Colour-Blind Racism and White Privilege

Question 1

What is essentialism?

Answer 1

“The belief that people and objects have properties that are given and unalterable” (Griffin 2017)

Question 2

What is stereotypical dualism?

Answer 2

By “stereotypical dualism” Hulme means that the stereotype is split into two opposing elements. These are two key features of the discourse of “the Other”

Question 3

What is Race?

Answer 3

“Race is a concept that signifies and symbolizes social conflicts and interests by referring to different types of human bodies. Although the concept of race invokes seemingly biologically based human characteristics (so-called phenotypes), selection of these particular human features for purposes of racial signification is always and necessarily a social and historical process.” (Omi and Winant 2015, 110)

Question 4

Why do Omi and Winant not consider race to be an essence or an ideology?

Answer 4

“Race is not something rooted in nature, something that reflects clear and discrete variations in human identity. But race is also not an illusion. While it may not be ‘real’ in a biological sense, race is indeed real as a social category with definite social consequences” (Omi and Winant 2015, 110) (emphasis added)

Question 5

What is colour-blind racism?

Answer 5

Colour-blind racism is a form of racism that is more subtle. It is also a more effective way of maintaining racist systems as a consequence of its ability to be less overt than racism in the past

Question 6

What is the function of colour-blind racism?

Answer 6

• It allows Whites to express contempt to other races and explain racial disparities without sounding racist by way of explaining away racism as individual prejudice
• Whites become ignorant of systemic racism as a consequence, saying that racism is a thing of the past

Question 7

What is racial ideology?

Answer 7

“the racially based frameworks used by actors to explain and justify (dominant race) or challenge (subordinate race or races) the racial status quo.”
The interest of the ruling class is presented as the interest of all, causing for the creation of a false conciseness that informs both the ruling and subordinate classes of the common sense of the dominant ideology

Question 8

How does colour-blind racism use racial ideology to create the framework that allows it to function within society?

Answer 8

In the case of colour-blind racism this creates a common sense based on the interests of the dominant race, meaning that oppositional ideologies that attempt to challenge this common sense as untrue or false