Institutional racism

Some of the comments posted elsewhere on this blog mention institutional racism, either directly or indirectly. What most scholars mean by institutional racism is both de facto and de jure racism or, more specifically, discrimination. De facto discrimination is that which happens but which is not legislated or even necessarily organized. An example might be helping a white customer in a store while simultaneously ignoring the Puerto Rican customer. De jure discrimination is that which is legislated, like segregated housing or poll taxes in the past. Often de facto discrimination carries over from de jure discrimination. Those de facto patterns are learned and shared and, especially when they are not challenged, they become part of the culture.

What I am hoping you all see is that regardless of your personal (individual) beliefs about and experiences of racism, racialization, ethnicity, etc., there is a historical, political, economic, and cultural context in which racism is created, exists, and changes. Our society's ideas about race and ethnicity have changed a lot in the past few generations. For example, there seems to be a current upswing in biologizing race -- looking for genetic sequences that map onto our (ahem, current) racial categories. That doesn't happen in a vacuum. The Human Genome Project spawned a great faith in the ability of modern genetics to tell us a lot about ourselves, including things that are most likely not at all genetic. But think about it. Why does it make sense to so many people that race does, according to some of these researchers, have a genetic foundation?

a different view

I guess something that I have experienced is that what is racist to one person is not racist to another. This could also be a reason that people are so nervous to talk about it, because they do not know how the other person will take it. A lot of times if I am talking to a black person, Indian person, Asian person, even another white person that I do not know very well, I sometimes wonder what they are thinking about ME. I wonder if they are taking what I say at face value or if they are trying to look into it as being racist or ignorant. When I was in Europe I was always worried about sounding ignorant because I know that Americans are often viewed as such. Does that make any sense?

I was waiting in line at a haunted house this past Halloween and the line was very long. I was with two white guys, but we had been talking and getting to know the groups in front and behind us. The group behind us were mostly black girls with a white girl too. They were a lot of fun and we were all getting along until...... We were at the front of the line and we had to wait while the "express line" got to go through. Well the guard wasn't paying attention and a lot more people went in than should have. We were all trying to get the guard's attention and then one of the girls behind us asked if we could see anything inside. My friend responded "I see a big black guy guarding the door". I was a little startled at this--why did he feel the need to say that? If circumstances were different would he have said "A tall Asian guy" or "some Indian guy" guarding the door? If it was a white guy I know he wouldn't have made a distinction. I don't know my friend to be a racist, and he didn't see anything wrong with it. Was he being racially aware? Was he being a passive racist? I feel like if we asked a black guy if he could see anything and he said "a big white guy guarding the door" no one would make a big deal about it. However, the girls behind us were completely outraged and they started yelling at us calling us racists. "Did you hear what he just said?? I heard it!! And I know it was RACIST!!"

So to them it was racist. My friend didn't mean it that way, he was simply being descriptive. Sometimes I feel that it is alright for black people or others to call us white or refer to us as white in movies in media in every day lives (ex/ "hey white boy"), but it is not the same as if a white person said "hey black boy".

What are your thoughts?

Another question about definitions

Can you help me understand what you all mean by active and passive racism? I'm not sure I get it. (This is a real question, not a rhetorical trick question -- seriously!)

A few posts have used those terms, and I want to understand how they are being used.

Do you all agree about their meaning?

Fun Video

I was talking with a couple people after last class about the differences in different races and ethnicities. There are negative meanings given to some which have made people afraid to talk about them for fear of being seen as a racist. The facts are, we are not all the same--we come from different backgrounds, races, and cultures and these differences should be embraced and sometimes laughed at--they are not a reason to hate. Sometimes in worrying too much about being a racist we can come across as one....but maybe we should lighten up a bit. I'm not ignoring the fact that racism happens (as we discussed in class in housing issues and jobs, etc), but maybe this video can shed a new light on some smaller things. (I am not meaning to offend anyone or be insensitive...but I apologize if this is the case.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuTjQLfU6Gk

smile

How do you define racism?

One of the questions that has been written about on this blog is the definition of racism. Here is a link to the Wikipedia entry. (Note, the editors of Wikipedia claim the entry may be biased and contains so-called weasel words.)

Are there other ways to define racism, or other ways to apply it to our experience?

Racism as Active & Passive

Today in class got me thinking more about racism. While we touched on it briefly, I wanted to raise the points of "active" and "passive" racism. I'm not sure whether these are actual forms of racism or not, but it's another way of thinking of racism instead of just "You are racist" and "You aren't racist"; in fact, I think Dr. Fathman brought up the idea of a continuum - how racist is one sentiment/idea over another? Can they even be rated?

But what I wanted to touch on was something that struck me when Kelly brought up the notion of sin. She said that to perform a sin, one must know ahead of time that they are doing wrong AND they must freely choose to do it. We then applied this to racism, and Patricia had a great way of putting it: Racism is the exercise of prejudice or biases, usually based within a power differential. Therefore, if I see someone different from myself and admit a a racist thought or say it, I'm exercising my prejudice over them. I'm considering this as active racism. However, we also brought up the idea of racist notions that could be passive. In Kelly's case - maybe a child that says something they don't know or understand yet, and in Patricia's case regarding the little boy down the street that called her son an unacceptable name. That is, they are already being conditioned by culture to say or do these things, but they aren't really aware of the consequences of their actions.

However, can we really consider this passive racism, whether they know what they are saying or not? Many would say yes, but I think others would argue otherwise. While they weren't knowledgeable of what they were insinuating, they still performed an action that in many cases would cause censure or disapproval. Many wouldn't wave it off as, "Well, they're just a child, they'll learn in time" - they would most likely be corrected and given a reason for the correction. What about adults that subconsciously act racist and don't have much control over it - maybe because they are conditioned by culture as well. Are we to suppose that that level of racism is to be at the level of "passive racism" the child performed? It seems pretty analogous to me. Take me, for example (uh oh). When I was reading Hartigan, he mentioned racial profiling (I believe around Bonilla-Silva's colorblind racism). Blacks in our country are given harder times at an institutional & individual level than whites from - ranging from school officials and police officers. However, Hartigan said that in our society this is a negative correlation: that WHITES are actually more likely to bring weapons to school and traffic marijuana, crack, cocaine, and other drugs. Yet blacks are profiled and selectively chosen to be singled out by officers. My point is this: I wasn't surprised blacks were more likely to be chosen by police officers, but I was surprised that whites are the ones that are more likely to traffic drugs, etc. - to the point I almost questioned where Hartigan was getting his quantitative data! (But now that I think about it, it depends on how one qualifies "white" and "black" - as in, is this just based solely on skin color and not background).

I don't believe myself to be racist - well, actively racist. I've had a diverse group of friends and always try to base my relationship off the individual and personality, not superficial characteristics. Yet here I think I was CLEARLY giving off a form of racism - like we talked today in class, is every thought of someone different from us racist? If so, I easily fall into the category with these thoughts. Am I to be held accountable for this racism - as active racism? Or does this fall under the subject of the child we mentioned earlier - a form of passive racism - something that obviously exists but isn't as serious? And if it isn't as serious, why isn't? Shouldn't it be serious? And if so, how would one go about changing this form of racist thinking - given that it is possibly a form of cultural construction? I sure didn't intend to offend anyone by having this thought as I read, it just sort of... popped into my head!

Thoughts?

What you are saying

I'm really interested in what you all think and say about racial and ethnic identity. It's much too easy to adhere to established theories that seek to explain attitudes and beliefs about race and ethnicity while possibly ignoring attitudes and beliefs that don't align with them.

The comments from the previous blog post share some common beliefs about one's ability to control ethnic and/or racial identity. You all perceive a lot more individual control over that than the theories would suggest.

So my question is this: are those beliefs held because of our faith in the autonomy of the individual, or do you really believe that we have more control over the way others see us than the theorists would concede?

Who controls ethnic and racial identities?

Yesterday's class discussion was really interesting. Thanks for that! One of the topics that I'm still thinking about is this question of who controls ethnic and racial identity. Conventional wisdom says that the more marked the identity, the less individual control one has over it. In other words, ethnic and racial identities both have internal and external factors, but the more marked the group (i.e., the more "racialized" the group), the more external factors control the identity, and the less marked the group (i.e., ethnic groups, particularly European ethnic groups), the more internal factors are allowed to control the identity. Okay -- that's what a lot of people think.

But the thing is, in this class, we are supposed to be questioning the conventional wisdom. In so doing we may discover that it is correct, but then again, maybe it's not.

What do you think?

A comment about the readings

So I've been thinking more about the readings and the question of how to read academic writing, and I think the best way to approach it (at least it works well for me) is to always read with questions in mind. That way you are looking for answers rather than just passively reading through the paper.

One source of questions is often found in the subtitles within an article. Maybe it took a long career in publishing for me to realize that those subtitles are the equivalent of entries on an outline, so the article/chapter is structured according to an outline. That means (or it should mean) that each "section" with a "heading" is going to be about the topic contained in the heading. There's the source of your question. For example, in chapter 2 of Hartigan, the heading "ETHNOGRAPHIC PERSPECTIVES ON RACE" indicates that he's going to tell you something about that topic. The questions you could be asking are "what does he mean by ethnographic perspective?" "what is that being compared to, if anything?" "what is his opinion about it?" "do I agree with him, and why or why not?"

For the Turner article, ask yourself what perspective the author seems to take, and how is it different from Hartigan's perspective? Are they in agreement in general, or not? What does Turner add to the development of our ethnographic perspective on race and ethnicity?

Let me know if these tips help.

RACE: Are We So Different? | Missouri History Museum

RACE: Are We So Different? | Missouri History Museum

first post

Welcome to the blog. Here is where you will do most of your writing about the articles and books in the class.

(from the syllabus): Credit will be given based on the quality of the posts and comments – I am looking for evidence that you have thought about the reading, took some notes about questions, disagreements, concerns you had about it, and wrote about what you thought. In other words, you get no credit for saying “I really liked this article and I agree with everything the author says!” You don’t have to disagree, but these readings should make you think about race and ethnicity in ways you may not have thought before, and that’s what you should be writing about. Similarly, the comments should show evidence that you have read the blogger’s post, thought about it, maybe agree or disagree with it, and start that dialog. You may comment on other comments, as if you were in a conversation, but you will lose points if you write something like “I agree with what X says, and disagree with Y.” You have to tell me/us why.

Here is a link to a blog written last semester by a recent graduate, Daniel Hunninghake. Take a look and see what he was up to...