Social Inequalities - Race and Racism

Social Inequalities ANTH 2301 Race and Racism The best way to conceptualise racism is as racial prejudice mixed with power. Systemic, institutional, and interpersonal behaviours can all contribute to the continuation of racism. In their 2020 book Race: Are We So Different?, anthropologists Alan Goodman, Yolanda Moses, and Joseph Jones describe racism as the use of race to create and defend a social hierarchy and power structure that favours and promotes particular persons or groups of individuals, typically at the expense of others. Many people are aware of instances of racism that occur in interpersonal relationships, but what constitutes institutional or systemic racism? The history of race and its social construction will be covered in this part in order to investigate this subject. Where did the idea of race begin in society? German anthropologist and physician Johann Blumenbach had a significant impact on the creation of current racial classifications. Blumenbach proposed five racial categories to divide humans in the late 1700s: "Caucasian" for White people, "Mongolian" for Asians, "Malayan" for Brown people, "Ethiopian" for Black people, and "American" for Indigenous people of the Americas. Blumenbach worked in the field of craniometry, a now-debunked pseudoscience that studied human head shape and brain size (Goodman, Moses, and Jones 2020, 30). Blumenbach purposefully created a hierarchy out of these groups, with White people at the top. The ruins of this hierarchy may still be seen in numerous places today. Have you ever, for example, seen the phrase "Caucasian" on a form that inquires about race? Why is this word still used today? Although many of the other categories Blumenbach used to categorise people have been contested, Caucasian is still in use in both science and the general public. According to anthropologist Carol Mukhopadhyay (2008), the continual use of this word perpetuates a false sense of scientific authority about Whiteness. Black anthropologists have identified several racial overtones in anthropology's history of researching the "other," citing Williams S. Willis Jr. (1972) among others. With its roots in an intrinsically unequal viewpoint, anthropology originated as the activity of White anthropologists researching the non-White other. The ideas of the White anthropologists were seen as the "norm," and the subjects of their research were viewed as deviating from it. On the other hand, a large number of the first Black anthropologists to get training in the US were engaged in social justice, activism, and public service. The Black anthropologists who pioneered the field were dedicated to combating racism and promoting social change, as evidenced by their research and methodological approach to anthropology (Harrison and Harrison 1999). St. Clair Drake wrote in "Reflections on Anthropology and the Black Experience" that "a few of us chose careers in anthropology forty to forty-five years ago because we believed the discipline had relevance to the liberation of black people from the devastating consequences of over four centuries of white racism" (1978, 86) when discussing why some Black scholars became anthropologists. Anthropologists Allison Davis, Burleigh Gardner, and Mary Gardner contended that there was a racial caste structure in the US in 1941. Caste is a system of social inequality that stems from a person's birth circumstances and prevents them from leaving the social group they are born into. Racism, according to Davis, Gardner, and Gardner, is a strong force in American culture that creates unequal social relationships that, while appearing permanent, vary by location and are prone to change over time. They contend that the caste system is upheld by political, social, and economic systems, frequently via forceful and violent means (Davis, Gardner, and Gardner 1941). Numerous academics have also studied White racial identity; these so-called "Whiteness studies" demonstrate how the definition of White has changed over US history. For example, throughout American history, several ethnic groups were not first classified as White but eventually assimilated into the White identity. The maintenance or pursuit of power and closeness to power are often the foundations of whiteness. In her 2010 book The History of White People, historian Nell Irvin Painter discusses how the idea of a single White race is a relatively new one and gives a thorough history of European culture, race, and the recurrent worship of Whiteness. The manner in which White people have benefited at the cost of other groups are referred to as white privilege. Peggy McIntosh compares White privilege to an invisible, weightless rucksack containing unique supplies or benefits in her seminal 1989 work "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack." McIntosh, a White person, lists a number of benefits—or perhaps just a lack of barriers—such as not having to constantly consider one's race, being assured of being represented wherever one goes, and not having to worry about speaking for the entire members of one's racial group. Consequently, experiencing one's Whiteness as the norm is White privilege. The cultural notion of White supremacy, which holds that White people are a superior race and ought to rule society at the cost of other, historically disadvantaged groups, is frequently associated with White privilege. Although White supremacist behaviour is frequently perceived as extreme, it is really present in many instances of structural social inequality. Many people see the overt White supremacist ideologies of the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis as racist. On the other hand, there are a lot of subtle instances of racist and problematic White supremacy that go unnoticed. The idea of White supremacy is divisive in today's politics and media. One way to conceptualise racial rejection or the avoidance of discussing race is as a quiet kind of racism. In her 2019 ethnography Reproductive Injustice: Racism, Pregnancy, and Premature Birth, anthropologist Dána-Ain Davis notes that racial inequality may persist in situations where it is not acknowledged. Davis conducted interviews with Black moms and their partners, NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) staff, including nurses and physicians, birth workers, and March of Dimes managers as part of her study on Black women who give birth to preterm children. According to Davis's research, a large number of medical professionals shied away from racial conversations and as a result, failed to see the link between racism and differences in health, early birth, and medical care. Rather of focusing on other factors, like as race, Davis interviewed college-educated Black professional women who had preterm birth discrepancies. According to Davis, if healthcare professionals do not talk about race, then racial inequities and medical racism—which are fueled by systemic and structural racism —will not be addressed in healthcare settings. In the US, where history and how it has impacted people's lives are frequently ignored, there is a historical precedent for this kind of racial rejection (Davis 2019, 88). Last but not least, microaggressions are commonplace occurrences of racism, homophobia, sexism, ableism, and other isms that are seen as barely concealed slights aimed at members of historically marginalised groups. It's possible that those who engage in microaggressions are unaware that they are. Microaggressions are insults and snubs that are directed at someone only on the basis of their association with a marginalised group. They can be both verbal and nonverbal, and they convey hostile, disparaging, or negative signals. For instance, Saira Mehmood, a coauthor of this chapter, describes herself as a Muslim lady of South Asian heritage who was raised in New Orleans. People frequently ask Saira, "Where are you from?" The question "Where are you really from?" is frequently asked when she responds, "New Orleans." Saira's autonomy as an American is denied by this kind of microaggression.