The concept of Blackness or black skin was used for both external and internal characteristics of a “black group” or “race”. Blackness is defined in the “Critical Perspectives on Bell Hook” by Arnold Farr as “the social construction of essentialist racial identities is oppressive and dehumanizing for people of African descent.” According to Farr, the essentialist racial identity is intensified by the system of white supremacy and maintained and perpetuated by blacks who are victims of racial essentialism. Bell Hooks urges, that” racial identity must be deconstructed and calls for a deconstruction of race and post-modern blackness as a way blacks asserting emancipation from white supremacy.” When race is deconstructed it enables anti hegemonic groups to be developed that confronts hegemony or dominant white supremacy. The reason for deconstruction is show that things refuse to conform to the static definitions given. In terms of race, racial essentialism tries to create fixed racial identities that robs or takes away the agency of black people.
Ideas of racial superiority originate as far back as the Middle Ages. In addition, attitudes were sanctioned and further developed among Europeans during the Renaissance and Reformation. Europeans increasingly came in contact with African cultures and people of darker skin complexion. With uneasy feelings about differing cultures and physical appearance came judgement and justification for abhorrent behavior. Religion was used a weapon to offer rationale for physical enslavement of Africans (Fredrickson, 2003).
Institutional discrimination is when laws favor a dominant group while minority groups are not favored, and this thought process is embedded into the norms of society. The pattern that we see in the history of Native American and African Americans is that white Americans always believed that they were the dominant race and all laws that were created, were made to favor only themselves. One idea that white Americans shared was that both ethnic groups previously mentioned were inferior and that these groups were not capable of coexisting with them. These thoughts were embedded into society early on and were the main justification for both slavery and Indian removal. The main difference that we see between both racial ethnic groups is that white Americans believed that they could strip Native Americans from their culture and civilize them while “nurture could not improve the nature of blacks” (67).
Also, the unnecessary violence many colonizers displayed towards African-Americans was only a reflection of themselves. White colonizers dehumanized African’s because they did not want to view them as themselves and this is proven true in “The Hidden Origin of Slavery”: “Chain him, either chain him or expel his black shape from our midst, before we realize that he is ourselves”. White-supremacy dehumanized both populations making it easier to mistreat them. Capitalism provided the initial intent for dehumanization, and white-supremacy solidified the racial
Throughout his book The Racial State Goldberg (2002) argues that race is fundamental to the formation, development and transformation of the modern nation state. Originating in the six-teenth century, racial thinking and racist expression have ever since undergone a process of normalization and naturalization within European societies and their domains of influence. As a consequence, race is inherent to modernity both as an existential condition and as a form of rule. 3.2.1 A brief History of Racial Differentiation throughout Colonial Times European concerns about foreigners have had a very long history dating back to the estab-lishment of slavery in the fifteenth century. From the sixteenth century onwards, Europeans and those of European
In American history during the period the power struggle among various interest groups, ethnic minorities are still discriminated against and marginalized by white and mainstream in society. The majority of immigrants of the Asian
Weber is redefining capitalism or at the least the essence of capitalism that he saw as the natural evolution of ascetic Protestantism. Weber’s use of the term ‘capitalism’ along with ‘religion’ is somewhat problematic and has created much debate, when applied to the interpretation of the origins of modern western economy. For Weber, capitalism is “identical with the pursuit of profit, and forever renewed profit, by means of continuous, rational, capitalistic enterprise. For it must be so: in a wholly capitalistic order of society, an individual capitalistic enterprise which did not take advantage of its opportunities for profitmaking would be doomed to extinction.” (xxxii) I think that Weber narrows the definition of capitalism and presents the capitalistic spirit as a limited concept. Throughout his writings, He judges modern capitalism as rational and anything irrational to be not capitalism.
Throughout Stephen Steinberg’s book the Ethnic Myth, multiple examples of how different ethnicities achieved economic ability and how others did not is discussed. He analysis a variety of different immigrant groups and how more than their cultural values played into whether or not they were successful in America. The following information in this paper will provide an example using black Americans as part of the “culture-of-poverty”. “The wronged are always wrong…” (New Republic, June 24, 1916) is the opening statement to chapter four and is associated with why the Negro is blamed for their own misfortune. On page 107, Oscar Lewis mentions how the culture-of-poverty is one which arises from existing situations and becomes a “design for living”.
Historically, from America to central Europe the whites race have always had the preference socially, educationally and politically whilst other ethnic groups found it difficult to climb up the ladder or fully express or gain their rights to self determination. This is described concisely by (Jeyasingham 2011) referring to white privilege as a variety of unjustified social advantage that is gained by white people even though they mostly don’t notice it. White privilege is something that could said to be a birth right, where a white Caucasian chances to succeed in life are bigger than a black or someone from other ethnic minorities despite the fact that they were all born in the same hospital, lived in same town and attended the same schools. As (Lavalette and Penketh 2014 page ix) highlighted that this has “no scientific valid reality” but constructed by the sects with most institutional might and power to determine where different races end up in the social and institutional hierarchy. Finally, (Kendal 2002) defined white privilege in a different way in comparisons to other which buttresses the points made above as he links white privilege along with male privilege as something difficult for people who are born with rights to wealth and power but easy to see to those that
Colonization of Africa The European settlers forcibly seized Africans land, resources and plantation. European created myth of “white man’s burden” is to show themselves as enlightened and as someone who is above common natives whereas Africans as savage, uncivilized and barbarians. But it only reveals one fact that how dehumanizing colonialism was in terms of creating hierarchy by categorizing human being. European imperialist mission to dominate the colonized land was based on three main factors i.e. economical, political, and social.