In what ways, if any, does the concept of ideology help us to understand racism? Within the conceptual framework of this research, we will elaborate on racism in general as well as racism in Great Britain with the purpose of answering the question of how ideology helps us to understand racism. Within the scope of this essay, we will give the definition of ideology and see how it influences racism, as well as analyze various racist groups that exist in contemporary Britain. Appiah claims that race does not exist. He uses scientific methods to prove that individuals from different groups of people have no greater genetic differences between them than the genetic differences in individuals from the same group of people. He writes: human genetic variability between the populations of Africa or Europe or Asia is not much greater than within those populations (Appiah, p. 86).
With this he is trying to demonstrate that if there is no biological difference between populations, except for those differences due to the habitat in which a certain population has lived for many years. Therefore he proves that there is no accurate meaning of the word race.
Although he divides the world population in races, and gives answers to racism, he does not give an explicit meaning to the word race. He uses history, culture and languages, to form several groups of people that he calls races. Appiah discusses 12 British history books, and focuses in the fact that all of them try to hide racism against white people Blacks Black">black people throughout British history. Later in the debate, Appiah says that the existence of racism does not imply that race has to exist, he mentions the Salem witch trials, in which witches were haunted down and sentenced to death because they were supposedly doing witchcraft, to prove his point; he says that although witches do not exist, they were persecuted for witchcraft. What he means by this cite is that although race does no exist, people are still being persecuted by racist individuals. (Appiah, p.
The Essay on Racism against black people
Slavery in the United States began after English colonists first settled Virginia and lasted until the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1865. The American colonies were established with the idea of freedom and liberty to all but has change into racism. Now, racism against African Americans in America has been a huge problem in the south. Slavery in the United States began soon ...
104) In another part of the debate, he also refutes the idea that race is a group of people with the same socio-historical background; he says that if that statement is true, then his family would have to be a race because they have the same socio-historical background. The most important reason why people try to define race is to understand racism and to see if it is justifiable or not. Racism has been in human nature since the beginning of time and it is a constant problem in modern cultures, thats why through better understanding of how it works, we might be able to finish the history of hate and violence that racism has produced. Racism is the manifestation of the false belief that races are different. Or in the beliefs of a single person which can be manifested when for example: some white people think that they are a superior race and they can treat others differently. To better understand this phenomenon, we need to know what ideology means, since ideology is the basic source of racism.
Eagleton gives several definitions of ideology in his book Ideology, I will cite some of his definitions, and based on the corrections made to the definitions, I will formulate my own definition of ideology to better understand racism. A body of ideas characteristic to a particular social group or class (Eagleton, p. 67).
This definition is very accurate, but as history tells us, the greatest ideologists are the ones that defy the ideas and beliefs of the vast majority. Forms of thought motivated by social interests (Eagleton, p. 69).
The Essay on Racism People Problem Racist
Racism An underlying problem is promoting racism. It is the fact that a lot of people believe, and try to make they believe, that racism no longer exists. Many people today live their lives oblivious to what is happening in the world around them, often trying to convince themselves that racism is not a problem in their world. Others know all about the problem, but don't really realize that they ...
It is true that everyones thinking is influenced by social pressures, but this definition implies that every belief is social-based, which is certainly not true.
Having said that, a new definition of ideology can be made by combining these two definitions. I would define ideology as the ideas and beliefs of an individual person based on his own social, cultural, religious and geographical background. With this definition present, racism becomes a personal belief that emerges from the background of the person. This doesnt mean that racism can not become a part of the ideology of a specific group (because it does).
It means that every member of this group has his own ideology, but all have the common manifestation of racism. Also they dont necessarily need to have the same reasons for being racist, since every persons background is unique. Furthermore, we can assume that racism is a belief that derives from ideology and the misconception of race, which means that if we fix the roots from where it arises, racism will disappear.
This also means that racism is not and endless plague (although many people think it is).
We also have take into account that racism varies from culture to culture. In Costa Rica, the degree of racism against black people is much lower than in Great Britain. To remove racism from our society, we need to educate ourselves, for knowledge is basic in the understanding of racism. We also need support from the government, by the implementation of anti-racist policies that would protect people from racism, and would make mandatory to teach history as it really happened, without omitting parts of the history. Also, we need to eliminate our concept of race, and for doing that we need to change the way things are taught in classes and promote the equity of all human beings. One example of a misuse of race can be found in the review of the book The Shape of the River, written by Bowen and Bok, by the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/10/25/reviews/981 025.25wolfet.html).
In this book, we see that the author divides the college applicants according to the skin color.
Although the author uses a politically correct form of writing, in which he clearly says that biologically there is no difference between blacks and whites, after reading the article we perceive how the author leads us to think that white people are smarter. He does this by showing statistics about SAT scores and intelligence tests in which the white people have a bigger ratio of good scores than black people show. Also, he denotes the fact that the best schools in their effort to diversify their student population have to fight over a few high scores from black people to fill the quota. The controversial part is that he doesnt show that this gap really happens because black people have been oppressed for a long period of time, and until the last one hundred years (or less) they have been able to develop culturally and economically, so they have a economic deficiency that prevents black people from getting the best education possible. In the other hand, white people have an economic advantage so their kids get a better education and a higher chance to get a better score. Also, this deficiency changes the priorities of a black kid, because he is going to be more interested in going to a technical school or community college so that he can be able to start working faster and help to maintain the family. The term race has been employed throughout Western history as a way to categorize difference in society and to justify exploitation of certain groups by the powerful. Scholars in the field of sociology question the validity of the concept and term race in academic analysis.
The Essay on Black Social Movements
The political and social structure of the United States can be difficult to comprehend. How does one rationalize that in 1776, America declared its independence from England by stating, in part that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of ...
Miles and Satzewich argue that the use of categories employed by the racists to categorize and oppress, reproduces the myths and fallacies that justifies oppression. As well, since the 1960s there has been a change in the discourse that racializes groups of people. The discourse of racialization can be powerful even without the explicit use of race and blatant racist remarks. The impact of academic discourse on common sense knowledge and the inconsistency of the meaning associated with the word race challenges sociologists to examine the discourse of racism. In his work, Satzewich petitions for the abandonment of the term race in sociological analyses of racism. He challenges the category of race and establishes the elastic mutability of the concept.
Maintaining the fallacy of biological base for hierarchy of races, he examines the evolution of the idea of race, tracing the variability of the term from difference of class, culture, appearance, language, biology and social construct. The inconsistency of the use of the term infiltrates 20th century academia reproducing the categories of racialization. Satzewich argues that using the term is more damaging than not, as the political implications of the using the term give status to racial agendas. He advocates the concepts of racism and racialization and goes further to define these terms. These words suggest active oppression instead of passive, inherent, culturally defined or biological social differences. 1)The use of the idea of race to explain consequences of social outcome distorts and negates often complex social processes 2)Academic use of the term race influences the commonsense as there is no way to control the way the public understands the term, so use of race may actually serve as legitimation not only of a belief in the existence of race as a biological phenomenon but also of racism itself (Satzewich 32) 3)The term race has been a central to racist ideology-to incorporate this idea into anti-racist discourse simply reproduces racism Solomos observes the political and economic crises which fuelled the racialization of Blacks in Great Britain.
The Term Paper on Race Relations Racial Racism Groups
In a country dedicated to promoting the concept of free and eternal equally among the cultures from within and around the world. A country that sets forth policies and supports organizations dedicated to protecting people of every race and securing a future where race is no longer an issue, concern or judgement. A country that retains the mission of peacekeeping and fighting for justice to benefit ...
British parties relate the decline of the British way of life and the growing violence in Britain to the element ….
