Racism vs. Racialized Societies
The three articles assigned for today (Jan. 23) deal with how race as an idea was formed and how racism is not only an ideological or cultural idea but also a social construction that is still present in today's society. The three authors all seem to agree on the ways that racism should not be defined, but each have a slightly different solution to the problem of racism. The first article by Omi and Winant spoke of how the concept of race has been formed by society through history. They give examples of how race is often viewed as something that is rooted in biology and is unchangeable. However, they do not agree with this view but argue that race is unstable and that the meanings of race that are created by society constantly change. They suggest that in order for our view of race to change we must realize that race is a socially constructed idea. In the second article, Bonilla-Silva defines how the mainstream population defines racism and then suggests a new alternative framework for racism, which he calls a racialized social system. His central argument is that mainstream socialists do not provide a well-grounded theory for understanding race relations and racism. He writes that racism is not a free-floating ideology that is about the individual mindset, but is rather an idea that comes from the racialization of society. He suggests that by eliminating racialized characteristics from the social system that the use of race will end. In the third reading, the author Winant argues that although some may say that the world has “moved beyond race�, race still defines and organizes the world’s future, if only in more hidden ways than before. He offers four examples of how the world has not moved forward, and suggests that in order to do so we must not get rid of the concept of race but come to terms with the fact that humans have many variations but that we are all of the same race.
It is interesting how each of the authors goes about getting their point across but in different manners. I am unsure of which author I agree with the most because they are very similar and all of their points are valid and well thought-out. I do not agree with Bonilla-Silva when he says that members of a dominant racial group will be less objectionable to the other when they have control over their racial relations, but will behave like all the other members of the dominant group when that control is taken from them. This is a broad generalized statement, and does not explain who the “other members� are, and how they are reacting to race. However, I do find his point about how race relations today are often covert and invisible to whites in the United States. It is true that we do not see racism because it is so well hidden in our society and it is ingrained in our everyday lives. I appreciated Winant's examples from the United States, Brazil, South Africa, and the European Union because they opened my eyes to what is happening with race around the world. I am not often aware of these issues because they are not talked about in the media. It just goes to show how covert the issue of race really is in our present time.
Discussion Questions
1. Bonilla-Silva speaks of questions that were developed in order to detect racism that are not suitable for this time period. What are some suitable questions to ask to detect racism in the present?
2. What does Bonilla-Silva mean when he says that "racism crystallizes the changing "dogma" on which actors in the social system opperate and becomes "common sense" and provides rules for percieving and dealing with the "other" in a racialized society"? What are some examples of this?
3. What are some other examples from around the world of how race relations are invisible to whites?