Problem Definition revision

Who are the stakeholders in a discussion about racism and how to solve it?

Everyone on the planet.
It is not as simple as an "us" versus "them" concept. Everyone is implicated in the perpetuation of racism as our conscious and unconscious actions, attitudes, beliefs and responses to one another are coded in notions of race and striations regarding race. A child in calcutta who is starving to death is not merely an agent in matters of extreme poverty, because a caste system (which often codes itself in skin color) places him or her in a position where they have limited mobility or opportunity to change their circumstances. All who participate in the caste system are culpable for the continuation of this oppression, regardless of the magnitude of their power or agency. Here in the US, racism continues to thrive because we choose to participate in what has become a normalcy for our society. It is not unusual for individuals to self-segregate by race, or to marry or date exclusively within their race because we have chosen to perpetuate the notions of exclusivity between the races.

Problem 1.
The world has a particular, biologically-based understanding or belief about race that underlies all attitudes about how society should function.

Problem 2.
Some believe that racism is dead and is no longer an issue in today's society. Many see the accomplishments of people of color and believe that this is a clear cut indication of substantial progress, and that the urgency for universal civil rights is dead.

Problem 3.
Some see racism as someone else's beliefs rather than belonging to ourselves. We use exteme examples of overt racism to distance ourselves from the beliefs and practices that makes one an blatant participant of racism. It does not require that we check our own complicity, because it is somebody else's problem.

Problem 4.
Issues of race are really masking issues of class. The world is not divided by notions of race, but the goals of capitalistic greed.

The "haters"

Of course, I had to go with the big-uns.....

David Duke, former KKK Grand Wizard and current US. Representative says in a recorded welcoming message ideas that "the war in Iraq is a war for Isreal". This actually suprised me, as I never considered the goals of the KKK and Neo-Nazism to share so much interest. Both have a goal of white supremacy, but this caught me by surprise. Representative Duke's page is strongly and unabashedly anti-semetic. "If you are truly open minded, and like to think for yourself, this is the place for you." he implores. I searched for papers that talk about race, and have seen a sort of soft-handed approach to getting folks to consider his ideals. Instead of screaming, "we hate", his diatribes are cushioned in well-meaning rhetoric. A great example comes from an article he posted about the increase of black populations in the US.
http://www.davidduke.com/index.php?p=23

Here is an excerpt:

"...Yet, as White numbers decrease in proportion to the invasion of almost two-million non-Whites per year through immigration, and as we continue to finance the sky-high minority, illegitimate birth-rates, there is not a White public official from Maine to California who will speak out openly.

I am betting that millions of Americans have not lost their instinct for survival. Read these lines and understand the importance of what is written here. Don’t delay another moment. Invest yourself in this struggle for our survival. Carry the message to your friends and family and demand that they join with you in this sacred cause. Whether they join us or not, we can’t stop working until Americans stand together and say, ENOUGH is ENOUGH!"

What is most chilling about this section is that he does not say, fight against this or work against this through legislation, but kind of leaves it open to interpretation for the reader to decide what they want to do about it. Considering that he uses darwinian references in earlier parts of the article, maybe he expects a sort of white fight instead of a white flight instinct to kick in.

And I just had to post one more juicy one from a website member who posted a lengthy bit in support of Eugenics (which is the practice of selective birth control, sterilization and abortions to prevent the increase of the "undesirables", race, disability, income...etc.)
http://www.davidduke.com/index.php?p=29

The author celebrates a book on Eugenics quoting one scholar who she thinks had it right: "It is better for all the world if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. ….. Three generations of imbeciles is enough (Buck v. Bell, 1927)."

And then goes further to add: "The second half of the book deals in fascinating depth with essentially current happenings, both in eugenical science [genetics], and in ideological countermoves to empirical science. On the one had, DNA fingerprinting can now establish, from a drop of saliva or dried blood, the race of origin to a probability of error of less than one-in-a-hundred-million. Incredibly, at the same time popular media and scientific publications stridently proclaim that biological [genetic] races do not exist. We are now in critical times, a race is occurring around us between humanitarian applications of modern genetic science (eugenics, that is) and the suppression of knowledge by PeeCee ideologues. The media, by-and-large trained by egalitarians, know no better than to attack as “racist”, “repellent”, or “repugnant” almost any admission of information concerning behavior and genetic diversity among human races. Yet at the same time the human genome project in combination with a wide variety of research in the neurosciences [brain science] and behavioral medicine and genetics in general, is quickly taking us beyond the point where race differences can be obfuscated or denied...

Meanwhile, in the West, eugenics continues to encounter politically motivated attempts to suppress. As the scientific advances continue at an accelerating pace, it remains to be seen if rational humanitarian applications of sound genetic knowledge can be implemented for the benefit of mankind, or if we will slip into another era of anti-intellectual totalitarianism. Anyone concerned for the future of mankind should carefully read this book. It is not the story you were told in cultural anthropology class."

… there is now no reasonable excuse for refusing to face the fact that nothing but …. eugenics ….. can save our civilization from the fate that has overtaken all previous civilizations” (p. 136).

American Renaissance newsletter is a publication that states the following on their website www.amren.com:

What We Believe

Race is an important aspect of individual and group identity. Of all the fault lines that divide society—language, religion, class, ideology—it is the most prominent and divisive. Race and racial conflict are at the heart of the most serious challenges the Western World faces in the 21st century.

The problems of race cannot be solved without adequate understanding. Attempts to gloss over the significance of race or even to deny its reality only make problems worse. Progress requires the study of all aspects of race, whether historical, cultural, or biological.

American Renaissance is a monthly magazine that has been published since 1991. It has been called “a literate, undeceived journal of race, immigration and the decline of civility.”

Not too bad, huh? Then I find this excerpt from their website for a story in their recent issue. (You cannot read the newsletter unless you pay for access, which I have no desire to do...):

• "American Renaissance editor Jared Taylor reviews Science for Segregation, which tells the little-known story of the resistance to the Brown v. Board decision. A brave crew of activists and scientists, including Carleton Putnam, Wesley Critz George, Robert Kuttner, and Ernest van den Haag, fought the ruling through their writings and the law. Their activism was surprisingly effective: a judge ruled in favor of the race realists in Stell v. Savannah-Chatham Board of Education, a lawsuit that challenged Brown. However, an appeals court overturned the Stell decision."

Then of course, are also the now-infamous Minutemen militia.
http://www.minutemanhq.com

The closing paragraph of the Minuteman Pledge:

"I vow before God and my fellow Americans that these principles guide my actions as a Minuteman. "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty..." And so I will stand watch on America's borders and in her sovereign interest until relieved from duty by my fellow countrymen."

And this is from their training manual:

"Minuteman Corps volunteers understand that, while our actions cannot stop illegal activity along the border, we can change world perception and national thought concerning Homeland Security and the border. This is the understatement of the year, and also happens to be the reason that we’re here. Our efforts, both as individuals and as a group, are intended to raise the alarm in America that we as a nation must do something and we must do it now. We, as Minuteman Corps volunteers, are setting not only an example for other Americans to follow, but a precedent we hope will have a lasting effect on how border security is viewed for generations to come. You should be proud to be a part of American history-in-the-making, just as we are proud to have you serving alongside us. Through our efforts, we will make a difference, and, given time, will bring about the changes in policy, regulation and enforcement that this country so desperately needs."

Gotta add this one too:
Royal Knights of the Klu Klux Klan

Antiracism.net & the Center for Whiteness

I found a treasure trove of listings for organizations that are working on behalf of anti-racism efforts at www.antiracism.net. This website breaks down racism in to many different categories, but shows how these different issues from environmental racism to sexism to police brutality have strong relevance to issues about race.

After checking out some of the websites that are listed, I found an interesting group, the Center for the Study of Whitness, that focuses on enabling "Whites" to enter into discussions about racism and find educational materials towards that specific goal. Here is a sample from their website. www.euroamerican.org

"The Center was created to address the lack of information and discussion of the role of white people and white culture in American society. In some venues this topic was given only marginal consideration. In others, discussion of whiteness seemed to be taboo and any attempts to broach the subject were met with hostility and denial.

Among people who were concerned about the role that white Americans might play in creating a multiracial society, few could find materials, venues and forums for discussion, and supportive organizations to assist in creating a dialogue. Within predominantly white organizations, whiteness still remained an unexamined barrier to developing a multiracial organizational culture. Some grassroots training efforts could be found, and individual scholars and practitioners within various fields were beginning to examine issues of whiteness and white culture. But little of this reached the general public. Even many scholars and practitioners were isolated from one another.

Today some of this is changing. Many people have begun to examine whiteness and white culture, and to ask what it will take for white Americans to live in a society that is multiracial. Though this growing awareness has not been due to the Center alone (far from it), we believe we have played a leadership role. In particular we have fostered the growing awareness and discussion of these issues among a broader public. The very act of our creation was an intentional statement that whiteness can and should be discussed."

Pearl S. Buck International

After browsing the antiracism.net website, I found an article that talked about a reversal of racist sentiments from Korean society in their attempts to embrace an American athlete Hines Ward (Pittsburg Steeler) who is of mixed African-American and Korean race. Traditionally, biracial children, particularly those who have American lineage are ostracized and marginalized from most Asian communities. This was true for this athlete as well....until he was voted MVP this year. Now Korea wants to open its arms and roll out the red carpet. Many talks have "suddenly" emerged to reconsider the public stance on biracial children, but a great deal of damage has been done.

Enter the Pearl S. Buck International foundation. This group focuses its efforts on finding adoption and support services for biracial children from Asian countries. It is common knowledge that children of color are the last to be adopted world-wide, and this is of little exception for biracial children, who in the past were not legally eligible for adoption at all.

Their goals are to combat racism by offering these children the chance to see that their lives are of value, and that they deserve love, caring and respect to eventually become anti-racists themselves.

This is working on the micro level and reflects the fourth point in my working hypothesis:

"The more successful models are situations where change is sought on a micro level and not through overarching public policies. (De-segregation didn't actually work, even though segregation was made illegal.) I believe that examples of diverse communities do not arise organically, but deliberately as forms of active resistance. "

http://www.psbi.org/

More research action postings - The ADL

I also visited the Anti-Defamation League's website to see what their definition of racist acts are. www.adl.org My inclusion of their information is to commend their efforts to document and bring light to acts of racism against those of the Jewish faith and heritage. What is often missing from their work though is a truly critical analysis that show the connections between these acts of racism and the rising levels of racism against other groups in the United States and around the world. Their cautionings and championings are very exclusionary and can sometimes act to diminish the legacies of others in the world who struggle for justice. Some leaders consider their work to act as a sort of reactionary "divide and conquer" that dissipates the collective energy that can be harnessed when people work together instead of continually point fingers. It would be an outrageous act to pretend that the seeds of racism are not embedded into Jewish, Black, Asian or Latino sentiments towards one another. We all are "damaged goods". Once again, it goes back to the comment I made on our action team board in response to Sadie's post on modern racism:

"The part that is the most difficult to overcome in Overt or Covert racism is that the implicit stuff that we do can only be challenged if we are willing to admit that we have racist tendencies. Most people are afraid to admit that or deal with it. Acknowledging this is the first step, interrogating is the second, and responding is the third. But getting everyone to admit that they are racist or hold some racist beliefs is worse than pulling teeth. The defenses go up, and the cycle of silence continues. I don't think that there is anything wrong with admitting these truths. Indeed, it is the silence and shame that we carry about these feelings that is far more toxic. IMHO.

You have to be willing to get down and dirty. And that means working on a micro level, as I stated on my blog.

It's a complex problem. We can't even get people on this campus to wrap their heads around the abhorrent nature of the Chief. If a whole stadium of students can't understand that basic concept which in its display through shirts and merchandising is a blatantly EXPLICIT form of racism, then it should be of little surprise that it is hard to get folks to interrogate the smaller almost unconscious acts that we commit every single day."

I don't mean to get on a soapbox about this, but I have long-wrestled with my understandings of and responses to the ADL and what affect it has on race relations in the US.

Here is a segment of their 2005 report on anti-semetic activity in the US.

http://www.adl.org/PresRele/ASUS_12/4671_12.htm

Anti-Semitic incidents included in the Audit comprise physical and verbal assaults, harassment, property defacement, vandalism or other expressions of anti-Jewish sentiment. The 2004 ADL Audit comprises data from 44 states and the District of Columbia, and is compiled using official crime statistics, as well as information provided to ADL's 30 regional offices by victims, law enforcement officers and community leaders. The Audit identifies both criminal and non-criminal acts of harassment and intimidation, including distribution of hate propaganda, threats and slurs.

Among the most serious incidents reported in 2004:

• Arsonists damaged the entrance to a local Jewish cemetery in West Roxbury, MA (February).
• Windows of a Jewish day school in North Miami were coated with feces (May).
• A rash of vandalism targeting a synagogue in Eureka, CA, including anti-Semitic graffiti, broken furniture and objects thrown against a door during religious services for young children (December).
• Swastikas, "Death to Jews" and other graffiti written on Houston synagogue (December).
• Members of a hate group harassed patrons at a Connecticut mall, raising Nazi salutes (July).
• An apartment complex in Ft. Lauderdale was targeted with anti-Semitic and racist leaflets "celebrating" Hitler's birthday (April).

"At a time when anti-Semitism is at a high in France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Canada and other countries, it is disturbing to see that it is increasing in America as well," said Mr. Foxman. "While most of the incidents in the U.S. are less violent than those experienced recently by the Jewish communities of Europe, it is troubling that so many people in this country feel a need to act out their anti-Jewish animus in ways large and small. Just one act of anti-Semitism can deeply affect an entire community. Sadly, in an America where Jews enjoy a level of safety and freedom unparalleled in history, we still experience anti-Semitism at an average rate of nearly five incidents per day."

Research Action Postings

Well, I went to the Rainbow/Push coalition's website to see how they talked about racism. www.rainbowpush.org What I found is that part of their efforts on continuing Dr. King's legacy is to push for equality for all on many levels, social, economic, etc. So their website does not directly condemn racism in an overt way. Those words come from the commentaries that Jessie Jackson publishes in his weekly column for the Chicago Tribune newspaper.

I have included an editorial he wrote after the passing of Coretta Scott King. I think this relates to my second point of my working hypothesis:

"The crux of the problem lies in the continued push for hegemony fueled by capitalistic ideals of individualism and self-promotion."

President Bush and Mrs. King
By Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.
2/7/2006 © Tribune Media Services
Coretta Scott King will be remembered this week. She will be sorely missed. For the 51 years since the Montgomery Bus Boycott, she has shown amazing endurance, strength and resilience. She walked with her husband during the bus boycott. Their home was bombed. She endured the threats and the slanders. When Dr. King was shot in Memphis, I called her to inform her that he had been shot. She organized his funeral. And she came to Memphis to lead the march he was to lead. She shared his sense of commitment.

President Bush has announced that he will attend her funeral to honor her. He will do so after releasing a budget that calls for spending nearly $600 billion on the military next year alone -- including $120 billion for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. While military spending is going up, spending on education, on cancer and heart disease, on cleaning up the environment, on worker training is going down. The president is pushing to cut Medicare even as he demands that his top-end tax cuts be made permanent. Student loans will be more expensive; the military’s weapons will be more exotic.

Those are not the priorities of Dr. Martin Luther King or of Coretta Scott King. Dr. King warned us at the height of the Cold War of the terrible moral costs of devoting more of our resources to war and weapons than to moral uplift. It was Dr. King who understood that the War on Poverty at home was lost in the jungles of Vietnam.

President Bush will pay tribute to Mrs. King, no doubt, but she’d much prefer he pay tribute in his budget than in his words. And for African Americans, the announcement of his visit might well be greeted with apprehension. Two years ago, the President laid a wreath on Dr. King’s grave, and then announced he would ask the Supreme Court to outlaw affirmative action. Then he celebrated Dr. King’s birthday and announced a recess appointment of Judge Pickering, a right-wing judge opposed to equal protection, to the federal bench. This year, the wolf in sheep’s clothing will praise Mrs. King but his budget eliminates the Office of Minority Health, and he’s leaving tens of thousands of Katrina’s poorest survivors scattered across the country, with no plan to bring them back. His HUD Secretary says New Orleans will not regain its population or its black majority.

When Dr. King was shot, he was in Memphis marching with sanitation workers for a decent wage. He was planning a poor people’s march on Washington, uniting the poor across lines of race and region and color, to call on this country to open the doors of opportunity. Mrs. King carried on that mission.

But under President Bush, America is becoming more unequal. Poverty is spreading and growing deeper. Homelessness is up. Hunger is up. Poor workers are up. Mr. Bush has not supported an increase in the minimum wage since he’s been in office. His administration has evinced a relentless enmity to workers trying to organize unions. He’s walked away from funding his own reforms in education. He’s failed to extend health care and adequate nutrition to young children. America suffers the worst infant mortality rates in the industrial world. A record 2 million people are in jail, with minorities more likely to be stopped, more likely to be searched, more likely to be charged, more likely to receive harsh sentences.

Dr. and Mrs. King sought to touch the better angels of our spirits. Non-violent protest assumes that the humanity of every person can be reached. Both Dr. and Mrs. King taught about the urgency of now. Both felt deeply how many children’s hopes were being crushed; how much unneeded suffering was being ignored. In part because of their commitment, this country has come a long way. Segregation is no longer the law of the land. We have the right to vote. From playing fields to college classrooms, minorities and women have moved towards equal opportunity.

But we have so far to go. Like her husband, Mrs. King would decry the terrible human waste and the domestic costs of a $1 trillion war of choice. She would not understand a policy that lavishes tax breaks on the very wealthy even as cutting basic supports for the most vulnerable. She would wonder about the moral health of a country that failed to provide health care and nutrition and pre-school to every child. As he honors her courage, President Bush would do well to learn from her wisdom.

###

My working hypothesis

My working hypothesis draws from my modal examples and from my training in issues of social justice. I want to employ a complex methodology that considers and incorporates differing viewpoints to identify models that can be used on a local level to bring about substantial change. My goals are to make this feel more like a dialogue rather than a diatribe about what can be done. My hope is to make this body of work something more than just homework for a class.

As such, I am going to introduce my hypothesis with an anecdote.

One of the most powerful experiences that I ever had regarding race was during a training session for a rape crisis center in DC. This training had about 40 women of varying ages and races in attendance. This particular session was designed to cover the topic of race. What started off as a very polite conversation quickly, and unexpectedly became very real. We spoke honestly about the fears we have about race, and the isolation we felt from each other. We spoke our minds bluntly, and with clarity. Some of us were brought to tears, but we were all significantly closer as a group after that moment. We were all there to work towards social justice, still we carried the pain of silence and shame with us to the group. It was only by having this very raw, introspective, personal experience that we were able to walk away from it feeling changed.

As such my hypothesis recognizes four things:
1. The existing discourse is primarily aimed at deconstructing and identifying uses of race in larger society and not about solutions or possibilities for change.

2. The crux of the problem lies in the continued push for hegemony fueled by capitalistic ideals of individualism and self-promotion.

3. Most successful models of the diffusion of racism are found in safe, neutral spaces such as art-based gatherings and events. (Race may still function on different levels through the economic striation of service classes--food vendors, maintenance workers, police interactions, etc., but some progress is made.)

4. The more successful models are situations where change is sought on a micro level and not through overarching public policies. (De-segregation didn't actually work, even though segregation was made illegal.) I believe that examples of diverse communities do not arise organically, but deliberately as forms of active resistance.
--

My Action Team

My project (teammates):
Natasha
Snapshot into Community Psychology

Jessica
From:Jessica To:The Community

Stephanie
Stephanie F'sBlog

My Problem Definition and Analysis

This definition is a big-un, and is more my thoughts than what exactly my peers were stating on the wiki. Those thoughts are here, but that is not my focus. (Hey, if Jacob said that there is no wrong way to do this, then I am taking him at his word!)

As I understand it, racism is a perspective and understanding of the world that uses an assignation system to categorize people through racial labels. This commonly used mode of stereotyping maintains that race is a biologically determined category, one that is usually manifested through physical characteristics such as hair, skin color or facial features. Exhaustative scientific research has proven this to be false. Still, this concept remains in our general psyche.

History proves that society maintains and perpetuates myths and misgivings about race to set up power structures and social orders. It manifests itself through public policies and practices that marginalize certain groups and rewards others based on their participation in these predetermined external definitions. In other words, you are either part of the hegemonic middle to upper class society, (which is tenuously accessed through monetary wealth, but can be lost through non-compliance to the societal norms of that community) or you are excluded from that group altogether. Often those lines are drawn, not with an inclusive pen, but one that asks,"What do we not want to become?" Whiteness, as an example, is a generic term that does not consider the variances in cultural practices, languages, and experiences in its definition.

This mode of thinking seeps into many areas of our daily lives from the subtle interactions we have with others in our communities, to the beliefs that our religions dictate to us. These beliefs cause such fear and trepidation that it is not uncommon to find entire communities consisting of one racial group. As a result, there are children being raised in a society that may offhandedly teach the basic tenets of racial equality, but does not live it through example. Still, even in these communities, I maintain that racism exists, but covertly operates through class. We are all familiar with the terms "white trash", "trailer trash" or"Hillbilly" to describe members of the lower class white community. If we stick to our overarching theme of racism working by protecting whiteness, then these individuals should not belong to a bottom class of any sort. They should be working members of our ruling class. Yet, they are ostracized and excluded in similar ways to other racial groups. I believe this is because they are not considered as belonging to that specific definition of whiteness. If you recall the discussions of President Bill Clinton, many poignantly called him "The first black president". His lower class (trailer park-esque) upbringing by a single mother placed him in a different class than virtually all of his political peers, but through his participation in elite circles, his Ivy League education and accumulation of wealth, he was delicately accepted enough to eventually gain a position of considerable leadership.

I also want to bring up the viewpoints of those who do not choose to use race or recognize race. There is a burgeoning group of critics that adopt the race as a social construction model, to the point of ignoring the ways that race still functions in society. Their efforts are noble, in seeking to adopt (on an individual level) that race does not exist in their lives. However, the reality remaining that race still operates in everyone else's' lives and will not disappear by turning a blind eye to the issue. These critics believe that class and capitalism are the fundamental issues at work, and not race. While certainly true on macro levels, it ignores too much of what is actually occurring on the micro levels of our lives. South Africa is an excellent case study to see how the removal of racial labels has caused significantly more harm than good.

The solution is as complex as this definition requires introspection. I recognize that I hold some racist beliefs. I believe that everyone does, on some levels. To change this, you must self reflect and interrogate your own beliefs and understandings. By choice, I do not live a segregationist life. I am uncomfortable being the only one of a particular race or gender of a whole group. My approach to shrinking these gaps is to invite others into my community to share experiences and not settle with being a consumer of other cultures (ie., through folk-life festivals or "world beat "music) but as a active participant in each others' lives (family dinners and holiday celebrations). The hope is that through continued interactions with others of difference that others will also find a dissatisfaction with hegemony in their own lives. For the last three years, my family has celebrated Kwanzaa at my home here in Champaign. But each year, our house is always filled with many friends from diverse backgrounds who learn and share our differences on a micro level. And each person finds many more similarities than differences upon the conclusion of our festivities. Artistic spaces are generally excellent venues for these interactions. Congo Square in New Orleans was a great example of how barriers were dropped in the spirit of public celebration of art and music. These are concepts that we may want to explore.

My Approaches to Racism: Modal ways of thinking about racism

1. Some believe that racism is a learned behavior, usually introduced through childhood experiences and familial upbringing and values.

2. Some believe that racism is the exclusive experience of people of color.

3. Some believe that racism does not exist and class warfare is the source of seemingly racialized issues.

4. Some believe that racism is dead.

5. Some believe that the rise to racial equality has reached its plateau and that the playing field for opportunities has been successfully leveled.

6. Some believe that race is a biological fact.

7. Some believe that race is a social construction and a political tool.

8. Some see the links between race and culture/ethnicity and read them as one in the same.

9. Some do not believe that racial equality can be reached.

10. Some believe that racial equality must be pushed for until it is reached.