Race and Racism - Lecture #9 Flashcards
What is Race?
It’s a social construction, and made of groups who share genetically transmitted traits.
Why is race considered a social construction?
We attach meanings to those of certain races based on their phenotype and it reproduces unequal power relations.
Race is not based on one’s genetic factors because we are 99.9% the same in our genotype
Main Point
What did the Amal Klooney and Hasan Minhaj Activity tell us?
That definitions, categories will change over time which proves race is socially constructed.
Arbitrarily touching skulls to tell race?
Blumenbach’s Taxonomy
The genes that an organism carries
Genotype
How do we determine one’s racial category by looking at them?
Facial structure, skin colour, etc.
0.01% of someone’s DNA makes their skin colour.
Yet we determine the behaviour that someone will have based on that skin colour
Hegemony of race
Race is seen as a genetic basis and dependant on your genetic makeup it determines where you are in the hierarchies.
Sickle Cell Anemia, Tay-Sachs Syndrome
Some races may be predisposed to such diseases.
Race is a social construction but there are effects that come along with race being a social construction
Real, material and symbolic effects (If someone believes it’s a social construction they’ll think race doesn’t exist so we wouldn’t have things like BLM).
Assumptions and behaviours that manifest in hatred/contempt…inform institutional policies/processes/practices
Racism
Oversimplified ideas about group of people
Stereotypes which leads into prejudice
Actions towards these groups
Discrimination
Racial categories constructed; process of assigning difference/value/place within hierarchies
Racialization
Individual/Cultural/Institutional/Systemic
Forms of Racism
Everyday racism, microaggressions. One’s racial group is superior in customs, values, etc.
Individual Racism
Set of values/ideas that justify discriminatory practices.
Cultural Racism
View people+cultures in the context of your own cultural standards and values and believing they are abnormal. (e.g. School Lunch)
Ethnocentrism
It constantly produces an advantage for racial groups that are constructed as superior and it’s embedded within our society and laws
Systemic Racism
How does it connect to Agency and Structure?
An individual agent may be able to say racist things and we’ll call fault at the individual agent, but we need to look at how it’s systemic and essentially produced by this structural broader forces
Resist the idea that racism is a single isolated event
How to combat racism
Reporting poor self-related health because of racist experiences is correlated to biomarkers of physical health
Health effects of racism
Anti-Black Racism as Public Health Crisis?
Anti-Black Racism reinforced social determinants; worsened health inequities (low income, housing) when race is taken into account.
