HSRW Midterm!
Exclusionary zoning
"Zoning laws within cities and expanding suburbs allowed local governments to exclude unwanted neighbors indirectly by limiting the types of housing that could be built—for instance, by requiring new housing to be single-family homes with minimum lot sizes." - Patrick Sharkey
Urban Renewal
- A policy that appears positive and race neutral (the "redevelopment and renovation of urban centers in order to revitalize substandard for future residential and commercial uses"), actually involves uprooting communities of color, removing subsidized housing and encouraging gentrification - Under the guise of benevolence "clear slums and improve poor, segregated, overcrowded living spaces" "fix up their neighborhoods" - Map social disintegration onto the bodies of black and brown people, use their neighborhoods as evidence of their own failures (culturalist arguments) discussed in Lipsitz
Racial Realists
- From Brown, Whitewashing Race - Racial realists conclude that racism has ended because of the massive change in white attitudes towards blacks over the past sixty years - Racial realists argue that because of the steep decline in "old-fashioned bigots," racism has almost disappeared - harmful because "many whites accept at least one more negative stereotype toward African Americans," and because it relies on a "particular understanding of racism" that assumes that racism is "motivated, crude, explicitly supremacist, and typically expressed as an individual bias.
Post reagan era racial beliefs
(Michael K. Brown pg 1) - Post Reagan era racial beliefs contain three tenets that define current white imaginations of racial relations in the United States: 1) they completely embrace and celebrate the ideals of civil rights legislation while believing that the legislation has been wholly successful in its implementation. Due to the elimination of racial discrimination through successful civil rights laws, whites believe that racists are restricted to a few extremists who are a small minority on the margins of dominant white society. 2) if racial inequality exists it is due to Black people not taking advantage of the opportunities they are given. As civil rights legislation has ended legalized racial discrimination in the minds of whites, racial inequality is now the fault of Black people not trying hard enough. 3) because whites believe that racial inequality is fully outlawed, they see little need for affirmative action and other color-conscious policies.
Pantomime of Race
- From Patricia Williams, Seeing a Colorblind Future (???? - not positive) - In Colorblind Ideology, race is something that people "dare not speak," but constantly view. Race is undeniably constantly seen ("visual blockbusters") - It describes the hyper-visuality of race (i.e. "pantomime"), race as something we visually understand, but not verbally comprehend. - In terms of what this illuminates for broader structural conditions, it is linked with the "transgressive refusal to know."
Racial Pesoptimists
- From Racism Without Racists, Ch 1 pg 5-6 - Racial pesoptimists attempt a "balanced" view and suggest that whites' racial attitudes reflect progress and resistance. - The EXAMPLE Bonilla Silva gives is of Howard Schuman, who argues that whites' racial attitudes are a mixture of tolerance and intolerance - acceptance of the principle of racial liberalism (equal opportunity, end of segregation) - rejection of policies that would make principles a reality (affirmative action, busing) - ****Important: the appearance of neutrality, considering the "two sides," and the "balanced" approach - Bonilla Silva argues they are just closet optimists - Whites have a hard time translating these norms into personal preferences
Brazilian Racial Discourse
- "A critique of colorblindness" Guinier + Torres - The Miners Canary - Idea that we're living in a racial utopia-- we're all the same here, thought they didn't need to ask about race in the census "because Brazilians were simply Brazilians" - "American political observers have long been fascinated with Brazil because they believe that Brazil has solved its race problem" - Guiner - Brazil has color caste system (***this is key, color trumps race, does not have a one-drop rule like US***), they eliminated slavery peacefully through decree in 1888 and did not have formal systems for racial discrimination equivalent to Jim Crow. Instead, they relied on a whitening thesis that the European Brazilians would succeed in whitening the population (pseudo-scientific theory, white genes were "stronger" and would be more likely to pass on their genes) - Race as a continuum placing people in social hierarchy based both on skin color and class ("social race"), example given in text: "A 'white' includes a poor but not poverty stricken white person, a white person of average wealth, a wealthy white person, a mulatto of average wealth, a wealthy mulatto and a wealthy black person... white persons do not sink into blackness unless they are destitute and black persons (as opposed to mulattos) do not rise to whiteness except through above-average wealth" - Gives many statistics showing how starkly skin color affects life chances and opportunity but many Black people in Brazil "express uncertainty whether the disadvantage they experience is because of race or class" because the dominant ideology denies that race has any relevance as a social, political or economic marker
dog whistle politics
- "Dog whistle racism...is racism's most poisonous core- because it legitimizes, energizes, and stimulates the entire destructive project of racial divisions" -Dog whistle politics pg. 49 - Brings race into the conversation in officially race neutral ways, relies on recognition of existing racial framework (set of associations in place) in order to be effective (ie. "tough on crime"), makes coded and indirect but loaded references to race in order to gain wealth, political power and status for white people - Became the Republican strategy under Nixon also called "Southern strategy", messages convey warnings to white voters about presumes threats from non-whites aimed at building support for a reactionary agenda - Dog Whistle Politics as outlined in López's book of the same name, is a strategy the GOP has used to elicit racial loyalty despite a national denial and revulsion of racism. It is enacted through coded language that allows modern racial pandering to operate inaudibly/invisibly on one level, and yet to stimulate strong reactions on the other. López argues that this strategy has shaped the political structure of the US and has extreme implications for the livelihood of the middle class. Dog Whistling involves three basic moves: "a punch that jabs race into the conversation through thinly veiled references to threatening nonwhites (eg welfare cheats), a parry that slaps away charges of racial pandering, often by emphacizing the lack of any direct reference to a racial group or any use of an epithet, and a kick that savages the critic for opportunistically alleging racial victimization." (4) An important aspect of Dog Whistling is that at heart it is part of a strategic racism, a coldly calculated use of racial euphamisms to attract voters, while at the same time it may cloak the racial character of an idea from its target audience, sometimes relying on triggered un-conscious fears. DW centrally involves using race to attack liberal government (as seen in Reagan's use of it) and corresponds to and is bolstered by the conservative popularization of colorblindness. DW convinces many whites to vote against their own interests by virtue of a "commensense racism" logic.
Racial optimists
- "Racism Without Racists," Bonilla-Silva - racial optimists=analysts who argue that racism is in decline in the United States - They have two problematic ways of backing this trend. 1) they use outdated questions as a frame. These questions were used in the Jim Crow Era as an assessment of whites' racial views. However they are no longer applicable, because the language we use to talk about race has significantly changed, therefore the data that the racial optimists collect from these outdated questions produce a false positive and an "artificial image of progress." 2) "because of the change in the normative climate in the post-civil rights era, analysts must exert extreme caution when interpreting attitudinal data, particularly when it comes from single-method research design," such as using Jim Crow era questions to collect longitudinal data. An example of racial optimists are Glenn Firebaugh and Kenneth Davis who based on their survey results, concluded that "the trend toward less antiblack prejudice was across the board."
Strategic Racism
- "Strategic racism refers to purposeful efforts to use racial animus as leverage to gain material wealth, political power, or heightened social standing" -Dog whistle politics pg. 47 - Use of racism for access to material wealth and political power and making it hard to create cross-racial unity because bringing up discrimination to white people causes them to double down on their racist policies - The use of race animosity as leverage to gain materialistic wealth, political power, and/or high social standing. - Ian Haney López says specifically used by politicians like Nixon, Wallace, and Goldwater in order to gain votes during elections. For example, - Lies at racism's very heart. Originally "self-interested parties fashioned racial beliefs" and "repeatedly thereafter, strategic racists adapted racism to protect their advantages and to pursue additional interests." - The goal is "not terror for its own sake" it is the maintenance and gain of "money, control, and prestige." - Directly linked to dog whistle politics: strategic racists employ dog whistling. Calculated use of encoded language for personal gain.
Home Owners Loan Corporation
- (Coates - The Case for Reparations) ... Other sources??? - "It was the Home Owners' Loan Corporation, not a private trade association, that pioneered the practice of redlining, selectively granting loans and insisting that any property it insured be covered by a restrictive covenant" - (Coates - The Case for Reparations V) - "creation of the Home Owners' Loan Corporation in 1933 and then the Federal Housing Administration the following year allowed banks to offer loans requiring no more than 10 percent down, amortized over 20 to 30 years." - (Coates - The Case for Reparations V). - This allowed white suburbanization to occur and "Home ownership became an emblem of American citizenship." (Coates), but not for black people who were excluded from these new policies.
Compound deprivation
- (Robert Sampson in Coates reading - The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration VII) - Idea that examples of discrimination do not occur in a vacuum-- all factors that stem from racial discrimination are bundled together when they impact an individual or family - "High rates of incarceration, single-parent households, dropping out of school, and poverty are not unrelated vectors. Instead, taken together, they constitute what Sampson calls "compounded deprivation"—entire families, entire neighborhoods, deprived in myriad ways, must navigate, all at once, a tangle of interrelated and reinforcing perils." - Compound deprivation is the phenomenon where individuals, families, and even entire neighborhoods must navigate not just one are in which they're deprived but myriad interconnecting disadvantages - Complicated in the way it interacts with the American dream: idea that with initiative and industriousness, an individual can always escape impoverished circumstances. - what the data show is that you have these multiple assaults on life chances that make transcending those circumstances difficult and at times nearly impossible.
Red Lining
- As Ta-Nehisi Coates references in "The Case for Reparations," the practice of redlining was pioneered by the HOLC from 1933-1977 (nominally outlawed in 1968 with Fair Housing Act), which selectively granted loans and insisted that any property that received loans would be marked with a restrictive covenant, which forbid a future sale of the home to anyone other than whites. - pioneered by the Home Owners' Loan Corporation, ~1933-1977 - selectively granting loans and insisting that any property it insured be covered by a restrictive covenant - Symbolically outlawed in 1968 by the Fair Housing Act, did not end in practice - The process mapped American city neighborhoods with a color rating for how suitable residents were for a loan. There were four ratings — Green (A), Blue (B), Yellow (C) and Red (D). - Green: the best rating. Was given to neighborhoods that were all white and "lacking a single foreigner or Negro" - Blue: Nearly all white neighborhood - Yellow: Neighborhood with people of color, immigrants, often considered "neighborhoods in decline" - Red: People in these neighborhoods were excluded from lending. They were completely ineligible of home or business loans. The marker for a "red" neighborhood was the presence of black people — "neither the percentage of black people living there nor their social class mattered"
cultural racism
- BONILLA-SILVA - a frame that relies on culturally based arguments such as "Mexicans do not put much emphasis on education" or "blacks have too many babies" to explain the standing of minorities in society." - Replaces biological racism, points to Slavery as having harmed "Black culture" inherently. - Cultural racism arguments focus on the outcome of the legacy of racism and then cite cultural differences between white and black people as the cause for the existing inequality - ***Cultural racism depends on the historical narrative that racism was about skin color (as opposed to power, structures, ideologies, and associations,) that racism was enacted through individual violences, and that when the Jim Crow era ended racism died with it, though the marks are still on "Black culture." *** - Negative conceptions of black culture (lack of values for success, laziness etc) are then used to justify the present gaps and inequalities in a time when racism and its legacy 'has been abolished' for 50 or so years.
naturalization
- BONILLA-SILVA - argument that racial phenomena are natural occurances - allows whites to explain away racial phenomena - EXAMPLE: segregation -- claim: segregation is natural because people from all backgrounds "gravitate towards likeness" // it's "just the way things are" -- These statements may seem to contradict colorblind logic, but they are used to reinforce the myth of nonracialism by suggesting these preferences are almost biologically driven and typical of all groups in society -- these practices are nonracial because "they" (racial minorities) do it too - ie. "people want to live around people who like them" as a method for explaining housing segregation, makes "preferences" sound biological/natural
New Racism
- Bobo - 5 parts: increasingly covert nature of racial discourse & politics & practices, avoidance of racial terminology and increase in claims of reverse racism, elaboration of racial agenda over political matters that avoids direct racial reference and racially coded speech for racially impactful policies, invisibility of multiple mechanisms to reproduce racism, rearticulation of some racial practices characteristic of Jim Crow (ie. state becomes enforcer of racial order)
Post-racialism
- Bobo, "Reflections on the Racial Divide in America Today": A narrative with many meanings attached to it: - meant to signal a hopeful trajectory for events and social trends, not an accomplished fact of social life - First form attaches to the waning silence of what some have portrayed as a 'black victimology' narrative 1) From this perspective, black complaints and grievances about inequality and discrimination are well-worn tales 2) The second one "takes the position that the level and pace of change in the demographic makeup and the identity choices and politics of Americans are rendering the traditional black-white divide irrelevant," such that "[o]ld-fashioned racial dichotomies pale against the surge toward flexible, deracialized, and mixed ethnoracial identities and outlooks" (14) 3) The third and final form believes that "American society, or at least a large and steadily growing fraction of it, has genuinely moved beyond race--so much so that we as a nation are now ready to transcend the disabling racial divisions of the past" (14) - A belief that emerges in the US around breakthrough moments in racial representation -- either after the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which many whites believe ended Jim Crow segregation and thus racism (when in fact, as Bonilla-Silva and others argue, racism just evolved), or once Obama was elected. - Although many critics at the time took Obama's election to be the defining paradigm shift in US racial politics; as the first black man to become president, he represented the breaking of a barrier many thought to be insurmountable. - But as the 2016 Presidential campaign demonstrated--and continues to demonstrate--the US is far from healed from its history of racial oppression, segregation, and inequality. - What's more, the notion that we are post-racial furthers the perpetuation of colorblind ideology that prevents us from addressing racial inequalities, because if you can't "see" race, then you can't address policies with disparate racial outcomes or broader social problems that are racially-specific.
Name the four frames of colorblind racism (don't describe)
- Bonilla-Silva - Abstract liberalism, naturalization, cultural racism, minimization of racism
Color-coded merit
- Brown- Whitewashing Race - Comes from idea that policies that are predicated on merit that are ostensibly "race-neutral" are inherently racialized - Merit does not exist in a vacuum - merit is not always free standing or a self-defining concept, but must be merit in reference to something, for some purpose, based on some set of judgements and justifications (i.e. test taking not colorblind - highly correlated with race) that enhance "selection system bias"
Color-coded law
- Brown- Whitewashing Race - Laws that are ostensibly "race-neutral" or that seem to use "race-neutral" language, but in practice target communities of color (ie war on drugs, broken windows policing) - lawyers articulate and apply concepts like reasonableness, harm, culpability, desert, and merit through white perspective
Buying on Contract
- Discussed in Coates' The Case for Reparations - a predatory agreement that combined all the responsibilities of homeownership with all the disadvantages of renting-while offering the benefits of neither - the seller kept the deed until the contract was paid in full—and, unlike with a normal mortgage, the buyer would acquire no equity in the meantime. If a single payment was missed, the buyer would immediately forfeit the down payment, all the monthly payments, and the property itself. - In 1960's 85 percent of all black home buyers who bought in Chicago bought on contract - Contract sellers lied about properties' compliance with building codes, then left the buyer responsible when city inspectors arrived. They presented themselves as real-estate brokers, when in fact they were the owners. They guided their clients to lawyers who were in on the scheme - Contract Buyers League, over 500 members from Chicago's South and West Sides, fought contract sellers. - They embarrassed the sellers by going to their neighbors houses and telling them what the sellers were doing. - Brought a lawsuit against the sellers, accusing them of buying properties and reselling in such a manner "to reap from members of the Negro race large and unjust profits." - They demanded reparations in the form of payback of all moneys paid on contracts and all moneys paid for structural improvement of properties, at 6 percent interest minus a "fair, non-discriminatory" rental price for time of occupation. - The suit dragged on until 1976, when the league lost a jury trial.
Perpetrator perspective
- From Brown et al pg 37-38: "adopting the perpetrator perspective means looking at contested race issues from the vantage point of whites." - it is preoccupied with white guilt and innocence - ignores whether people of color have suffered injury or loss of opportunity due to their race - The Supreme Court adopted a perpetrator's perspective in the "jurisprudence of equality" on issues of race around 1980 - Views racism as a series of actions done by perpetrators, as opposed to the structural conditions of the victims. - These actions are viewed as unconnected from one another.
White Spatial Imaginary
- George Lipsitz - White identity in the United States is place-bound (particularly suburban-bound), racism persists in large part because of residential segregation leading to unequal access to education, employment, transportation and shelter - urban spaces and social experience is racialized and communities reimagined segregated spaces as places for congregation, premised on hostile privatism and defensive localism - Resistance to taxes that would serve the general interest - viewing other (communities of color) not as part of a shared community but as economic competitors while instead spending that money on private services unavailable to the public that continue to increase the value of their property - white spatial imaginary fails to see that it has "created the conditions it condemns" and instead uses culturalist explanations to explain racial inequality - Rather than speaking as whites, they position themselves as race-neutral while actively creating and perpetuating practices that are racially discriminatory. - Produces a fearful relationship to the "spectre of blackness" - Important that it's imaginary-- idea of individuality, white people believe that they don't work as a group. Goes back to American individualism itself: our ideas/actions are important on an individual basis, not in the agregate.
Punch, parry, kick
- In Dog Whistle Politics (p 129-134) --- from class ---- - A dog whistling strategy outlined by Lopez that uses colorblindness and coded language to not only make racist remarks but also deflect backlash. - The strategy consists of three parts: 1) coded race talk or dog whistling (punch) followed by 2) playing dumb (parry) and ending with 3) a counterattack against accusers (kick). - Punch - comes in the form of symbols or symbolic language. Rather than invoking more blatant forms of racism (e.g. the n-word), or the specific use of the term Black or African-American, users of this strategy will instead use stand-ins like welfare, food stamps, and racial caricaturing via stereotypic symbols like watermelon and fried chicken. - Parry - When accused of being racist, users then parry by pretending to be oblivious to the racist nature of their comments or actions, instead claiming that their words or symbols are mundane without any reference to race. - Kick - This playing dumb is then followed by charges that accusers are themselves the racists, that these people are "playing the race card" and that they are "race baiting" to pass over the "true" issues.
Survivalist
- Kelefah Sanneh - Contrast to catastrophists, celebrated the resilience of Black folks in America. - "They found themselves arguing that slavery had been less destructive than Moynihan thought: they celebrated the resilience of the black family in its non-standard forms. - (Moynihan's "illegitimacy" statistics couldn't account for the grandparents and other extended-family members who might help a mother bring up her child.)" (The Matter of Black Lives, Sanneh) - "A number of sociologists, wary of insulting their subjects, seemed content to settle for flattery instead, depicting the black family as an extraordinary success story, no matter what the statistics said."
possessive investment in whiteness
- LISPITZ, article Name?! - Public policy and private prejudice have created possessive investment in whiteness (cash value in whiteness) leading to racialized hierarchies, allows white people to invest in an identity that provides whites with resources, power and opportunity - Examples of cash value: profits made from discriminatory housing markets, unequal access to education, insider networks channeling employment opportunities, intergenerational transfers of wealth to pass the spoils of discrimination on to other generations - Social, political, and cultural forces that encourage whites to expend time and energy on the creations and recreation of whiteness - "Possessive" is used to connect attitudes to interests - allows whiteness to remain an unmarked category against white difference is constructed - Prof. Rose's Example ----- -- Aims to emphasize the value and investment in whiteness. -- American society, Lipsitz argues, has created a literal and figurative value to whiteness in which whites possessively invest in. Whiteness has cash and other social value through racial advantages secured in discriminatory markets (and other ways). Investment denotes the time invested in the creation of and recreation of whiteness itself, and Possessive connects the relationship between whiteness and asset accumulation. Lipsitz also cautions that the possessive investment in whiteness is aimed also at keeping it from others. (Lipsitz PIW pgs., vii-viii) - This term used by Lipsitz aims to emphasize the value and investment in whiteness. American society, he argues, has created a literal and figurative value to whiteness in which whites possessively invest in. Whiteness has cash and other social value through racial advantages secured in discriminatory markets (and other ways). Investment denotes the time "invested" in the creation of and recreation of whiteness itself; and P ossessive connects the relationship between whiteness and asset accumulation - Lipsitz also cautions that the possessive investment in whiteness is aimed also at keeping it from others. And, that this artificial construction of whiteness can possess white people themselves unless they develop anti-racist identities. Important to note that opposing whiteness does not mean opposing white people; that many non whites support this racial structure, and emphasizes that we all have the option to become antiracist.
Laissez Faire Racism
- Laissez faire racism "encompasses an ideology that blames blacks themselves for their poorer economic standing, seeing it as the function of perceived cultural inferiority." ( Racism without Racists, Chapter 1, Pg. 5) - An explanation of the contemporary attitudes of whites, associated with those who claim that whites' racial views represent a sense of group position (class bias, the effect of American individualism???). White prejudice as an ideology to defend group privilege...that result of socioeconomic changes that transpired in the 1950s and 1960s. (R w/o R, Chapter 1, Pg. 5) - Basic arguments for laissez-faire racism are fully compatible with Colorblind racism. - (Lawrence Bobo: Inequalities that endure? Racial ideology, American Politics, and the Peculiar Role of the Social Sciences) - "Laissez-faire racism involves persistent negative stereotyping of African Americans, a tendency to blame Blacks themselves for the black-white gap in socioeconomic status, and resistance to meaningful policy efforts to ameliorate U.S. racist social conditions and institutions" (16). - Bobo: The new form of racism is a more covert, sophisticated, culture-centered, and subtle racist ideology, qualitatively less extreme and more socially permeable than Jim Crow racism with its attendant biological foundations and calls for overt discrimination. But this new racism yields a powerful influence in our culture and politics. It is a term for a new prejudice that highlights the close connection between present forms of racial resentment and the resurgence of an anti-government ideology. Laissez faire racism is an idea that justifies and makes sense out of the organized racial ordering of society. Bobo explains this type of racism using three pieces of data: 1) the persistent negative stereotypes of blacks 2) positive/negative descriptions of blacks 3) The approval of interracial relationships
Steering
- Lipsitz - The deliberate directing of people of color (esp. black people) toward majority black/brown neighborhoods when looking for housing to rent/purchase - A racist practice that is a part of housing discrimination that prevails before and after the Fair Housing Act of 1968. - Creates and upholds segregation in neighborhoods.
Black Spatial Imaginary
- Lipsitz - what book/essay? - the site of expressive culture where oppressed and displaced black communities have/are waging a struggle to resist and survive policies of racial segregation and white supremacy while conceiving of a different future - Black solidarity within, between, and across spaces - When black people are segregated off, you have to make sense of that - Reconciliation with the structural issues they perceive in their life choices - Dr. Rose example: queer man who decided that the run-down space he was living in was the best he could do for himself anyway - Reconciling what you think about yourself to how you're actually living - Has less to do with what's actually happening, more about how you understand what's actually happening
White Flight
- Movement of white urban residents to segregated suburbs in order to escape living among people of color - Utilized by the real estate industry to generate neighborhoods that were extremely segregated (blockbusting, etc.) - White Flight was a phenomenon during the Post WWII suburbanization process which was made possible by the GI Bill (restricted largely to whites) and FHA Loans (also limited mostly to whites.) In the process 60 million (white) people moved out of cities and into suburbs. It is also important to note the idea that colorblindness is a sort of conceptual white flight.
Block Busting
- Na-Tehisi Coates - Real Estate companies would encourage one Black family to move into a neighborhood, therefore causing White Flight. They would purchase the property for extremely cheap and then resell the houses at higher prices to Black families. Sometimes, they would even hire someone to pretend to live in the neighborhood to drive white families off. - Uses/perpetuates the structural devaluation that accompanies blackness and that rewards a possessive investment in whiteness.
Inherited Ghetto
- Patrick Sharkey - "the stark racial inequality that existed a generation ago has been passed on, with very little change, to the current generation. The families in America's worst neighborhoods, where violence is common, schools are failing, economic opportunities are limited, and public resources are sparse, have been exposed to the same disadvantaged neighborhoods continuously since the 1970s, over two generations." - "Specifically, if we define a ghetto neighborhood as majority black and among the poorest quarter of all American neighborhoods, then about 29 percent of all black families have resided in the ghetto for consecutive generations. If we limit our focus to include only black adults living in today's ghettos, about 72 percent were raised by parents who also lived in the ghetto a generation earlier. In other words, almost three out of four black families living in today's poorest, most segregated neighborhoods are the same families that lived in the ghettos of the 1970s."
Structuralist
- Sanneh - Contrasts culturalist arguments. Acknowledges structural oppression as opposed to inherent differences as the reasons behind racial inequality.
Catastrophist
- Sanneh article - (Patterson) - Contrast to survivalists, who celebrated the resilience of the Black family - Believed that the history of slavery had a catastrophic effect on the Black family - "Moynihan stressed the debilitating legacy of American slavery, asserting that it was "indescribably worse" than any form of bondage in the history of the world."
Tangle of Pathology
- Term used by Moynihan in his report to refer to the 'crisis' facing the black family - Result of 'damage thesis' that African Americans were profoundly hurt socially, psychologically, and physically by slavery and subsequent racism - Significant part of tangle for Moynihan is "matriarchal" family structure - "reversed role of husband and wife" - Based on assumption of male dominance, that only male work was useful - Also cites poor performance in schools - "low aspirations of Negros" - And economic vulnerability due to over concentration of blacks in industrial employment vs. white collar jobs
culture of poverty narrative: 'acting white' theory
- The Culture of Poverty Narrative is a mainstream conservative argument (vs Structural Racism argument) that describes how to account for disparities based on race in a post-Jim Crow World - rests on stereotypes that have morphed over time from biological to cultural (eg that black people are lazy, immoral, hypersexual, and criminal) - used to justify enslavement and violence post-slavery, and implicitly continues the elevation of whiteness. - The argument/narrative relies on outcomes for evidence of what constitutes disparity, and interprets that data/evidence as indicative of a culture responsible for the inequality today. - Conceptually, the argument relies on obscured cultural forces, the denial/invisibility of the impact of policy and larger structural forces, a lack of focus on the refuse/resist/renegotiate practice and history, and a narrowing of the definition of racism to bigotry. - Results in policies that seek to change black people and culture themselves, rather than the structure that produced the violence in the communities in the first place. - This is evident in Obama's My Brother's Keeper program - a strangely intricate articulation can be found in the Moynihan Report, where Moynihan makes a moral argument about the economic condition of black people in his time, saying that history has woven itself so deeply into the culture of blackness that it is a pathology that continues itself without white interference.
minimization of racism
- Using examples to show that racism is not the norm and is actually a rare occurrence propagated only by "bad racists" - Tricia's example: after hearing about a negative encounter predicated on racism, tell a good story to keep people from feeling bad that shows that racism is not the norm and that there are good people out there - It is an invisiblizing tool
Statistical Discrimination
- Using statistics to justify a generalization while ignoring structural barriers. - Ie "Black students statistically perform worse on the SAT." - Dr. Rose said in class that CBI supports statistical discrimination, severing statistics from their real-world context - Example: focusing on reducing the education gap as a way to end discrimination rather than acknowledging entire system
Racial Structure: Refuse, resist, renegotiate
- WHERE IS THIS FROM!? - Strategy to prevent policy change or legislation that would attempt to reduce inequality, once a bill has been passed there is white refusal and resistance that eventually leads to renegotiation of the terms so they become weak/unenforceable (ie. desegregating schools, white resistance and protesting of busing)
Gentrification
- WHERE WOULD YOU SAY THIS IS FROM?! - comes from post-CRM switch - pre-CRM legislation, there was segregation - post-CRM, there was quarantining-- you stay over there, we stay over here - then Urban Renewal → slum clearance under discourse of revitalization/progress - After the worldwide recession in '73, sporadic and state led gentrification until the 80's when broke states tried to attract private investment in cities, and by 1987 developers are the main players who strategize as the state becomes more direct in encouragement of gentrification, which has resulted in our pro gentrification politics. - As people started accepting that "everyone is equal", white people decided there was no reason not to move into black neighborhoods - BUT the fairness of this practice rests on the assumption that anyone can live anywhere-- which is not true - Gentrification is always Displacement - make the warm bodies that are pushed out onto the street invisible - war on homeless people - Black gentrifiers→ generally come from suburbs, often utilize the "getting in touch with my roots" narrative - "Gentrification is the process by which poor and working class neighborhoods in the inner city are refurbished via an influx of private capital and middle class homebuyers and renters-- neighborhoods that had previously experienced disinvestment and a middle class exodus" -- Neil Smith in New Urban Frontier as quoted by Amanda Boston, who added that it was about race more than class, and that today there are massive changes in the class dimensions (eg brooklyn where SUPER rich move in to previously poor + black neighborhoods.) - Selective and severe public and private disinvestment (White Spatial Imaginary) produce chronic vulnerability to destabilize black communities, which in turn allows for gentrification, which increases benefits white ppl.
abstract liberalism
- term coined by Bonilla-Silva - using ideas associated with political and economic liberalism in an abstract manner to explain racial matters. - using the frame of abstract liberalism, whites can appear "reasonable" and even "moral" while opposing almost all practical approaches to deal with de facto racial inequality - EXAMPLE: the principle of equal opportunity -- today, equal opportunity is invoked by whites to oppose affirmative-action policies because they supposedly represent the "preferential treatment" of certain groups -- This claim necessitates ignoring the fact that people of color are severely underrepresented in most good jobs, schools, and universities and, hence, it is an abstract utilization of the idea of "equal opportunity." -- I.E. abstract liberalists claim that affirmative action policies are NOT equal opportunity policies, and use liberalism to defend that position. The dangerous part of this is that it renders invisible the structural forces that cause certain groups to be inherently disadvantaged - Under Abstract Liberalism's logic, people become 'individuals with choices' within a "meritocracy." - In reducing racism's effects to individual cases, Abstract Liberalism obscures the structural nature of that racism and prevents any action against that structure; there is no interference and no redress from the real structural forces that purportedly do not exist in the U.S.'s "meritocracy." - According to Lopez, it emerged in the 1980s when Reagan's colorblindness and strategic racism began to work hand in hand.
Restrictive Covenants
Coates. a clause in the deed forbidding the sale of the property to anyone other than whites caused millions of dollars to flow from tax coffer into segregated white neighborhoods By the 1940s, Chicago led the nation in the use of these restrictive covenants, and about half of all residential neighborhoods in the city were effectively off-limits to blacks. In 1948, the Supreme Court ruled that restrictive covenants, while permissible, were not enforceable by judicial action
culturalist
Cultural arguments used to explain continued inequality thereby placing the blame onto marginalized communities of color, idea of "self-perpetuating norms and behaviors" - Sanneh Predicated on the idea that racism is over and that any vestiges of inequality are due to a lack of effort on the part of black communities (failing to take advantage of opportunities) and therefore have "deficient" culture Parallels the biological difference argument but is presented as opposing it (ie. it is not biological but it is a cultural problem) "This is a common technique among the new culturalists: every distressing contemporary phenomenon must be matched to an explicitly racist antecedent, however distant" - Sanneh article Began with the Monyihan Report to use this argument to explain existing disparities, pathologized black families and communities Attributed disparities to innate weaknesses used to "justify neglect and rationalize inequality" - Sanneh
Governing principles of colorblindness
Guinier and Torres pg. 38-39 1) First, race is all about skin color.... 2) the second rule of colorblindness is that recognizing race ie equivalent of holding onto unscientific notions of racial biology... 3) the third rule is that racism is a personal problem."
Symbolic Racism
Lawrence Bobo, "Inequalities that Endure?" Bobo: - the idea that whites have new forms of antiblack prejudice that reflect their early learned values systems + negative beliefs about blacks (27) Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Chapter One, Racism Without Racists: - an example of this would be when whites express racism towards blacks by saying they're lazy; cultural pathology -- "a blend of anti-black affect and the kind of traditional American moral values embodied in the Protestant ethic" e.g. Moral character and traditions of individualism (6) - Blend of anti-black affect and individualist arguments for inequality - Criticised by other scholars who argue that present moment is not first time anti-black sentiment and american creed (individualism) have combined - Authors claim that symbolic racism has replaced biological racism
Fair Housing Act of 1968
Prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin and sex. Contentious, but passed house & senate quickly in the days after the assassination of MLK (with large concessions to compromise) Outlawed blockbusting and redlining Passed by Linden B Johnson, and "Implemented" by Richard Nixon (who did as little as possible! Hardly implemented at all). LARGELY SYMBOLIC A compromise that facilitated its passage gutted the original legislation's enforcement mechanisms: whereas fair-housing agencies and the Department of Housing and Urban Development were given the ability to investigate claims of discrimination, they were not given the power to issue enforcement orders. - Sharkey
Rhetorical Incoherence
The Style of Colorblindness (Bonilla Silva) - Refers to the Rhetorical maze of confusing and often ambivalent answers to defend colorblind ideology. - Rhetorical incoherence is characterized by "semantic moves or strategically managed propositions whose meanings can be determined by the content of speech act sequences to safely state their views." Bonilla-Silva, pg 115-118 - These speech sequences serve as rhetorical shields. - There are denials ("I don't believe that"), claims of ignorance ("I don't know..."), and disclaimers (" I didn't mean that because as I told you I am not racist.") - It relies on the use of diminutives (114-115, book unidentified, class notes). And it can be characterized by such speech acts as grammatical mistakes and lengthy pauses. Colorblind logic increase rhetorical incoherence.
Racial Storylines
The Style of Colorblindness (Bonilla-Silva) -White people use storytelling and "fable like" narratives to reinforce racist world views -impersonal and generic, predetermined narratives -"ideological 'of course' narratives" meant to make a racialized conclusion seem obvious -Characters are stereotypes like black job-stealer or welfare queen -"past is the past" "I didn't own slaves" model minority -allow white people to attach logic to their domination and justify racial inequality as natural and appropriate without explicitly saying so
Transgressive Refusal to Know
White peoples' feigned innocence, turning a blind eye to racism. "Oh- I didn't notice that they followed you around that store!" (Patricia Williams) A type of minimization Shock & surprise Sullivan- "Jose Medina explains, color blindness "requires being actively and proudly ignorant of social positionality, which involves a double epistemic failure: a failure in self-knowledge and a failure in the knowledge of others with whom one is intimately related." (Transmission of Colorblindness, Sullivan 86, The Pantomime of Race, Williams) Patricia Williams describes the Transgressive Refusal to Know in her Pantomime of Race chapter, describing white racial denial as engendering " a profoundly invested disingenuousness, an innocence, that amounts to the transgressive refusal to know." This active ignorance manifests as shock and surprise as a mode of empathy which invokes colorblindness' minimization and cluelessness factors. "Transgressive" refers to illicitness of jumping of perceptual gaps between white and black experience, but also is "of or relating to fiction, cinematography, or art in which orthodox cultural, moral, and artistic boundaries are challenged by the representation of unconventional behavior and the use of experimental forms." Williams notes that while there is a citable invisibility of racism in whites' perceptual gap that allows TRK to operate, the visual language characterizing our media landscape renders black bodies hyper-visible and constantly read by all.
