Racism: Racial Discourse, And Racial Politics By Ashley Doane

Superior Essays
Article Review #1

In the article titled “What is Racism? Racial Discourse and Racial Politics” by Ashley Doane of the University of Hartford, she describes how race is affected by the individual, institutions, and social structures (group(s) of people). She examines how the definition of racism changes due to the circumstances around us, from the individual’s views, societal views, or views of the institutions including government. She discusses how people manipulate what the term racist means to a particular person’s advantage against another person, in order to make their claim more valid than the other person’s. Also, she states how some people try to redefine what racism is and the effects of their propositions to change. She states the
…show more content…
In her conclusion, it could be understood that racism is a complicated term to define due to the multitude of views in America. What she does assert is that racism is universal – anyone and everyone shares the burden of racism and that it would take everyone to remove it from today’s world. From what her article stated I understand that the realm of racial justice is becoming increasingly more difficult due to the issues of what is called ‘color-blindness’ not being challenged by other than antiracist academia in public.
The article begins with discussion of the Civil Rights movement where there is a start to a radicalization of a new way to view social racial order in the views of the whole of the society. It discusses how the changes grew to be a slow transformation with those who were helping the cause, but there were also those who brought about opposition to change. This opposition and the assistance to the cause, two different sides, were a great
…show more content…
A variable that changes with every interaction. The article states there can be two different ideals of racism in this case, race-based prejudice or discrimination where anyone can be racist and then we have institutional racism where those who are in power are racist. Here it is believed that the racism in America is rooted in its own culture. What this meant is that the American people hold onto the stereotypes they learn, i.e. from family, and in turn between different groups are held a predisposition that one is better than the other. The obvious and most difficult option here would be to remove the stereotypes from society and work together in a society as a whole, not groups of race labels where there is no reliability or consistency in what race label belongs to who. The readings show that there is no consistency in how groups are formed – races are formed by social interactions not by science. There is no way to identify a person through biology to find their race; race is non-uniform especially where people have mixed ancestry and could identify with multiple racial

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Humanity has a habit of creating an antagonist through ideas and concepts, rather than a physical character. Racism and discrimination have become one of the most apparent antagonistic ideas. This previously was a very prominent problem, and although has declined through the years, is still an issue. George Dawson and Richard Glaubman’s, Life Is So Good, perfectly portrays the grip racism has on various places throughout 20th century America.…

    • 817 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Imagine you don’t have the opportunity of education, jobs, and success in your life because of your race. Racism is the belief that a particular race is superior or inferior to another. In American, there is a lot of racism that still exists in our society during decades. During many years, race, gender, and stereotypes are a significant fact in united states because people look at the perspective of who they want people to be. As Brent staples and James Baldwin points out the racism has been one of the issues that they were facing and fighting in order to stop racial discrimination.…

    • 542 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the article “In Living Color” by Jana King some views on racism create an inequality on society. Nowadays, people are still thinking that racism is over, I disagree with them, because when I came to New York and I went to school nobody wanted to talk to me just because I could not speak English well. I understood that racism is still used in a way we think it is not racism. Also, there are people who treat colored people as hyphenated because they do not are like them. However, to resolve these problems several institutions have created an affirmative action to help people who suffer from discrimination.…

    • 801 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the article “Racism American Style and Resistance to Change: Art Education’s Role in the Indian Mascot Issue,” art educator Elizabeth M. Delacruz attempts to find an explanation for the popularity of Indian mascots by selecting cases and examining the history of the issue. She states 1500 public schools in the United States use Indian mascots. While these schools continue to represent their mascots, the disturbing past of public schools’ early development of the Indian mascots hides behind closed doors. In the 1920s, Indian mascots were developed by White schools in conjunction with practices emanating from Indian Boarding Schools. Children were removed from their homes and incarcerated into American schools to learn American culture.…

    • 995 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Character Analysis 42

    • 1570 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Racism is something that has been studied for many years, however we don’t truly know why it happens or where it comes from. There are many theories of racism that give different ideas of where it has come from. In her book, Towards the Elimination of Racism (Katz. 2013.), Phyllis Katz describes how there are several major categories of racism. Katz splits the major categories into two separate parts, the first being “victim-system control” and the second being “degree of embeddedness”. As we focus on her theory of “victim-system” control, Katz describes it as, “the extent to which a theory locates the root or cause of racial injustice: as within the environmental control of its primary victims or within the larger social structure.”…

    • 1570 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    a commitment to social justice; the primacy of race and racism and their intersectionality with other forms of subordination. These different areas help the scholars very deeply investigate the unseen problems by a larger society that contribute to racism as a…

    • 1917 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    However, today, America is experiencing swiftly changing racial population demographic and a broadening diversity that is challenging the inequality caused by systematic racism and white privilege. Race, by definition, is the major division of humanity by distinct physical characteristics. Racism is the belief that these physical attributes render members of a certain race as inferior or superior. Racism sparks hate, discrimination, prejudice, bigotry and oppression of those seen as inferior by the superior.…

    • 1408 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Racism is something that many people deals with on a daily basis, not only today but also for over hundreds of years ago. In the 60s in the US, there was a Civil Rights movement where people fought for equal rights between the races, especially the black people’s rights. The Civil Rights Act movement changed the US in several essential areas. Decisive laws were established and the power…

    • 956 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The article “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” was written to inform the reader about white privilege and male privilege. It states that men necessarily do not realize that they hold an advantage over women just as though whites do not always realize they are more privileged than blacks. The author Peggy McIntosh thoroughly describes that just by being born with white skin, you automatically are at an advantage over someone who was not born white. She also explains that men do in fact recognize women’s status in the world and will do certain things to improve it. However, they are unwilling to do anything to lessen their own privilege.…

    • 773 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Philosophers have developed concepts they consider are sufficient for defining racism. One philosopher is Tommie Shelby. Shelby presents his reasoning for why we should view racism as an ideology, or a system of beliefs that constitute social oppression. Shelby opposes Garcia who accepts that beliefs do not contribute to racism because one should be able to explain one’s beliefs; in some cases, the subjects cannot. This means that racial discrimination is not just about the individual but also society.…

    • 850 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    ” What is more, he insist that: “racism itself [is] a political system, a particular power structure of formal or informal rule, socio-economic privilege, and norms for the differential distribution of material wealth and opportunities, benefits and burdens, rights and duties.” Indeed, I agree that it is preciously the “political correctness” that prevented us to further improve and assist the academic community to make radical progresses on introducing new relevant theories that include racial contracts. Simultaneously, I wonder if we are already too settled in a frustrating system whereas the “racism” is in “drag”: “as status quo which is deep angry eradicated from view but that continues to make people avoid the phantom as they did the substance”. Then again, why are we so afraid and hesitate to ask and think more broadly? Could it be that we naturally felt more comfortable to conduct our studies with the given information rather than testing their authenticity in a different social and political…

    • 1039 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Racial Formation Theory

    • 750 Words
    • 3 Pages

    This week’s readings exemplify scholarly and theoretical attempts to conceptualize race and racism in a way to effectively address and challenge systematic, structural racism that has evolved throughout the history of the United States socio- politically, historically, and culturally. Omi and Winant trace the lineage of race and racism in the US, focusing on the theoretical paradigms of race and their shortcomings as well as the contemporary evolution of racism coupled with neoliberal economic developments. Feagin similarly explores the legacy of racism in the US from a Marxist perspective. Taken together, these scholars problematize systematic racism that continues in the contemporary American society and argues for new ways to conceptualize…

    • 750 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Racism is the strong belief that one 's race, skin color, or more by and large, one 's gathering, be it of religious, national personality, is better than others in humankind. It has been a piece of the American scene almost since the of North America starting in the seventeenth century. Different gatherings have carried the biggest part of it, showed in terrible laws, social practices, and criminal behavior coordinated toward an unemotional and factual gathering. No American should be racist.…

    • 2244 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Throughout our history, racism has impacted the way we live as a society. Everyday people are involved in traumatizing events or issues that affect the way they live. These issues include: social, economic, and cultural prejudice, and stereotyping. Racial views are influenced by the environment around us. Parents influence their children to have the same beliefs as them.…

    • 1688 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    From the very beginning, it is clear that “racism” is the central theme that Nadine Gordimer tackles in her work July’s people. South Africa witnessed racial segregation for many years under the apartheid regime. It was based on the belief that some races are better than others moreover the unfair treatment for those who belong to a different race. As a famous satirist and social reformer, Gordimer sheds the light on racism from its different perspectives either physical or mental in order to cure her society ills. First, the readers come across with physical racism which is represented by separation between blacks and whites; they are seen as two different nations because of their physical appearance namely “skin color”.…

    • 1219 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays

Related Topics