o
Notion of a color-blind society – fits “equal opportunity”
o
The “ebb and flow in the politics of race”
o
Race shifts continuously
o
Race cannot be reduced to other phenomena such as ethnicity, class,
nation
o
-race underacknowledged in the social science
discourse
o
confusion: “Everyone “knows” what race is, though everyone
has a different opinion as to how many racial groups there are, what they are
called, and who belongs in what specific racial categories.” (p3)
o
Example: US Census (see handout)
o
“The determination of race is an intensely political process. Viewed as
a whole, the census’s racial classification reflects prevailing conceptions of
race, establishes boundaries by which one’s racial “identity” can be
understood, determines the allocation of resources, and frames diverse
political issues and conflicts.” (p. 3)
o
Discussion point: Should there be multi-race categories or not?
o
Should Latinos be classified as a separate race on the census?
o
Race exists as more than just a personal matter
Prominent—but
mislead notions about race:
o
“Racial and ethnic groups are neither central nor persistent to modern
societies” p. 10
o
racism can be reduced to ethnicity, class, nation
o
racism consists primarily of personal attitudes and prejudes
o
immigrant analogy: Third world / racial minorities in the US are
following the same forces of integration as European minorities (contact,
conflict, accommodation, assimilation)
o
considers race to be reducible to ethnicity,
o
compares race to immigrant analogy: will eventually become
assimilated and incorporated (melting pot theory!)
o
Gunnar Myrdal: An American Dilemma (1944)
o
For the good of US, blacks need to be assimilated and integrated
o
To overcome black pathologies
o
To assure American’s position as democratic and egalitarian power
o
Seeing racial groups through the lens of European immigrants
o
Defenders of race as ethnicity paradigm are critical towards notion of
group rights (affirmative action)
o
See affirmative action as anti-democratic
Critique
to ethnicity based-paradigm of race:
o
pull yourself up from your bootstrap model
o
denies that racial groups might have different circumstances to
overcome than ethnic groups
o
ethnicity paradigm treats black as an ethnic category, a
special category due to racism, but is not interested in ethnic groups among
blacks, as it is among whites. (Notion of Italian American Whites,
German-American whites, but not of Jamaican-American Blacks)
o
same is true for Native-Americans, Asian-Americans, Latinos, when they
are understood as ethnic categories rather than racial categories
o
reduces race to economic structures
o
Market Relations Approach: assumption of three destabilizing forces
1) irrational practices,
would eventually be overcome for the sake of profit
2) monopolistic practices
model: whites have a monopoly, cartel, able to impose policies which benefits
all whites
3) disruptive state
interventionism model: inequality is in the interest of some whites, but not all,
govt in alliance with some whites in maintaining
selective privileges for some
o
Stratification Theory
o
W.J. Wilson: The Declining Significance of Race – argues that there is
now an elite black class, and a separate broad, middle to lower class
§ These two strata among
blacks have little to do with each other, more to do with other members from
the same social class
§ Assumes an egalitarian state
has effectively been established since 1965 Civil Rights Movement
o
Critique:
§ The elite blacks are linked
in many ways to the middle/lower class blacks
§ Elite black’s success
depends on political activism of broad spectrum of Blacks
§ Elite often makes a living
on administering Black masses (as teachers, govt
workers, etc.)
o
Class Conflict Theory
§ Essentially reduce all
racial conflict to economic conflict and result of exploitation
o
Segmentation Theory:
§ “Capitalists benefit from
racial divisions whether or not they have individually or collectively
practiced racial discrimination”
§ race is a “false consciouseness”
o
Split-labor market approach (Edna Bonacich):
· dominant group of workers
negotiate with capitalists, keep subordinate group from underbidding them,
leads to exclusionary practices
· problematic for capital
o
Critique: cannot easily be applied to contemporary conditions, seems
more of an effect than a cause
o
Racial categories cut across class lines
§ Black nationalism: refusal
to integrationist movements
§ Racial dynamics are
understood as product of colonialism
§ Broader in scope than
previous explanations (global/historical)
§ Racial oppression is the
product of earlier colonialism’s national oppression: Oppressor and oppressed
nations
§ Racial others today are the
descendants of the colonized from yesteryear
o
Demand need for cultural autonomy
o
Independent institutions
o
National liberation to uproot colonialism
Examples:
o
Black Nationalism (W.E.B. DuBois; Marcus
Garvey, Malcolm X)
o
Chicano Nationalism
o
Cultural Nationalism (embrace of African culture, turning away from
political process, emphasis on counter culture, counter institutions)
o
Internal colonialism (Robert Blauner’s:
Racial Oppression in the US, employs distinction between colonized and
immigrant minorities – OGBU)
§ Critique: overall limited
appeal
§
But: foregrounds race more than the other two, this explanation
preserves race as a social force more than the previous ones
How
do Omi/Winant understand race?
o
race is not a subcategory of ethnicity, or class, or nation
o
rather, race is a social category in its own right
¾ race:
“is a concept that signifies and symbolizes social conflicts and interests by
referring to different types of human bodies”
race continues to play a role in
American society, despite the fact that its explanation as biological
difference has been proven wrong. Theory needs to explain this persistence of
race as a social category
¾ racial formation: “is the socio-historical process by which racial categories are
created, inhabited, transformed, and destroyed”
racial formation is a process of
historically situated projects
racial formation is linked to the
evolution of hegemony
¾ racial projects:
¾
“do
the ideological ‘work’ of making the link between structure and
representation.”
¾
“A racial project is simultaneously an interpretation, representation,
or explanation of racial dynamics, and an effort to reorganize and redistribute
resources along particular racial lines. Racial projects connect what race means in a particular discursive
practice, and the ways in which both social structures and everyday experiences
are racially organized, based upon
that meaning.” (Omi/Winant:56)
¾
are always historically situated
¾
not all racial projects are racist and not all ‘color blind’ projects
are not racist
¾ racial dictatorship:
racial rule
based on coercion – the leading form of racial rule until 1960s
¾ hegemony:
a concept necessary to explain how racial formation
works today, in an apparent racial democracy, where race continues to play a
crucial role in social stratification, former coercion needs to be replaced
with public’s consent
¾ racism: a racial project that creates or reproduces structures of domination
based on essentialist categories of race
2) a multi-cultural dorm
project at Clarkson
3) American Indian Movement
o
To what extent a racial project?
o
How does it contribute to racial formation?
o
Is it a racist project?
o
How does hegemony come into play here?
o
What is the history of this racial project?
o
Apply the concept of trajectory – how does it fit here?
o How is it linked to social
movements and to the state?