Richard Spencer’s meta-political manifesto entitled, “The Charlottesville Statement”, elaborates on the alt-right movement’s stances on several topics including race, politics, and the family. Essentially the stances in his manifesto describe what it means to identify with the alt-right movement. Although there are many beliefs within this manifesto, I will focus specifically on critiquing and opposing Spencer’s argument on race, White America, and the relationship between race and human nature within his Charlottesville statement. I will use Boas’ essay, “What Is a Race” to help debunk Spencer’s argument regarding race, White America, and the relationship between race and human nature by demonstrating that his claims lack validity because they are based on socially constructed ideas and not scientific or anthropological evidence.
First, Spencer emphasizes that race is the foundation of identity, however, he fails to recognize that not every member of a race is equivalent. From the very beginning, Spencer stresses the importance of race, and in America race does matter to a certain extent. One’s race can potentially affect one’s social, economic, and political status. However, race is not the foundation of identity, because the characteristics used to solidify and define a race are arbitrary. The traits chosen to categorize a race are arbitrary and hold little significance, because regardless of the combination of characteristics no combination can encapsulate everyone
During a Ku Klux Klan rally in Ann Arbor in 1996, a supposed Klansman was attacked by a mob. In a display of bravery, “Keshia Thomas, [a black teenager], put herself between the protestors and [the] man” (“Teenager”). She saved the man’s life despite the fact that he was possibly a member of the Ku Klux Klan, an organization built on the ideals of white supremacy. While racism was still present in 1996, improved race relations are evident. For example, a racist man probably would not have been attacked, especially by white people, during the 19th century. Even if he was attacked, a black person probably would not have risked his or her life to protect the racist man, due to the hostile attitudes between the two races. In Charles M. Blow’s article, Constructing a Conversation on Race, he quotes the American Anthropological Association that “’present-day inequalities between so-called ‘racial’ groups are not consequences of their biological inheritance but products of historical and contemporary social, economic, educational, and political circumstances’” (Blow). The United States have granted different social classes based on race, such as minorities being considered lower than white people. Since the social division is supposedly no longer existent, the concept of race is no longer relevant in today’s society. Blow also states that “’The ‘racial’ worldview was
First, Spencer emphasizes that race is the foundation of identity, however, he fails to recognize that not every member of a race is equivalent. From the very beginning, Spencer stresses the importance of race, and in America race does matter to a certain extent. One’s race can potentially affect one’s social, economic, and political status. However, race is not the foundation of identity, because the characteristics used to solidify and define a race are arbitrary. The traits chosen to categorize a race are arbitrary and hold little significance, because regardless of the combination of
Throughout American history, relationships between racial and ethnic groups have been marked by antagonism, inequality, and violence. In today’s complex and fast-paced society, historians, social theorists and anthropologists have been known to devote significant amounts of time examining and interrogating not only the interior climate of the institutions that shape human behavior and personalities, but also relations between race and culture. It is difficult to tolerate the notion; America has won its victory over racism. Even though many maintain America is a “color blind nation,” racism and racial conflict remain to be prevalent in the social fabric of American institutions. As a result, one may question if issues and challenges
Racial Formation in the United States by Michael Omi and Howard Winant made me readjust my understanding of race by definition and consider it as a new phenomenon. Through, Omi and Winant fulfilled their purpose of providing an account of how concepts of race are created and transformed, how they become the focus of political conflict, and how they shape and permeate both identities and institutions. I always considered race to be physical characteristic by the complexion of ones’ skin tone and the physical attributes, such as bone structure, hair texture, and facial form. I knew race to be a segregating factor, however I never considered the meaning of race as concept or signification of identity that refers to different types of human bodies, to the perceived corporal and phenotypic makers of difference and the meanings and social practices that are ascribed to these differences, in which in turn create the oppressing dominations of racialization, racial profiling, and racism. (p.111). Again connecting themes from the previous readings, my westernized influences are in a direct correlation to how to the idea of how I see race and the template it has set for the rather automatic patterns of inequalities, marginalization, and difference. I never realized how ubiquitous and evolving race is within the United States.
“A major problem in understanding race relations in the United States is that we tend to understand race, racism, and the form of racialization as constants rather than as variables”(Pg. 8). As Americans we think of racism as harboring the sentiments of the KKK (constant), which is the cause of racialization,
Matthew Frye Jacobson’s Whiteness of a Different Color offers innovative insight into the concept of “race” and the evolution of “whiteness” throughout American history. Jacobson focuses his analysis on the instability of racial identification over time and how race has been created and perceived throughout different stages of history. He states in his introduction that “one of the tasks before the historian is to discover which racial categories are useful to whom at a given moment, and why” (p.9) and while he is successful in some respects, his analysis is somewhat incomplete in providing a full scope of the power relations that created, altered and maintained racial identities in the United States. While Jacobson offers a detailed
Do you ever believe that you have been a victim to a microaggression and there was nothing ever done about it? A victim of institutional racism that made you feel doleful and surly? Institutional racism happens a lot, but not as much as microaggressions, but a lot of people wonder why they get this type of vibe from white supremacist. These are the same people in the same country, with the same daily schedule but somehow they judge people based on their skin color. Some reason you aren’t allowed to lead this country if you are any other skin than white. There's a lot of racism in America, and a lot of people really wonder will the microaggressions, microinsults, the institutional racism will ever stop. People look at our president Donald J. Trump with his campaign of “Make America Great Again” does he mean the bad times for the African Americans? The bad times, for the Asian Americans? Do white people in general categorize all cultures/ ethnicities other than white as minorities? There are two articles that come together, to grow on this idea, to answer the questions above and to explain in full detail. Both of these articles, compare on what and how plenty of “minorities” feel in America. The speech essay “Analyzing Some Thoughts On Mercy” and the argumentative essay “6 Reasons We Need to Dismantle the Model Minority Myth of Those ‘Hard-Working ‘ Asians” by Ross Gay and Rachel Kuo deal with the problem with racism shown by white supremacy. Through these texts the
Published by the New York Times under the Opinion section, the audience for this article is any interested reader. At the time it was released, November 18th, 2016, this article arrived during last year’s elections, in which a large, but surprising number of Americans voted for candidate Donald Trump, shocking many forecasters who had predicted otherwise. Therefore, after the election, many people may have been researching the demographics of the election, and this article, which briefly shared Brooks’ opinion on the nature of the election and how viewing others through the lens of a dominant identity influenced how the votes fell where they did, may have caught a keen reader’s eye. Also, this article came at a time where racism and prejudice caused many problems, leading some to view others as one-dimensional, represented only by a skin color or religion. Since prejudice and hate is still a large issue today, tackling this problem helps make this article relevant, nearly a year after its release.
In Spencer (2008) article, he reflected his own views on the issues of oppression, power, and privilege as a person of color with his own personal experience. So, I decided also to reflect on my own views but not just as a person of color, but also as women. Growing up in a predominately black
The term “white messiah” is crucial to understand, to realize why racism is still prevalent in the American culture. In a New York Times article written by David Brooks titled “The Messiah Complex,” Brooks discusses the typical progression of the “white messiah” while comparing it to “Avatar.” The “white messiah” story begins with
In order to illustrate the connection between the character of the citizenry, as inspired by their habits and sentiments, and a republic, Easton dissects the logic of racial prejudice— how it is created and maintained. Though he opens his third chapter, On theNnature of the Prejudice of the White Population of the United States, with the claim, “Malignant prejudice is a principle which calls into action the worst passions of the human heart,” he contradicts this claim in the following sentence when he states, “There are some cases, however, in which the exercise of prejudice is perfectly harmless” (Easton 35). He continues, “It [prejudice] never possesses any vitiating qualities, except when it is exercised by one who has done, or intends to do, another injury” (Easton 36). According to Easton, prejudice, in itself, is not innately harmful. Rather, it can only be injurious when its motivators attribute malicious intentions to it. Resultantly, Easton suggests that the wicked qualities of the citizenry perpetuate the malignant nature that is typically associated with prejudice. To support this, he alludes to the injury inflicted upon black Americans—explicitly in the form of laws that enforce the enslavement of southern blacks and subliminally in the form of the normalized attitudes of subordination attributed to northern blacks— that evokes their racial
Richard Spencer is the Nazi-sympathizing white nationalist who coined the term “alt-right.” When asked to define the movement he replied, “If I could sum it up in one word, it would be identity...It’s an identity politics for white people, not just in North America, but around the world.” Jared Taylor, the creator of the racist website American Renaissance also stated “the alt-right is united in rejecting the current dogma that all races are equal...They differ in average
We live in a society where race is seen as a vital part of our personalities, the lack of racial identity is very often an important factor which prevent people from not having their own identity (Omi & Winant, 1993). Racism is extemely ingrained in our society and it seems ordinary (Delgado & Stefanic, 2000), however, many people denounce the expression of any racist belief as immoral (Miles & Brown, 2003) highlighting the complicated nature of racism. Critical Race Theory tries to shed light on the issue of racism claiming that racism is ingrained in our society both in legal, cultural, and psychological aspects of social life (Tate, 1997). This essay provides us the opportunity to explore this theory and its
Whiteness is an integrative ideology that has transpired in North America throughout the late 20th century to contemporary society. It is a social construction that sustains itself as a dogma to social class and vindicates discrimination against non-whites. The power of whiteness is illustrated in social, cultural and political practices. These measures are recognized as the intent standard in which other cultures are persuaded to live by. Bell hooks discusses the evolution of whiteness in an innovative article in which she theorizes this conviction as normative, a structural advantage, an inclusive standpoint, and an unmarked name by those who are manipulating this interdisciplinary. Most intellects, including hooks, would argue that whiteness is a continuation of history; a dominant cultural location that has been unconsciously disclosing its normativity of cultural practice, advocating fear, destruction, and terror for those who are being affected by this designation.
Critical theories of race and racism have been used by sociologists to not only describe modern societies, but also address issues of social injustice and achieve an end to racial oppression. Critical race theory is one of the most widely used for this purpose. Its utility rests upon the assumption that race is a social construct and not an inherent biological feature. In place of the concept of inherent race, critical race theory proffers the concept of racialization. The tenet that the concept of race is created and attached to particular groups of people through social processes. In tandem with this, critical race theory contends that identity is neither fixed nor unidimensional. It also places importance on the perspectives and experiences of racial minorities (Ritzer and Stepnisky, 2013:66).