Desmond and Emirbayer’s article attempts to elucidate the configuration of race and racial dominance through the lenses of recent theoretical innovations. As oppose to the then predominant perspective on race that portraits it as a natural phenomenon, these authors describe race as a dynamic, and symbolic social construct that evolves and changes historically. These transformation to be understood must be informed by the influence of other social constructs such as ethnicity and nationhood. This summary is a detailed account of the article that bring at the end in support example from Lopez and Alba in their respective articles. The article started by presenting a clear and comprehensive definition of race which makes racial domination
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They define institutional racism as the systematic reliance of the “White” majority on the different types of power outlets such as symbolic, political, and economic power sources to benefit first and foremost from whatever society has to offer(p 344-345). Ian Lopez in “Ozawa and Thind” offered a graphical example of how a symbolico-political power outlet in the person of the United States Supreme Court built racial barriers. Ozawa and Thind recounted the experiences of two immigrants facing the Supreme Court in their quest to become citizen of the United States. Both of them were declined the privileges associated with American citizenship but furthermore the privileges to become part of the ruling majority “White”. Lopez showed on one hand the court could at will rely on other symbolic social categories such as Sciences to reject the claim of Ozawa to be a Caucasian. On the other hand, Three months later in the case of Thind, the same court ruled that social prejudices took precedence over Sciences and therefore the petitioner could not be granted citizenship. Lopez pointed his finger straight forward at one of the consequences of this ruling as the internment of Asian American in concentration camp throughout
They define institutional racism as the systematic reliance of the “White” majority on the different types of power outlets such as symbolic, political, and economic power sources to benefit first and foremost from whatever society has to offer(p 344-345). Ian Lopez in “Ozawa and Thind” offered a graphical example of how a symbolico-political power outlet in the person of the United States Supreme Court built racial barriers. Ozawa and Thind recounted the experiences of two immigrants facing the Supreme Court in their quest to become citizen of the United States. Both of them were declined the privileges associated with American citizenship but furthermore the privileges to become part of the ruling majority “White”. Lopez showed on one hand the court could at will rely on other symbolic social categories such as Sciences to reject the claim of Ozawa to be a Caucasian. On the other hand, Three months later in the case of Thind, the same court ruled that social prejudices took precedence over Sciences and therefore the petitioner could not be granted citizenship. Lopez pointed his finger straight forward at one of the consequences of this ruling as the internment of Asian American in concentration camp throughout