In her essay, "Race: Why It Matters," Higgenbotham argues that race is still "real" and that it "matters." Here are some of the questions we asked about this essay and our answers...
1. If biology says that race isn’t real, why does the author say that it’s “real”? What specific examples does she use?
- race is real because it has social and historical consequences; real in peoples' minds
- Arab Americans after 9/11: because of their race they experience discrimination as the result of an act of historical trauma
- 65% gap between Black and White income
- race has been institutionalized: after the CRM we expect more desegregation, but we see, in fact, the alternative is true: more school segregation
- race is a factor in the distribution of resources and race segregates and divides
- creates categories of separation like "they"vs "we"
- ASA believes that race is a stratifying practice: jobs, housing, health, education, neighborhoods, schools
- the understanding of whiteness has changed over time: Latino/as can identify as either "black" or "white"
- daily life elicits different experiences for different kinds of people
- race becomes more real as society becomes more real as society becomes diverse
2. What is the difference (and importance)
between saying “majority and minority groups” or “dominant and subordinate”
groups?
- majority and minority are subjects of power; dominant and subordinate groups are tools to define rules of power.
- majority and minority are euphemisms: "politically correct"
- minority and majority refer demographics but dominant and subordinate are related to power relations
- majority and minority and dominant and subordinate are the same, but majority and minority are veiled are usages to mask power relations (words we see in the media, for example)
- minority and majority can be misleading for the greater picture
- minority groups can hold power and hold power (like in a demographic sense; for example, white people will eventually be replaced by other groups)
- Jewish lobby is one of the most powerful political forces in the USA
- one set of terms is numerical only and one set of terms is definitely about power
- majority terms is used as a justification for rules and laws
3. How has America traditionally separated
itself racially and how does the author say this is changing?
- historically America has divided itself along binary lines: black vs. white (the black-white binary)
- young people are more diverse
- more complicated than black vs. whites: we see other racial and ethnic identities and mixed racial-ethnic identities
- there were other racial differences, not just black vs. white
- white originally meant British
- growing population and demographic changes
4. What are some of the racial effects of 9/11?
- people experience racial profiling; increasing hostility to people who are perceived to be "Arab"
- Bayoumi mentions that Arabs are the "new blacks"
- race is something socially constructed; the meaning of, for instance, "blackness" changes over time
- 9/11 brought race to a federal level through Homeland Security and legislative acts; process of getting into the USA
- Arab Americans start to join other groups that are treated as foreign
- media blames people who "look" Arab, for instance, wearing a turban
- Arab = terrorist :(
- the difference between "Arab" and "Muslim": Americans don't understand the difference and lump the two categories together
- Turkey as example of "Muslim" country, but not ethnically "Arab"
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