Geographies of Race

Question 1

Michael Brown

Answer 1

Shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed 18 yr old in Ferguson. The officer who killed him, Darren Wilson invoked — perhaps inadvertently —racial stereotypesby characterizing Brown as an unstoppable, violent brute who could kill him in one punch, even thoughWilson’s injuriesweren’t severe

Question 2

Michael Brown shooting tells us

Answer 2

1) Racial identity shapes the way we are treated by cops, and as such, shapes the way we are likely to view them.
2) Ongoing legacy of segregation – ‘social memory’ of historical and recent abuses by the police – that leads to high levels of mistrust of police in black community.
3) Ongoing legacy of segregation in terms of landscape of US cities
4) Militarization of the Police
5) Racial profiling and discrimination
6) White fear

Question 3

Rothstein (2014)

Answer 3

showed that government policies such as racially explicit zoning, public housing segregation, and federal requirements for white-only suburbs systematically segregated African Americans led up to events in Ferguson. According to the contact thesis - spatial distance breeds mistrust, hatred and stereotypes

Question 4

Conceptualising ‘race’

Answer 4

Race is ‘the social categorization of people on the basis of perceived physical characteristics such as skin colour. The notion of race is a social construction which is historically and spatially specific. Race is often thought of in terms of a black-white binary in which black is constructed as inferior to white. Such discourses, assumptions and practices are racist’ (Valentine, 2001: 346)

Question 5

Traditional Geographies of race

Answer 5

Traditional geographies of race emphasised the extent, causes and implications of the spatial segregation of different racial groups within cities, regions or nations. Robert Parks and CSHE offered a conceptualisation of the city which stresses how the city develops through competition for space to produce different areas

Question 6

Conceptualisations between society and space

Answer 6

Space does not simply reflect society
‘The organisation of space contributes to a process of racialisation- of making these social categories and the inequalities that divide them seem normal and inevitable. It could therefore be argued that space constructs (rather than reflects) society’ (Smith, 2005)

Question 7

Space and race

Answer 7

The way space is organised/ordered contributes to racialised exclusion.
Space plays an active part in constituting racial identities.

Question 8

Social construction

Answer 8

Since late 1980s, geographers argue ‘race’ is a social construction

Question 9

Smith, 1989

Answer 9

explores the political and legislative history of ′racial′ segregation in Britain. she rejects the reality of ′race′ as an explanatory construct, focusing instead on how and why racial inequality is constituted through economic, political and social activity. Segregation is analysed not just as a spatial form, but also as a politically constructed problem and as a socially constructed way of life.

Question 10

Institutionalised racism

Answer 10

Racism often reproduced institutionally and bolstered by negative representations in public realm (Enoch Powell’s 1968 ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech- ‘black people considered ‘dirty’, ‘dangerous’, ‘pollute’, ‘criminal’ ‘opening the floodgates’ threaten English way of life

Question 11

Woolf et al (2004)

Answer 11

analysed US mortality data to reveal health inequalities among white and black populations. Between 1991-2000 the study concluded that 886,202 black people who died would not have died if they had the average healthcare quality and access of the typical white person in the USA. That is nearly a million people who would not have died if the system of healthcare and access to exposure to toxins had been equal.

Question 12

Media portraying whites

Answer 12

Media plays a key role in standardizing Caucasian people as thesocial norm for general society. Through the globalization and centralization of theWhitemedia and its constant propagation of repetitive images depicting Caucasians in positive roles and as protagonists while usually depicting Non-Caucasians as background characters and antagonists - which are often connected to negative themes and stereotypes

Question 13

White people in this context of study

Answer 13

‘[much of the work of geographers] assumes that ‘race’ is something to do with people who are ‘other than white’: more specifically within Britain and America, it connotes other than mainstream, white, Christian, Anglo-Saxons (Bonnett, 1997)

Question 14

White priviledge

Answer 14

concealing ‘race’ to build a ‘colour blind’ society. White privilege is not a monolithic construction encompassing the experience of whites equally. concepts of whiteness and white privilege intersect with class, gender, and other socially constructed differences that influence the kinds of privilege whites enjoy. As such we should see white privilege as contingent on and operating with a variety of factors.

Question 15

Peggy McIntosh (2002)

Answer 15

describes her experiences of white privilege (of which she
became aware through her examination of male privilege) as a kind of ‘invisible package of unearned assets’ she was able to cash in on, but was not totally aware of.

Question 16

Bonnett, 1997 - whiteness

Answer 16

‘we- especially people who understand themselves as white- need to stop finding Whiteness normal and unexceptional. The social power that enables white identity to be imagined as ‘mainstream’, ‘non-exotic’, even ‘boring’, needs to be identified and a new more reflexive and incisive phase of geographical ‘race’ scholarship needs to begin’ (Bonnett, 1997, p198-199)

Question 17

Frankenberg (1993)

Answer 17

Research with white women who were asked to recall when they first became aware of ‘race’. The 30 in-depth ethnographies of white grown up in very different contexts, and highlight the everyday geographies of race and racism, ranging from the workplace to the bedroom.

Question 18

Three dimensions of whiteness

Answer 18

• Structural advantages
  the privileges of whites, regarding education, housing, health care, legal system
• Standpoint
  the place from which white people view themselves and society, e.g. assertions of white superiority, fear of non-whites
• Cultural practices
  often not recognised by white people as being ‘white’, but thought of as ‘normal’
  Frankenberg (1993)

Question 19

Schein, 2002

Answer 19

‘Ideas such as race and racism do not emerge unprompted from individual minds, but are thoroughly embedded in our collective everyday lives and in the very structures of our social, political, and economic activities’

Question 20

Avoid the black white binary

Answer 20

‘In studies of whiteness, it is important not to endow whiteness with the transhistorical, essential, asocial and universal character of unmarked whiteness- whiteness still needs to be seen as a cultural category based on the meanings ascribed to skin colour’
(Nash, 2003: 640)

Question 21

NIMBYism

Answer 21

NIMBYism has been identified as a significant manifestation of ‘environmental racism’ - the series of structures, institutions and practices which may not be intentionally or maliciously racist, but which serve to maintain the privileged status of “white” spaces