Definitions of Race and Racism

Definitions of Race and Racism The Center for the Study of White American Culture http://euroamerican.org/images/logot.gif

Definitions of Race • Racen [MF, generation, fr. OIt razza] (1580) • 1: a breeding stock of animals • 2 a: a family, tribe, people, or nation belonging to the same stock b: a class or kind of people unified by community of interests, habits, or characteristics • 3 a: an actually or potentially interbreeding group within a species; also: a taxonomic category (as a subspecies) representing such a group b: BREED c: a division of mankind possessing traits that are transmissible by descent and sufficient to characterize it as a distinct human type • 4obs: inherited temperament or disposition 5: distinctive flavor, taste, or strength Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary

Definitions of Race • Race, technically, refers to differential concentrations of gene frequencies responsible for traits which, so far as we know, are confined to physical manifestations such as skin color or hair form; it has no intrinsic connection with cultural patterns and institutions. Milton M. Gordon Assimilation in American Life

Definitions of Race • Race is a group that is socially defined but on the basis of physical criteria. Pierre L. van den Berghe Race and Racism: A Comparative Perspective

Definitions of Race • Race - A specious classification of human beings created by Europeans (whites) which assigns human worth and social status using "white" as the model of humanity and the height of human achievement for the purpose of establishing and maintaining privilege and power. Ronald Chisom and Michael Washington Undoing Racism: A Philosophy of International Social Change

Definitions of Race • Race– is a word used in English to refer to groups of people until the 1600s, and the meaning was broadly applied. The meaning of race slowly narrowed until in the late 1700s it took on its present meaning to indicate groups of people sharing common physical characteristics, especially skill color. • The narrowing of meaning took place at the same time as Europeans were beginning to colorize and dominate Africa, Asia, and the Americans—areas whose native inhabitants differed in skin color from Europeans. • Over time, racial categories based on skin color became a means of differentiating ‘superior’ Europeans from ‘inferior’ others. Audrey Smedley, Anthropologist (1999) Race in North America

Definitions of Race • Race - Identifying markers rationalizing a subdivision of a species. Some Anthropologists classify races in these five categories: • African/Black, • Oceanic/Brown, • American/Red, • Asiatic/Yellow, • European/White. • Other anthropologists use these terms: • Ethiopian/Black, • Malayan/Brown, • American/Red, • Mongolian/Yellow • Caucasian/White. Phavia Kujichagulia

Definitions of Race • Webster's dictionary defines race as any of the three divisions of mankind distinguished by skin color or a class of individuals from a common stock. Although an argument could be made for four or five divisions of mankind, Webster only recognizes three. • Others claim there are as many as 36 races. • Others claim there is only one race - the human race. The concept of race was established by Eurocentric cultures/peoples so that they could dehumanize, disenfranchise and/or destroy non-White peoples. Phavia Kujichagulia Recognizing and Resolving Racism: A Resource and Guide for Humane Beings

Race - A category of the human species sharing more or less distinctive physical traits transmitted in descent; a concept that has little scientific validity but continues to have a meaning in particular social contexts. Enid Lee, Deborah Menkart and Margo Okazawa-Rey (eds.) Beyond Heroes and Holidays: A Practical Guide to K-12 Anti-Racist, Multicultural Education and Staff Development

is NOT based on biology; CREATED category with historical roots used to classify groups of people. historically was not determined by skin color but by class inequalities (e.I., the English defined the Irish as a "lower" race.) during colonial expansion by European nations, race was defined in terms of skin color where non-white people were considered "lower" races. Anti-Racism Media Education (ARMEd)http://opirg.sa.utoronto.ca/armed/resources/definitions.html, December 20, 2002 Today, relationships between differently raced people are still determined by this moment in history and remain unequal, where white people have the most power and privilege and are considered the norm (ie. non-raced.)• is important to understand that white is also a created racial category.• is also important to understand that though racial categories derived from oppressive contexts, they can also be reclaimed and used as forms of resistance by communities of color. Race

Definitions of Racism • rac•ism n (1936) • 1 : a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race • 2 : racial prejudice or discrimination Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary

Definitions of Racism • Racism is race prejudice + power Origin unknown (ca. 1970) Used by several groups doing antiracism education and training

Definitions of Racism • [On finding that many white Americans were not "prejudiced," and did not harbor hostility or faulty generalizations about other racial groups, but nonetheless resisted change in the nation's racial structure, one sociologist finds…] • that racism extends considerably beyond prejudiced beliefs. The essential feature of racism is not hostility or misperception, but rather the defense of a system from which advantage is derived on the basis of race. The manner in which the defense is articulated - either with hostility or subtlety - is not nearly as important as the fact that it insures the continuation of a privileged relationship. Thus it is necessary to broaden the definition of racism beyond prejudice to include sentiments that in their consequence, if not in their intent, support the racial status Quo; David T. Wellman Portraits of White Racism, Second Edition

Definitions of Racism • Racism is a global system of material and symbolic resource distribution management more comprehensively defined, in accordance with each of the following principles:

Definitions of Racism Principle I. Racism is an ideological, structural and historic stratification process by which the population of European descent, through its individual and institutional distress patterns, intentionally has been able to sustain, to its own best advantage, the dynamic mechanics of upward or downward mobility (of fluid status assignment) to the general disadvantage of the population designated as non-white (on a global scale), using skin color, gender, class, ethnicity or nonwestern nationality as the main indexical criteria used for enforcing differential resource allocation decisions that contribute to decisive changes in relative racial standing in ways most favoring the populations designated as 'white.'

Definitions of Racism Principle II. The aim of this peculiar post-1492 stratification process has been to aggregate an upwardly mobile and putatively 'white' racial group that is stratified internally and that strives to validate its own ascendancy using a shifting range of 'white' cultural practices which are defined as 'white' not on any presumed biological basis, but on the basis of "ideological whiteness"--a field of racial discourse and representation.

Definitions of Racism Principle III. The conceptual content of this historic and politically-charged discursive field is sustained by racial agents who in many ways articulate and justify the suppression of "ideological blackness" (and every form of non-whiteness this may entail) which may be accomplished by many formal and informal means of institutional domination, routinized interpersonal interactions, cultural imperialism, or by any other racialized means of information control.

Definitions of Racism Principle IV. As a generative principle of racism, "ideological whiteness" refers to a dual behavioral process entailing enactments of identify formation and resource access legitimation, both of which were practices once overtly recognized as aspects of "white supremacy," but which now may be more subtly and covertly reproduced as an observable and routine set of implicitly prescriptive, but explicitly disavowed white supremacist beliefs and practices to which all who identify as 'white' (or who behave as 'whitened') are expected to adhere--especially white males--if they wish to maintain their own racial standing as members of these two privileged 'white' groups and assert their negotiable right to privileged resource access.

Definitions of Racism Principle V. Collectively, the 'white' and/or 'whitened' members of this racially privileged global population tend to bolster their shared political intent to impose patterns of restricted resource access on racially subordinant populations, and aim to preserve their presumably non-negotiable right to prescribe, and even dictate, lessor resource access rights for certain upwardly mobile members of the 'non-white' population whose internalized racism, reliable complicity, and carefully scrutinized willingness to cooperate with racial dominates is always required and rewarded. Dr. Helan Enoch Page Associate Professor, Anthropology Department University of Massachusetts-AmherstDistributed at the American Anthropological Association, 1993 Updated and extended, 1999

Definitions of Racism A situation in which one race maintains supremacy over another race through a set of attitudes, behaviors, social structures and ideologies. It involves four essential and interconnected elements: • Power: the capacity to make and enforce decisions is disproportionately or unfairly distributed • Resources: unequal access to such resources as money, education, information, etc. • Standards: standards for appropriate behavior are ethnocentric, reflecting and privileging the norms and values of the dominant race/society • Problem: involves defining "reality" by naming "the problem" incorrectly, and thus misplacing it. Women's Theological Center, Boston, MA, 1994

Definitions of Racism • Racism - Racism involves physical, psychological, spiritual, and social control, exploitation and subjection of one race by another race. It is the social institutionalization of the psychological concept of White/white supremacy (a man-made ideology of white/White superiority and black/Black inferiority). This means that racial discrimination and injustice are established, perpetuated and promoted throughout every institution of society - economics, education, entertainment, family, labor, law, politics, religion, science and war. Racism is also used as an abuse excuse to rationalize violent behavior and inhumane policies toward Melanites. Melanite/Melanites - Alternative term for the words "people of color," "minorities," and "non-whites."Phavia KujichaguliaRecognizing and Resolving Racism: A Resource and Guide for Humane Beings

Definitions of Racism Racism• an underlying belief in the superiority of one race over another and its right to dominate. • generalizing one group of people by believing in simplistic stereotypes of that group. • affects every aspect of the lives of communities of color: social, economic, political, health, etc. • may take three main forms (though all work together to maintain a system of oppression): • Individual Racism-individual acts that overtly reflect racist attitudes/beliefs. This is the easiest one to identify. ie. racial slurs, jokes, etc. • Systemic Racism and Institutional Racism-organizational policies and practices at the structural level that indirectly target communities of color and maintain white privilege. Ie. racism in the criminal justice system (police profiling); racism in the educational system (all white authors on a course reading list.) • Cultural Racism-value system that supports and allows discriminatory actions against racially and ethnoculturally marginalized communities. Ie. white privilege. Anti-Racism Media Education (ARMEd)http://opirg.sa.utoronto.ca/armed/resources/definitions.html, December 20, 2002

Definitions of Racism • Racism - Racial prejudice and discrimination that are supported by institutional power and authority. The critical element that differentiates racism from prejudice and discrimination is the use of institutional power and authority to support prejudices and enforce discriminatory behaviors in systematic ways with far-reaching outcomes and effects. In the United States, racism is based on the ideology of White (European) supremacy and is used to the advantage of White people and the disadvantage of people of color Enid Lee, Deborah Menkart and Margo Okazawa-Rey (eds.)Beyond Heroes and Holidays: A Practical Guide to K-12 Anti-Racist, Multicultural Education and Staff Development

Quotes • I think it affects me and I hate the fact it affects me, that I am aware. If I meet an Italian, an Irish person, or a German, I'm not aware. When I meet a person of color I'm immediately aware. That's...I mean I don't have a negative reaction, but I'm immediately aware. I don't like it. It bothers me. Go!

Quotes • A white woman says,] it angers me when I hear people call black people 'niggers' or anything else derogatory....it makes me angry. Go!

Quotes • I've had a friend of mine who is black say to me, 'You know when you're not with me, if I go into a store, there's someone watching me thinking that I'm going to shoplift.' And I can't believe it. Not only does it bother me, it's really unbelievable to me. Go!

Definitions of Race and Racism