“Race”

and Racism in USA

–and else
 Back to the distinction between race and ethnicity
“In American history, Americans who had distinct physical characteristics
because of their skin color or the shape of their eyes represented an ethnic
group because they had different religions and different cultures—but they
also represented a racial group. And people were stigmatized because of
their distinct physical characteristics. And this led to legislation against them,
like slavery, the Chinese Exclusion Act, and the internment of Japanese
Americans. Neither Italians nor Germans were interned during World War II.
You have to make a distinction between ethnic experience and racial
experience. To lump together race and ethnicity violates this complex reality. Ronald Takaki
I am a scholar who strives to make the distinction between race and
ethnicity. European immigrant groups were ethnic groups. They represented
different religions. And Catholics and Jews suffered the oppression of
ethnocentrism inflicted upon them by a Protestant America. But because
they were white, they were eligible for naturalized citizenship, and they were
able then to exercise political power and advance their economic and social
interests.
On the other hand, Asian immigrants were not eligible for naturalized
citizenship. The Naturalization Act of 1790 specified explicitly that to be
eligible for naturalized citizenship, you first had to be white—and it used the
term white. You might think, "That was 1790." Well, this law was in effect
until 1952. And because of this law, my grandparents never became U.S.
citizens. How is that for an example of the difference between race and
 Race vs. Ethnicity

• Biological factors: skin, • Sociological factors:

hair, eye color,… cultural factors
• Black, white… (nationality, regional
• Fewer races than culture, ancestry, religion
ethnicities and language)
• Scholarship today: race no • A sense of a shared
longer a valid biological cultural history
concept but a socially
constructed one (75% of • African American, Italian
known genes are present American,..
in all people) • Self-defined
• But still used as a term to
group people --- racism
 Race as a constructed reality
“The Idea of Race”
1: From indentureship to slavery
1600s: Blacks in America were considered indentured servants
1660s: First Virgina Law on slavery
1670s: Bacon’s Insurrection: Whites and blacks together start the rebellion, yet
already different treatment (for economic reasons!! –as well as social control of
poor whites)

RACE IS THE CHILD OF RACISM

2: Formalization of the ideas of race
1758: Karl Linneus’ tenth edition of Systema Naturae: gradation of human races
1776: Blacks excluded form Declaration’s entitlement to freedom. Jefferson,
explicit about “the inferiority of the black race”. Need to justify this
scientifically.
1800s: Polygenist vs. One species-several races theory; both equally racist
1850s: Biological and social darwinism
3. Late 1800s: massive arrival or southern (darker) Europeans; complication of color
categories: Black or white?

4. Job competition:
Early 900s: Black migration towards northern states, looking for jobs and escaping
lynchings What where
they?Nazism…
Creation of the “Eugenics Records Office” (1910-1939): It inspired
When did they
begin and end?

5. 1950s-1970s:
Civil Rights movements challenge race discrimination
Jim Crow laws repealed in Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
De Jure vs. De facto equality
 Did you
know Toni Race as a construct
Morrison?
Read her “There is no such thing
work… as race. None.
There is just human race
–
Scientifically,
anthropologically.
Racism is a construct, a
social
Construct… it has a
social function, racism”

Toni Morrison
 “...a[re] ways of constituting knowledge,
Discourses… together with the social practices, forms of
subjectivity and power relations which
inhere in such knowledges and relations
between them. Discourses are more than
ways of thinking and producing meaning.
They constitute the 'nature' of the body,
unconscious and conscious mind and
emotional life of the subjects they seek to
govern.”

Discourses therefore: “define the reality of

the social world and the people, ideas,
and things that inhabit it. For Foucault, a
discourse is an institutionalized way of
speaking or writing about reality that
WHO IS MICHEL defines what can be intelligibly thought
FOUCAULT? and said about the world and what
(1926-1984) cannot.”
https://www.massey.ac.nz/~alock/theory/foucault.htm
(Foucault, Michel 1979: The Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language. Pantheon Books: New York. )
SOCIAL CONSTRUCT = DISCOURSE

DISCOURSES

PRODUCTION OF KNOWLEDGE

EXERCISES OF POWER
EXERCISE 1 – Understandig the origins of “race”

Go to Robin d’Angio, “Racism and White Supremacy”, pp. 15-19 and answer these
questions:
1. How are American Independence and the scientific development
of racial theories connected?
2. What was before, race or racism?
3. To what purpose was the category ‘race’ created?
4. How was “whiteness” designated after the abolition of slavery in
1865?
5. What does “passing as” white mean and what are its implications?
6. How does class intervene in the equation?
7. What is the advantage of the category “race” for the economically
privileged?
• The myth of color-blindness

Vs.

• The national conversation on race

“The only reason you say that race was not an issue is because
you wish it was not. We all wish it was not. But it’s a lie. I came
from a country [Nigeria] where race myth
The false was not
of aan issue; I did not
think of myself as black and I post-racial
only became
USblack when I came to
America. When you are black in America and you fall in love
with a white person, race doesn’tand matter
of when you’re alone
together because it’s just you and your love. But the minute you
step outside, race matters.“COLORBLINDNESS”
But we don’t talk about it. We don’t
even tell our white partners the small things that piss us off and
the things we wish they understood better, because we’re
worried they will say we’re overreacting, or we’re being too
sensitive. And we don’t want them to say, Look how far we’ve
come, just forty years ago it would have been illegal for us to
even be a couple blah blah blah, because you know what we’re
thinking when they say that? We’re thinking why the fuck
should it ever have been illegal anyway? But we don’t say any of
this stuff. We let it pile up inside our heads and when we come
to nice liberal dinners like this, we say that race doesn’t matter
because that’s what we’re supposed to say, to keep our nice
liberal friends comfortable. It’s true. I speak from experience.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah (2013)

 “I had to put up a wall for my own sanity. I had
to stop talking to white people about race
because I could see theirs and they could see
mine, but they couldn't see their own, or the
power implicit in it, how all their assumptions
about race shaped the world, and how they
never questioned themselves on it.

My wall was temporary, and it sparked an

interest that I didn't anticipate. I spent the next
few years talking to white people about race.
After I had made such a declarative statement
2017 in that blog post, white people suddenly felt
that the issue concerned them.”
I stopped talking to white people about race. Here’s what I lea
rned
“For some time now, liberalism has been too keen to flatten and erase difference in
the pursuit of political harmony, believing that if we say we're all the same, then
we'll all get along. But this is a willful ignorance of existing barriers, of shapers of
inequality. The values of liberal democracy have never been fully realized. If they
had, we wouldn't need an inclusion agenda, because everyone would be free to
fulfill their potential. But racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism – all social walls,
built into the structure of the way things are – are active hindrances to any
semblance of meritocracy.”

“Pointing out the differences between us is not the problem. The problem is the
power that lies behind those differences, and how the status quo has relied on
marginalization. To be responsible citizens we must reckon with this. It's not just
about the newspapers you read or the campaigns you donate to. It's about your
actions. Bringing down these walls means a fundamental restructuring of the
society we live in. It means disrupting comfort, including your own. ”

Renni Eddo-Lodge
 THE NATIONAL CONVERSATION
ABOUT RACE

Black Lives Matter

f.2013

Trevor Martin murder 2012 – George Floyd 2020

“Know their names. Black People killed by the police in the US”
An Aljazeera Report
 2017 2020

2016

Etc.
2021 2019
 Critical Race Theory
• Critical Race Theory: A Brief History
• Origin: early 1980s.
• “Not a noun, but a verb.”
• Putting systemic racism at the forefront of education and academic study.

Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw speaking at the Women’s March in Los Angeles in

2018.Credit...Amanda Edwards/Getty Images
Derrick Bell, a Harvard Law School professor, walking with a group of students
protesting the law school’s practice of not granting tenure to female (She organized a march in favor of CRT in 1983
professors.Credit...Steve Liss/Time Life Pictures via Getty Images and coined the term “Intersectionality” in 1989)
 The Critical Race Theory “Controversy”
• Trump’s Executive Order 13950 of September 22,
2020 “Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping” →
led to the banning of CRT in several states

• Why are states banning CRT?

“Opponents fear that CRT admonishes all white
people for being oppressors while classifying all Black
people as hopelessly oppressed victims. These fears
have spurred school boards and state legislatures
from Tennessee to Idaho to ban teachings about
racism in classrooms. However, there is a
fundamental problem: these narratives about CRT
are gross exaggerations of the theoretical
framework.”

• Untangling the controversy around CRT

(An explanation by Professor Charles A. Price,
Temple University)
EXERCISE 2: Prejudice, discrimination, racism
Go to Robin d’Angio, “Racism and White Supremacy”, pp.
19-23, and:
1. Find the definitions of Prejudice, Discrimination and
Racism.
2. How does prejudice relate to stereotypes?
3. Is prejudice universal?
4. What does she mean when she says: “Racism is a
structure, not an event.” (20)
5. Can there be racism without power, or reverse racism?
6. How does she define ideology, and which typically
American ideologies does she mention?
7. Is racism something of the past?
 Prejudice, discrimination, racism
• Prejudice is a matter of belief, but discrimination is a matter of action:

• Discrimination is an unequal treatment of different groups of people.

– It can mean actual actions (like calling sb a racial slur or refusing to work with sb etc.)
– But also: Institutional racism

• Racism includes beliefs, thoughts and actions based on the idea that one race is innately
superior to another
– Usually racism is addressed at people who have less power than other races

• There is implicit and explicit racism

– Explicit: we are conscious of our beliefs and stereotypes. Calling somebody a racial slur.
– Implicit: unconscious beliefs about other groups. It is more insidious, because it is less easily
recognisable

• We often don’t recognize how implicit biases affect how we interact with each other
 Institutional racism
• Biases which are built into the institutions of a society, such as schools,
banking systems or the labor force (term coined by Stokely Carmichael and
Charles Hamilton in the 1960s, who said that “Institutional racism is harder to
identify, and therefore less often condemned by society”)

Bombing a black church is easily recognizable as racism (an act of hatred

motivated by this)
Vs.
Black children’s lack of access to appropriate housing, schooling, food or
healthcare (= caused by institutional racism)

• Elevated ratios of sickness and death in black children are not seen as
stemming from society or individuals racist animus, yet are the result of
structural racism in society.

• Much easier to go unnoticed because there is no single person to blame.

Opening the conversation

http://johnmetta.com/
John Metta, “I, Racist” (2015)

• A sermon: a Christian genre within US tradition

Structure: Introduction/ Main Points/ Illustrations/ Conclusion/ Application

• What are John Metta’s main points?

EXERCISE 3, Opening the conversation
1. Why does John Metta not talk about race with white people?
2. Why does his aunt believe that racism does not exist any longer in US?
3. Why do Black people tend to think in terms of “we” rather than individually?
4. Do Whites think the same way, in terms of “we”?
5. What two main forms of racism does Metta refer to? Provide examples of each.
Which of them do you think is more insidious?
6. What is the “angry Black person” argument?
7. Why does he say that “millons of Black lives are valued less than a single White
person’s hurt feelings” (3)?
8. How does the representation of white and non-white people differ, and how does
it tend to be perceived? What stereotypes lie behind these descriptions?
9. Can you find in the text a synthetic definition of what is known as “structural
racism”?
10. What does the story of the Good Samaritan try to illustrate?
11. What is Metta’s final exhortation to his audience?
Racism and the vulnerability of Black Bodies
Exercise 4, The vulnerability of Black bodies
Please, find evidence in the text to answer the following questions, and expand briefly on the answers conjecturing on
the reasons and .
(These questions refer to pp. 1-30 from the book.)

1. What element occupies central stage in the text and in the writer’s life, and why?
2. Why his sadness when being interviewed on a TV show?
3. What or who is the God referred to by Coates?
4. Who are “the people” in American history?
5. What is the pervading image of race in the USA according to Coates?
6. How do race and racism relate to each other in his account?
7. Who and what does he refer to when he writes, “if all our national hopes have any fulfillment, then they will
have to be something else again” (7)?
8. How would you qualify the process of creating whiteness, as in the text?
9. How does the text refer to the myth of American Exceptionalism?
10. “The destroyers are merely men enforcing the whims of our country, correctly interpreting its heritage and
legacy” (10). What and who is he referring to here? Can you identify with his discomfort around this issue?
11. How is the myth of the American Dream referred to in the text? (10-11, etc.)
12. Why would he choose not to comfort his own child?
13. What is the question which has haunted Coates all his life, which he keeps trying to answer? Is it an answerable
question? Is it futile?
14. Discuss the depiction of the streets and of the educative system in the text, and how important both were
during Coates’ formative years.
https://www.aclu.org/
issues/juvenile-justice/
school-prison-pipeline/
school-prison-pipeline-
infographic
1. What does Oluo mean when she writes that racism is dictated by our systems, not our
hearts? (29-30)
2. What does Oluo mean when she writes that racist events are educational
opportunities? (34)
3. How does she propose to handle racist events? (34)
4. How does she define intersectionality? (72, 73, 74)
5. Why isn’t it not more prominent in social justice movements? (75, 76)
6. How to increase intersectionality? What are the questions we need to make ourselves?
(77-78)
7. What is cultural appropriation? Is this an objective reality? (139, 140; 145)
8. How do appreciation and appropiation relate? (140) How does power intervene in the
equation? (141)
9. “Cultural appropriation is the product of a society that prefers its culture cloaked in
whiteness” (144). What does this mean?
10. What is the “receipt” against cultural appropriation? (146)
11. What are microaggressions? (162) Are they always verbal? (165)
12. What are their features, which makes them so insidious and exhausting? (163)
13. What is their effect? (162 ... 166)
14. How to defend yourself from them? (166-167)
15. Should we speak for/on behalf of somebody else who has suffered a MA? (167)
16. What can you do if you have been called out for a (racist or else) microaggresion? (168-
169)
 Ijeoma Oluo on racism (pp. 27-31)
1. Paramount presence of race in US (31)
2. 2 definitions of racism. (27)
3. Systemic racism: not a battle for the hearts and
minds (28); what we think about ... Is dictated by
our Systems, not our hearts. (29-30); examples on
p. 32: Prisons, work, education, history,
government...
4. Complacency in the System gives it its strength
(29); you don’t have to be racist to be part of the
racist System (28)
 Ijeoma Oluo on Antiracism
• Racist Events as educational opportunities (34)
• How to handle them:
1. Ask, what measurable impact will this/would
something like this have in your life?
2. Link the event to the systemic effects of racism.
Examples?
...To remark the difference between racism and
anti-white bigotry. (35)
...In order to make a difference (35): Antiracism as a
moral obligation.
 Forms of antiracism (Oluo)
• Correct systemic racism in all possible ways

• Increasing awareness of intersectionality (72 et

passim)

• Denounce forms of cultural appropriation (139-146)

• Denounce and fight microaggessions (162 et passim)

INTERSECTIONALITY

• Origin, p. 74 (Crenshaw
1989)
• Definitions, pp. 72, 73
A highly individualized experience

• How does each of us

experience intersectionality?
• Which of the variables of my
personal identity has more
weight in my sense of who I
am? And in my daily
experiences? Are these two
(sometimes) in conflict?
• Can you find three
experiences where your
intersectional position is
underscored or
problematized?
• Why is intersectionality not more prominent
in social justice movts.?

1. Slows things down

2. Exposes privilege
3. Decentralizes those at the center
4. Forces to listen to “Others”
• How to increase intersectionality? What are
the questions we need to make ourselves?
Pp. 77-78

P. 79: Need for awareness of intersectionality in

all orders of life, so as to improve social justice.
 Cultural Appropriation
1. “Adoption or exploitation of another culture
by a more dominant culture.” (139-140)
2. The perception changes according to people
(139; 145)
3. How do appreciation and appropiation relate?
(140) How does power intervene in the
equation? (141)
4. What examples of Cultural Appropriation can
you think of?
4. Should white people be rappers? (top 144)

5. “Cultural appropriation is the product of a

society that prefers its culture cloaked in
whiteness” (144). What does this mean?

6. What is the “receipt” against cultural

appropriation? (146)
 MICROAGRESSIONS
1. What are they? (162) Are they always verbal?
(165)
2. What are their features, which makes them so
insidious and exhausting? (163)
Small; Cumulative; Perpetrated by many people;
Often unconscious
3. What is their effect?
i. Hypervigilance (162); Psychological damage (165)...
ii. They normalize racism (165); hold the System of
white supremacism together (166)
How to defend yourself from them? (166-167)
• State what happened, boldly (“You were assuming
that...”)
• Ask uncomfortable questions (“why did you say
that?”, “I don’t quite understand what you mean...”)
• Reinforce that good intentions are not the point
• Remember you have every right to bring this up (it
is not compulsory that you do it, though (168)... Yet
it is convenient that we start addressing
systematically these matters –CRT!)
Should we speak for/on behalf of somebody
else who has suffered a MA? (167)
Take the lead of the involved person ... You
don’t want to remove the agency from them ...
Do not increase the burden on them ... Do not
make enemies for them...

(Who is the text addressing in terms of race?)

If you have been called out for a (racist or else)
microaggresion:
• Pause and reflect
• Would I say that to sb “of my group”?
• Was this the result of some kind of discomfort? Any
feelings of threat?
• Don’t force people to acknowledge your good intentions
• Remember this is part of a whole structure...
• Research further on the topic
• Apologize
…Do we still need to talk about
“race”?
 “Black History Month”:
Is it necessary? Is it convenient?
• In US, aka as “African-American History Month”
• A month devoted to celebrating culture and achievements of this
community. Educational and cultural activities
• Many intellectuals, both black and white, find it useful and even necessary
• Yet, see Morgan Freeman’s opinion of Black History Month
• Robin D’Angio (26-27): “Black history as divorced from American History”;
“White history is implied in the absence of its acknowledgment”...
“I have never lived, nor have any
of you, in a world in which race
did not matter. Such a world, a
world free of racial hierarchy, is A Post-racial US?
frequently imagined or described
as a dreamscape, Edenesque,
utopian so remote are the
possibilities of its achievement.
…the race-free world has been
posited as ideal, millennial, a
condition possible only if
accompanied by the Messiah or
situated in a protected preserve,
rather like a wilderness park.”

(Toni Morrison, The Source of Self-

Regard. Selected Essays, Speeches and
Meditations, 2019 p131)
Thank you