans, even those who would not say they are supportive of extreme nationalism. Although most Black Americans report widespread experiences of racial discrimination, most White Americans do not believe that anti-Black discrimination is a serious problem.
9. How do both the racist past and racist present in the United States show evidence that White supremacist views are linked to and depend upon systems of patriarchy and male dominance? Locate examples in Feagin’s article or provide your own examples.
10. Feagin reports that polls show that while the vast majority of Black Americans report experiencing racial discrimination, the majority of White Americans did not think anti-Black discrimination was either widespread or a serious problem. Why might Black and White Americans have such different views of racial discrimination?
