Jul 16

The Study of Whiteness by Roberto Rodriguez

The Study of Whiteness
Roberto Rodriguez
Retrieved on July 16, 2008 from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0DXK/is_6_16/ai_55618720/print

IN RECENT YEARS, A BURGEONING NUMBER OF PUBLICATIONS, ARTICLES, AND COURSES DEVOTED TO THE STUDY OF WHITENESS HAS CAUSED SOME SCHOLARS TO ASK WHETHER THIS IS SERIOUS SCHOLARSHIP WITH A FUTURE, OR A PASSING CULTURAL FANCY

At a conference held late in March, students, faculty, and administrators from the tri-campus community of Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Swarthmore colleges gathered together with a group of journalists to discuss the status of multiculturalism on college campuses. At one point, a panelist suggested that part of the problem on many traditionally White campuses seems to be that the majority of students, faculty, and administrators are oblivious not only to what it means to be White, but to the extent to which their Whiteness dominates the campus culture, making it uncomfortable for many people of color.

“We need to understand the attendant privileges that come with White skin in this society before we can begin to truly understand what is like for those who are outside of White culture,” she said.

Discussions such as this are at the heart of what is a growing field of scholarship. Dubbed “Whiteness studies” by some, the exploration of what it means to be White in the United States and the global community is the subject of a growing body of books, articles, courses, and academic conferences.

Whiteness studies is frequently misunderstood as either part of a supremacist movement or an effort to study “White trash,” says Jean Stefancic, part of a husband and wife team that edited the 1998 release on the subject titled Critical White Studies: Looking Behind the Mirror. The discipline is generally divided into two camps. One, she explains, views the study of Whiteness as an essential part of eliminating racism and White privilege. The other camp focuses on the study of White, pop culture. Stefancic is a legal research associate at the University of Colorado Law School.

Richard Delgado, co-author of Critical White Studies, goes on to explain that the former perspective is derived from critical legal theory — a field that challenges the race/class and gender bias of U.S. laws. In this country, he says, many people believe that there’s nothing wrong with our laws, and that racism simply results from mistakes or ignorance, and that the solution is simply integration. “[However,] most critical race theorists don’t believe this,” he says.

While there are divergent views as to the exact origin of the study of Whiteness, Delgado traces its contemporary study back to the early 1990s, explaining that it came in response to the growing interest in the study of people of color. Books like Critical White Studies, David Roediger’s The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class (1991), Ruth Frankenberg’s White Women, Race Matters: The Social Construction of Whiteness (1993), and Alice McIntyre’s Making Meaning of Whiteness: Exploring Racial Identity with White Teachers (1997) are examples of works that confronted the issue directly.

“People thought it was time to put Whites under the lens,” Delgado says.

Taking a much longer view, however, Morris Jenkins, professor of Administration of Justice at Pennsylvania State University, says that the study of Whiteness began with the formation of traditional university curriculum.

“We get it without acknowledging it,” he says. Which explains why, according to Jenkins, European Americans have problems with their Whiteness.

“They’ll admit to being Americans, but are uncomfortable being `White,’ though they accept the privileges of Whiteness.”

Other scholars concur with Delgado that the study of Whiteness began because some White scholars wanted to find their place in the multicultural education movement.

Dr. David Goldberg, director of the School of Justice at Arizona State University, and a visiting professor of African American studies at the University of California-Berkeley, traces the origins back to the proliferation of race studies that occurred in the late 1980s. In addition to a few seminal texts, such as those by Roediger and Frankenberg, he cites an article that appeared in the British film magazine Screen in 1988. Titled “White,” and authored by Richard Dyer, the article was about the impact of Whiteness on media and culture.

Irrespective of the field’s precise origins, Jenkins, who studies critical race theory within the concept of law, says that the study of Whiteness can enhance the discipline of ethnic studies–that it’s an important component to understanding race and ethnicity. He adds that having White professors teach ethnic studies could help to “legitimize” ethnic studies in the minds of those scholars who constantly attack it as not being “real scholarship.”

“I think critical White studies is a very important and critical part of new directions in ethnic studies,” says Dr. Evelyn HuDehart, professor and chair of the department of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado-Boulder. “whiteness studies was dearly influenced by ethnic studies theories, and in turn, it is now positively influencing ethnic studies to see Whiteness as also a historically contingent and socially constructed racial category, one defined, to be sure, by privilege and power rather by marginalization and domination. But Whiteness and the other racial categories are part of the same racial order and racial hierarchy in the history of this country and in contemporary social reality.”

Who’s Teaching What, Why, and for Whom?

Today, a majority of the scholars studying Whiteness are themselves White. Their research ranges from trying to understand how Whites view themselves and others, to how Whites view themselves in relation to people of color, to how they define Whiteness. They also examine White culture, how Whites define race, and how they view racism and White privilege.

The criticism these scholars are attracting comes from outside as well as inside the ethnic studies community, even though in some cases these courses are taught from within ethnic studies departments. While Whiteness was not initially positioned within ethnic studies or within the study of race and ethnicity, Stefancic says, it has evolved from those fields.

“I am very critical of the domain of Whiteness studies as it has developed,” says Goldberg, who, though he is often associated with the Whiteness studies movement, argues adamantly that this is not the core of what he teaches. “I teach about racism,” he says, “And maybe racism is just a version of Whiteness.”

Goldberg prefers to position his writings and research within the study of the structure of politics and how culture intersects with politics. He says his writings on race and racism or multiculturalism cut across disciplines, and that he didn’t come to Berkeley under the guise of Whiteness studies. Instead, he came under the study of critical race theory, which is an integral part of ethnic studies at Berkeley.

“So here I am — this White South African guy teaching Black Nationalism…. We need to look more critically at Whiteness [studies] and the academicians [who] are writing themselves into the productive domain of race studies.”

Dr. C. Ayisha Blackshire-Belay, chair of the department of African and African American studies at Indiana State University, shares Goldberg’s skepticism.

“[Whiteness studies] raises a lot of issues,” she says. “What is its relevance? What is it to address? Who is it for? And in this point in time, why? …

“The making of [the African American studies] discipline came out of the ’60s and a demand to have courses about us as a p
eople,” she says. “If White studies is being created because Black studies and Chicano studies exist, I have a problem with that. If we hadn’t demanded Black and Chicano courses in the ’60s, would there now be a demand for Whiteness studies?”

But Dr. Charles Henry, chair of Berkeley’s African American studies program, where Goldberg currently is a visiting professor, says that there is something to be gained from expanding the amount of scholarship devoted to studying Whiteness.

“The history of racism in America has been looked at as an aberration rather than part of the mainstream democracy. Poor Whites have benefited from this aberration where racism united the White lower and upper classes,” Henry says. “Whiteness studies [scholars] say that racism is not an aberration, but rather a central part of democracy and American federalism. It has a different approach that has not been a part of general courses in academia.” Henry further notes that this approach, however, has been applied in ethnic studies courses.

“Another approach has been to break down Whiteness and how it is socially constructed. You can look at the Irish and the English in Europe where they are at odds; but when they got here, it [was] a different story. Why is that? Whiteness studies address that. It is an approach that hasn’t been around on college campuses and k is one that students can benefit from and that research can benefit from,” Henry says.

Stefancic agrees: Many [Irish, Germans, Italians, and Jews] were at one tune treated as non-White, but over the years, have become White,” she says.

Dr. Catharine R. Stimpson, dean of the graduate school of arts and sciences at New York University, says that k is important to distinguish between “Whiteness studies” as an organized academic program and the study of what k means to be White.

“I think it is incumbent on a number of fields to study race in all its complexity,” Stimpson says, adding that at NYU, there is interest addressing what k means to be White in the English, history, and American studies departments, among others.

“The meaning of White, in America, obviously means, being [part of a] majority. Elsewhere, it means being in the minority — a development the majority [of White people] will find hard to understand.

“I am a White woman,” Stimpson adds, “the meaning of which I define in part by being in interaction with other people. I don’t exist in isolation nor do my privileges exist in isolation.”

The New Abolitionists

Some scholars argue that, the study of Whiteness offers liberating opportunities for both Whites and people of color.

Marion Groot, a professor at the Women’s Theological Center in Boston, says that the actual challenge in Whiteness studies is twofold — taking the struggle against racism and White privilege into the community, and combating the spiritual disease that afflicts Whites.

“All people are spiritual beings and Whites have neglected their spirituality,” she says.

Groot posits that because this society values material things, people, relationships, and even ancestors have been rendered secondary by many Whites.

“In White culture, we believe we’re human beings, struggling to be gods,” Groot says.

“That’s our spiritual disease. Focusing on Whiteness forces us to look at the things in our lives. It makes us understand that the need to be valued isn’t met by material things. When we do our work, we tell people that struggling against racism and White privilege isn’t simply a political issue — that it’s a spiritual issue. That resonates with people.”

Dr. Christine Clark, education professor at New Mexico State University and co-editor–along with James O’Donnell — of Becoming and Unbecoming White (1999), notes that some Whites view themselves as saviors. They only feel comfortable it they are working with people of color with a victim-focused identity.

“That takes agency away from people of color,” she says, adding that people of color have rarely been victims. “They have fought back for over 500 years.”

This savior mentality, she says, needs to be addressed. She believes, as the late Brazilian educator Paulo Freire posited, that “only the strength of the oppressed can liberate both the oppressed and the oppressor.”

Clark considers her sell an “anti-racist racist.” In this society, she says, “You can’t be White and not be racist. But you can fight against it. I was raised to enjoy privilege.”

Only when White people own up to their responsibility of benefiting from White privilege, can a meaningful struggle to eliminate both racism and White privilege occur, she says.

But unlike what some scholars have proposed, Delgado says the objective in combating discrimination and White privilege is not necessarily eliminating privileges or courtesies afforded Whites, but rather, expanding them to all human beings. Some of these privileges, however, reinforce racial dominance and it is that domination and those manifestations that are not only undesirable, but should be completely opposed, he adds.

Noel Ignatiev, one of the editors of the journal Race Traitor, speaks not of eliminating racism, but of ridding society of the concept of Whitenessal together. Ignatiev, who also is the author of How the Itoh Became White, considers himself an abolitionist of Whiteness. He says that abolitionists like him aren’t content with simply studying Whiteness or becoming anti-racists, but they are bent on eliminating the concept of Whiteness and the privileges that come with it.

“Whiteness has nothing to do with culture and everything to do with social position.” As Ignatiev wrote in a recent paper titled, “The Point Is Not to Interpret Whiteness, but to Abolish It,” “It is nothing but a reflection of privilege, and exists for no reason other than to defend it. Without the privileges attached to it, the White race would not exist, and the White skin would have no more social significance than big feet.”

“Those in Whiteness trying to get rid of and destroy the concept of White are unrealistic,” says Dr. Raymond Winbush, director of the Race Relations Institute at Fisk University. “I hope it is just a manifestation of academic confusion. To get rid of Whiteness is an absolute impossibility because White supremacy is here. It’s embedded. It’s like saying I’m going to get rid of the sky tomorrow.”

Ignatiev acknowledges that White privilege manifests itself in all aspects of life, particularly in society’s most important institutions, including the criminal justice system, which defines criminals; the schools, which define excellence; the labor market, which provides preferences for Whites; etc.

How to eliminate White privilege, he says, is a quandary for abolitionists.

“How can this be done?” he asks. “We must admit that we do not know exactly….” But, he adds, Whites must commit a racial suicide in order to come alive as workers, youth, women, etc. To do this, the task of abolitionists “is to gather together a minority determined to make it impossible for anyone to be White.” This is generally done by actively and daily challenging society’s preconceived notions of race and of who is White, he notes.

Stephanie Wildman, professor at the University of San Francisco law school and author of Privilege Revealed is perplexed by this recent fascination within the academy about Whiteness and concludes that it reflects society’s schizophrenic attitude toward the subject of race. On the one hand, we’re supposed to be moving away from [defining people by race], she says, yet, race and hate crimes are on the increase. The primary task of Whiteness studies is to relate it to the real world.

“How do you get the message out?” she asks, defining that question as the challenge. In fact, she says just getting the message out is a and that while it may not be possible to abolish Whiteness, what can be abolished are hiera
rchies.

“I’ll still be White in 20 years. In the meantime, real people are being hurt. We’re in state of emergency.”

Future Forecasts

Despite the phenomenal interest in Whiteness studies, few professors engaged in it foresee a growing number of academic departments on the subject on the horizon.

While many of the early whiteness courses emerged out of the field of critical race theory, and later ethnic studies, courses addressing various aspects of Whiteness can now be found across the arts and sciences. While some conclude that the fledgling discipline should be positioned within ethnic studies alongside African American studies, Chicano studies, and the like, others argue against this.

Goldberg says he doubts the discipline will ever gain enough academic clout to build whole departments. Instead, he prefers the of academicians like Roediger and Lipsitz, who are not in programs promoting themselves as Whiteness studies.

“Their works are concerned with the interface of Whiteness in labor studies,” Goldberg says, “[meaning,] how Whiteness gets ethnicized in certain moments in specific economic and political contexts.”

“I would assume that the study of the complexities of race is going to grow,” Stimpson says. “My own hunch is that Whiteness studies, as an organized field, will probably remain very small. The study of race, I suspect, will grow and that will include the study of being White. [But] that has to be distinguished from Whiteness studies [as a stand-alone field].”

Clark, meanwhile, worries that if Whiteness studies does not challenge global capitalism and the dehumanization of all people, then it will simply amount to the left version of re-centering Whites in academe.

“I don’t know where whiteness studies fits [in the academy],” Winbush says. “We are still asking questions about where Black studies fits. Should it be a program, a department, within American studies? What we do know is that it is impossible to do [ethnic] studies without discussing oppression. If those scholars approaching Whiteness studies feel that they can do it without the study of themselves as oppressors then the field will die a slow death.”

“I don’t know how long this interest [in Whiteness studies] will last,” Stefancic says. “I don’t see departments coming out of this. Some people believe that the work of universities [already] is White studies.”

Reading List

In recent years much has been written on the subject of Whiteness, Ranging from discussions of critical race theory, to exploring how Whites have profited from identity politics, to the memoir of a White mother of Black children, these texts and a few Web sites make a valuable contribution to the discussion about what it means to be White in today’s society.

Racial Situations: Class Predicaments of Whiteness in
Detroit
By John Hartigan
Princeton University Press, Due September 1999

Becoming and Unbecoming White
By Christine Clark and James O’Donnell
Bergin & Garvey, 1999

White Lies: Race and the Myths of Whiteness
By Maurice Berger
Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1999

The Wages of Whiteness; Race and the Making of the
American Working Class (Revised)
By David R. Roediger
Verso Books, 1999

Whiteness Visible: The Meaning of whiteness in American
Literature and Culture
By Valerie Melissa Babb
New York University Press, 1998

Critical white Studies: Looking Behind the Mirror
Edited by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic
Temple University Press, 1998

Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and
the Alchemy of Race
By Matthew Frye Jacobson
Harvard University Press, 1998

Making Whiteness:. The Culture of Segregation in the
South, 1890-1940
By Grace Elizabeth Hale
Pantheon, 1998

White Reign: Deploying Whiteness in America
Edited by Joe L. Kincheloe
St. Martin’s Press, 1998

The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White
People Profit from Identity Politics
By George Lipsitz
Temple University Press, 1998

Whiteness: The Communication of Social Identity
Edited by Thomas K. Nakayama and Judith N. Martin
Sage Publications, 1998

Displacing Whiteness: Essays in Social and Cultural
Criticism
Edited by Ruth Frankenberg
Duke University Press, 1997

Whiteness: A Critical Reader
Edited by Mike Hill
New York University Press, 1997

Making Meaning of Whiteness: Exploring Racial
Identity With White Teachers
By Alice McIntyre
SUNY Press, 1997

The Birth of whiteness: Race and the Emergence of
U.S. Cinema
Edited by Daniel Bernardi
Rutgers University Press, 1996

Beyond the whiteness of Whiteness:
Memoir of a White Mother of Black Sons
By Jane Lazarre
Duke University Press, 1996,

How the Irish Became White
By Noel Ignatiev
Routledge, 1996

Towards the Abolition of Whiteness: Essays on
Race, Politics, and Working Class History
By David R. Roediger
Verso Books, 1994

White Women, Race Matters: The Social
Construction of whiteness
By Ruth Frankenberg
University of Minnesota Press, 1993

Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and
the Literary Imagination (Reprint)
By Toni Morrison
Vintage Books, 1993

Whiteness Studies: Beyond the Pale
A Web site introducing Whiteness studies, created by a
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee English professor.

Race Traitor
The Web version of the Whiteness journal calling for
the abolishment of White culture.

Center for the Study of White American Culture
The Web site of the multiracial organization looking at
Whiteness and White American culture.

COPYRIGHT 1999 Cox, Matthews & Associates
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning

Jul 16

Boondocks: Garden Party

Jul 16

Racial Realism

From handout on July 16, 2008 in Critical Race Theory.

Derrick Bell and others posit a racial philosophy:
Views on Racial Realism:

  • Black people will never gain full equality in this country (i.e., parity with White people)
  • Efforts will only result in temporary progress
  • Through acceptance of this perspective, Blacks can imaginatively devise strategies that foster triumph
  • Progress and rights for Blacks are always vulnerable to sacrifice to further the needs of Whites, thus Black subordination remains
  • Recognizes the “Caucasian commitment” – the mass of Whites will accept large disparities in economic opportunity so long as they have a priority over Blacks and other people of colour for access to whatever opportunities are left
  • Freedom efforts will historically be viewed as child-like, trusting, believing, and hopelessly naive
  • Accepts a reality that we live in a society in which racism has been internalized and institutionalized to the point being an essential and inherently functioning component
  • Diminishes the notion of “We Shall Overcome”
  • Contradictory in that it urges people to give up the dream of permanent racial equality, yet urges a continuance in the fight against racism
  • Racial Realists (or a conservationists) include W. E. B. Dubois, Lucius Outlaw, Ron Sundstrom and Paul Taylor, John Shuford

Bell, D. (2005). The racism is permanent thesis. In J. Stefancic & R. Delgado, The Derrick Bell Reader (pp. 79-84). New York: New york University Press.

Bell, D. (2005). Racism is here to stay. In J. Stefancic & R. Delgado, The Derrick Bell Reader (pp. 79-84). New York: New york University Press.

Delgado, R. & Stefancic, J. (2001). critical Race Theory: An introduction. new York: New Yrk University Press.

Shuford, J. (2001). Four Du Boisian contributions to critical race theory. Transactions of the Charles S. Pierce Society, 37(3), 301-337.

Jul 16

Inglewood Riot discussion

Black / Brown conflict at Inglewood High School erupted after a Cinco de Mayo event near Los Angeles. It was described as a racial riot. The conflict does not include any gang members, no Crips, no Bloods, just normal students attending school. Later this racial conflict would eventually include gang members too.

Mexicans walked out on Black History Month assembly in February 1990 so the Black students decided to walk out of a Cinco de Mayo event on campus. A fight broke out and the black students accused the Mexicans for calling them niggers

http://www.streetgangs.com/magazine/0…
A Black gang member tells why he is disappointed with the growing Mexican population in several traditionally Black neighborhoods of Los Angeles. He threatens violence against Mexicans who show racist attitudes against Black residents.

Laura Diaz also interviews T. Rodgers, Charlene Lovett, and Alex Alonso about this growing tension in Los Angeles.

Air date: February 2007
For more on this topic:
http://www.streetgangs.com/magazine/0…

Discussion about white and black binary from CRT on July 16, 2008

Jul 16

Racial Eliminativism

Eliminitivist methods include development of autobiographically based multicultural and borderline identity theories, refutations of biological essentialism, and identification of historical and conceptual underpinnings of white racism.

Views on Racial Eliminativism:

  • Racism must be abandoned in order to achieve holistic identity formation (a fear that without race one has no meaning or worth)
  • Racism can be eliminated because it’s been proven to be a genetically inaccurate and relatively unimportant in explaining biological differences
  • Racial identification rests on nothing neutral or factual so individuals have the right to disassociate from it (deracination or self-emancipation)
  • Racialization, because its constructed could be practically transcended or neutralized
  • The elimination of race is warranted
  • Does not suggest the abandonment of our racial makeup, that race is an illusion
  • We should purge racial terms from public discourse and abandon practices relying on those terms
  • Race thinking should be eliminated entirely
  • Eliminativist scholars (or racial anti-realists) include K. Anthony Appiah, Lawrence blum, J. Angelo Corlett, Ashley Montagu, and Naomi Zack

Shuford;s Rejection of eliminativism views
The acknowledgement of race as a social construction is true, but the belief in eliminating it is juxtaposed with the realistic experiences and consequences that accompany race and cannot be transcended
Eliminativism can do little toward self-emancipation and addressing social realities and injuries for those who cannot become “reckless”

from handout Critical Race Theory, July 16, 2008

Jul 16

Debate: racism can be eliminated

If race is socially constructed then, than it can be deconstructed:

  • kill everyone
  • remove all forms of communication
  • concept of a multiracial nation — the less concerned about race
  • talked about

Eliminivists

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/race/

Jul 16

The New Yorker Magazine: July 21, 2008

Jul 16

Dear Mr & Ms Racist

Retrieved on July 16, 2008 from http://mzansiafrika.typepad.com/mzansi_afrika/2006/05/dear_mr_ms_raci.html

Dear Mr & Ms Racist

Shock Treatment:
With reference to your behaviour in these past few years, I’d like to inform you that more and more people are waking up to the fact that the premise of your beliefs rests on scorn. For example, today more and more performing artists and others are spreading the message, and it seems to me that you’re more isolated now than you’ve ever been. One of your complaints is the practice of affirmative action, usually observed in places where you have recently been, like America and South Africa. You say that qualified white people are not getting jobs while unqualified minorities are. In America, affirmative action “can call for an admissions officer faced with two similarly qualified applicants to choose the minority over the white, or for a manager to recruit and hire a qualified woman for a job instead of a man” [www.washingtonpost.com].

One thing that’s clear is that as long as we’re physically different, racism and discrimination will never leave our world. Unless something enormous happens. Something more threatening than an ominous cold war or a murderous hot one, something bigger than a natural catastrophe, something deadlier than any killer virus or monstrous organisms, more unthinkable than any evil you can imagine. Wars and viruses have so far not been able to right the world, and I doubt they ever will. We could bring up “religion” at this juncture as a possible solution but frankly, “religion” has been one of the bigger dividers of men and remains so, even as I type these words.

The truth is that humans and most other animals are conquerors. Dogs piss out a territory; humans kill or enslave those they find on a territory. Throughout their history, those humans with more advanced technology were able to travel wide, and wherever they did, they killed or conquered other humans they found there. It is amusing that as we plod onward as a species we’re only just beginning to realise the value of protecting other species. Protect and feed the panda, but expose and starve Darfur.

In the face of adversity, folks have come together before. In Africa, villages would be foes and nations enemies; they would fight wars and struggle against one another until something big and unexpected came along, whether slavery, colonialism or apartheid. Then they’d suddenly come together as siblings, in Africa, America or the Carribean, one against a common enemy. That is why black people call one another “brother” or “blood”. No one else that I know of does. European tribes fought amongst themselves, too. They have just never had to deal with unimaginable adversity. Too bad Hannibal failed to make it all the way across.

In order to realise and thus combat racism and discrimination, humans need an unimaginable shock, right here, right now, something to pit earthlings against a common enemy, preferably one with more firepower and with nasty, malicious intent. Unfortunately for me I don’t believe in flying saucers and little green men. Not today. So I don’t think that kind of threat is on its way here. But I’m afraid it’ll take nothing less to knock sense into humankind. For a few weeks the East Asian tsunami had the world acting as one, for the benefit of other fellow humans. At that time, there had just been danger that was unpredictable, that was far superior in strength to humans, and that could potentially have hit any other human. So we bunched together.

Similarity of Whites and Blacks:
So, if racism and discrimination will never leave the world, you’re perhaps wondering what I am prattling about. Well, my potential friends, I happen to believe that all humans harbour discriminatory thoughts, drilled into them by culture and through other means. You’re not the only ones. However, the question isn’t whether or not to harbour such thoughts (all humans do, whether they like it or not), but how to overcome them. You’re walking down the street and you see this Latino spitting. How could you not think or say, “Dirty Spic,” like so many would? How could you be told by a black person that you smell bad and not think or say, “Fucking nigger. Needs to be put in his place,” like so many would? How could you hear, “We don’t serve your kind here, boy” and not think that “honkies” are all the same “fucking racists?” It’s hard, yet humans need to see other humans as just that: humans — and not as colour or as belonging to a group. People will always be outwardly different, which unfortunately puts other-feature humans in their vicinity on guard. With practice, this habit could go away, white ladies could stop switching their purse to the other side when approaching a black man.

There are more genetic similarities between blacks and whites than among whites themselves. Black people in one part of the world differ with those in another part in a significant way. And that gap is wider than it is between blacks and whites. Simply put, the criteria that you, Mr and Ms Racist, usually refer to when you distinguish race, are but skin deep. Is the place of origin sunny, snowy, windy or what? Is social life there calm, turbulent or what? These are what determines your criteria for distinguishing race.

“Race is a social concept, not a scientific one,” said Dr. J. Craig Venter, head of the Celera Genomics Corporation in Rockville, Md. “We all evolved in the last 100,000 years from the same small number of tribes that migrated out of Africa and colonized the world.” It is timely that scientists are now realizing what many indigenous people and our history have been saying to us. The scientists did not set out to prove the interconnectedness of us humans. They were searching for European greatness; they were searching for products to further exploit the sick, and this allowed for the unearthing of fundamental truths. www.trinicenter.com/sciencenews

Race is terribly relevant to life outcomes. The likelihood that toxic waste has been dumped in your neighborhood, your ability to get a home loan, the quality of your kid’s education, connections to job opportunities, whether or not you’re likely to be followed in a department store or pulled over by police, are all influenced by your race. Race does matter. Not race as genetics but race as lived experience, what sociologists call “social” race. Social race is an important variable for health researchers and epidemiologists. www.newsreel.org/guides/race

What Exactly is Racism?:
It is different things to different people. To see what I mean, think of the idea of terrorism. To one group it’s fighting for freedom, to another it’s terrorism. Racism is somewhat similar. Answers dot com says,

rac·ism (rā’sĭz’m) pronunciation n. 1. The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others. 2. Discrimination or prejudice based on race. rac’ist adj. & n. [www.answers.com]

Notice that the definition does not declare as racism acknowledging differences among people. You can’t help that, and I know of no one who can. It is what you do with that acknowledgement that makes you a racist (or a non-racist, in other cases). An Arab job-candidate who thinks, “Uh-uh… white interviewer? Goodbye job” is a racist. No matter how many times white people have denied Arabs jobs on the basis of colour, those white people were individuals as much as the present interviewer. No individual can act for a group, and it is wrong to see what an individual does and think that others with the same physical traits would act similarly.

Racism is the Ottoman massacre of Armenians, it is slavery, it is the holocaust, it is apartheid, insults, cruelty, lots of cruelty, stupidity, cruel stupidity, cruel insults, and blind opposition to laws like affirmative acti
on. Clinton was probably right when he said of affirmative action, mend it, don’t end it. Following are some comments by various speakers on the subject of racism and discrimination. The aim of the passages here is to get you to see a variety of views, and to ponder the situation with a maximum of opinions before you.

“Black pride” is said to be a wonderful and worthy thing, but anything that could be construed as an expression of White pride is a form of hatred. It is perfectly natural for third-world immigrants to expect school instruction and driver’s tests in their own languages, whereas for native Americans to ask them to learn English is racist. [www.stormfront.org]

Of the many sorry things about the contemporary United States that the Katrina catastrophe has exposed, perhaps none is more depressing than what it showed about the abiding divide in American thinking about race and racism. The televised and photographed spectacle of Katrina’s aftermath in New Orleans in particular revealed that the vast majority of those worst affected were black, in numbers disproportionate even to the large percentage of blacks within the city. [http://understandingkatrina.ssrc.org]

Today in the United States and most of the White world, as soon as a White child is old enough to understand language, he is told that he should feel guilt for the crimes of his ancestors. Guilt for finding, conquering, enslaving, and killing off non-Whites around the globe… and littering in the process. Guilt, not for his own crimes, but for the crimes of other people of the same race. But he is also told that he should feel no pride in the amazing achievements of his race. No pride in the pyramids and the Parthenon, no pride in the arch and the dome, no pride in White science and technology and medicine, no pride in the glories of European painting and sculpture and music, no pride in Plato and Shakespeare and Dostoevsky, no pride in the exploration of the globe and the conquest of space. Pride, not in his own achievements, but in the achievements of other people of the same race. [www.nationalvanguard.org]

You pass me on the street and sneer in my direction.You call me “Cracker”, “Honkey”, “Whitey” and you think it’s OK. But when I call you, nigger, Kike, Towelhead, Sand-nigger, Camel Jockey, Beaner, Gook, or Chink you call me a racist. You say that whites commit a lot of violence against you, so why are the ghettos the most dangerous places to live. You have the United Negro College Fund. You have Martin Luther King Day. You have Black History Month. You have Cesar Chavez Day. You have Yom Hashoah. You have Ma’uled Al-Nabi. You have the NAACP. You have BET. If we had WET(white entertainment television) we’d be racists. If we had a White Pride Day you would call us racists. If we had white history month, we’d be racists. If we had an organization for only whites to “advance” our lives, we’d be racists. If we had a college fund that only gave white students scholarships, you know we’d be racists. In the Million Man March, you believed that you were marching for your race and rights. If we marched for our race and rights, you would call us racists. You are proud to be black, brown, yellow and orange, and you’re not afraid to announce it. But when we announce our white pride, you call us racists. You rob us, carjack us, and shoot at us. But, when a white police officer shoots a black gang member or beats up a black drug-dealer running from the law and posing a threat to society, you call him a racist. I am white. I am proud. But, you call me a racist. Why is it that only whites can be racists? [www.snipeme.com]

In stark contrast to Martin Luther King’s advocacy of nonviolent resistance, the Black Panther Party believed in arming for self-defense against police brutality. While arming provided protection, it also led to incidents that ended in violent standoffs with the police. [http://afroamhistory.about.com]

I’m not standing here speaking to you as an American, or a patriot, or a flag-saluter, or a flag-waver–no, not I. I’m speaking as a victim of this American system. And I see America through the eyes of the victim. I don’t see any American dream; I see an American nightmare [www.socialistworker.org]

Former South African President Nelson Mandela, who Bush has praised as a hero of human rights, joined the chorus of critics by calling Bush arrogant and implying the president was racist for threatening to bypass the United Nations and attack Iraq. “Is it because the secretary-general of the United Nations is now a black man? They never did that when secretary-generals were white,” Mandela said. Most pronouncements of racism I can at least understand, though usually not accept. This, though, makes very little sense to me. Why did Mandela choose to call Bush racist, instead of one of the many other possible pejoratives which would be at least a bit more relevant to the topic of discussion? I don’t agree with most of the criticisms of Bush concerning Iraq, but if people are going to criticize him, I’d think they’d at least choose a criticism about Iraq. [www.discriminations.us]

France was Europe’s fourth largest slave trader after Portugal, England and Spain and transported about 1.25 million slaves. France abolished slavery in 1794, after a successful revolt by slaves in the island colony of Haiti. This has already sparked debate about France’s colonial past and immigrants from most of its former colonies. There is also a question of French citizens who are direct descendants of slaves who have felt they are being marginalised. However, these groups also feel that the commemoration is too little and too late. On 10 May 2001, France passed a law recognizing slavery as a crime against humanity. The law requires schools to include lessons about slavery as an important part of class curriculum. [www.andnetwork.com]

Today is the 10th of May. School children are not the only ones who need to learn about history. I look forward to hearing from you.
Yours Truly
Rethabile

Retrieved on July 16, 2008 from http://mzansiafrika.typepad.com/mzansi_afrika/2006/05/dear_mr_ms_raci.html

Jul 10

State's digital divide widens even as more citizens log on

State’s digital divide widens even as more citizens log on

Ethnicity, demographics, income play key role in who’s wired, survey finds

Anastasia Ustinova, Chronicle Staff Writer

Thursday, June 26, 2008

While the number of Californians who log on to the Internet has increased since 2000 from 65 to 70 percent, a statewide survey conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California indicates there is a widening digital divide based on ethnicity, demographics and income.

Latinos and low-income residents are less likely to use computers and surf the Web than non-Hispanic whites and African Americans, according to the report.

The study, to be released today, found that 40 percent of Latinos have Internet access, and less than half own computers, compared with 86 percent of whites, 84 percent of Asians and 79 percent of African Americans.

Meanwhile, roughly half of households with an income of less than $40,000 have a computer, and even fewer get Internet access and broadband compared with more than 90 percent of more affluent Californians.

And fewer rural residents go online compared with Californians in urban areas.

The overwhelming majority across the state considers the Internet to be very important in everyday life, said Mark Baldassare, president of the Public Policy Institute of California.

“People who are already in a disadvantaged position become even more disadvantaged by not having access to the same information that other Californians do,” Baldassare said. “I think that costs are a consideration for lots of people. The digital divide reflects basic differences in income and educational opportunities.”

The study also found that while in the past eight years, computer usage has declined among Latinos, the majority use cell phones to send and receive text messages and access the Internet, signaling that mobile devices – which cost less than a computer and Internet connection – could help bridge the digital divide.

The poll was conducted June 3-17 in collaboration with the California Emerging Technology Fund as part of a series on public opinion and technology. Among its other findings:

— 50 percent of Californians under age 35 use social-networking sites, compared with 20 percent in the 35-54 age group and 8 percent in the over-55 group.

— 56 percent of parents visit their children’s school Web sites.

— 50 percent of residents say they get health information online, 55 percent get news about current events and 47 percent manage finances online and look for community events.

— The report is based on a telephone survey of 2,503 California adults. It has a sampling error of plus or minus two percentage points.

What the survey found

Race/ethnicity: Just 4 in 10 Latinos have Internet access; about one-third (34 percent) have a broadband connection at home.

Income: Among households with incomes under $40,000, 4 in 10 have home Internet access; a third (33 percent) have broadband.

Region: Majorities in each region of the state say they have home computers and Internet access, but Los Angeles residents report lower rates of broadband connection (48 percent) than residents in the Bay Area (65 percent). Rural residents are somewhat less likely than urban residents to have an Internet connection (58 versus 63 percent).

Source: Public Policy Institute of California

E-mail Anastasia Ustinova at austinova@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page C – 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Retrieved on July 10, 2008 from http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/26/BUFN11F6DE.DTL

Jul 09

Can Race and Racism Be Eliminated?

Why can it be eliminated?
Why can it not be eliminated?