John D. Skrentny
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691159966
- eISBN:
- 9781400848492
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691159966.003.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Race and Ethnicity
This chapter introduces the problems of the roles racial differences play in the workplace. It discusses the changes in the way Americans talk about race and what pragmatic and progressive voices say ...
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This chapter introduces the problems of the roles racial differences play in the workplace. It discusses the changes in the way Americans talk about race and what pragmatic and progressive voices say that they want since the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Never before has such a wide variety of employers, advocates, activists, and government leaders in American society discussed the benefits of racial diversity and the utility of racial difference in such a broad range of contexts. Thus, the chapter points out the emerging discourse of race as a qualification for employment, and briefly details the many issues as well as the role of established laws on such an issue. It also lays out the conceptual foundations upon which the following chapters will be based on.Less
This chapter introduces the problems of the roles racial differences play in the workplace. It discusses the changes in the way Americans talk about race and what pragmatic and progressive voices say that they want since the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Never before has such a wide variety of employers, advocates, activists, and government leaders in American society discussed the benefits of racial diversity and the utility of racial difference in such a broad range of contexts. Thus, the chapter points out the emerging discourse of race as a qualification for employment, and briefly details the many issues as well as the role of established laws on such an issue. It also lays out the conceptual foundations upon which the following chapters will be based on.
Mark R. Warren
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199751242
- eISBN:
- 9780199943326
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199751242.003.0006
- Subject:
- Sociology, Race and Ethnicity
Today's activists have not given up on the goal of multiracial community, but they have learned from the experiences of the 1960s to make a more conscious effort to address the inevitable tensions ...
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Today's activists have not given up on the goal of multiracial community, but they have learned from the experiences of the 1960s to make a more conscious effort to address the inevitable tensions that underlie multiracial work. Nevertheless, the “weight of history and institutions” remains. This chapter discusses how activists attempt to address these challenges and negotiate these dilemmas, looking at lessons learned in building multiracial collaborations capable of working toward racial justice. Activists find that whites can ignore racial differences, working out of color-blind assumptions, and stress becoming aware of and addressing racial differences openly within multiracial collaborations. However, whites can also make the opposite error of essentializing race. They can become so overly self-aware of racial differences that they fail to deal with people of color as fellow human beings and lose their own sense of themselves.Less
Today's activists have not given up on the goal of multiracial community, but they have learned from the experiences of the 1960s to make a more conscious effort to address the inevitable tensions that underlie multiracial work. Nevertheless, the “weight of history and institutions” remains. This chapter discusses how activists attempt to address these challenges and negotiate these dilemmas, looking at lessons learned in building multiracial collaborations capable of working toward racial justice. Activists find that whites can ignore racial differences, working out of color-blind assumptions, and stress becoming aware of and addressing racial differences openly within multiracial collaborations. However, whites can also make the opposite error of essentializing race. They can become so overly self-aware of racial differences that they fail to deal with people of color as fellow human beings and lose their own sense of themselves.
Susan Tiefenbrun
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195385779
- eISBN:
- 9780199776061
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195385779.003.006
- Subject:
- Law, Public International Law
This chapter explores Martin Luther King's views on civil disobedience as expressed in the memorable Letter from Birmingham Jail. The message contained in the Letter is that racial difference is ...
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This chapter explores Martin Luther King's views on civil disobedience as expressed in the memorable Letter from Birmingham Jail. The message contained in the Letter is that racial difference is nothing more than similarity disguised. The Letter deconstructs the myth that racial equality exists in America by first confirming the existence of racial differences, then rejecting the notion of ‘difference made legal’, a concept King considered to be the basis of unjust laws. King accomplished this deconstruction by playing a highly sophisticated structural and stylistic game of semiotics.Less
This chapter explores Martin Luther King's views on civil disobedience as expressed in the memorable Letter from Birmingham Jail. The message contained in the Letter is that racial difference is nothing more than similarity disguised. The Letter deconstructs the myth that racial equality exists in America by first confirming the existence of racial differences, then rejecting the notion of ‘difference made legal’, a concept King considered to be the basis of unjust laws. King accomplished this deconstruction by playing a highly sophisticated structural and stylistic game of semiotics.
Curtis J. Evans
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195328189
- eISBN:
- 9780199870028
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195328189.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
Sociologists, black and white, set out in the 1940s to bury residual notions of blacks as naturally religious. Innate religiosity now connoted essential racial difference and an obstacle to black ...
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Sociologists, black and white, set out in the 1940s to bury residual notions of blacks as naturally religious. Innate religiosity now connoted essential racial difference and an obstacle to black assimilation into the white mainstream. Yet as black and white interpreters abandoned biological theories of racial difference they began emphasizing distinctive features of black culture as peculiarities that needed to be shed and the new sociological framework focused on cultural pathology as the central feature of black life in the urban North. As black critics became more disillusioned with this dour view of black life, reassertions of black romantic racialism in the more secular language of a black “soul” movement found a broader audience. Black religion lost its former salience as urbanization became increasingly seen as the crucible that ended persisting notions of black innate religiosity.Less
Sociologists, black and white, set out in the 1940s to bury residual notions of blacks as naturally religious. Innate religiosity now connoted essential racial difference and an obstacle to black assimilation into the white mainstream. Yet as black and white interpreters abandoned biological theories of racial difference they began emphasizing distinctive features of black culture as peculiarities that needed to be shed and the new sociological framework focused on cultural pathology as the central feature of black life in the urban North. As black critics became more disillusioned with this dour view of black life, reassertions of black romantic racialism in the more secular language of a black “soul” movement found a broader audience. Black religion lost its former salience as urbanization became increasingly seen as the crucible that ended persisting notions of black innate religiosity.
John D. Skrentny
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691159966
- eISBN:
- 9781400848492
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691159966.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Race and Ethnicity
What role should racial difference play in the American workplace? As a nation, we rely on civil rights law to address this question, and the monumental Civil Rights Act of 1964 seemingly answered ...
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What role should racial difference play in the American workplace? As a nation, we rely on civil rights law to address this question, and the monumental Civil Rights Act of 1964 seemingly answered it: race must not be a factor in workplace decisions. This book contends that after decades of mass immigration, many employers, Democratic and Republican political leaders, and advocates have adopted a new strategy to manage race and work. Race is now relevant not only in negative cases of discrimination, but in more positive ways as well. In today's workplace, employers routinely practice “racial realism,” where they view race as real—as a job qualification. Many believe employee racial differences, and sometimes immigrant status, correspond to unique abilities or evoke desirable reactions from clients or citizens. They also see racial diversity as a way to increase workplace dynamism. The problem is that when employers see race as useful for organizational effectiveness, they are often in violation of civil rights law. This book examines this emerging strategy in a wide range of employment situations, including the low-skilled sector, professional and white-collar jobs, and entertainment and media. The book urges us to acknowledge the racial realism already occurring, and lays out a series of reforms that, if enacted, would bring the law and lived experience more in line, yet still remain respectful of the need to protect the civil rights of all workers.Less
What role should racial difference play in the American workplace? As a nation, we rely on civil rights law to address this question, and the monumental Civil Rights Act of 1964 seemingly answered it: race must not be a factor in workplace decisions. This book contends that after decades of mass immigration, many employers, Democratic and Republican political leaders, and advocates have adopted a new strategy to manage race and work. Race is now relevant not only in negative cases of discrimination, but in more positive ways as well. In today's workplace, employers routinely practice “racial realism,” where they view race as real—as a job qualification. Many believe employee racial differences, and sometimes immigrant status, correspond to unique abilities or evoke desirable reactions from clients or citizens. They also see racial diversity as a way to increase workplace dynamism. The problem is that when employers see race as useful for organizational effectiveness, they are often in violation of civil rights law. This book examines this emerging strategy in a wide range of employment situations, including the low-skilled sector, professional and white-collar jobs, and entertainment and media. The book urges us to acknowledge the racial realism already occurring, and lays out a series of reforms that, if enacted, would bring the law and lived experience more in line, yet still remain respectful of the need to protect the civil rights of all workers.
Carl N. Degler
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195077070
- eISBN:
- 9780199853991
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195077070.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, History of Ideas
This chapter examines the triumph of culture over race as the basis of the study of human nature. It suggests that a general urge to know, combined with a professional and scientifically derived ...
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This chapter examines the triumph of culture over race as the basis of the study of human nature. It suggests that a general urge to know, combined with a professional and scientifically derived willingness to accept new information and insights, were among the forces behind the transformation in outlook that removed race in particular and biology in general from the study of human behavior. In addition, the acceptance of racial differences as an explanation for human behavior denied equality of opportunity.Less
This chapter examines the triumph of culture over race as the basis of the study of human nature. It suggests that a general urge to know, combined with a professional and scientifically derived willingness to accept new information and insights, were among the forces behind the transformation in outlook that removed race in particular and biology in general from the study of human behavior. In addition, the acceptance of racial differences as an explanation for human behavior denied equality of opportunity.
Carl N. Degler
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195077070
- eISBN:
- 9780199853991
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195077070.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, History of Ideas
This chapter examines British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace's thoughts about human nature. Wallace was known to share with Charles Darwin the credit for discovering natural selection as the motive ...
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This chapter examines British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace's thoughts about human nature. Wallace was known to share with Charles Darwin the credit for discovering natural selection as the motive force of evolution. However, he later changed his mind and conducted studies to prove that human beings had escaped from the operation of natural selection. The substance of his scientific argument related directly to the issue of racial differences. The disagreement between Darwin and Wallace on the question of race can be seen in their divergent conceptions of the mentality of primitive peoples.Less
This chapter examines British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace's thoughts about human nature. Wallace was known to share with Charles Darwin the credit for discovering natural selection as the motive force of evolution. However, he later changed his mind and conducted studies to prove that human beings had escaped from the operation of natural selection. The substance of his scientific argument related directly to the issue of racial differences. The disagreement between Darwin and Wallace on the question of race can be seen in their divergent conceptions of the mentality of primitive peoples.
John W. Graham
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199665853
- eISBN:
- 9780191745805
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199665853.003.0015
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Macro- and Monetary Economics, Public and Welfare
Using data from the 1976 and 1978 National Longitudinal Surveys of young men and young women, this chapter examines racial differences in the magnitude and composition of wealth and the reasons for ...
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Using data from the 1976 and 1978 National Longitudinal Surveys of young men and young women, this chapter examines racial differences in the magnitude and composition of wealth and the reasons for them. On average, young black families hold 18 percent of the wealth of young white families, and hold their wealth in proportionately different forms. Even after controlling for racial differences in income and other demographic factors, as much as three quarters of the wealth gap remains unexplained. The chapter concludes that racial differences in intergenerational transfers and, to a lesser extent, barriers to the accumulation of business and home equity most likely play a role.Less
Using data from the 1976 and 1978 National Longitudinal Surveys of young men and young women, this chapter examines racial differences in the magnitude and composition of wealth and the reasons for them. On average, young black families hold 18 percent of the wealth of young white families, and hold their wealth in proportionately different forms. Even after controlling for racial differences in income and other demographic factors, as much as three quarters of the wealth gap remains unexplained. The chapter concludes that racial differences in intergenerational transfers and, to a lesser extent, barriers to the accumulation of business and home equity most likely play a role.
Lisa A. Fontes and Kathleen Coulborn Faller
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195311778
- eISBN:
- 9780199865055
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195311778.003.0012
- Subject:
- Social Work, Children and Families, Crime and Justice
Professionals who interview children for possible sexual abuse tend to be white and middle class. At the same time, children and families who require assessment for sexual abuse are increasingly from ...
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Professionals who interview children for possible sexual abuse tend to be white and middle class. At the same time, children and families who require assessment for sexual abuse are increasingly from diverse backgrounds. Professionals need to develop special skills to interview cross-culturally. This chapter describes the need for interviewers to take into account race, class, culture, subculture, religious, and language differences when interviewing children. How these differences can pose barriers for evaluators and strategies for enhancing agency and professional cultural competence are covered.Less
Professionals who interview children for possible sexual abuse tend to be white and middle class. At the same time, children and families who require assessment for sexual abuse are increasingly from diverse backgrounds. Professionals need to develop special skills to interview cross-culturally. This chapter describes the need for interviewers to take into account race, class, culture, subculture, religious, and language differences when interviewing children. How these differences can pose barriers for evaluators and strategies for enhancing agency and professional cultural competence are covered.
Irene Tucker
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226922935
- eISBN:
- 9780226922959
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226922959.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This book overturns the most familiar form of racial analysis in contemporary culture: the idea that race is constructed, that it operates by attaching visible marks of difference to arbitrary ...
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This book overturns the most familiar form of racial analysis in contemporary culture: the idea that race is constructed, that it operates by attaching visible marks of difference to arbitrary meanings and associations. Searching for the history of the constructed racial sign, this book argues that if people instantly perceive racial differences despite knowing better, then the underlying function of race is to produce this immediate knowledge. Racial perception, then, is not just a mark of acculturation, but a part of how people know one another. The book begins the investigation in the Enlightenment, at the moment when skin first came to be used as the primary mark of racial difference. Through Kant and his writing on the relation of philosophy and medicine, it describes how racialized skin was created as a mechanism to enable us to perceive the likeness of individuals in a moment. From there, the book tells the story of instantaneous racial seeing across centuries—from the fictive bodies described but not seen in Wilkie Collins’s realism to the medium of common public opinion in John Stuart Mill, from the invention of the notion of a constructed racial sign in Darwin’s late work to the institutionalizing of racial sight on display in the HBO series The Wire.Less
This book overturns the most familiar form of racial analysis in contemporary culture: the idea that race is constructed, that it operates by attaching visible marks of difference to arbitrary meanings and associations. Searching for the history of the constructed racial sign, this book argues that if people instantly perceive racial differences despite knowing better, then the underlying function of race is to produce this immediate knowledge. Racial perception, then, is not just a mark of acculturation, but a part of how people know one another. The book begins the investigation in the Enlightenment, at the moment when skin first came to be used as the primary mark of racial difference. Through Kant and his writing on the relation of philosophy and medicine, it describes how racialized skin was created as a mechanism to enable us to perceive the likeness of individuals in a moment. From there, the book tells the story of instantaneous racial seeing across centuries—from the fictive bodies described but not seen in Wilkie Collins’s realism to the medium of common public opinion in John Stuart Mill, from the invention of the notion of a constructed racial sign in Darwin’s late work to the institutionalizing of racial sight on display in the HBO series The Wire.
Justin E. H. Smith
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691153643
- eISBN:
- 9781400866311
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691153643.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
People have always been xenophobic, but an explicit philosophical and scientific view of human racial difference only began to emerge during the modern period. Why and how did this happen? Surveying ...
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People have always been xenophobic, but an explicit philosophical and scientific view of human racial difference only began to emerge during the modern period. Why and how did this happen? Surveying a range of philosophical and natural-scientific texts, dating from the Spanish Renaissance to the German Enlightenment, this book charts the evolution of the modern concept of race and shows that natural philosophy, particularly efforts to taxonomize and to order nature, played a crucial role. The book demonstrates how the denial of moral equality between Europeans and non-Europeans resulted from converging philosophical and scientific developments, including a declining belief in human nature's universality and the rise of biological classification. The racial typing of human beings grew from the need to understand humanity within an all-encompassing system of nature, alongside plants, minerals, primates, and other animals. While racial difference as seen through science did not arise in order to justify the enslavement of people, it became a rationalization and buttress for the practices of trans-Atlantic slavery. From the work of François Bernier to G. W. Leibniz, Immanuel Kant, and others, the book delves into philosophy's part in the legacy and damages of modern racism. With a broad narrative stretching over two centuries, the book takes a critical historical look at how the racial categories that we divide ourselves into came into being.Less
People have always been xenophobic, but an explicit philosophical and scientific view of human racial difference only began to emerge during the modern period. Why and how did this happen? Surveying a range of philosophical and natural-scientific texts, dating from the Spanish Renaissance to the German Enlightenment, this book charts the evolution of the modern concept of race and shows that natural philosophy, particularly efforts to taxonomize and to order nature, played a crucial role. The book demonstrates how the denial of moral equality between Europeans and non-Europeans resulted from converging philosophical and scientific developments, including a declining belief in human nature's universality and the rise of biological classification. The racial typing of human beings grew from the need to understand humanity within an all-encompassing system of nature, alongside plants, minerals, primates, and other animals. While racial difference as seen through science did not arise in order to justify the enslavement of people, it became a rationalization and buttress for the practices of trans-Atlantic slavery. From the work of François Bernier to G. W. Leibniz, Immanuel Kant, and others, the book delves into philosophy's part in the legacy and damages of modern racism. With a broad narrative stretching over two centuries, the book takes a critical historical look at how the racial categories that we divide ourselves into came into being.
Reynolds Farley
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300095418
- eISBN:
- 9780300129847
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300095418.003.0016
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
This chapter investigates whether the gains achieved during the era of the civil rights movement have been sustained. It examines whether legal changes and shifts in racial attitudes decreased black ...
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This chapter investigates whether the gains achieved during the era of the civil rights movement have been sustained. It examines whether legal changes and shifts in racial attitudes decreased black and white differences in social and economic status. The chapter begins by discussing changes in the nation's racial composition in the 1960s and 1990s. Next, it discusses the liberalization of white attitudes about the principles of equal opportunities for blacks. Racial differences in the era of immigration are also examined. Finally, the chapter discusses shifts in the recent past that are consistent with the ideals and programs of the civil rights revolution.Less
This chapter investigates whether the gains achieved during the era of the civil rights movement have been sustained. It examines whether legal changes and shifts in racial attitudes decreased black and white differences in social and economic status. The chapter begins by discussing changes in the nation's racial composition in the 1960s and 1990s. Next, it discusses the liberalization of white attitudes about the principles of equal opportunities for blacks. Racial differences in the era of immigration are also examined. Finally, the chapter discusses shifts in the recent past that are consistent with the ideals and programs of the civil rights revolution.
Christian Smith, Michael O. Emerson, and Patricia Snell
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195337112
- eISBN:
- 9780199868414
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195337112.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter examines the results of a focused mental experiment wherein a nationally representative sample of American Christians was asked to ponder their response to the idea of their churches ...
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This chapter examines the results of a focused mental experiment wherein a nationally representative sample of American Christians was asked to ponder their response to the idea of their churches raising expectations on the financial giving of Christians. The idea in doing this is that having ordinary Christians all over the United States run this mental experiment in their heads will provide yet another angle on understanding how Christians think and feel about the issue of religious and charitable financial giving. The results showed that American Christians are ready and waiting to give ten percent of their after-tax income if only their churches were to ask them firmly to do so; earning higher incomes does not make American Christians more generous with their money; and racial differences among American Christians influence the matter of raising expectations of financial giving.Less
This chapter examines the results of a focused mental experiment wherein a nationally representative sample of American Christians was asked to ponder their response to the idea of their churches raising expectations on the financial giving of Christians. The idea in doing this is that having ordinary Christians all over the United States run this mental experiment in their heads will provide yet another angle on understanding how Christians think and feel about the issue of religious and charitable financial giving. The results showed that American Christians are ready and waiting to give ten percent of their after-tax income if only their churches were to ask them firmly to do so; earning higher incomes does not make American Christians more generous with their money; and racial differences among American Christians influence the matter of raising expectations of financial giving.
Brian Connolly
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252040399
- eISBN:
- 9780252098819
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252040399.003.0008
- Subject:
- Sociology, Race and Ethnicity
This chapter turns to the ways in which nineteenth-century Americans retold the biblical story of the “curse of Ham” as a fantasy to promote the notion of racial purity, which contradicted the social ...
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This chapter turns to the ways in which nineteenth-century Americans retold the biblical story of the “curse of Ham” as a fantasy to promote the notion of racial purity, which contradicted the social reality of interracial reproductive sex that prevailed throughout slavery. It contends that nineteenth-century Americans clung to the so-called curse of Ham or curse of Canaan as a religious fantasy that attempted to negate interracial sex as foundational to the origins of race and instead propagated a fantasy about racial purity. This fantasy was the field in which identities were forged, subjugations articulated, and desire structured. And by making the familial form universal and perpetuated by the (sovereign and nonsovereign) sexual transmission of race, it held out a singular humanity cut by racial inequality.Less
This chapter turns to the ways in which nineteenth-century Americans retold the biblical story of the “curse of Ham” as a fantasy to promote the notion of racial purity, which contradicted the social reality of interracial reproductive sex that prevailed throughout slavery. It contends that nineteenth-century Americans clung to the so-called curse of Ham or curse of Canaan as a religious fantasy that attempted to negate interracial sex as foundational to the origins of race and instead propagated a fantasy about racial purity. This fantasy was the field in which identities were forged, subjugations articulated, and desire structured. And by making the familial form universal and perpetuated by the (sovereign and nonsovereign) sexual transmission of race, it held out a singular humanity cut by racial inequality.
Ann Morning
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520270305
- eISBN:
- 9780520950146
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520270305.003.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Race and Ethnicity
The primary purpose of this book is to explore how scientists' concepts of race are transmitted to the public through formal education as well as other institutions. The scientific enterprise is ...
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The primary purpose of this book is to explore how scientists' concepts of race are transmitted to the public through formal education as well as other institutions. The scientific enterprise is vital to American thinking about race because its claims are often the bedrock upon which academic, business, and government interpretations of the nature of race purport to rest. The medical tests used by companies such as Genzyme Genetics are primed by scientists' research. Science in the United States today is largely equated with “knowledge of nature,” especially as it is acquired through a specialized process. Racial differences are certainly shaped by families, friends, neighbors, and peers. But in a society where racial classification pervades bureaucratic life, people's everyday experiences in settings such as schools, companies, state agencies, and medical offices also leave their mark on the nations of race.Less
The primary purpose of this book is to explore how scientists' concepts of race are transmitted to the public through formal education as well as other institutions. The scientific enterprise is vital to American thinking about race because its claims are often the bedrock upon which academic, business, and government interpretations of the nature of race purport to rest. The medical tests used by companies such as Genzyme Genetics are primed by scientists' research. Science in the United States today is largely equated with “knowledge of nature,” especially as it is acquired through a specialized process. Racial differences are certainly shaped by families, friends, neighbors, and peers. But in a society where racial classification pervades bureaucratic life, people's everyday experiences in settings such as schools, companies, state agencies, and medical offices also leave their mark on the nations of race.
Dorothy Stringer
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823231478
- eISBN:
- 9780823241088
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823231478.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature
Freudian theory has specific, original engagements with racial difference, albeit often entwined with its theorizations of sexual difference and sexuality. In many nineteenth-century and modernist ...
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Freudian theory has specific, original engagements with racial difference, albeit often entwined with its theorizations of sexual difference and sexuality. In many nineteenth-century and modernist U.S. novels, minor, ignoble black characters manage both structural, novelistic failures and moral failures on the part of white protagonists. “Africanist” figures thus free both white protagonists and presumptively-white readers from the necessity of acknowledging weakness, cowardice, and other threatening emotional and moral realities, such as non-normative sexuality. William Faulkner's Sanctuary, published in 1931 but first drafted contemporaneously with the publication of “Womanliness as Masquerade,” articulates similar questions to Riviere's about women's sexuality, psychic experience, and fantasized racial blackness, albeit in fictional mode. Faulkner half-facetiously described Sanctuary as a cynical effort to make much-needed money, and in particular to cash in on the public's desire for sex and violence.Less
Freudian theory has specific, original engagements with racial difference, albeit often entwined with its theorizations of sexual difference and sexuality. In many nineteenth-century and modernist U.S. novels, minor, ignoble black characters manage both structural, novelistic failures and moral failures on the part of white protagonists. “Africanist” figures thus free both white protagonists and presumptively-white readers from the necessity of acknowledging weakness, cowardice, and other threatening emotional and moral realities, such as non-normative sexuality. William Faulkner's Sanctuary, published in 1931 but first drafted contemporaneously with the publication of “Womanliness as Masquerade,” articulates similar questions to Riviere's about women's sexuality, psychic experience, and fantasized racial blackness, albeit in fictional mode. Faulkner half-facetiously described Sanctuary as a cynical effort to make much-needed money, and in particular to cash in on the public's desire for sex and violence.
Roy L. Brooks
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780300223309
- eISBN:
- 9780300227611
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300223309.003.0005
- Subject:
- Sociology, Race and Ethnicity
Cultural subordination is defined here as the suppression of important black values or folk ways—questions and concerns of keen importance to blacks—in the American mainstream culture. Like juridical ...
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Cultural subordination is defined here as the suppression of important black values or folk ways—questions and concerns of keen importance to blacks—in the American mainstream culture. Like juridical subordination, cultural subordination is animated by post-Jim Crow norms that perform important rhetorical and regulatory functions in civil rights discourse—racial omission (traditionalism), racial integration (reformism), racial solidarity (limited separation), and social transformation (critical race theory). After defending the belief that blacks do have a distinct set of values that transcend class stratification, and after discussing the legitimacy of cultural diversity in American society, this chapter crafts four models of cultural diversity defined by these post-Jim Crow norms—cultural assimilation (traditionalism), biculturalism (reformism), cultural pluralism (limited separation), and transculturalism (critical race theory). It then proceeds to explain how most of these visions of cultural diversity subordinate legitimate black values. Deploying these models to purposefully enhance our racial democracy, which lies at the root of cultural diversity, can reduce (but not entirely eliminate) racial subordination in the American mainstream culture.Less
Cultural subordination is defined here as the suppression of important black values or folk ways—questions and concerns of keen importance to blacks—in the American mainstream culture. Like juridical subordination, cultural subordination is animated by post-Jim Crow norms that perform important rhetorical and regulatory functions in civil rights discourse—racial omission (traditionalism), racial integration (reformism), racial solidarity (limited separation), and social transformation (critical race theory). After defending the belief that blacks do have a distinct set of values that transcend class stratification, and after discussing the legitimacy of cultural diversity in American society, this chapter crafts four models of cultural diversity defined by these post-Jim Crow norms—cultural assimilation (traditionalism), biculturalism (reformism), cultural pluralism (limited separation), and transculturalism (critical race theory). It then proceeds to explain how most of these visions of cultural diversity subordinate legitimate black values. Deploying these models to purposefully enhance our racial democracy, which lies at the root of cultural diversity, can reduce (but not entirely eliminate) racial subordination in the American mainstream culture.
Bhopal Raj S.
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780198568179
- eISBN:
- 9780191724091
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198568179.003.0002
- Subject:
- Public Health and Epidemiology, Public Health, Epidemiology
This chapter argues that efforts to create racial and ethnic classifications have led to numerous insights, particularly that the process is arbitrary, subjective, context-specific, purpose-driven, ...
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This chapter argues that efforts to create racial and ethnic classifications have led to numerous insights, particularly that the process is arbitrary, subjective, context-specific, purpose-driven, and imprecise. The process is atheoretical in that there is no coherent theoretical factor that underpins classifications. Topics discussed include the challenges of studying racial and ethnic differences without creating stigma or inequity; devising population groups using the concepts of race and ethnicity — historical and contemporary examples; analysing the facets of race and ethnicity that population groupings are based on; and the development of population groupings into comprehensive classifications of race and ethnicity, past and present.Less
This chapter argues that efforts to create racial and ethnic classifications have led to numerous insights, particularly that the process is arbitrary, subjective, context-specific, purpose-driven, and imprecise. The process is atheoretical in that there is no coherent theoretical factor that underpins classifications. Topics discussed include the challenges of studying racial and ethnic differences without creating stigma or inequity; devising population groups using the concepts of race and ethnicity — historical and contemporary examples; analysing the facets of race and ethnicity that population groupings are based on; and the development of population groupings into comprehensive classifications of race and ethnicity, past and present.
Chloe Campbell
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719071607
- eISBN:
- 9781781700686
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719071607.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Imperialism and Colonialism
This book tells the story of a short-lived but vehement eugenics movement that emerged among a group of Europeans in Kenya in the 1930s, unleashing a set of writings on racial differences in ...
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This book tells the story of a short-lived but vehement eugenics movement that emerged among a group of Europeans in Kenya in the 1930s, unleashing a set of writings on racial differences in intelligence more extreme than that emanating from any other British colony in the twentieth century. By tracing the history of eugenic thought in Kenya, it shows how the movement took on a distinctive colonial character, driven by settler political preoccupations and reacting to increasingly outspoken African demands for better, and more independent, education. Eugenic theories on race and intelligence were widely supported by the medical profession in Kenya, as well as powerful members of the official and non-official European settler population. However, the long-term failures of the eugenics movement should not blind us to its influence among the social and administrative elite of colonial Kenya. Through a close examination of attitudes towards race and intelligence in a British colony, the book reveals how eugenics was central to colonial racial theories before World War II.Less
This book tells the story of a short-lived but vehement eugenics movement that emerged among a group of Europeans in Kenya in the 1930s, unleashing a set of writings on racial differences in intelligence more extreme than that emanating from any other British colony in the twentieth century. By tracing the history of eugenic thought in Kenya, it shows how the movement took on a distinctive colonial character, driven by settler political preoccupations and reacting to increasingly outspoken African demands for better, and more independent, education. Eugenic theories on race and intelligence were widely supported by the medical profession in Kenya, as well as powerful members of the official and non-official European settler population. However, the long-term failures of the eugenics movement should not blind us to its influence among the social and administrative elite of colonial Kenya. Through a close examination of attitudes towards race and intelligence in a British colony, the book reveals how eugenics was central to colonial racial theories before World War II.
Jermaine Singleton
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252039621
- eISBN:
- 9780252097713
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252039621.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature
Through an analysis of Suzan-Lori Parks's Venus and Tony Kushner's Caroline, or Change, this chapter contemplates how cultural practice might be used to cut through and deactivate the unresolved ...
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Through an analysis of Suzan-Lori Parks's Venus and Tony Kushner's Caroline, or Change, this chapter contemplates how cultural practice might be used to cut through and deactivate the unresolved grief that consolidates the racial divide in interracial community. It builds on a short theoretical account of the sexual and cultural underpinnings of the discourse of racial difference to consider the unique role contemporary theater might play in exhuming and mourning the social loss it has consolidated. To that end, the analysis draws on the racial scene and unseen to situate the plays as art of profound cultural change. Parks' and Kushner's plays enact racial conflict to unearth disavowed social losses and assign them ideological origins. The plays uniquely allow spectators to explore what Kobena Mercer calls “those messy spaces in-between” black and white and acknowledge the culturally embedded web of gender, sexual, economic, and religious anxieties and prohibitions that discreetly underpin the discourse of racial difference and contemporary racial grievances. In doing so, the plays summon and neutralize the disavowed social loss and hidden affect that structure our racial identifications to engender a coalition of racial grieving.Less
Through an analysis of Suzan-Lori Parks's Venus and Tony Kushner's Caroline, or Change, this chapter contemplates how cultural practice might be used to cut through and deactivate the unresolved grief that consolidates the racial divide in interracial community. It builds on a short theoretical account of the sexual and cultural underpinnings of the discourse of racial difference to consider the unique role contemporary theater might play in exhuming and mourning the social loss it has consolidated. To that end, the analysis draws on the racial scene and unseen to situate the plays as art of profound cultural change. Parks' and Kushner's plays enact racial conflict to unearth disavowed social losses and assign them ideological origins. The plays uniquely allow spectators to explore what Kobena Mercer calls “those messy spaces in-between” black and white and acknowledge the culturally embedded web of gender, sexual, economic, and religious anxieties and prohibitions that discreetly underpin the discourse of racial difference and contemporary racial grievances. In doing so, the plays summon and neutralize the disavowed social loss and hidden affect that structure our racial identifications to engender a coalition of racial grieving.
