Race and American Law Outline

Race and Law Notes

A. Defining Race and Racism
. Introduction
. Ethnic groups are defined by the perception of a unique culture (and that perception could be propagated by people outside the defined racial group)
A. Ethnocentrism is seeing one’s own group as normal or superior. Racism is a subsection of this that is based on something biological, i.e. not cultural.
B. Material racism has two forms, collective and individual. Collective racism attempts to structure social life and and state policy to grant greater access to economic, political, and social goods for the favored group. Individual racism is efforts to help or hurt certain people based on their race.
C. Ideological racism is the pool of beliefs, symbols, metaphors and images that justify and “naturalize” its practice.
A. Perkins v. Lake County Dept. of Utilities
. Plaintiff was discriminated against in the employment context because the defendant’s employees defined him as a Native American, even if he wasn’t.
A. Defendants then try to argue the plaintiff is not a Native American, and tries to prove that he is not by showing that a) no one in his lineage was Native American (i.e., biology), and that b) no one in his family selected Native American on the census (i.e., self-identification and identity). The plaintiff tries to counter that with personal appearance (“I look like an Indian”)
B. However, the defendants defined him as a Native American up until they filed this lawsuit.
C. This is different than the “one drop” rule we used in the past, where one drop of blood of a different race makes you that race.
D. Because there’s no real genetic differences between racial groups, they find that racial classifications are for the most part sociopolitical rather than biological in nature.
E. Therefore, race has only a commonly accepted understanding; it is not a static concept, but lives and changes according to popular beliefs
. Compare this to the idea that race is something you define yourself. Under this view, your identity is set to the whims and definitions of the larger community, not how you actually view yourself. The court finds the plaintiff as an Indian when both he and the defendant think of themselves this way, but they would not if the plaintiff viewed himself as Indian but the defendants did not. Your identity is based on your tormentor.
F. The question in Title VII is the perception of skin color.
B. Lawrence Blum, I’m Not A Racist But…
A. Inferiorization and Antipathy
A. Inferiorization is treating groups as inferior based on biological differences
B. Antipathy is bigotry, hostility, and hatred
C. Antipathy is often key to creating systems of inferiorization (i.e., you hate the other race, so you create a system where they are treated in an inferior way)
D. Occasionally, people think that their own group is inferior (see, for instance, black-on-black violence)
E. Inferiorization is not just hatred, it could be just paternalism and inferiorizing feelings of kindness (i.e., I’ll take care of you because you’re black and can’t handle the world on your own)
A. The kindness is misdirected because they don’t view the other as an equal
F. Antipathy may not be because the “other” is inferior but instead “superior.” We hate them because they are better than us.
B. Personal, social/sociocultural, and institutional racism
C. Institutional racism can be intentional, or it can just happen on accident (non purposeful but racist anyway, even if the institution is not trying)
D. Racism is not binary: it falls along a continuum. There can be degrees of racism, just as there can be degrees of dishonesty and cruelty. A film can be mildly racist, or viciously racist. An individual can be somewhat hostile or intensely hostile.
E. Racism is sometimes selective and bundled with sexism. Therefore, you may be selectively racist toward young, poor, black men.
E. Why? It could be that young, poor black men are the archetype of blackness, so we feel racist. Or, it could be that racism doesn’t occur until the other factors are combined (and does this fall into the ethnocentric problem — i.e., poor, young, black men are most likely to have “black culture”)
D. Joe R. Feagin & Clairece Booher Feagin, Racial and Ethnic Relations
A. Race is a socially constructed reality that is not based on any physical differences in intelligence or civilization
B. That is, the basic tenet of racist thinking is wrong: physical differences are not tied to intellectual differences.
C. The differences of race were created by Europeans, and they place blacks at the bottom because they were dark, uncivilized, and often used as slaves.
D. Then, scientists, who took the folk racism and incorporated it into their worldview, when about trying to prove it.
E. Therefore, “races” are simply groups with visible differences that Europeans and European Americans have decided to emphasize as important in their social, economic, and political relations.
B. Prewitt, Racial Classification in America
A. The census generated three racial groups — blacks, Europeans, and Native Americans — that set the basis for racial classification ever since.
B. Since the first census, the categories have been continuously shifting (adding “free colored,” Hawaiians, expanding to 5 races, mark one or more)
A. One point is to classify people, like free colored, so as to keep them from exercising political power. Of course, race classifications can also increase political power
B. Used to design restrictive immigration laws, in response to the eugenics movement
C. The government’s response to the racial categories is that they should not be interpreted as being scientific or anthropological in nature
A. The reason they get added or removed is due to strong voices in the politic