The Politics and Economics of Race in America by Carnoy Martin Carnoy wanted to achieve one of the most difficult, emotional, and political topics in America’s history. Faded Dreams: The Politics and Economics of Race in America addresses the subject of economic inequalities among minorities. For the past century, material goods have posed as the symbol of success and worth in our nation’s society. Carnoy argues that efforts to improve technology have changed over the past century, but the social problems in our nation continue. Carnoy agrees improvements have been made in the lives of minorities in America, but they have fallen short or have been dismantled. He focuses on three reasons: “individuals responsibility,” “persuasive racism,” and “economic restructuring.” “Individual responsibility” refers to the issue that each person is the creator of his or her economic and social future. “Individual responsibility” assumes that markets are open to all. These markets reward those according to their worth and minorities are worth less then whites because they do not want a good education, good jobs, and improvements in their lives. According to Carnoy, “individual-responsibility” explanations place the blame of minorities’ continued poverty on poor choices made by two social players: minorities themselves and white politician trying to solve the problem of poverty. Minorities have chosen to play the “victims” when the conditions that made them the victims have disappeared. The white politicians have continued to supply solutions to the poverty of minorities that have been “victims,” therefore keeping minorities “locked” into the dependents status. Carnoy states that minorities have taken advantage of all they possibly can, but programs and legislation have continually abandoned their initial cause of helping minorities. Minorities simply need to work harder and the government needs to follow through with its plans to help minorities. “Persuasive racism” refers to the issue of racial discrimination. Carnoy states there are two explanations for the racial discrimination. The first places racism at the level of the individual and collective individuals. White prejudice produces disadvantages and poverty for minorities, further creating prejudice by creating whites’ opinions of blacks. Carnoy states that throughout time the white business owners have discriminated against blacks and minorities by paying them less and placing them in the lowest positions. The second explanation states that today’s governments and markets are constantly biased. Minorities could never “catch up” to white society no matter what they do because there is continual racism.
Did the five-generation family known as the Grayson’s chronicled in detail by Claudio Saunt in his non-fiction book, Black, White, and Indian: Race and the Unmaking of an American deny their common origins to conform to “America’s racial hierarchy?” Furthermore, use “America’s racial hierarchy as a survival strategy?” I do not agree with Saunt’s argument whole-heartedly. I refute that the Grayson family members used free will and made conscious choices regarding the direction of their family and personal lives. In my opinion, their cultural surroundings significantly shaped their survival strategy and not racial hierarchy. Thus, I will discuss the commonality of siblings Katy Grayson and William Grayson social norms growing up, the sibling’s first childbearing experiences, and the sibling’s political experience with issues such as chattel slavery versus kinship slavery.
Smith introduces the concept of ascriptive inegalitarianism, which effectively brings to light the conditions in which the reality of political ideologies exist due to social preconceptions that are passed from one generation to the next about the “natural” superiority of one race, gender, religion, etc. Liberalism and republicanism exist and function within this realm, not allowing for their respective ideological potentials to be fully realized. Hereditary burdens are placed on minorities because of clashing of democratic liberalism and republicanism along with these systematic and cyclical discriminatory practices. When seen through the eyes of society and government, these systems are completely inescapable. Americans, through these ascriptive systems of multiple political traditions, struggle with the contradictions each idea presents against the other and as a society attempt to embrace the best qualities of each. These outlooks help explain why liberalizing efforts have failed when countered with supporting a new racial or gender order. The ascriptive tradition allows for intellectual and psychological validation for Americans to believe their personal and hereditary characteristics express an identity that has inherent importance in regards to the government, religion, and nature. This provides those who are a part of the white elite to dictate which features are the most desirable and holy, giving head to social conceptions like “white wages”, which make them inherently superior to all other races and cultures. These ideologies are institutionalized within all facets of American life such as causing evils like mass incarceration, wage gaps, and rising suicide
A Critical Analysis of Racism in Canadian Law and the “Unmapping” of the White Settler Society in “When Place Becomes Race” by Sherene H. Razack
Gary Gerstle argues America followed a path both civic and racial nationalism throughout the 20th century in his book American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century, and that America is a melting pot of different cultures due to the accumulation of immigrants in the twentieth century. He uses Theodore Roosevelt as a support base for his arguments. Civic nationalism is the idealized understanding of America as an ethnic and cultural melting pot based on civil rights, and on the values of equality and liberty no matter the race and ethnicity of one another. Civic nationalism claims a nation can still grow stronger and better based solely on civil rights and citizenship.
In the book Always Running written by Luis J. Rodriquez, he tells of his early life as a gang member in Los Angeles and the many challenges he had to overcome being a Chicano immigrant, giving outsiders a detailed, in depth perspective of the life he lived and the battles he faced. A life that is full of racism; in society, schools, law enforcement, giving them know sense of belonging. Feeling as if Chicanos weren’t of any relevance to this world, treating them like they are less than human. From the early school days with division in the classroom, lack of education offered to them because of the communication barriers and unwillingness to fix that problem, to society where there is division among the people, neighborhoods, territory, to
In the Introduction of Race and Social Justice by Howard McGary, the author explains the purpose of the book and briefly outlines what each chapters are about. He explains that this book is composed of essays, for he states in the first line of the introduction,“These essays concern moral and political questions about race and racism”.(pg.1) The essays present some of the issues in America with racism and race.
In the United States, perhaps no ethnicity has dealt with more racial discrimination than African Americans. In the past laws were constructed that made social mobility for African Americans close to impossible and kept them as second class citizens. The system of slavery, forced Blacks to be exploited for the economic gain of white plantation owners, and after slavery, Jim Crow Laws discriminated against Blacks and solidified their economic racial inferiority. In the 1970’s this was a huge topic of debate. William Julius Wilson argues in his publication, “The Declining Significance of Race” that African American’s socioeconomic status has a lot more to do with class rather than race. Charles Vert Willie opposes Wilson’s assertion and argues
American minorities made up a significant amount of America’s population in the 1920s and 1930s, estimated to be around 11.9 million people, according to . However, even with all those people, there still was harsh segregation going on. Caucasians made African-Americans work for them as slaves, farmers, babysitters, and many other things in that line. Then when World War II came, “World War II required the reunification and mobilization of Americans as never before” (Module2). They needed to cooperate on many things, even if they didn’t want to. These minorities mainly refer to African, Asian, and Mexican-Americans. They all suffered much pain as they were treated as if they weren’t even human beings. They were separated, looked down upon, and wasn’t given much respect because they had a different culture or their skin color was different. However, the lives of American minorities changed forever as World War 2 impacted them significantly with segregation problems, socially, and in their working lives, both at that time and for generations after.
The Untied States of America was built on the exploitation of others and the expansion of foreign lands. Anglo-Saxon superiority and their successive impact on governing policies and strong domination throughout every social institution in the nation allowed discrimination to prevail. Scientific Racism reached new heights of justification towards slavery, the massive eradication of the Native people, colonialism and daily occurrences of unequal behaviors and treatments towards colored people. The strong presence of polygenesis helped spur along and justify racism; the idea that all non whites were groups of individuals who ultimately came from another type of species supporting the idea that Blacks, Natives and other colored people were not ‘real’ human beings. Traditions, legislation, domination and acceptance of such social norms allow racism to be principal whether it was apparent through slavery or hidden in new laws and policies to come. Every aspect of a colored person’s life was affected upon, Education, economic status, environmental location and political rights. Those who had the power within the court system followed the Anglo-Saxon ways, making any change difficult and time consuming to come across.
concerns racial equality in America. The myth of the “Melting Pot” is a farce within American society, which hinders Americans from facing societal equality issues at hand. Only when America decides to face the truth, that society is not equal, and delve into the reasons why such equality is a dream instead of reality. Will society be able to tackle suc...
In society today, race can be viewed in a variety of ways, depending on the manner in which one was raised, as well as many other contributing factors. These views are often very conflicting, and as a result, lead to disagreement and controversy amongst groups. Throughout history, many communities have seen such problems arise over time, thus having a profound impact that can change society in both positive and negative ways. Such a concept is a common method through which Charles W. Mills explain his theories and beliefs in his written work, The Racial Contract. In this particular text, Mills explores numerous concepts regarding race, how it is viewed by different people, and the sense of hierarchy that has formed because of it. Nevertheless, when certain scholars think about and discuss race in society, they often take different approaches than those by Mills mentioned prior. HowevSimier, regardless of the different approaches that may be taken, often times a common idea can be found amongst them, which further ties in The Racial Contract. For example, the text “Racial Formation in the United States” by Michael Omi and Howard Winant, as well as “The Lincoln-Douglass Debates” can both be found to have a correlation regarding race within Mill’s work.
First, racism still plays a big factor in today’s society as it did fifty years ago. Some might say that everyone has equal opportunity, but some people in America will never see that blacks and whites are equal. Humans have the tendency to judge what is on the outside before seeing who the person really is. The South is the main area where the darker colors mean there is less opportunity and lighter colors mean that there’s more. In today’s society the ability to attain the American Dream is heavily influenced by race. While it is still p...
The City of Beverly Hills is the culmination of what America traditionally considers to be successful. To own an expensive property and surround oneself in an atmosphere of wealth, with an almost assured white community, coincides directly with the aspiring beliefs of many Americans. Yet, this conventional idea of a picture-perfect life that disregards impoverished minorities comes with the risk of stalling the growth of America’s future as these minorities will sooner than later be the groups needed to drive the nation’s economic, social, and political engines. The marketing and promotion of a Beverly Hills type lifestyle as a beacon for the “American Dream” fails to recognize the diversifying change that has taken place in Los Angeles and that will eventually force the nation to transform as a whole. There is an outdated analysis of how the “American Dream” is portrayed, and now, more than ever, society needs to look at adjusting these views to account for the influx of colored people ready to make an impact on America’s future.
In relation to the Critical Race Theory, the idea of the “gap between law, politics, economics, and sociological reality of racialized lives” (Critical Race Theory slides). The critical race theory gives us a guide to analyze privileges and hardships that comes across different races and gender. For example, analyzing how and why a “black” or “indigenous” woman may experience more hardships versus not only a “white” man, but a “white”
It engages, as all ideologies do, in ‘blaming the victim,’ it does so in a very indirect, ‘now you see it, not you don’t’ style. Color-blind racism has four central frames, abstract liberalism, naturalization, cultural racism, and minimization of racism. Abstract racism is the use of ideas associated with political liberalism and economic liberalism in an abstract manner to explain racial matters. Naturalization is a frame that allows whites to explain away racial phenomena by suggesting they are natural occurrences. Cultural racism is a frame that relies on culturally based arguments to explain the standing of minorities in society. Lastly, minimization of racism is a frame that suggests discrimination is no longer a central factor affecting minorities life chances. Each of these central fames buries the fact that there is still racism in todays society (Bonilla-Silva, 2009, p.