CHAPTER SEVEN
RACISM
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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’
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
– ____________?
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.
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).
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’.
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
immigrants
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
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.
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.
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.
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
Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved.
Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved.
Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved.
Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved.
Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved.
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.
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.
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.
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 nonEuropean countries, ensures much the same.
Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved.