Summary Of The Racial Contract

In Society, there has been one common way through which an individual can differentiate himself and that is race/color. Consequently, once a person's color is determined, it seems a class structure is established, a structure that not only describes the individual's social, political, but also their economic standards. Throughout most of nineteenth century literature that we have read it's apparent, the class structure consisted of whites and blacks. Much of the literary works of the time stressed that to be black meant being despised and discriminated against by the white population. Moreover, the literature such as Our Nig portrayed whites as domineering and superior as they essentially controlled many black

McIntosh’s realization had varied views. At the micro level, society treats her as superior because of her skin color. At the mezzo level, which focuses on groups of people, society assumes white communities are dominant, thus creates a social norm. Furthermore, the article describes the macro level where women are oppressed in the patriarchal society, while men are not to blame for their unawareness of their privileges.

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

Lipsitz argues that in the post-World War II era, a combination of public policy and private prejudice has encouraged white people to “invest” in whiteness as an ongoing force of economic mobility and social differentiation. Lipsitz claims that such “possessive investment in whiteness” has not merely sustained racialized hierarchies but encouraged collective

In The Racial Contract, it is argued that contemporary structures of white domination in the United States operate by means of an epistemology of ignorance for white people. White people inadvertently suffer from cognitive dysfunctions such that they cannot understand the racially (and racistly) structured world in which they live and, indeed, helped create. For Mills, while no person of any race is self-transparent, becoming a white person entails a particularly extreme form of self-opacity regarding issues of race that corresponds with a conspicuously bad or offensive misunderstanding of the world. Recently with the invasion of Iraq, the president has proven that white people believe that they are correct when that in any given conflict

There is an extricable relationship between race, capitalism, and property and how it perpetuates the notion of whiteness through the exploitation of “others”. Property is a relationship of a person and an object; slaves were considered as objects. Race is constructed from white workers’ ideology of whiteness and labor wage. Racism has been long constructed through the production of race and its relations to property, and we can see it through the notion of capitalism and the idea of whiteness.

In The White Scourge, Neil Foley gives detailed facts about the construction and reconstruction of whiteness and the connection of this whiteness to power, mainly on cotton culture in central Texas. Foley 's book analyzes “whiteness” through detailed analysis of race, class, and gender. What was most intriguing about this book is its comparison of whiteness on various racial groups and classes, for and how each struggled in comparison to the other in order to thrive and exist with one another. In this book, Foley shows a racial system that continues to produce both poverty material wise and poverty of where you stand racially. It is also very interesting that the system exploits not only Mexicans and Blacks, but also the poor whites who competed with them for work.

Charles Mills, who works in the general area of social and political philosophy, promoted an idea which is linked between the political theory of gender and race. Mill`s brought up the concept of how Blacks in America have certain implications that reflect towards their individual freedom as a whole. In his essay, “But What Are You Really?” The Metaphysics of Race” he extrapolates this view to how race is defined amongst our society and how he opposes racial realism. He guides his perception through dividing his argument through examples of racial classifications. Such examples include “quace”,”horizontal”, and “vertical” systems. He is interested answering how racial classification applies to basis of nature. Mill`s main goal of his argument is to show how race raises metaphysical issues, These issues might answer the question who and what we are as individuals.

She argues that economic inequality is a result of racism and capitalism. However, it can be said that both racism and capitalism are also a product of economic inequality. She argues that it is important to look at economic factors as well as social factors that contributes to racism. She believes it is important to bring together antiracist demands and economic demands in order to get to achieve solidary and unity to break the racial division. Sanneh’s article helps us understand that black culture alone does not help answer racial inequalities and that it is necessary to look at the structural side to racial inequality, which includes economic circumstances and racism. This helps us understand Roesch’s article on how economic circumstances fuels racisms and vice versa, meaning economic inequality constructs and maintain racial

Charles Mills establishes the concept of the “Racial Contract” as an ongoing systematic cycle of racism and prejudice within the world enumerated in the social contract; causing white people to thrive; forcing subjugated people to abide through exploitation; and leaving a residue of an epistemology of ignorance to ensure its continuance. Mills denounces Locke as a constituent of the racial contract, imbibed in his seventeenth century racist practices. As a nation founded on the principles of Locke, the longevity of racism embedded in the United States exemplifies the culmination of Mills’ Racial Contract from its constitutional beginnings to applications in the modern prison industrial system to the prevalence of wrongful convictions based on race in our legal system. The Racial Contract not only exists, but evidentiary proof of its prevalence abundantly resides in our contemporary lives. However, as Americans, we remain ignorant to the problem by redefining answers to the question: Who is Racist?

In The Racial Contract (1997) Charles W. Mills asserted that racism and white supremacy have been the real basis for the social, political and economic that has existed in the world over the last 400 years rather than the ideas of John Locke, Immanuel Kant, Jean Jacques Rousseau or even Thomas Hobbes. Few blacks have ever been social or political philosophers, and this fact alone explains why these disciplines tend to ignore racism, colonialism, slavery, genocide and segregation far more than history or political science. This Racial Contract is political, moral and economic in that it assumes that nonwhites are naturally inferior in all of these categories, and were even when they were living in a state of nature in Africa and the Americas. Contemporary social contract theories like John Rawls use this theory as a metaphor or normative standard, although Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau that state of nature was literally true. Indeed they believed it was historically valid because they could observe societies in their own time that they considered to be in a state of nature, such as those of the Native Americans and Pacific islanders. They had very different views about how human beings behaved in this condition, with Hobbes being the most pessimistic. He would have agreed with Mills that all human beings were equal in the state of nature, but all equally bad greedy, violent, vengeful and brutal. As described in Leviathan, though, this was a universal trait of humanity, not a

Greeting, I did learn many things while reading chapter 2. However, the most interesting thing I found was the concept that expressing about race and gender oppression simultaneously. On page 51, based on the 1996 welfare reforms "welfare queen" deserve state assistance due to race and gender idea. However, the word "welfare queen" stereotypical represent black woman. Does any one knows white receives more state assistance than non-white. Indeed, based on U.S Department of Agriculture data white are more state assistance recipients than non-white.

My aim is to argue that commodity racism has contributed to a shift in racial order by making race a cultural category whereby racial and ethnic identities become a matter of style and choice that can be used and sold for pleasure without considering the implication it will have for those cultures. The commodification of contemporary black bodies and conspicuous spending as a way to acquire status shows the importance of commodification of race in contemporary society. I will support this argument by maintaining that first, there is a continuous desire by consumers to acquire a desired social identity and status and this encourages consumers to engage in conspicuous spending; second, there is a desire to use consumption as a way to create a colour-blind society that overlooks racial discourse and its disadvantages and I will use Tiger Woods as a perfect case example of this; lastly, when race and ethnicity become commoditized, the culture of specific groups in this case Blacks can become a means through which dominating races enforce their power over the “other” while camouflaging it as

In Charles Mills The Racial Contract, his main argument is declaring the global white supremacy as the core of today’s political system. Mills opens with mentioning how other political philosophers in history have neglected to discuss race because of their own racial privileges. However, this is ironic given the significant of race and what social and political constraints race has put on certain groups of people. At the same time, race provides superiority for whites in the political and social spheres. Mills explains, “A Racial Contract might be more revealing of the real character of the world we are living in, and the corresponding historical deficiencies of its normative theories and practices…” (7). The Racial Contract is grounded on three claims, which are the existential claim where white supremacy exists, the conceptual claim where white supremacy exists in the political system, and the methodological claim where the contract supports a theoretical framework. Then, Mills outlines his argument with ten theses although this paper will only touch on the first seven theses. Although Mills omits some of the origins of race thereby weakening his historical actuality theses. Still, Mills is able to counter with examples of race that demonstrates its presence in society and a critique on social contract theorists who underestimate race’s impact on society. Overall Mills argument is sound in formulating race as a central aspect in the political system, but lacks in

These readings possess many examples of having a patriarchal society. Black women are generally looked down upon and seen as useless, according to Truth’s writing. In all of the readings, they describe the strengths of men and the flaws of women. “...heroes, patriots…men…” (Thoreau 3) By using this quote, Thoreau states that the men are the heroes in their society. It emphasizes the fact that men are the leaders and women are the followers. Heroes are the ones other people can look up to and who others want to be. “A wise man...useful man…” (Thoreau 3) This quote backs up the fact that in order to be useful, you must be wise. Thoreau describes men as smart and speaks nothing about a woman’s thought or how smart they are.