Racial inequality has been around since the beginning of time, as people that look different have been treated abhorrently. In this essay I will be discussing race, racism, new forms of racism and how they fit into and work as a structure in our daily lives and in our society.
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'Race and Racism as Structures of Inequality in Society'
Race is biological and no one can change that. You are born as a certain race, be it white, black, Indian, Chinese, Latina etc. Throughout history and the year’s race has also developed into a social structure. Different races are being treated differently, some discriminate others while some enjoy privilege. These acts of discriminations are called racism.
The hate and discrimination between races are called racism. Racism attacks a certain or multiple race group, without looking at their economic, financial, social and political side as human beings and individuals.
" …social scientists use these terms as if they were self-evident…” (Bonilla-Silva1, 2015). In the society we live in one can even go so far to say that these terms have started speaking for itself. If you speak about race people automatically think about racism as well. If you mention a certain race all the stereotypes and racism that goes along with the certain race also comes to mind, thanks to racism.
“We regard racism as the belief that some people are better than others because of their race and conceive “race,” the presumed foundation of all racial woes in the world, as primarily a biological or cultural category easy to read through marks in the body (phenotype) or the cultural practices of groups.” (Bonilla-Silva1, 2015).
But where does racism come from and why does it still exist in our society today? “Racism is the product of racial domination projects” (Bonilla-Silva1, 2015), but we can see that Bonilla describes racism in the statement made above. The statement made above by Bonilla says that racism happened because of a certain race that “dominated” the other races, economically, financially and even personally e.g. Apartheid, where people of colour had no say and was rules by the white community.
In our society race and racism have turned into structures on injustice and inequality. Since the late 1970s, most race scholars and activists have had a hard time articulating a coherent case for how race matters. In this ‘new racism’ black and white people (mainly) are still unequal in many parts of life, financially, socially and economically.
The new racism is unequal and brings injustice on levels and on different terms, to start with, housing and segregation. Racism has caused the stereotype that e.g. white and black and Indian people don’t live in the same neighbourhood or won’t be neighbours, you would hear people talk about a “rich-white” neighbourhood or a “poor-black” neighbourhood. Black and white people often wont send their child off to a “white” or “black” school where the majority of the learners or black or white or any other race opposite to theirs in race, “Hence, her laissez faire view on neighbourhoods leads her to oppose the only effective program we have in place to address school segregation” (Nolan L. Cabrera, 2018), a act done out of racism towards another race.
Secondly on a employment and labour market level, “ Blacks earn less than Whites at every educational level and remain overrepresented among unskilled workers while still being underrepresented in managerial positions” (Bonilla-Silva1, 2015). I our society and in workplaces black people are still earning way less than their white counterparts. “On the wealth front, Blacks and Latinos fared the worst during the recent financial crisis’ We see that some races are paid more than others even though they are in the same workplace.
Some other types of racism were also discussed in the article by Nolan & Zimmerman namely, “laissez-faire racism, competitive racism, or symbolic racism.” (Nolan L. Cabrera, 2018).
Social structures also developed, referring to the way of living, a social way of being instead of one’s skin colour, “Whiteness is not a culture but a social concept” (Nolan L. Cabrera, 2018). )“. Within this definition, Leonardo acknowledges white people are the substantive beneficiaries of this discourse, and the resulting social system in which white skin and white ways of being are held to be superior and meritorious.”. Leonardo meant the way of living in “whiteness” as superior to other races ways of living, might it be poorly or not “as white” as the whites would live.
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No one knows why racism exists or why people are racist, “…Although we have plenty of data showing race inequality, we do not have a strong position to explain why this is the case…” (Nolan L. Cabrera, 2018). Racism developed over the years and has become an unequal unfair structure in society. Racism has always been systemic in our nation, but racial domination was structured differently during slavery than during Jim Crow, and since the late 1960s, the “new racism” regime developed as the way of reproducing White rule.” (Nolan L. Cabrera, 2018).
Bibliography
- Bonilla-Silva1, E., 2015. The Structure of Racism in. 59(11), pp. 1359-1376.
- Nolan L. Cabrera, C. C.-Z., 2018. Beyond “Privilege”: Whiteness as the Center. In: Neighborhoods, Communities, and Urban Marginality . s.l.:s.n., pp. 13-29.
