1. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. CHAPTER SEVEN RACISM

2. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Race: –An ideology asserting that different groups are inherently (naturally) unequal and thus can be ranked in a hierarchy of superiority and inferiority –In U.S. popular culture race is treated as a matter of biology, thereby converting what is socially constructed for creating division as if it were ‘natural’. The similarities between races are ignored and one obvious difference in physical appearance i.e. skin color is taken to describe the ‘naturalness’ of difference.

3. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. The division into race for the purpose of categorization of population has underlying functions for the dominant in a society. –An ethnic group refers to people that share a common culture (religion, nationality, norms etc) as against a – racial group based on phenotypical (i.e. appearance based) skin color to which social meaning is assigned.

4. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Omi and Winant talk about racial formation: which refers to the significance and changing meanings of race and racial categories in a society –The sociohistorical process by which racial categories are created, inhibited, transformed and destroyed.

5. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Race and racism can lead to genocide: the systematic extermination of a group of people by dominant groups that consider them inferior and expendable: e.g. the native Americans in the early history of the US, Africans during the Atlantic Slave Trade etc. In societies where race carries assumptions of value difference and determines life chances is a racist society.

6. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Racism: system of race based social inequality. –Minority or minority group: does not refer to numbers, it refers to groups of people (even when they are the majority) that are marginalized or oppressed based on how they are racially or ethnically defined.

7. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Racism servers as justification of wars: The US conquest of half of Mexico post 1848 and the redistribution of land from Mexicans to settlers signifies the same –After the Mexican war the US started a war against Spain to ‘liberate’ Cuba and annexed Puerto Rico- –Minority status is reflected by the depressed economic state of those considered minorities compared to the dominant racial group

8. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Fastest growing sector of the U.S. Latino population has been of Central and South American origin- they are reacting to the poverty situation and repression by authoritarian governments often supported by the US. Asian Immigrants: –As against forced incorporation of African Americans and Latinos after the Mexican and Spanish American wars, most Asian immigrants are voluntary immigrants

9. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. The falling US fertility rates combined with growing immigration will change the ‘color’ composition of the US population. By 2050, 40% of US residents will be minority group members. –The Salad Bowl explanation rather than the Melting Pot explanation is more accurate when social significance is attached to phenotypical markers. Historically all people in the US are immigrants other than Native Americans whose own ancestors ‘immigrated’ from Asia

10. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. The existence of racism diminishes intergroup contact and enrichment from the human experience that in the various peoples presents different configurations of history and culture. Racism produces hostility between groups as the elite manage their status quo by pitting groups against each other vesting one in the system and alienating another from it.

11. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. The meaning of racism –Blauner’s definition: Racism as a principle of social domination by which a group seen as inferior or different in alleged biological characteristics is exploited, controlled, oppressed socially and psychically by a super ordinate group. –Social domination, through hierarchy, based on markers, social and psychological control, oppression and exploitation.

12. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Functions of racism for the superordinate group: –1. Provides a reference group for the superordinate group, a sense of belonging or vesting in the system –2. Limits competition for scarce resources –3. Serves a scapegoating function: blaming the minorities or immigrants for the problems in society like crime etc.

13. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Two types of Racism –Personal Racism: individuals and small groups express negative feelings based on stereotypes about people of color –Institutional racism: operations of large scale institutions within a social structure disadvantage minority groups and produce diminished life chances for them. –Racism, culture, structure and what is ‘rational’

14. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Personal racism: use of offensive speech based on assumption of inherent white superiority and personal discrimination against people of color like –Hiring them only for low paying jobs –Assuming that they are intellectually inferior and so not giving them equal opportunity to learn in school by tracking them into vocational fields –Not renting or selling real estate- houses apartments etc to people of color –Conspicuously supervising people of color when they shop in stores assuming that all of them are shop lifters. –Assuming that every person of color you see on the street is a criminal and taking evasive action, locking your doors or checking your pockets etc.

15. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Personal racism varies in intensity and visibility but has the central aim of trying to establish the inferiority of people based on their designated race. However distasteful this might be its harms are limited compared to Institutional Racism that affects the very opportunity people of color have to live. In other words, it not only affects their life chances it affects their life expectancy, their health and the state of their families.

16. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Institutional racism is linked to the operation of social institutions. Social institutions reproduce a social structure through fulfillment of basic needs of a society. The way those needs are fulfilled determines social relationships. –Thus racism that exists in the US is first and foremost not a character defect of some white people, it is a social problem of how social institutions operate based on which a group is ascribed inferior status that is reproduced in everyday life. The operation of social institutions then only later translates into character problems involving personal racism.

17. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Examples of institutional racism –1. Work organizations are setup to reproduce white privilege by granting promotions to whites and keeping blacks disproportionately in lower positions, leading to the perception that blacks cannot be either trusted at higher levels or cannot qualify or learn skills required at higher levels. This leads to stereotypes involving ‘intellectual defects’ among people of color widely held by racists among whites. –2. Use of standardized tests and credentials that are designed around middle class values, even when unrelated to the job are used to screen individuals, deliberately excluding blacks ensuring that only those few blacks that “act white” or imitate the middle class culture succeed while most are kept out. This leads to the personal racism stereotype widely held by racists among whites that the best blacks who are talked of as being “a credit to their race” are at best copies of average whites.

18. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. 3. Police and law enforcement over supervise black communities and young males leading inevitably to greater crime detection in those communities and the racist stereotype of “all blacks are criminals” that is held by racists among whites. 4. Hazardous waste dumps are disproportionately located in black neighborhoods implicitly revealing that those that maintain the social structure consider people of color expendable. Not only are they socially excluded from participation in society, society’s harmful refuse is relocated in their neighborhoods, leading to the racist stereotype among many whites that people of color are sub-human that live in sub-human conditions.

19. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. The key element in the maintenance of institutional racism is Power, and whenever we talk about Power we cannot ignore the Power Elite! –So, when the Power Elite tell us that racism is just a character defect of individuals that is based on ignorance, while they perpetuate institutional racism in the workings of a social structure that inevitably leads to personal racism, they are in fact telling us that racism is –____________?

20. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Biological Justification of Racism: –Blacks are innately less intelligent than whites They cite the fact that in the US blacks are not on equal par with whites in education and economic attainment –What is the problem with this argument? »Biologists deny genetic variation based on races »Social structural constraints and not biological intelligence explains the greatest amount of variation among group performance among blacks and whites in the US »Individual blacks outdo individual whites when controlling for white advantage just as individual whites can outdo blacks. Performance is not based on race which is a social construct and not something that is “real” in biological terms.

21. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Economic Deprivation and Exploitation Political power is closely tied to wealth and income. Since people of color have been kept out of occupations and professions that pay well huge wealth gaps emerge between socially described racial categories- this indicates Institutional racism –The model minority myth: is created by lumping all Asians together in a category that due to their small numbers produces on average better results than other minorities. Huge differences exist in how successful Asians have been based on the region they have come from (Japan, developed, versus Vietnam, underdeveloped) as well as whether they were born abroad (and came to the US with human and material capital) or they were born in the US (where the structure fits minorities hierarchically lower than whites).

22. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Direct discrimination in jobs signifies: –Employers prefer employess who will ‘fit in’ and so are biased against minorities –Minorities need more to offset their disadvantage and this means better educational credentials to get similar level jobs as those whites with lower credentials –Minorities are routinely paid less for doing equal work –Blocked promotions which create a ‘white only’ top sphere in most corporations –A demand for minorities to become ‘operationally white’ in order to secure jobs reinforces the hierarchical nature of U.S. society. Fox’s Bill O’reilly while blaming minorities for their own misery asks them to act ‘white’ i.e. dress and talk in a certain way if they want to ‘make it’.

23. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. The Split Labor Market The labor market in the U.S. is divided among racial lines: –The primary labor market: high paying secure jobs mostly (disproportionately) filled by white workers –The secondary labor market: low paying least secure jobs disproportionately filled by minorities and immigran ts

24. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. When minorities try moving out of the secondary and go towards the primary a competitive ‘threat’ occurs to whites, socially constructed, leading to maintenance of boundaries, with the exception of a few symbolic markers (like Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, Obama, that are supposed to signify complete openness for minorities in labor markets) During labor market shortages in periods of rapid economic growth, as in the period after world war 2 minorities are allowed access to the primary labor market. During periods of recession, minorities are disproportionately affected by unemployment compared to whites, as they are during downsizing Educational resources and job training are available to whites more so than blacks, technological change therefore affects blacks more than whites in that their jobs become redundant

25. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Historically blacks were kept out of labor unions that were totally white, and were used as strike breakers by capitalists in order to i) boundary maintenance between black and white workers ii) weakening the resolve of unions iii) lowering average wages for everyone. –Now more blacks are unionized (17% of the black labor force) compared to (13% of the white labor force) whites. Why do you think that is? Answer: Think about the structural transformation of the economy from manufacture to service: what kinds of jobs are more likely to be unionized? Most blacks work in the public sector where more jobs are unionized.

26. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Most of the beneficiaries of Affirmative Action have been white women –The reverse discrimination through Affirmative Action charge is false: White males make up 43% of the labor force yet 95% of the senior management in industry and service jobs are white males- this is a type of implicit affirmative action- also called white (male) privilege that more than reverses the mandated by law affirmative action.

27. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Disadvantage in Small Business Finance Half of white small business owners completely finance their business with their own money (the rest with borrowed money), over 71% of African Americans are forced to finance their businesses themselves because they cannot take out loans –As a result of job and small business loan discrimination there is a wide disparity in the wealth ownership of African Americans compared to whites at every income level.

28. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. There is a close relationship between ownership of wealth and political power. –US senate is almost totally white- presidents are recruited from the senate! –Most mayors of cities became ‘black’ when the power residing with mayors due to state and federal funding diminished –Those blacks that are allowed into corridors of power (of which Congress is not a part) are: Physically more like whites in skin color Psychologically socialized to act and think “white”. As a result they think conservatively on most issues even though they might belong to so-called ‘liberal’ parties

29. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved.

33. International Underdevelopment/Black Ghetto link In the ghetto, according to the mainstream, alien and odd norms prevail, similar to exotic ‘Third World’ cultures, whose presence is supposedly threatening to the described ‘way of life, for which occupation armies (the police in the black ghetto) are needed, similar to the over 750 military bases the U.S. maintains to prevent the “barbarians” (the term used by President Reagan for some foreign enemies) from upsetting the global order. In ‘Anglo Conformity’ there is an implicit assumption of a natural racial hierarchy and its international depiction involves countries to live by the structural dictates of the US and its global financial and trade institutions similar to how blacks are structurally disadvantaged within the U.S.

34. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Under a system of internal colonization, access of the colonized group to majority (relatively wealthy) areas is restricted except as ‘immigrant’ labor filling relatively unskilled jobs at low wages, this ‘immigration’ similarly reflects the daily commute of the ghetto poor to affluent white suburbs for job purposes only. Borders do indeed exist within the U.S separating white and black America, what Dubois described as the ‘color line’ (Dubois (1903) 1995). This ‘color line’ might be an invisible boundary, the realness of which is physically felt in its effects on a controlled and dependent population.

35. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Access to various areas is restricted de-facto for blacks in the U.S, and there are clearly defined borders of tolerance for those transgressing understood boundaries. Those that challenge their colonized status through incorrect demeanor when confronted by the police discover the ‘realness’ of these ‘borders’ (Conklin 2006). Racial profiling ensures that these boundaries are respected and crossing them can lead to swift ‘justice’ like multiple Rodney King style cases. A few decades back, boundaries confining blacks in the U.S. were physically marked by red-lines on bank maps. Today, those paper maps have been replaced by mental mapping of city neighborhoods, the notorious urban spaces that everyone avoids.

36. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Similarly, for ‘Third World’ nations, strict visa and immigration laws to keep the “barbarians” from approaching the gate, deportations, and detaining people on secret-evidence, and special processing upon entry restricted to citizens of non- European countries, ensures much the same.