Racism Is Effective At Maintaining Social Distance Between Whites And Blacks

The book has as its principal thesis the consideration of race as “a folk classification, a product of popular beliefs about human differences that evolved from 16th to 19th centuries” (Smedley, 2007, pag.24). The book also specifies three characteristics that distinguish the racial ideology in America: the absence of a category for biracial people, the homogenization of the black or African American Americans, and the impossibility to change a person’s race. (Smedley, 2007, pag.7)

A majority of people here in the United States have felt a touch of the issues, that come with classification of race. Due to this, many men and women of the minority racial groups are put in to sub-groups as a way to “help” give them an identity that can relate to. This idea to separate people by giving them identities is called the Racial Formation Theory. First introduced by Michael Omi and Howard Winant, the theory is a tool that helps build the idea that race is a social contracted tool where your racial status is weighed upon by many factors such as by those social, economic and political origin. By using race a way to build lines and boundaries, this has resulted in causing a rift to grow between the majority and minority

Over the years, the face of racism has taken on many forms. In present day America, racism is a very taboo subject. It a common view that racism is not a big issue anymore, given the large strides that we, as a country have made towards equality. However, the inequalities that still exist between races point to a different situation. Instead of the blatantly discriminatory acts that our nation has witnessed in the past, modern racism practices are more covert and seemingly nonracial, making this kind of discrimination seem more acceptable and politically correct. The Civil Rights Movement forced society to implement a new, subtler way to perpetuate racial inequality. In Racism Without Racists, Bonilla-Silva describes the justification

Growing up in the United States, racism is an issue one cannot help but hear about at one point or another. Racial inequality and discrimination is a topic that comes up every February with Black History Month, and is often talked about in high school history classes around the country. But that is what it is considered to the majority of people: history. Most students are taught that, while there are still and will always be individual cases of racial discrimination and racism, nationally the problem ended with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. People of color, however, will often tell you differently. At least that is what they told Tim Wise,

Humans define race by how they conceive and categorize different social realities. Thus, race is often referred to as a social construct. The differences in skin color and facial characteristics have led most of society to classify humans into groups instead of individuals. These constructs affect us all, and they often result in situations where majority racial groups cause undue suffering to those that are part of the minority. The understanding of race as a social construct is best illustrated by the examination of racial issues within our own culture, specifically those that have plagued the history of the United States.

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.

The article “The Great White Way” by Debra J. Dickerson attempts to show her readers that “Race is an arbitrary system for establishing hierarchy and privilege” (68) in America. In her article, Dickerson questions how “whiteness” leads America in our culture and society and how all the other races are defined in America. She also explains how history has divided whites from non-whites in America. The intended audience that Dickerson’s essay gravitated towards are political or liberal Americans. In her article “The Great White Way”. Debra J. Dickerson powerfully argues that race is an overall way to establish social classes and who and what get special privileges because of their certain race or skin color. Dickerson argues that “Race is

Wise’s examination of the inconspicuous character of racism 2.0 dovetails fittingly with our course’s recurring theme of institutionalized racism. In class lectures we have defined institutionalized racism as the discriminatory practices that have become regularized and routinized by state agencies, organizations, industries, or anywhere else in society. Although such practices might not be intentionally racist, they end up being racist nevertheless as consequence of the systematized and unspoken biases that have become increasingly convoluted and entrenched within society over time. It also doesn’t help white people to recognize these discriminatory practices considering they have been unconsciously tailored to be consistent with white perspective and mentality. In her article, White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, Peggy McIntosh examines not only how white folks often consider themselves to be a normative figure within society, but also how they are carefully taught not to recognize the advantages they gain from the disadvantages that impair people of color. In the article, McIntosh acknowledges the reality of her own white privilege and expresses, “In my class and place, I did not see myself as a racist because I was taught to recognize racism only in individual acts of meanness by members of my group, never in invisible systems conferring unsought racial dominance on my group from birth” (McIntosh 4). In fact, even if white folks do not believe themselves to

Cultural Marxist George Lipsitz in The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics consolidates both the structural theory of institutional racism and the political cultural ideology and conception of racism history in the context of political changes in the Untied States. Lipsitz is not the first historian to analyze critical racism theory, but he is the first to extend the analysis into the late twentieth century.

The election of Barack Obama as the 56th president of the United States raised many hopes that the “Black struggles” was finally over. For conservatives, Obama victory reassured their beliefs that there was no longer such thing as racism and that every American had equal rights and opportunity to pursue the American dream. While many people have come to believe that all races have equal rights in America, Tim Wise argues in his documentary “White Like Me” that not only does racism and unconscious racial bias still exist, but that also White Americans are unable to simply relate to the variety of forms racism and inequality Blacks experience. This is mainly because of the privileges they get as the “default.” While Wise explores the variety forms of racism and inequality today such as unconscious racism, Black poverty, unemployment, inadequate education system, and prison system, the articles by the New York Times Editorial Board, the Human Rights Watch (HRW), and Adam Liptak further explore some the disparities in the criminal justice system. Ana Swanson points out in her article, “The Stubborn Persistence of Black-White Inequality, 50 Years after Selma” that while the “U.S. has made big strides towards equal rights,” significant gaps still remains between the two races. With the Supreme Court striking down a “portion of the Voting Rights Act that stopped discriminatory voting laws from going into effect in areas of the country with histories of disenfranchisement,” civil

The idea of racism has evolved and has become less prevalent throughout the last century. Schools and public areas are unsegregated, voting rights, racial slurs being considered as unacceptable behavior etc. American sociologist and race theorist, Howard Winant states that’s “The ensuing approaches increased recognition of racial injustice and inequality, but did not overcome the discriminatory processes” (Winant,2000)Although the United states has come a long way to try to end racism, one cannot ignore the fact that it still exists. It is something that may seem invisible in society, but everybody knows that it still thrives and that it’s racial attitudes affect the way our society functions. One of these invisible forms of

Despite changes in the landscape for treatment of ethnic minorities in the United States over the past 200 years, issues with racism has never stopped being an issue and continues to tarnish and tatter the very fabric of our nation. There has been a history of violence against Black people that dates back 400 years, to a time when the first slave was forcefully brought here to the USA (Rogers, 2015). From that time on, people of African descent have been dehumanized and treated as second-class citizens and this has become an ongoing community issue (Diversi, 2016). Racial classification was created as a way to condone slavery and maintain the primacy of the white race (Tolliver, Hadden, Snowden, & Manning, 2016). Aymer (2016) explains that the Critical Race Theory (CRT) provides a way to understand that the violence that Blacks face in America originates from the societal belief in White superiority and, when trying to understand the Black reality, centuries of racial oppression must be discussed (Aymer, 2016). CRT acknowledges that racism is primarily a problem in America and has contributed to the social disparities in the U.S. In addition, it notes other forms of oppression that are important to discuss and work through. CRT does not believe in the legal rhetoric that there is an impartial, equal way of dealing with individuals in the community that has nothing to do with color and everything to do with achievement and hard work. It also takes on an interdisciplinary

In the pew study On views of Race and Inequality, researchers found profound differences between black and white Americans perspectives on race and race relationships. The article finds that black and white Americans not only have a different perception about racial equality, but also about the current state of race relationships and future race outcomes. Thus, this pew survey demonstrates how the different perception between these racial groups maintain racism alive by keeping racial opinions divided, by supporting colorblind practices and by tying structural forces to economic and social factors. First of all, race is a term used to describe the sociological characteristics that we ascribe to individuals to mean something about their human

Yet, the most significant flaw in this essay can be seen through the author’s simplistic view of the scope of racial injustice. Remarkably, the author only refers to white privilege in terms of its impact on what she calls “the problems facing Black America.” She fails to acknowledge or perhaps has no insight that white privilege involves the preference for ‘whiteness’ over all persons of color. Every non-white group is impacted by individual and institutional racism. Every non-white group grows up with the knowledge that their white peers have certain automatic privileges. Every child of color has to learn to navigate through the floodwaters of racism