The New Racism

In this paper I will be discussing my reflection of whiteness in society. First I will need to explain what whiteness is in order for one to understand what it is I’m writing about. Whiteness is one of the principles of the construction of racism. It consists of the White racial group of people, their culture, human rights, and compensations that are provided to the white race. Being white is described as being a member of the domineering cluster of people. It creates images of “White pride” and “White power” which encourages deliberate acts of racism. Whiteness is forcefully embraced and defended. “Whiteness is nothing but an expression of race privilege.” (Schaefer, 2010).

Color-blind racism has a linguistic style which forms when dominate groups speak about subordinate groups without sounding racist. The author describes it as using “thread to join pieces of fabric into garments.” (Bonilla-Silva, Pg.53). “If the garment is being assembled in an open forum (with minorities present or in public venues), dominant actors will weave its fibers carefully (‘I am not a racist, but…”) and not too tight (I am not black, so I don’t know”). If, in contrast, the needlework is being done among friends, the cuts will be rough and the seams loose (“Darned lazy niggers”). (Bonilla-Silva, Pg.53). The idea is relative to the social change due to the result of the civil rights moment era, which no longer permitted blatantly racist speech in public settings. Contemporary racial discussions are done in a subtle way that allows these individuals to express their views and preserve their racial neutrality image. This chapter discusses color- blind racism and the five components avoidance of racist speech, semantic moves, projection, diminutives, and rhetorical incoherence.

For centuries racism has successfully and transnationally managed to reign and keep countless of people oppressed and confined to contemptible discrimination, exploitation, and injustice. Minorities have been afflicted by the fictional and distorted classifications granted to them by those who have self-assigned themselves as superior beings in order to maintain hegemony. While progress has been made within the last century through the development of various social movements, integration reforms, demolition of Jim crow laws, and formation of policies such as affirmative action, racism has managed to conceal itself in various ways resulting in the incessant existence of racism. Hence, in this paper I will refute the notion and declaration of

Throughout its history, the Church has had many different stances on the topic of racial equality. Society as a whole has shifted its perspective throughout history as each generation defines what is means to be human. In modern times, we as a people are still battling for racial equality. On one side, the perspective is that there isn’t really any racial inequality any more, and that there is little to no discrimination in this day and age. On the other side is a minority people crying out for the same opportunities as the white majority. This leads to many questions, one of which is: Should we notice Color when we look at people? Throughout this essay, I will use the Wesleyan Quadrilateral and my research to attempt to answer

Racism should also be closely examined as it is perceived as the acceptable norm in the society. The book shows that sometimes it may take ridiculous forms such as refusing to serve ice-cream to a Black family or suddenly dismissing a worker after learning that she was Black and not Hispanic. The author portraits the bigotry of the people who blindly follow the norms.

The oxford dictionary defines racism as antagonism, prejudice and discrimination directed against someone or a group of people of different race basing on their belief or down’s race. Ruth Benedict defines racism as a dogma in which one ethnic group is condemned to inferiority by nature while another group destined to superiority (Monk, Winslade, & Sinclair, 2007, p. 342). While this definition does not outline the basis in which these groups are deemed inferior or superior it is evident over past and present incidences that imagined or real biological differences form the basis in which a distinction is drawn between the superior and inferior groups.

We live in a world where Panopticism rules and meritocracy is a myth. Racism has always been present, and it travelled across the sea with the settlers of the New World. Herman Melville is quoted by Ronald Takaki as saying, “You cannot spill a drop of American blood, without spilling the blood of the whole world. We are not a narrow tribe,” (Takaki, 5). However, White men have a history of labelling people. They label the norms, people like themselves, White, as “us,” and they label the abnorms, the people different from “us,” the people of color, as “them.” Racism is an institutionalized system that has evolved throughout the centuries under one model: Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon. We are able to track these advancements as they go from various forms of punishment into the treatment of certain groups as inferior, or abnormal, and others as superior, or normal.

The world has lived through generations of racism and racial profiling. After the days of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Black Civil Rights Movement, the American people thought they had passed the days of hatred and discrimination. Although Americans think that they live in a non-racist society, minorities today still live in the chains of oppression and prejudice through sports, schools, and social media.

Although Racism has declined, more and more people are accepting the fact that our world is made of black and white, not just white or not just back, racism today still affects society. For too many people today, the fight for equal justice is a spectator sport: a kind of NBA game in which all the players are black and all the spectators, white. But in this true to life sport, the fate of the fans is closely intertwined with that of the players and points scored on the floor are points for all (Ezorsky). Some things, like social preferences, are based on racist allegations, such as a black man applying for a job that’s fit for a white man, or a Jewish man walking into a German man’s store. Its things like this that makes the world more detached and causes inequality within the human race.

In today’s modern society, we live in a world where racism amongst people of different races has the ability and potential to express itself in a variety of ways. This expression of racism could vary depending on geography, culture, time period, etc. Nevertheless, regardless of these possible factors, racism is likely taking shape in some way or form, whether one is cognizant of it or not. This racism that seems to be occurring throughout the world, has had and continues to have a profound effect on the way we live today, not only economically and politically, but socially as well. Many philosophers have studied racism, looking at the situation from various standpoints and perspectives. In an attempt to get a full understanding, racism is

The persons that practice racism are a set group in our society and their prejudice usually arises from ignorance to a lack of understanding. Racial discrimination against a race still existed for centuries. Racism is an historical stratification process by which the population of European descent, through its individual and institutional distress patterns, intentionally has been able to sustain, to its own best advantages such as power and financial advantages. The dynamic mechanics of upward or downward to the general disadvantage of the population designated as non-white using skin color, gender, or nonwestern nationality as the main indexical criteria used for enforcing differential resource allocation decisions that contribute to decisive changes in relative racial standing in ways most favoring the populations designated as 'white. ' Maybe these ideas have been taught directly or indirectly, acted out by one’s parents. Whatever the source, even the most enlightened member of a society will find that to some extent, he or she is judging another based on aspects of race.

The challenge in combating systemic racism is that institutional and structural manifestations are commonly unknown or invisible to members of the dominant groups that benefit from the racist systems. Eubanks (2012) described this absence of knowledge as “socially and culturally sanctioned ignorance that is maintained in the fabric of systems including those of institutions: schools, workplaces, and government” (p. 240). Critical theorists have documented the destructive and normalized nature of systemic racism and are advocating for intentional education that would lead to higher awareness of the systems in place and their unintended consequences (Bonilla-Silva, 2009, Hiraldo, 2010, Ladson-Billings, 1998). Additionally, while Harper (2012)

Racism is prejudice plus power (influence, status and authority). It exists in many different forms and in almost every facade of society; from subtle discrimination in everyday life and scandals in politics, to occurrences like lynching’s in the South and Police Brutality. Racism is complicated, systemic and institutional as described by researchers; (Jones, 1997): personal, which may be considered the same as prejudice (Allport, 1958); institutional, involving a set of environmental conditions, such as housing market conditions, that favors one group over another; and cultural, referring to shared beliefs about the superiority of one group over another. Racism also often involves control by one group over resources that another group

And so, the strength and durability of racism persist as a present power in society and culture, where its deeply immersive quality will create a sense of entitlement and a heart of malaise in the people it lives in. Time and time again, racism as an ideological force has been used with vigour and might in order to validate the oppression of certain races and impart harmful visuals or rhetoric that laminates the oppressor through notions of superiority. Some have thought that the fight for equality is over, since the movements of the last century have reshaped the once fragmented parts of society into an inclusive melting pot. Nevertheless, from the power of man-made social divisions to the detrimental use of scientific racism, the acts of

Balibar questions the concept of neo-racism insofar as there remains the possibility that the event of naming a neo-racism is a tactical adaptation or strategy to artfully disguise hegemonic (Balibar, 20) maneuvers that have always been present. The “neo-racism hypothesis” (Balibar, 17) is an iteration of strategies of the dominant that rationalize the cultivation of politics, discourses, and logics that exclude and relegate othered bodies to conditions in which they are dispossessed, captured, and subjugated. These strategies may arise out of what may possibly be natural anxieties about “insurmountable cultural difference” (Balibar, 22) and the fear of the disappearance of tradition and culture with the introduction of the other. However, Balibar points to the way in which these anxieties are used to justify the “natural(ization)… of racist conduct” (Balibar, 22); they use P. A. Taguieff’s term, differentialist racism (Balibar, 21), to describe this justification.