Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 8:59 pm Post subject: W.E.B DuBois & Hubert Blumer Readings
In the Conservation of Races reading I found the question, "What is race?", to be very important and one of the key factors in understanding identity. I think this question often blindsides a lot of people when they can't really understand or when no one answer is ever "correct". I think that there is one race but with people identifying differently there are just sub groups of people, not necessarily sub-races. I found it weird that 8 races were identified on page 22. I've never really seen such a specific distinction between people but I understood the point that there weren't significant differences between these races. Instead the minor differences started setting them apart and making them seem different.
Race prejudice is something that is brought up in both readings but it is a concept that isn't really clear to me in the second reading. Are they saying that racial prejudice is more personal, in terms of the person belonging to one group, rather than it being general in which a racial group views another racial group? A point that I understand and agree with is that racial prejudice is a protective device. I think that its used to put one group over another in differences and that it helps hide a true self.
So in the first reading, i loved when it talked about the scientific definitions of what race is. I agree with Shari that the question of "what is race?" is very important, and I think that it is very hard to answer. Race is something that us as humans created to separate and organize ourselves. Like what Shari found on pg 22, 8 races were named, and I think that if we discussed it more, we could find and endless amount.
The second reading I felt did not leave as strong of an impression as the first one. I dont know if I was reading into it too much, but I felt there was a lot of talk about religion, and I am not sure how that directly relates to race and race prejudice.
reading the w e b dubois reading made me think about how the importace of race came to be, my theory is that t is the most recognizable difference between people, you can't see religion and you can't see origins, but you can see skin color. then he said that so he basically stole my idea. but then i was thinking that like race is all about appearence, and originally it was soley an appearence problem, which is stupid in it's own right looking at it know with what we know, but then eventually it begame an expectation problem based on appearence, which is still prevelant today. so one would expect people of a certain race to act a certain way, and if such occurences happened, it's probably a few similarities and possibly caused by the fact that thy are "expected" to act that way. it's a theory.
i thought what he said about how the black race has most likely at one point in their life thought to themselves "What, after all, am i? Am i an American?" which really is the basis of the whole class discussion, and i find it odd that this question is needed to be asked. i mean it makes sense cause the main image that comes into many people's head when they think american is white guy, but that's k=not what america is. so i find it interesting. and also the fact that it seems that that's just what people who lived in america thought, in otehr counrties, like europe, they thought of america as what it's supposed to be, an place where anyone makes their life, so anyone is an american, it's just living here one "sees" american as white. just a thought.
i'm also in large accordance with the second guys theories, as i believe shari was (correct me if i'm wrong i read it like half an hour ago... sorry) i practically squealed out of joy when i read his four feelings of race predjudice in a dominant group... although i felt they were a little dated, then again i live in massachusettes and have been goign to csw-esque school since i could talk so i don't even experience close to what happens in other parts of teh country.
i think it's cool that the second guy addresses a lot of the thoughts i had while reading the previous one, his descirption of teh creation of stereotypes and how the dominant defines the subordinate. that stereotypes are not based on intereactions, but conclusions drawn from limeted and uneducated observation.
so his ideas are like, racial predjudice is based on position of the group and what they think of teh suboprdinates, makes sense to me.
the part of the "8 different races" on page 22 other people have mentioned definitely struck a cord with me as well last night. I was surprised that they only mentioned eight and basically discredited other less populous races as "minor races groups." that seems insulting to those groups.
I also felt like the way that the author in the second reading wrote about the dominant v. submissive groups was like he was turning them into separate races, attaching stereotypes, attributes, and such. Even though I know he meant in the way of describing races that are dominant, it sounded more like he was creating a whole race of dominant people, that everyone of them had these attributes they way all people of European decent have lighter skin. But I also thought it was interesting when he wrote, "Where claims are solidified into a structure which is accepted or respected by all, there seems to be no group prejudice." I almost don't believe him, it sounds to utopian to be true. Maybe they are not race or dominance related but I feel like in every culture there are divides in some way.
the readings really worked with the questions When are racial definitions self generated? and When are they imposed? It was interesting how related they were. It almost feels like instead of survival of the fittest -survival of the first, where the first group to internally decide that they are superior, then become the external force for another group, who then have to their self definition to acknowledge the "first".
What I didn't understand was how Blumer thought a world without racial tensions would look like, because it sounds like he's saying that there's racial tension when one group challenges the self-assumptions about another group, but what happens when one group changes another group's self-definitions?
Joined: 02 Nov 2011 Posts: 7 Location: United States
Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 8:25 pm Post subject:
I really like tess' point about "survival of the first." It really makes sense when you look at history. While people have exhisted for a very long time, we only hear about them as they were split up into groups. Those who stand alone are not the victors, those who stand together are victorious. Every society is defined by the people in that group, tribe, etc. The group of has the most power is the group who started first and was able to advance to make new weapons, become more efficient, and take over other less advanced societies. I do understand that there are many contrary examples, IE the american revolution, but for the most part, those who start first, finish first.
Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2011 1:13 pm Post subject: my own
Readings really led me to think about racial prejudice. I didn't necessarily think that it was the survival of the first. survival of the first would require one group imposing racial prejudices against everyone else, but that is not the case all the time. I personally thought that there are various ways in which racial prejudice or racism is practiced. For example, racial prejudice in Korea is totally different from racial prejudice practiced in the U.S. Because Korea is a homogeneous country, racial prejudice against other races are blatant, but primitive, vague and mild (thinking black people are good at sports, japanese people love animation, white people are pretty). In the U.S, racism is more latent, but definite, detailed, and stronger (name calling, you are black so you must be poor, you are asian so you must love friend rice and probably good at math.)
in response to what douglas said up there ^ about how the importance of race came to be, i think that our reading tonight discussed where that idea came from. i agree with the point that douglas made, but who ever decided that race was a deciding factor of social status? we have been thinking/talking so much about the question of "what is racism?" this reading looked at something that we don't often consider— the question of where racism came from, and how it is connected to our society. what i got out of it was that racism has been ingrained in our social structure from the very beginning of America. this is not necessarily to say that we were racist from the start, but more that the movements and history that our country was built on created the mindsets that fuel racial prejudice. things like superiority, imperialism, capitalism.. all of these not only separated races in a literal sense, but they created these feelings in people that you can still see today. basically what i (and the author of this reading) am getting at is that racism has been with us from the start. and i guess this scares me a lot...if it has been so deeply interwoven in to our history and our country, then how will we ever be able to change it? i mean, it took us over 200 years to make this much progress, and racism is far from gone. so what do we do about this?
i wanted to point out how tonights reading (thursday night) puts a lot of body around Tess's thought abot survival of the first. but also to expand on it. the first didn't have to be as capitalist/empiric/pilage and take what we want as they turned out to be, that;'s just what happened.. The first happened to be of the political mindset of empiric tendencies. and what did they do, they took over regions that they found and found a group they could use for their own benefit, and they happened to be Africans and then the slave trade started which i think (and a lot of people would probably agree) is one of teh biggest factors in race relations today.
While discussing Blumer's reading in our affinity groups, an idea that resonated with me was the racism in humor today. In my group, we talked about how humor can be focused around racism to make people laugh, most of the time it is offensive, but people still laugh at it anyways. I can say that in my friend group, sometimes the humor we created is racist, but no one in the group is consciously offended by it. It bothers me because if we keep up this cycle of racism in humor, then people will keep contributing to the vicous circle of racism even if they don't necessarily mean it. Just a thought.
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
