Nowhere on earth is a thirteen-pound, six-foot long unit of 'scandal' or 'integrity' to be found, for example. Nor apparently can someone find a benchmark unit of 'race'. The second thread runs through the slides 1887, 1934 and 1997. Jim Crow led to better homes for whites than Blacks even after they fought WWII side by side. What this demonstrates is one clear way we very literally live within the tangible outcome of discrimination today, and the Web site goes on to expand on this in "Where Race Lives" and "To See or Not To See" very convincingly. What interests me here is specifically the assertion that "Jim Crow unites poor and wealthy whites, while denying African-Americans equality." I do not contest that the U.S. legal, i.e. white, institution actively and deliberately removed non-whites' means to confront and dismantle discrimination at law. Nor do I contest that the intent of Jim Crow was to unite whites against non-whites. What interests me here is the depth of wealthy whites' 'unity' with poor whites: While skin color undeniably prevented non-whites from the polls and courts, white skin hardly guaranteed passage to privileged spaces endowed by wealth. The result demonstrates the last slide in this 'thread,' what discrimination aims to achieve, which I argue is privilege. Elitism is the objective of subordinating, rather than expelling or simply destroying the Other. Had whites hated Blacks that much they could have wiped them out like the Native Americans. But privelige is useless without...
Jim Crow institutionalized Black exclusion but nor that did not enfranchise white women. It will be interesting to find out the demographic profile of subprime mortgage lending once the legal dust settles after another decade or so. Perhaps PBS will have a new slide called '2007: Reverse Redlining' to complete this series.
Race: Power of an Illusion This second episode of the PBS series, "The Story we Tell" discusses how race and racism developed in this country. Surprisingly, the series experts believe race has a history, and develops over time, and "that it is constructed by society to further certain political and economic goals" ("Race"). The episode begins with narration that leads into the controversial words of Thomas Jefferson, who wrote that he
Race: The Power of an Illusion The constructed notion of race, as reinforced through good science, is also reinforced throughout the first episode of this PBS documentary. In the past, poor and racist science has attempted to classify human individuals according to racial categories and failed miserably. However, good science shows that the very notion of racial separations between individuals of different geographies and cultures is in fact specious, and genetically,
Race: An Illusion The concept of race has no place in today's globalizing world. In fact, it is a damaging illusion. Not only does the idea of race allow false beliefs to develop, but it allows the concept of "them against us" to develop. In such a reality, race becomes a pride-producing rallying point around which blatant discrimination, injustice, and atrocities spring. The idea of race as a meaningful concept is no
It also illustrated the solidification of the definition of a true American as a white male. Andrew Jackson was a populist, and spoke out against the landed aristocracy, of which Jefferson was a member. Jackson wanted votes for all men, regardless of property-holding status, but he also wanted to expand property ownership to a larger proportion of the population. This would be accomplished by expansion westward. The Indian Removal Act
After all, it was only a few generations ago that the FHA was discriminating against black applicants. Schools are still highly segregated. Race in many ways determines access to social and cultural capital, as well as financial capital. Throughout successive generations, it has been difficult if not downright impossible for the sons and daughters of non-white individuals to achieve social and economic parity with whites. The government could do
Race exists, suggests the social view, even in the biological categorizations of science, out of cultural customs and habits not reality. Race is a powerful illusion in culture, even amongst certain pockets of the culture of the scientific community, but it is just that -- an illusion and a delusion. Question Who has benefited from the belief that we can sort people according to race and that there are natural or
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