Racism In Hippolyte Taine's History Of English Literature

In this context, Audry Smedley’s Race in North America provides the reader with a chronological approach to the concept of race that explores its evolution and their implications in the configuration of societies among the world.

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.

For this week’s memo, I decided to read “Racial Formations” by Omi and Winant. The reading talks about the meaning of race as being defined and challenged throughout society in both collective and personal practices. It also suggests that racial categories are created, changed, ruined, and renewed. Omi and Winant explore the idea that the conception of race developed progressively, ultimately being created to validate and rationalize inequality. It began with the denial of political rights and extended into the introduction of slavery and other forms of forcible labor.

According to Howard F. Taylor ‘race’ is complex, therefore it cannot be defined by a single definition . The term is ‘multiply defined’; as a result, he has created a set of his own definitions which all coexist with each other meaning ‘no one definition takes precedence over another’ . They include the following categories: biological, social construction, ethnic group, social class/prestige rank, racial formation/society’s institutions and self-defined . These associations will be used to get an understanding of ‘race’ in accordance to the early nineteenth century in the USA by the ‘Christian Missionaries Oppose Removal, 1830’ and New Zealand in the extract from ‘The Letters and Journals of Samuel Marsden’ .

On a sociological basis, the notion of race is understood as a social construction. As a black student in France, Frantz Fanon writes of how the white man has made him a “slave not of the ‘idea’ that others have of [him] but of [his]

Dr. Loring Boring and Dr. George Gill fall on the opposite sides of the argument about race. Dr. Brace view is one that say’s “There is no such thing as biological entity that warrants the term race.” (Brace) While Dr. Gill

“The concept of race is based on the idea of fixed, ideal and unchanging types”

In order to be able to explain the origin of race and its implications for race and crime, one must first understand that “race” as a term is something that has been created and defined by man. As stated in the opening dialogue of the class text, the idea of race originated 5,000 years ago in India … and was developed into a taxonomy of race by Johna Frederich Blumenbach in his 1795 work, “On

In Michael Omi and Howard Winant’s essay “Racial Formation”, we see how the tendency to assign each individual a specific race as misleading. This essay suggests that race is not merely biological, but rather lays more in sociology and historical perspective. Once we look at someone and say, “They’re white”, it brings forth all the stereotype’s that go along with that “race”, and once the race is assigned, it is assumed that we can know something about the person.

Back when the European explorers discovered people who did not look like them it started racial conflicts. They questioned if the natives where human and did not treat them as equals. In the nineteenth century Max Webber disregarded the biological explanations for racial conflict and emphasized the social and political factors which engendered such conflicts. Since Webber did this it began changing perspective on race. In the text is states that in the contemporary social science literature race is assumed to be a variable which it shaped by broader societal force. In this time race is not seen as difference in skin color but difference in status. Which made society believe one race is better than the others. Over the years the meaning of race has changed tremendously. For example, the existence of water is not based on collective acceptance, or

They first discuss the historical development of race as a dynamic and fluid

The social construction of race from the module is explained as racial stereotype being formed by society overtime. Which has ultimately been used to recognize “inferior” and “superior” forms of race. For example, Samuel George Morton played a huge role in scientific racism from his skull collection (Module 2, p.3). Therefore, since society saw science as indisputable and highly credible, it has been used to shape the publics opinion on race for centuries (Module 2, p. 3). An example of social construction of race from episode two of Race: The Power of Illusion, dates back to Thomas Jefferson in his influential document “Notes of Virginia”.

Thesis - “If race lives on today, it can do so only because we continue to create and recreate it in our social life, continue to verify it, and thus continue to need a social vocabulary that will allow us to make sense, not of what our ancestors did then, but of what we ourselves choose to do now.”

Regardless of a reader’s stance towards race issues, they would find themselves captivated by Rasberry’s candid article. While still remaining formal, the article is able to elicit a strong emotional reaction from the reader. You are able to sense his worry as he lists examples of racial stereotyping which seem boundless. Despite the article being written over 30 years ago, the issues discussed still seem in existence. Hence, Rasberry’s discontent is reflected in the reader.

In this reading the uprising of racism is explained and focuses on how the white Europeans labeled those of the non-white race to be inferior. During the 1800’s scientism was an influential and important theme in the lives of those who were considered intellectuals. The idea and concepts of race were merely theories developed by European and American intellects, which included men whom held occupations in medicine, science, zoology, and psychology.