Race

1. Race

2. A history of race • Great Chain of Being

3. Scientific Racism • Scientific racism supported the classification of human populations into physically discrete human races (based on phenotype), correlated to superiority or inferiority • In the 18th century, “The Negro” was “scientifically proven” to be a different kind of human being—a separate species from white men. • 1830s, Dr. Samuel Morton used craniometry to provide "evidence" that the Negro had a smaller brain than whites, with Native Americans in-between. • George Gliddon’s book Types of Mankind (1854) argued that Africans/African-Americans were closer to apes than to humans and ranked all other groups between whites and Africans/African-Americans (Lippi-Green) • This proof justified European imperialism and the ownership of Africans/African-Americans

5. The “inferior” races • Eugenics: a social philosophy advocating the improvement of human genetic traits through the promotion of higher reproduction of people with desired traits (positive eugenics), and reduced reproduction of people with less-desired or undesired traits (negative eugenics) • Used as justification for racial policies in Nazi Germany and sterilization of mental patients in 1920s and 30s.

6. Institutional Racism • Sen. James Henry Hammond: “Somebody has to be the mudsills of society, to do the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life.” • A conscious construction of policies and customs to maintain inequality

7. Is there race? • There is greater variation (including physical) within populations than between them • Racial subdivisions are arbitrary and subjective, but have been historically and socially established as self-evident

8. The ideology of race • Race is an ideology about human differences: a social mechanism, a social invention, a worldview, a mode of classification • Race as “a culturally structured, systematic way of looking at, perceiving, and interpretingreality” (Smedley 2009:48) • Represents a rigid hierarchy of socially exclusive categories • Physical variations have no meaning except the social ones humans give them

9. Racial inequality • Racial worldview (structural, institutional) maintains some groups in a perpetual low status, while others have access to privilege and power • Present-day inequalities between so-called “racial” groups are not consequences of their biological inheritance but products of historical and contemporary social, economic, educational, and political circumstances

10. Race is not biological but becomes biological • Racial inequality (the cultural implications of race) directly impacts the biological well-being of racialized groups and individuals • Studies show that self-rated and culturally ascribed color—but not physical skin pigmentation—were associated with blood pressure through an interaction with income and education, illustrating the danger of conflating phenotypes with their cultural implications (Gravlee 2009:54)

11. Structural Racism • A system of societal structures that work interactively to distribute generational and historic advantages to groups of people based on race and that produces cumulative, race-based inequalities. This includes laws and policies with unintended consequences based on racialized behavior.

12. Institutional Racism • Institutional systemic policies, practices and economic and political structures which place non-white racial and ethnic groups at a disadvantage in relation to an institution’s white members. • Who was included or excluded did not emerge spontaneously, however, but rather was reinforced by official policy (Marx)

13. Discussion Questions Considering Alexander, Buck and Marx: • How can we relate some of these texts to Gramsci? • How can we relate some of these texts to Foucault? • How can we relate the racial dynamics described to earlier forms of social control? • What role does white unity play in racial politics historically? • What is the relationship between racial politics and class as described by the reading? • What is the relationship between race-making and nation-state building? • What are some examples of institutional and structural forms of discrimination? • Who served as intermediaries in racial bifurcations and thus sustained white privilege? • In Buck, how were interracial children “managed”? • How is mass incarceration the new Jim Crow? And how has mass incarceration changed in the U.S. and in comparison to other industrialized countries? • How does Alexander differentiate the underclass versus the undercaste? And why does she ultimately select the term undercaste to describe current racial politics?

14. Marx: Race-Making & the Nation-state • “Nation-state builders in the U.S. and S. Africa sought to resolve conflict among whites by building a coalition of domination over blacks, thereby diminishing the most viable threat to the state and economy…The nation emerged as an ‘imagined community’” (13) • The state is the central actor in race-making (institutional and structural). • “Denying African Americans citizenship was deemed essential to the formation of the original union” (Alexander 1) • “The Negro paid a heavy price so that whites could be reunited in a common nationality” (8) • “Given the tendency of slaves, servants, and landless free Europeans and Africans to cooperate in rebellion, the elite had to ‘teach Whites the value of whiteness; in order to divide and rule their labor force.” (Buck 32) • The history of South African racial domination (7)

15. What’s race got to do with it? • Agreement on a racially defined “other” as a common enemy defined and encouraged white unity. • Capital benefited from segregation by providing cheap black labor/breaking strikes by white workers • White laborers benefited as segregation reserved better jobs/higher wages for them • *Real or potential class conflict had to be resolved to ensure stability—the most fundamental requirement for both economic development and consolidation of the nation-state…”Competing class interests were appeased by various forms of discrimination” (12) • How does this relate to Harvey’s definition of neoliberalism’s true goals?

16. Miscegenation • Interracial marriage and/or sexual relations • In Brazil, miscegenation was encouraged to “whiten” and unite the population • According to Marx, by 1872 the Brazilian census registered 42% of the population as mulatto, with this group relied on to serve intermediary functions of control over “darker” slaves (4). What is this reminiscent of? • The category of mulatto disappeared in the U.S. with the refinement of the one drop of blood rule put into effect in the early 1900s • In the U.S. and South Africa, miscegenation was illegal • How were black children of white women and white children of black men “handled”? (Buck 33)

17. Jim Crow & Apartheid • Jim Crow • U.S. Segregation laws from 1876 - 1965 • “Separate but equal” laws • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChWXyeUTKg8 • Apartheid: • S Africa Segregation laws from 1948-1994 • “State of being apart” • Racially defining the “Other” encouraged white unity and formation of a unequal color line

18. Jim Crow: Institutions • Marriage - "All marriages between a white person and a negro, or between a white person and a person of negro descent to the fourth generation inclusive, are hereby forever prohibited." (Florida law) • Hospitalization- "The Board of Control shall see that proper and distinct apartments are arranged for said patients [in a mental hospital], so that in no cases shall Negroes and white persons be together." (Georgia law) • Nursing - "No person or corporation shall require any White female nurse to nurse in wards or rooms in hospitals, either public or private, in which negro men are placed." (Alabama law) • Prison- "The warden shall see that the white convicts shall have separate apartments for both eating and sleeping from the negro convicts." (Mississippi law)

19. Jim Crow Laws: Public Space • Barbering - "No colored person shall serve as a barber [to] white women or girls." (Georgia law) • Toilets - "Every employer of white or negro males shall provide for such white or negro males reasonably accessible and separate toilet facilities." (Alabama law) • Buses - "All passenger stations in this state operated by any motor transportation company shall have separate waiting rooms or space and separate ticket windows for the white and colored races." (Alabama law) • Restaurants - "It shall be unlawful to conduct a restaurant or other place for the serving of food in the city, at which white and colored people are served in the same room, unless such while and colored persons are effectuallu separated by a solid partition extending from the floor upward to a distance of seven feet or higher, and unless a separate entramce from the street is provided for each compartment." (Alabama law) • Beer and Wine - "All persons licensed to conduct the business of selling beer or wine...shall serve either white people exclusively or colored people exclusively and shall not sell to two races within the same room at any time." (Georgia law) • Amateur Baseball - "It shall be unlawful for any amateur white baseball team to play baseball on any vacant lot or baseball diamond within two blocks of a playground devoted to the Negro race, and it shall be unlawful for any amateur colored baseball team to play baseball in any vacant lot or baseball diamond within two blocks of any playground devoted to the white race." (Georgia law) • Burial - "The officer in charge shall not bury, or allow to be buried, any colored persons upon ground set apart or used for the burial of white persons." (Georgia law)

20. Jim Crow Laws: Education • Libraries - "The state librarian is directed to fit up and maintain a separate place for the use of the colored people who may come to the library for the purpose of reading books or periodicals." (North Carolina law) • Teaching - "Any instructor who shall teach in any school, college or institution where members of the white and colored races are received and enrolled as pupils for instruction shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof, shall be fined..." (Oklahoma law) • Schools - "Separate rooms [shall] be provided for the teaching of pupils of African descent, and [when] said rooms are provided, such pupils may not be admitted to the school rooms occupied and used by pupils of Caucasian or other descent." (New Mexico law) • Schools - "[The County Board of Education] shall provide schools of two kinds; those for white children and those for colored children." (Texas law)

21. Is this racist? • Cotton Pickin‘ • S/he went off the reservation • Indian giver • Gypped • Jew down • Eeny, meenymineymoe… • To call a spade a spade • Let’s pow-wow • Bugger • Vandal • Hooligan • The peanut gallery • Uppity • Spanglish • Niggardly

22. Privilege 1. I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time. 2. If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which I can afford and in which I would want to live. 3. I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me. 4. I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed. 5. I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented. 6. When I am told about our national heritage or about “civilization,” I am shown that people of my color made it what it is. 7. I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race. 8. If I want to, I can be pretty sure of finding a publisher for this piece on white privilege. 9. I can go into a music shop and count on finding the music of my race represented, into a supermarket and find the staple foods which fit with my cultural traditions, into a hairdresser’s shop and find someone who can cut my hair. 10. Whether I checks, credit cards, or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of financial reliability. 11. I can arrange to protect my children most of the time from people who might not like them. 12. I can swear, or dress in second hand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty, or the illiteracy of my race. 13. I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trial.

23. 14. I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race. 15. I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group. 16. I can remain oblivious of the language and customs of persons of color who constitute the world’s majority without feeling in my culture any penalty for such oblivion. 17. I can criticize our government and talk about how much I fear its policies and behavior without being seen as a cultural outsider. 18. I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to “the person in charge,” I will be facing a person of my race. 19. If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven’t been singled out because of my race. 20. I can easily buy posters, postcards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys, and children’s magazine featuring people of my race. 21. I can go home from most meetings of organizations I belong to feeling somewhat tied in, rather than isolated, out-of-place, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance, or feared. 22. I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having co-workers on the job suspect that I got it because of race. 23. I can choose public accommodation without fearing that people of my race cannot get in or will be mistreated in the places I have chosen. 24. I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help, my race will not work against me. 25. If my day, week, or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether it has racial overtones. 26. I can choose blemish cover or bandages in “flesh” color and have them more or less match my skin.

24. Group Activity • Select a scene from a well-known film or TV show (imdb.com) • Analyze the scene for elements of racial classification/inequality, and institutional racism