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Colonial Legacy of  White Supremacy in American Buddhism

Joseph Cheah

in Race and Religion in American Buddhism: White Supremacy and Immigrant Adaptation

This chapter traces the legacy of white supremacy in American Buddhism to “racial projects” conceived and implemented by Western Orientalists in the middle and late Victorian era. Eugene Burnouf, ... More

This chapter traces the legacy of white supremacy in American Buddhism to “racial projects” conceived and implemented by Western Orientalists in the middle and late Victorian era. Eugene Burnouf, Brian Houghton, and other first-generation Western Orientalists articulated the project of modernity of the Enlightenment era, where knowledge about Asian textual Buddhism was retrieved, translated, and rerepresented for Westerners. These Orientalists provided a prescriptive account of Buddhism which maintained that “authentic Buddhism” was located in the canonical texts rather than in the rituals and practices of Asian Buddhism. T.W. Rhys Davids and other second-generation Western scholars continued this tradition of privileging texts over rituals and practice. These Western Orientalists assumed that Asian Buddhists were trapped in their own cultural accretions, and that “true Buddhism” located in the sutras, could only be rescued with the aid of Western superior scholarship. Such attitudes and discursive practices of Western Orientalists are but reflections of Orientalist racial projects of that era.Less

Future Genders? Future Races?

Sally Haslanger

in Resisting Reality: Social Construction and Social Critique

If, as was argued in Chapter 7, we should aim for a day when there are no more men and women and are no more races (though there may be genders and ethnicities), then what will this future look like? ... More

If, as was argued in Chapter 7, we should aim for a day when there are no more men and women and are no more races (though there may be genders and ethnicities), then what will this future look like? Will it be one on which we are all alike, androgynous and a light shade of brown? The chapter argues that the interpretation of sexual difference is important to achieve justice in any society in which humans reproduce biologically, and that although we should not organize ourselves as men and women, we should have some gender structure. The interpretation of geographic origin as marked on our bodies is not necessary to achieve justice, so we should not seek successors to race. However, this is compatible with taking cultural and historical facts to be relevant in organizing ourselves ethnically.Less

The New Racial Preferences: Rethinking Racial Projects

Devon W. Carbado and Cheryl I. Harris

in Racial Formation in the Twenty-First Century

This chapter examines how the end of affirmative action in California functions as a racial project. Using Michael Omi and Howard Winant's conceptualization of racial projects, it considers the ways ... More

This chapter examines how the end of affirmative action in California functions as a racial project. Using Michael Omi and Howard Winant's conceptualization of racial projects, it considers the ways that the principles of “race neutrality” and “race preferences” operate in debates over “anti-preference” initiatives like Proposition 209. It shows how reinterpretation of the meaning of race through veneration of colorblindness led to the redistribution of resources along racial lines. It demonstrates this process through an inventive analysis of hypothetical personal statements written by Barack Obama and Clarence Thomas in their law school applications, arguing that bans on the explicit use of race in law school admissions do not abolish but reorder racial preferences. The chapter also suggests that racial identity can be expressed in different ways and that racial formation occurs not only at the level of social or political structure, but also at the level of identity performance.Less

Obama and the biracial factor: an introduction

Andrew J. Jolivette

in Obama and the Biracial Factor: The Battle for a New American Majority

An examination of mixed-race identity within the context of religious, ethnic, racial and media representations and discourse during the 2008 U.S. presidential election campaign.

A New Perspective on the Carceral State

Heather Schoenfeld

in Building the Prison State: Race and the Politics of Mass Incarceration

This chapter introduces the core claims, concepts, and contributions of the book. It argues that mass incarceration was not inevitable. Policymakers had to choose to build state capacity to arrest, ... More

This chapter introduces the core claims, concepts, and contributions of the book. It argues that mass incarceration was not inevitable. Policymakers had to choose to build state capacity to arrest, process, and punish people deemed criminal. Examining decisions to build carceral capacity provides a new way to understand the development of the carceral state, or the network of people and institutions responsible for the United States’ system of criminal punishment. A political developmental perspective draws attention to the interaction of national and subnational policy and politics in creating the carceral state. It also contributes to current debates about the role of crime, media, and public opinion in fostering politicians’ support for punitive policies. Finally, this perspective incorporates the role of race in the development of the carceral state through the device of racial projects, or collective actors’ response to historical racial hierarchies, which inform policymakers’ penal policy decisions.Less

The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Black): Legal and Cultural Constructions of Race and Nation in Colonial Latin America

Michelle A. McKinley

in Racial Formation in the Twenty-First Century

This chapter examines the complex logics and political forces underlying racial formation in early colonial Lima. It considers the theme of “racial democracy” and its associated racial projects of ... More

This chapter examines the complex logics and political forces underlying racial formation in early colonial Lima. It considers the theme of “racial democracy” and its associated racial projects of mestizaje, indigenismo, and contemporary multiculturalism in Latin America in order to highlight the constitutive nature of “race” itself in Iberian thought as reflected in the legal recognition of mestizo categories. It begins by historically situating the twentieth-century Latin American racial project of mestizaje and twenty-first-century multiculturalism within their origins in medieval hierarchies of blood mixing. It then discusses the tensions that surround comparative conversations about race and how ideas of blood purity were worked out in a slaveholding, colonial milieu in which extensive race mixing occurred. It also charts the development of categories of race and caste in seventeenth-century Lima as well as the cultural zoning of black (Afro-Latino) and indigenous (indio) that reemerged in the contemporary discourse of Latin American multiculturalism.Less

Toward a New Ethos

Heather Schoenfeld

in Building the Prison State: Race and the Politics of Mass Incarceration

This chapter concludes by summarizing the story of prison growth in Florida and the political developmental perspective on the carceral state. Additionally, it discusses the implications of the story ... More

This chapter concludes by summarizing the story of prison growth in Florida and the political developmental perspective on the carceral state. Additionally, it discusses the implications of the story of Florida for explanations of the carceral state. In particular, it highlights the role of racial projects, partisan politics, federalism, and proceduralism. It also discusses broad lessons for decarceration reform. Finally, it calls for a new ethos on which to base crime control and punishment.Less

The Unbearable Whiteness of Being: The Contemporary Racialization of Japanese/Asian Americans

Michael Omi

in Trans-Pacific Japanese American Studies: Conversations on Race and Racializations

Given the exponential growth and increased visibility of the Asian American population in the U.S., how are they positioned in the prevailing framework of racial classification and racial meanings? I ... More

Given the exponential growth and increased visibility of the Asian American population in the U.S., how are they positioned in the prevailing framework of racial classification and racial meanings? I argue that the current context for racially positioning Asian Americans is the increased scholarly attention being paid to the concept of “whiteness.” Just as previous “outsiders” (e.g., Irish, Jews) have been incorporated into popular understandings of who is white, there is increasing speculation in the contemporary social science literature that Asian Americans are following a similar trajectory of inclusion. The social and cultural indicators evoked to advance such an argument are discussed and subject to alternative interpretation.Less

“You Are Rich Because You Are White”: Marking Race and Signifying Whiteness

Jemima Pierre

in The Predicament of Blackness: Postcolonial Ghana and the Politics of Race

This chapter explores a key racial project in contemporary Ghana: the interdependent relationship between the trope of Whiteness and White positionality. It begins with an ethnographically informed ... More

This chapter explores a key racial project in contemporary Ghana: the interdependent relationship between the trope of Whiteness and White positionality. It begins with an ethnographically informed analysis of the contours of modern Whiteness. It argues that although the White population in Ghana is mostly transient, and White positionality is hardly rigid, Whiteness has retained its undisputed, if contested, power of position. It demonstrates how Whiteness continues to have currency in this nominally Black postcolonial African nation, revealing a clear discourse of race that is articulated through practices that both reflect global economic, political, and cultural hierarchies, and that reinforce White privilege on the local level.Less

Introduction: Surveillance Cinema in Theory and Practice

Catherine Zimmer

in Surveillance Cinema

The book’s introduction provides a historical overview of the intersections of cinema and surveillance and of the theoretical treatment of surveillance in film. Through analysis of the shared ... More

The book’s introduction provides a historical overview of the intersections of cinema and surveillance and of the theoretical treatment of surveillance in film. Through analysis of the shared technological histories of surveillance and film, as well as exemplary instances of early cinema, it shows the close relationship between the development of narrative technique in film and surveillance practice, arguing that both are deeply implicated in forming racial visibility, and thus that surveillance and cinema are racial projects. This introduction also suggests that such an analysis of surveillance in cinema has been constrained in part by overreliance on the conceptual framework of “voyeurism” and argues that voyeurism must itself be understood as existing within a historical and political context. The introduction thus provides a short analysis of the canonical surveillance film The Conversation to demonstrate how cinematic narrative and surveillance practice function together in the formation of both personal and political subjectivity. The remainder of the introduction provides outlines of the chapters of the book, which address more contemporary films and genres and introduce new theoretical frames through which to understand surveillance through cinema, and vice versa.Less