Education

At the end of class on Tuesday we discussed a scenario of a sheltered white person going up to a person of color with the clear intentions of learning more about a member of a different race. The initial response to the scenario was that of perturbation, anger, and the suggestion to “go read a book”. What is this person to do? The direct approach may be troublesome, but those situations were created through a far more troublesome hegemony of white supremacy. This white person may or may not want to become the friend of the colored person; however, there is a clear and important desire to learn. Surely we have all engaged in conversations with people who we have less desire in befriending than in learning about their beliefs whether it is religious, cultural, political, racial, etc. We all need to be willing to engage in conversations of race if we are to awake from, to quote Michelle Alexander, our “colorblind slumber”. Instead of shutting the inquisitive white person out, that moment would be far more productive if it were informative and open to conversations about the realities of race within our society.

On Wednesday night, Michelle Alexander closed her powerful speech calling for a movement based on the injustices done to all people of any color who are impoverished by the hegemony of white supremacy. The path towards rectifying the oppression within our country has to be led chiefly by education. There are a multitude of racist reasons (white flight, exclusionary zoning to name two) why the sheltered white person from the middle of nowhere suburbia has never had an encounter with a person of color. With our current colorblind attitudes, this person is most likely unaware of the unspoken mechanisms that create and perpetuate white supremacy, thus they should be educated on them. While reading books is definitely helpful, human interactions tend to be far more impactful and would result in more education on current issues. We need change, and that change is only going to come from an inclusive movement that can be bred through education and open dialect. 

Post-modern racialism

I do not consider myself to be a post-modern racist, for much of the same logic that I do not consider myself to be an indirect racist. According to Taylor, “Post-modernism here involves flattening difference, insisting on the unity of the human family and the declining significance of race, in ways that obscure the way various stratifying mechanisms continue to do their work” (Taylor Kindle Locations 1984-1986).  Being a biologist, I am in agreement with some of what post-modern racialism involves. Further, I am not sure if all of the aspects of post-modern racialism are bad. Taylor clearly states that the racialism he speaks of is not biological, since there is no biological basis for racialism. I do think that this fact should carry some weight though when it comes to ideologies based on “race”. For this reason when I think of races I may tend to “flatten difference, insisting on the unity of the human family”, because we are biologically one race/species. At the same time, I try my best to understand the significance of race in shaping our current institutions. While I am unaware of the significance of race in its entirety, I have learned/am learning the significance of race in providing people with their social location. Thus I do not decline the significance of race or attempt to obscure the underlying social mechanisms that lead/contribute to social inequalities based on race even though I do believe that we should all be treated equally.

In my opinion, Taylor’s ideas become too convoluted for me to fully assess whether I think he would classify me as a post-modern racist or not, and depending on whether I have interpreted him correctly, whether I agree or disagree with his idea of post-modern racialism. Earlier in the reading Taylor laid out race-thinking as “a way of assigning generic meaning to human bodies and bloodlines” (Kindle Locations 579-580). He then went through chapter two and discussed how race is permeated with different social categories such as socioeconomic status, ethnicity and gender. Now in chapter three, my interpretation of Taylor’s “post-modern race” focuses almost entirely on the “patterns of advantage and disadvantage” (Kindle Locations 2086-2090). Where being a “multiculturalist, eager to celebrate different foods and holidays and dances” (Kindle Locations 2086-2090), makes someone in effect a racist. I may be misinterpreting Taylor’s idea here, and perhaps he only means that being a multiculturalist in congruence with denying the role that race can have in varying social institutions makes one a post-modern racist. However I feel that more of an emphasis on this disregard and less of a condemnation of integrating race-thinking with other social categories would have made his argument more clear. As Taylor eventually says, “race doesn’t do its work alone” (Kindle Locations 2278-2279). Thus, with my current understanding, I accept the main notion of post-modern racialism but only if it is in conjunction with the merger-thesis. 

On the focus of racists

Last week in class someone asked “Who here is a racist?” A few members of the class raised their hand in admittance to viewing themselves as a racist. Their reason for viewing themselves as a racist wasn't due to white supremacist views, but rather by means of being a white individual in a society with racist institutions. I can only speak for myself but using Taylor’s definition of racism as “an unethical disregard for people who belong to a particular race”, I stick with my belief that even if I live in a society with racial injustices, I am not a racist. If I was refusing “refusing to respond to” these institutionalized forms of racism, according to Taylor I would be an “indirect racist”. By this logic I am under the impression that even those who called themselves racist in class are not even indirect racists in this regard. We may not be organizing protests outside of Gratersford (yet), but I think it is safe to conclude that considering we have all signed up for Philosophy of Race we are aware of racial problems within our society and are actively educating ourselves on said issues. Therefore even though I am not affecting meaningful change within our prison system for example, this does not make me an indirect racist because I am still responding to the situation through education and advocacy. 

9/1/13

As a biologist, I nearly always try to understand things through an evolutionary viewpoint. Additionally, I appreciate definitions and empirical evidence. I am working to expand my scientific box way of thinking, but couldn't help looking up a definition for race. Most definitions I came across involved genetic jargon even though there is no biological divergence that actually classifies any human as a race or subspecies as we are all part of the human race.  Thus I am fond of Taylor's emphasis on "race-thinking". In class on Tuesday multiple people said that they don't believe in race, but we are all obviously aware that there is race-thinking and that there are problems within our racialized society that should be addressed, understood, and ultimately looked to be fixed. Being from a predominantly white area and not witnessing much overt racism, I didn't spend a lot of time developing my views on race other than I thought it was wrong and ignorant. I was somewhat aware of white-privilege, but not nearly as aware as I am now. I am still developing my views on race-thinking and am really looking forward to learn about other people's views and how their environments/experiences have shaped said views.