Thursday, November 7, 2024

3.03 On your mark, get set, race!

 Please begin by reflecting on what you have already come to understand about "race" by answering numbers 1-6 using this Google form.

On your marks...Prior Knowledge Questions:

Answer the following questions off the top of your head.  Use what you have learned until now to answer.  

1.  What is race?  Define it.  What determines what race a person is?  
2.  Is race scientific?
3.  How many races are there? 
4.  Name as many of the races as you can.  
5.  What race are you?    
6.  Do you have any reluctance to discussing race?


Outline for this lesson:

Race is difficult to discuss - why?
What is race? Is it biological?
How is race socially constructed - cross-culturally? 


This lesson is the beginning of our next social inequality - race.  

For today's lesson, please read the introductory paragraph below. 

Recall our earlier unit on the sociological perspective.  We learned that sociology began with the study of inequality created by industrial society.  At first, the focus of inequality was on social class and power.  But not long after, American sociologists were applying the study to racial identity.  That will be the focus for this unit.   During the sociological perspective unit, we also learned that sociology sometimes "makes the familiar strange."  It sheds light on areas of our life that we never questioned before.  Learning sociology can be an eye-opening experience that is sometimes difficult to realize.  It has been my experience that this is especially true when learning about race; it may be eye-opening and may make you think about everyday life in a new way that might be uncomfortable.  We also learned that society constructs a reality for how we feel and experience the world.  Learning about race may challenge the previous feelings that we have had.  And, finally, remember that we are like fish in water never having to question or notice the water.  Racial identity is one of those cultural constructions that many of us have never questioned. 


Get set... The Difficulty of Race

Before we begin our study, I want to acknowledge that the topic of race can be a difficult topic to discuss.  

Difficulty Defining 
First, as evidenced by the student responses to questions 1 - 6 above, race is difficult to define.  Student responses vary for the number of races and what the races are.  This is despite the fact that race has a long history in the United States (over 400 years, as the 1619 Project highlighted), and race was written into the U.S. Constitution.  Americans have difficulty defining "race,"  yet, if I asked you about "race", you would know what I meant.  However, when asked to define race, students have difficulty agreeing on a definition.  We don't learn what race is in anatomy class or biology class or even in US history.  Despite not learning about race, there is a hegemonic acceptance of what race is; Americans learn about it from a young age so they assume that they know what it is and they never question it.  However, because we don't learn about it, we don't have the language to talk about it.  That limits our understanding even more and contributes to anxiety when talking about it.

However, it is important to realize that racial identities vary.  Different people have different ideas about racial identities and different societies have different ideas about racial identity.  And even within a group of people their preferred term may change over time.  Once you realize all of this, you can approach racial identity with humility and deference to individuals' identities.  


Especially Difficult for Whites (White Fragility)
For question number 6 above, not only do we seem to accept the idea of race without truly understanding it, but for many Americans, they do not have to think about race in their daily lives. Because America has been a white majority country, whites have traditionally been able to safely be considered the norm.  They can avoid discussing race, except when learning about it in relation to a particular situation - like in history class or when the protesters marched for George Floyd.   Because of that, whites do not have to think about being white and they do not worry about being judged for being white.  Whites are able to focus much more on their identity as an individual and not as a member of a racial group.  So, when race becomes the topic of discussion among whites, it can be uncomfortable as something they are not used to discussing.  

In my own experiences, as a young sociology student in undergrad, I felt uncomfortable talking about race and racism because of all of the above reasons.  It was really hard for me to learn about racism without feeling like I was being accused of something wrong.  I felt guilty and that made me defensive and obstinate.  However, as my academic journey continued, I learned more about race and gradually I became more comfortable teaching about it.  As I have taught about it over the last 20 years, I have noticed some of the same resistance to learning about race in the students that I teach.  It was not until I read Robin DiAngelo's work that I had a name for the feelings that I originally had about race and the feelings that I now experience with my own students:  White fragility.  I want to acknowledge those feelings to help students understand the discomfort that you or your classmates might feel.  Hopefully in recognizing this discomfort and understanding it, makes it easier to learn about race throughout this unit and your life. 

Robin DiAngelo  has written extensively about race and has been teaching about race and racism for over 20 years.  During that time, she observed that many people have difficulty in discussing race and racism.  In a 2011 journal article, DiAngelo explained the difficulty in discussing racism with Whites.  She called the difficulty "White fragility" and expanded on the idea that whites have difficulty in discussing race and racism in a book titled the same.

Please watch DiAngelo explain her work in the 6-minute Youtube video from NBC news and also available at The Guardian.

Her website explains her work;
White people in North America live in a social environment that protects and insulates them from race-based stress. This insulated environment of racial protection builds white expectations for racial comfort while at the same time lowering the ability to tolerate racial stress. Although white racial insulation is somewhat mediated by social class (with poor and working class urban whites being generally less racially insulated than suburban or rural whites), the larger social environment insulates and protects whites as a group through institutions, cultural representations, media, school textbooks, movies, advertising, and dominant discourses. Racial stress results from an interruption to what is racially familiar. In turn, whites are often at a loss for how to respond in constructive ways., as we have not had to build the cognitive or affective skills or develop the stamina that that would allow for constructive engagement across racial divides. leading to what I refer to as White Fragility. White Fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium. This book explicates the dynamics of White Fragility and how we might build our capacity in the on-going work towards racial justice.

7.  How would you answer someone who asked, "Does 'White fragility' mean that something is wrong with me because I'm white?"  


Difficulty Because of Fear of Label "Racist"
Finally, a third reason that race is difficult to learn about is because many whites think of racism based on the way racism became a part of the national consciousness.  As America moved toward racial equality during the civil rights movement, racists were seen as violent and extreme, like the KKK;  Racists were people who consciously hated minorities.  This was a very basic definition of racism that often reduced people to being either not racist or racist: either good or bad.  This reductionist label became a really awful label for Americans who are white.  As we have learned, people have complex identities and they are multifaceted.  They are not simply either racist or not. Instead, it is important to acknowledge that we all live in a society that has been historically racist, therefore we are all capable and, even likely, to exhibit behaviors and attitudes that are racist.  That might be uncomfortable to acknowledge, but it should not define us.  Not only are people complex and multi-faceted, but racism is as well.  It can be institutional and unintentional and explicit or implicit.  

As we talk about racism, try to see how people of different races are treated unequally.  Try not to feel defensive or accused.  This is a learning process that takes time.  It was a long road for me to understand this as well.  There is a good chance that everyone in this class has said something or done something that was racist.  It is healthy and realistic to acknowledge that our words or actions can be racist. However, as Bryan Stevenson says in his book, Just Mercy, "Each of us is better than the worst thing we have ever done."  So as we move forward, in terms of racism, focus on the words and actions and not on identity.  In other words, things that we say and do may be racist, but try to refrain from defining each other's identity as "racist." Say, "talking like that is racist" or "doing that is racist" rather than saying, "that person is a racist."  The latter labels an entire person's identity as racist and implies that it is unchangeable whereas identifying words, behaviors or policies as racist can help us work to change those things. 



8.  Do you understand why race might be difficult for many Americans to discuss?  Do you think you will have difficulty discussing race?  Which of the reasons above might make it most difficult for you?  


Because I recognize that race is difficult to discuss as I outline below, I want to encourage you to:
  • keep a beginner mind; be open
  • do not be afraid to ask questions
  • when discussing racism, try to focus on words, actions and policies (as opposed to identities); in other words, rather than saying a person is racist, try to focus on what words or actions are racist.
In conclusion, as we begin this unit, I want to acknowledge the difficulty of discussing race and helping you to frame it so that you can be open to learning about race going forward.  While the topic of race can be difficult and emotional, I want you to know that I am willing to help you understand and I want our classroom to be a safe space for understanding.  Trust me and trust the process, and don't be afraid to ask questions.  Be curious, not judgmental.

Some extra resources about the difficulties of discussing race:


Race!  What is it?





Debriefing the What Race Am I Quiz? above
The quiz highlights a number of realities about race:
  • We assume that race is biological, but our biological assumptions do not make sense.  In the case of the survey, there are people from different continents with different skin tones - there are people from every continent who have dark skin - not just Africa, and similarly, there are people with different eye shapes and hair types from all over the world too.
  • Second, we often use ethnicity, nationality or heritage to mean race but this doesn't always make sense.  For example, Russia is often considered a European nation and thus racially white, but large parts of Russia are located in Asia.  Are these people Asian or White and what defines that?
  • Lastly, this survey highlights a difficulty with race - For 160 years, the US defined race like you just did; census collectors looking at people and choosing their race.  But in 1965, the census started allowing people to self-identify their own race.  By this standard, we can't really know the race of any of the people in the survey unless they were asked to choose.

The anatomy and biology of race

Earlier,  I asked you to try and define race based on your prior knowledge.  Now, I want to clarify what race is (and is not).  

First, if you have access to a biology or anatomy textbook, please use the index to look up the definition of race.  If you do not have access to a biology or anatomy textbook, then please choose one of the bullet points below and examine the link for how they explain the biology of race.
  • Bill Nye explains why there is no way to define race biologically.
  • 2017 article from the NY Times explains that the latest evidence from genetics is that there is not a connection between genes and race.
  • Harvard School of Biomedical Sciences "there is no evidence that the groups we commonly call 'races' have distinct, unifying genetic identities. In fact, there is ample variation within races"
  • The U.S. National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health published this article which explains, "Humans have much genetic diversity, but the vast majority of this diversity reflects individual uniqueness and not race."
  • Race; Power of an Illusion Documentary FAQs answered by these experts.
  • The American Association of Physical Anthropologists published this statement about race, including, "There is great genetic diversity within all human populations. Pure races, in the sense of genetically homogenous populations, do not exist in the human species today, nor is there any evidence that they have ever existed in the past. "
  • Contexts sociology blog The press release reports the results of this panel’s initial analysis of almost 500 cases. Most startlingly, it reports that FBI examiners gave inaccurate testimony in 96% of those cases.... As a 2009 review of forensic science by the National Research Council (NRC) put it, “No scientifically accepted statistics exist about the frequency with which particular characteristics of hair are distributed in the population.”
  • Science Magazine "The study adds to established research undercutting old notions of race. You can’t use skin color to classify humans, any more than you can use other complex traits like height, Tishkoff says. 'There is so much diversity in Africans that there is no such thing as an African race'.”
  • Science Buzz: "...there’s more variation within any racial group than there is between them...Our genes are constantly moving around the planet. We’ve had 100,000 years of genes moving and mixing and re-assorting in countless different ways. We’re always mating outside our groups. [As a result, there’s] very little variation among us."
  • Live Sciencethere is only one human race. Our single race is independent of geographic origin, ethnicity, culture, color of skin or shape of eyes — we all share a single phenotype, the same or similar observable anatomical features and behavior - See more at livescience"...there is only one human race. Our single race is independent of geographic origin, ethnicity, culture, color of skin or shape of eyes — we all share a single phenotype, the same or similar observable anatomical features and behavior..."

9.  What does one of the scientific sources  above say about using race as a category?  


What is racial hegemony?

The answer to the questions at the start of this unit is that race is not a scientific term.  And so neither the biology nor the anatomy textbooks even mention race.  Race is not measurable in any objective way.  And races are not mutually exclusive of each other; in science, this is known as discrete classification.  Race is not a discrete category.  However, d
uring the 1800s, and for nearly a century afterward, scientists, including anthropologists and biologists and even sociologists, erroneously concluded that humans evolved from three distinct groups of hominids.  Known as the "essentialist theory," this incorrectly posits that each group started as a "pure race" in three separate locations: Mongolia, Caucasia, and Nigeria.  The theory also concludes erroneously that the three original racial groups eventually intermixed, but some individuals stayed "more pure" based on less mixing.  Using the scientific data that is available to us now, biologists, doctors, anthropologists, and sociologists now know that this is NOT true.  Instead of evolving separately, all humans began from a hominid in Africa and gradually spread out across the globe.  However,  this theory pervaded U.S. thinking so widely that the assumption that race is a discrete biological and scientific category continues to this day.  

This acceptance of race as a real scientific category without ever questioning it is called racial hegemony.  In the United States, we are so familiar with the idea of "race" that we use it all the time assuming that we know what it means, but we never stop to examine what it is.   If you were asked to identify the race of students in our room, I bet you would be able to say what "race" they are, but can you say what exactly "race" is?   In trying to understand race, sometimes we assume it is something that it is not.  Many Americans assume it is one of the terms below.  Read each of the following terms below and think about the following question:

Which of these terms have you used to define or describe race in the past?  Do you have questions about any of these terms?


Operationalizing terms


  • Nationality is the country where someone is a citizen.  For example, if your passport is from the U.S. then your nationality is the United States, often referred to as "American".
  • Ethnicity is a group of people linked by a common culture, ancestry and often associated with a geographic location.  For example, one might say that Italians are an ethnic group.  But ethnicity doesn't have to apply to a country, it can be a group like Assyrians, Deng (from the Sudan) or Roma people.
  • Heritage is where a person's ancestors can be traced to.
  • Genotype is an individual's specific combination of genes that makes up their DNA.  Mitochondrial DNA can be traced back to a common ancestor.  So scientifically, all humans share a common genetic lineage. This video explains that.

10.  Which of the above terms have you used to define or describe race in the past?  Do you have questions about any of these terms?


Note how the biology of the people in the quiz above does not reflect the people's heritage, ethnicity or nationality.  For example, Russia is generally considered a European country and thus "white" even though a large portion of Russia is in Asia.  


Phenotype and Race

Phenotype is the observable characteristics/traits that an individual manifests from their genotype interacting with the environment.  In other words, phenotype is how we look based on both our genes and the environment.  So, some people have lighter skin but in the sun it gets red, whereas others have lighter skin but in the sun it gets tan and yet others have darker skin - all of these are phenotypes.

Phenotypic Traits and Race; Humans look different, why is that not race?

Yes, humans have different phenotypes such as dark skin or curly hair.  These phenotypes do come from different genetic combinations, but these combinations are not divisible into distinct groups.  Instead, the divisions we create are arbitrary divisions. If you lined up all of the people in the world according to a trait, the divisions would be less obvious. It would look more like a spectrum that changes gradually, blending from one into another.  Height is one example in this graphic from the American Anthropological Association, UnderstandingRace.org that shows that deciding how to categorize people is arbitrary:

 


Skin color, one of the most obvious phenotypes in the U.S. and often the default for socially constructing race, exists on a spectrum.  America was started by Europeans who enslaved sub-Saharan Africans. These groups of people had different phenotypes.  For example skin color.  However, if we could line up the people from Europe all the way to sub-Saharan Africa, we would see a spectrum of skin color instead of distinct groups.  The second image above shows how skin color exists on a spectrum.  

Another example that demonstrates why the phenotypic trait of skin color is NOT a way to categorize people racially is from a post on the soc images blog, this artist created a palette of colors showing that human skin is much more of a spectrum than distinct groups.  See this post for more about the artist and the project, including a Ted Talk.
How would you divide up the palette below into different races?


11.  How would you answer someone who asked you, "Why can't skin color be used to categorize people into distinct races?"


Other Resources to help understand what race is not:

A Scientific Explanation of Skin Color
For an explanation on the biology of skin color, the article "Skin Deep" by Nina Jablonski and George Chaplin from Scientific American  explains the science behind skin color and how around the world, skin color would look more like a spectrum than distinct groups.  The map below from the article explains the correlation between UV light intensity and skin color.  Going back to our metaphor about the traits, do you see how the trait of skin color is a spectrum rather than distinct groups?



Nina Jablonski explains the significance of skin color in her Ted Talk here.

Anthony Peterson "What I am learning from my white grandchildren" at TED talks Antioch explains why race is NOT real but it does matter and why it's important to talk about race with children.  He notes that many of us teach that race is real but it doesn't matter and that teaches children the wrong message.


Genetic Research from the Transpacific Project shows multiple maps of genetic markers around the world.  
An explanation of genetic variation shows how complex it is here.  But the short explanation is that although there are some genetic markers that point to a shared genetic heritage, these markers don't correspond to racial differences and there can be more genetic similarity between people who are different "races" than those who are the same "race".


From Princeton U. Commons this map shows the spread of humans based on traceable gene mutations in mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosomes.

This article from Slate explains why ancestry kits do not explain race.  


Jefferson Fish also explains how race doesn't make sense in the article titled "Mixed Blood" from Psychology Today, 1995.


If this lesson was interesting, you might like Anthropology 105: Human Cultural Biology which is a tier 2 science.

12.  Do you understand that race is not a scientific topic; it cannot be measured discretely or distinctly using any biological trait?


So what is race?


Race is a social construction

Race is a socially constructed idea that humans can be separated into distinct and discrete groups based on biology.  For example, one society might say that there are 3 races in the world: Asian, African and white.  But as you will see, other societies have their own categories of race such as Dinka and Bantu and countries will use any combination of heritage, ethnicity, religion or phenotype to create their own ideas about race.   Another way to explain the definition of race is that race is the misguided/incorrect belief that people can be separated into groups based on their biological traits such as skin color, hair, eyes, nose, genes, etc...

There is no way to separate humans biologically, physically or scientifically into distinct racial groups.  If there was, then racial groups would be the same all over the world.  But they are not the same as Omi and Winant explain in their book Racial Formation.

The book by Omi and Winant called "Racial Formation" (1986) provides a detailed explanation of how race is socially constructed.  For a more extensive explanation, here is a video of Omi and Winant explaining their seminal work.





Instead of being biological or scientific, racial categories are socially constructed based on each country's social, cultural and political history.  In other words, each country creates its own racial categories based on the unique dynamics within that country.  
  • Racial categories vary around the world.
  • The categories are formed in each country because of the local social, cultural and political history.
Since race is not a scientifically discrete category some sociologists have started referring to people from different races as "identified as [race]" or "radicalized as [race]".  This emphasizes that racial identity is a social construction.

Race and Where You Live

Racial Identity in Japan
When I was in Japan, I asked some Japanese friends what races were in Japan and they said "nihon-jin and gai-jin," Which means "Japanese people and foreign people.  In other words, the Japanese think that there are Japanese people in the world and then there is everyone else.  And then I pressed him further and I said, " But aren't there different groups within Japanese culture?"
My friend finally said, " Ahh yes... there were ancient Japanese who settled the islands from the north and there were ancient Japanese who settled the islands from the south, and you know how to tell who came from where?  Earwax." That's right, earwax! He explained that some Japanese have dry flaky earwax and others have wet greasy earwax.  That determines where your ancestors came from and a different biological group that you are a part of- essentially a different race.  But that makes no sense to us because in the US we never think of earwax as part of race.


Race in Mexico
Mexico has a complex history involving Spanish imperialism.  Spain was already a mix of different ethnicities/heritages when it invaded Mexico and mixed with the first nations people living there as well as with black Africans brought there through the Atlantic slave trade.   The result is a complex mix of races.  Here are the racial groups from the early history of Mexico
  1. Mestizo: Spanish father and Indian mother
  2. Castizo: Spanish father and Mestizo mother
  3. Espomolo: Spanish mother and Castizo father
  4. Mulatto: Spanish and black African
  5. Moor: Spanish and Mulatto
  6. Albino: Spanish father and Moor mother
  7. Throwback: Spanish father and Albino mother
  8. Wolf: Throwback father and Indian mother
  9. Zambiago: Wolf father and Indian mother
  10. Cambujo: Zambiago father and Indian mother
  11. Alvarazado: Cambujo father and Mulatto mother
  12. Borquino: Alvarazado father and Mulatto mother
  13. Coyote: Borquino father and Mulatto mother
  14. Chamizo: Coyote father and Mulatto mother
  15. Coyote-Mestizo: Cahmizo father and Mestizo mother
  16. Ahi Tan Estas: Coyote-Mestizo father and Mulatto mother


Race in Brazil
As opposed to the U.S., Brazil has a much longer and more diverse history of interracial marriage between indigenous people, former slaves from Africa and Portuguese immigrants.  Because of this, Brazilians are far more conscious of physical variations within their population and less concerned with bloodlines and lineage.  For example, in 1976, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) conducted a study to ask people to identify their own skin color.  Here are the 134 terms, listed in alphabetical order:
    Acastanhada (cashewlike tint; caramel colored)
    Agalegada
    Alva (pure white)
    Alva-escura (dark or off-white)
    Alverenta (or aliviero, "shadow in the water")
    Alvarinta (tinted or bleached white)
    Alva-rosada (or jamote, roseate, white with pink highlights)
    Alvinha (bleached; white-washed)
    Amarela (yellow)
    Amarelada (yellowish)
    Amarela-quemada (burnt yellow or ochre)
    Amarelosa (yellowed)
    Amorenada (tannish)
    Avermelhada (reddish, with blood vessels showing through the skin)
    Azul (bluish)
    Azul-marinho (deep bluish)
    Baiano (ebony)
    Bem-branca (very white)
    Bem-clara (translucent)
    Bem-morena (very dusky)
    Branca (white)
    Branca-avermelhada (peach white)
    Branca-melada (honey toned)
    Branca-morena (darkish white)
    Branca-p�lida (pallid)
    Branca-queimada (sunburned white)
    Branca-sardenta (white with brown spots)
    Branca-suja (dirty white)
    Branqui�a (a white variation)
    Branquinha (whitish)
    Bronze (bronze)
    Bronzeada (bronzed tan)
    Bugrezinha-escura (Indian characteristics)
    Burro-quanto-foge ("burro running away," implying racial mixture of unknown origin)
    Cabocla (mixture of white, Negro and Indian)
    Cabo-Verde (black; Cape Verdean)
    Caf� (coffee)
    Caf�-com-leite (coffee with milk)
    Canela (cinnamon)
    Canelada (tawny)
    Cast�o (thistle colored)
    Castanha (cashew)
    Castanha-clara (clear, cashewlike)
    Castanha-escura (dark, cashewlike)
    Chocolate (chocolate brown)
    Clara (light)
    Clarinha (very light)
    Cobre (copper hued)
    Corado (ruddy)
    Cor-de-caf� (tint of coffee)
    Cor-de-canela (tint of cinnamon)
    Cor-de-cuia (tea colored)
    Cor-de-leite (milky)
    Cor-de-oro (golden)
    Cor-de-rosa (pink)
    Cor-firma ("no doubt about it")
    Crioula (little servant or slave; African)
    Encerada (waxy)
    Enxofrada (pallid yellow; jaundiced)
    Esbranquecimento (mostly white)
    Escura (dark)
    Escurinha (semidark)
    Fogoio (florid; flushed)
    Galega (see agalegada above)
    Galegada (see agalegada above)
    Jambo (like a fruit the deep-red color of a blood orange)
    Laranja (orange)
    Lil�s (lily)
    Loira (blond hair and white skin)
    Loira-clara (pale blond)
    Loura (blond)
    Lourinha (flaxen)
    Malaia (from Malabar)
    Marinheira (dark greyish)
    Marrom (brown)
    Meio-amerela (mid-yellow)
    Meio-branca (mid-white)
    Meio-morena (mid-tan)
    Meio-preta (mid-Negro)
    Melada (honey colored)
    Mesti�a (mixture of white and Indian)
    Miscigena��o (mixed --- literally "miscegenated")
    Mista (mixed)
    Morena (tan)
    Morena-bem-chegada (very tan)
    Morena-bronzeada (bronzed tan)
    Morena-canelada (cinnamonlike brunette)
    Morena-castanha (cashewlike tan)
    Morena clara (light tan)
    Morena-cor-de-canela (cinnamon-hued brunette)
    Morena-jambo (dark red)
    Morenada (mocha)
    Morena-escura (dark tan)
    Morena-fechada (very dark, almost mulatta)
    Moren�o (very dusky tan)
    Morena-parda (brown-hued tan)
    Morena-roxa (purplish-tan)
    Morena-ruiva (reddish-tan)
    Morena-trigueira (wheat colored)
    Moreninha (toffeelike)
    Mulatta (mixture of white and Negro)
    Mulatinha (lighter-skinned white-Negro)
    Negra (negro)
    Negrota (Negro with a corpulent vody)
    P�lida (pale)
    Para�ba (like the color of marupa wood)
    Parda (dark brown)
    Parda-clara (lighter-skinned person of mixed race)
    Polaca (Polish features; prostitute)
    Pouco-clara (not very clear)
    Pouco-morena (dusky)
    Preta (black)
    Pretinha (black of a lighter hue)
    Puxa-para-branca (more like a white than a mulatta)
    Quase-negra (almost Negro)
    Queimada (burnt)
    Queimada-de-praia (suntanned)
    Queimada-de-sol (sunburned)
    Regular (regular; nondescript)
    Retinta ("layered" dark skin)
    Rosa (roseate)
    Rosada (high pink)
    Rosa-queimada (burnished rose)
    Roxa (purplish)
    Ruiva (strawberry blond)
    Russo (Russian; see also polaca)
    Sapecada (burnished red)
    Sarar� (mulatta with reddish kinky hair, aquiline nose)
    Sara�ba (or saraiva: like a white meringue)
    Tostada (toasted)
    Trigueira (wheat colored)
    Turva (opaque)
    Verde (greenish)
    Vermelha (reddish)

      13.  Choose one of these countries to comment on - Japan, Mexico or Brazil.  What is most striking about this classification?


      Can a plane ride change your race?
      Looking at the distinctions in Japan, Mexico and Brazil might not make sense to us because we view race so differently.  However, all of this is evidence that race is a social construction.   Read the passage below (also available here) and then answer the questions after.


      14. After reading the above passage, answer this:   
      Did the girl’s race change?  Why or why not?
      When finished, click here for an explanation.  Read the explanation then answer the question below.


      15.  Did you answer in number 2 the way I explained it above?  If not, do you understand the explanation?
      The next exercise will be examining different censuses from around the world.  You will see that depending on where you are, the country's census will classify you differently.  Open the following link in a new window and in #4 note how you would be classified in each country.  Feel free to simply type your response whether it is "white" or "other" or whatever.  Be sure to respond to each country's question(s).  
      Here is a link to different censuses around the world.

      16.  What are the different ways you would be categorized around the world? List them here.  Make a note of how many different ways you would be classified as around the world (this is number 5).

      17.  Count the number of different responses you had for number 4.  How many different ways would you be labeled?   

      18.  Choose one of the countries from the link above and hypothesize how the country's political, social or cultural history contributed to the way the country's people view race today.

      19.  Any questions about how race is a social construction based on where you live?

      Wednesday, November 6, 2024

      The 2024 Election


      After the election of 2024, I found myself searching for understanding why the election went the way it did and how to process it and move forward.  

      Self-care
      First, be mindful of your own self-care:
      • take a walk
      • exercise
      • get out into nature
      • spend time with friends

      Allow yourself and other the space to process what happened.  People will experience a range of emotions; be mindful of this and allow those emotions to run their course.

      Laugh
      Stephen Colbert explains the importance of laughter and the connection between comedy and Christianity:

      I am a Christian and a Catholic, and it's always connected to the idea of love and sacrifice being somehow related and giving yourself to other people and death is not defeat, if you see what I am getting at...

      Sadness is like a little emotional death but defeat if you can find a way to laugh about it because that laughter keeps you from having fear of it, and fear keeps you from turning to evil devices to save you from the sadness.  

      As Robert Hayden said, we must not be frightened or controlled into accepting evil as our deliverance from evil.  We must keep struggling to maintain our humanity though monsters of abstraction threaten and police us.  

      So, if there's a relationship between my faith and comedy, it's that no matter what happens, you are never defeated - you must see this in the light of eternity and find some way to love an laugh with each other.

      Don't Go Crazy Listening to Pundits
      Stewart explains that we see that there will be lots of pundits guessing about what will happen next, but looking at recent history, we see that they do not really know.  We should be mindful that all of this can be cantankerous noise without merit.



      Find Your Agency
      Once you are caring for yourself and feeling reasonably stable, find a way to create agency. Even if it is something small, you can pursue things that will help you feel less like a victim and more like you are empowered and making a difference.

      • Eboo Patel: Keep doing what matters to you and the world
      • Scott Shigeoka: Practice curiosity as an act of love
      • Jeremy Adam Smith: Work to promote your values in community
      • Mylien Duong: Get to know other humans
      • Linda R. Tropp: Be a good neighbor, even (and especially) to those who are different
      • Manu Meel: Choose nuance, not outrage
      • Carol Graham: Become a nation of debaters
      • Kurt Gray: Tell your story
      • Kayla DeMonte: Invite people in
      Researchers, nonprofit leaders, and other experts share what keeps them optimistic about a better future for American society.
        • Annalee Newitz: Joy is a form of resistance
        • Arlie Hochschild: The common ground is there; we just need to unearth it
        • Tami Pyfer: We’re creating a dignity movement
        • Tania Israel: What gives me hope? You do!
        • Mónica Guzmán: These three hopeful things dwarf my fear
        • Niobe Way: Humans are born to care and connect
      And Yet It Moves; Thoughts The Day After by Ken White
      What should we do?
      I have a few thoughts.
        • Ask Yourself if You’ve Earned The Right To Wallow
        • Reconsider Any Belief In Innate American Goodness
        • Start Out Making a Small Difference
        • Believe Unapologetically
        • Fuck Civility
        • Don’t Let Regression Trick You Into Abandoning Progress
        • Trumpism Is Not The Only Wrong
        • Stay Tuned For Violence
        • Resist

      Fight Authoritarianism From Amanda Carpenter:
      We put this together last January to warn people about the dangers of a second Trump presidency... these remain the top priority concerns. And here are some baseline ideas on what to do about it. More here: authoritarianplaybook2025.org
       
      Art 
      This issue of The Marginalian explains the power of art to transform an unstable and chaotic time into a stronger society:

      Cultures and civilizations tend to overestimate the stability of their states, only to find themselves regularly discomposed by internal pressures and tensions too great for the system to hold. And yet always in them there are those who harness from the chaos the creative force to imagine, and in the act of imagining to effect, a phase transition to a different state. 

      We call those people artists — they who never forget it is only what we can imagine that limits or liberates what is possible. 

      Why would people vote for this guy?
      Be mindful not to homogenize those who voted for the other party (the out group).  There are many different reasons why people vote for a candidate.  


      Social Class, Pride and Voting with Your Middle Finger 
      One of the reasons that Trump appealed to so many people is related to social class.  This post explains how the "middle" class has been falling behind over the last 50 years.  They are making less money, but working more and paying more for education, housing, medical care and more.  And they feel left behind by "elites" - politicians and others who fly over their area of the country for the wealthy areas along the coasts and in large cities.  These are the wealthiest places in the country with the most jobs for college educated professionals. These areas vote overwhelmingly democratic, while all of the less wealthy smaller towns and rural areas in between have felt ignored. This group scorns both political parties for this, but they see Trump as a disruptor who is not part of the two party system that is responsible for this.  One sociologist found a voter who said that when they voted for Trump, "We voted with our middle finger." Trump's uncouth manner and vulgar words are appealing because that is partly what makes him NOT the typical candidate; NOT a carefully polished and scripted politician.  They see his flaws as validation for their own flaws.  They voted for him because they feel validated by him and they are voting for pride not policy. This post explains the declining middle class and provides a number of research publications that illustrate this dynamic.

      Social class or socio-economic status (SES) is made up of a mix of social indicators that are related to each other. The most straightforward factors are income, wealth, education and location. The median American looks like this:

      • Household income of 75K
      • May or may not have any money saved for retirement (only 50% have a 401K)
      • Owns a house worth about 135K, 1 car worth about 15K, has 5K in the bank.
      • Has some college, but does NOT have a degree.
      • Lives in a metropolitan area of roughly 1.3 million people (2024) such as:


       

       
      These maps show how these factors line up with who voted for Trump:


      Numerous social scientists have studied the growing social class divide and the connection to Trump's popularity.  Here is a selection of research:   

      Joan Williams' Model

       

      Another model for the class structure is from Dr. Joan Williams who wrote the book White Working Class; Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America.
      Dr. Williams' book came out of an article she wrote about the 2016 election posted here in Harvard Business Review.

      You can read her article here or watch her Ted Talk below.  The following TED Talk by Dr. Williams.  It is about 15min long, but it is insightful. 

      Here is her Ted Talk:

       


      “And our place in the material economy is often linked to that in the pride economy. If we become poor, we have two problems. First, we are poor (a material matter), and second, we are made to feel ashamed of being poor (a matter of pride). If we lose our job, we are jobless (a material loss) and then ashamed of being jobless (an emotional loss). Many also feel shame at receiving government help to compensate that loss. If we live in a once-proud region that has fallen on hard times, we first suffer loss, then shame at the loss—and, as we shall see, often anger at the real or imagined shamers.”


      Robert Wuthnow's The Left Behind; Decline and Rage in Rural America

      Princeton University sociologist, Robert Wuthnow explains the dynamic that Joan Williams describes in his book The Left Behind; Decline and Rage in Rural America that location has strongly affected how rural Americans feel and how they vote.  

      Here is a 2018 interview with Professor Wuthnow from Vox.

      What is fueling rural America’s outrage toward the federal government? Why did rural Americans vote overwhelmingly for Donald Trump? And, beyond economic and demographic decline, is there a more nuanced explanation for the growing rural-urban divide? Drawing on more than a decade of research and hundreds of interviews, Robert Wuthnow brings us into America’s small towns, farms, and rural communities to paint a rich portrait of the moral order — the interactions, loyalties, obligations, and identities—underpinning this critical segment of the nation. Wuthnow demonstrates that to truly understand rural Americans’ anger, their culture must be explored more fully. Wuthnow argues that rural America’s fury stems less from specific economic concerns than from the perception that Washington is distant from and yet threatening to the social fabric of small towns. Rural dwellers are especially troubled by Washington’s seeming lack of empathy for such small-town norms as personal responsibility, frugality, cooperation, and common sense. Wuthnow also shows that while these communities may not be as discriminatory as critics claim, racism and misogyny remain embedded in rural patterns of life.



      Arlie Russell Hochschild's Strangers in their Own Land


      In her 2016 book, Strangers In Their Own Land; Anger and Mourning on the American Right, renown sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild explains the deep story behind the Tea Party support and the rise of Trump which stems from growing social class inequality happening at the same time as civil rights equality which leaves many White Americans feeling like they are left behind by the government and that they are "strangers in their own land."

       

      What I found most intriguing in her book was the concept of the "deep story", or a story that shapes the way people feel.  It doesn't matter if the story is real or true or not.  What matters is that the story is believed to be true so people shape their feelings and actions as if it were real.  Dr. Hochschild's idea is explained on NPR's Hidden Brain

      In her new book, Strangers in Their Own Land, sociologist Arlie Hochschild tackles this paradox. She says that while people might vote against their economic needs, they're actually voting to serve their emotional needs. Hochschild says that both conservative and liberals have "deep stories" — about who they are, and what their values are. Deep stories don't need to be completely accurate, but they have to feel true. They're the stories we tell ourselves to capture our hopes, pride, disappointments, fears, and anxieties.



      Katherine Cramer's Politics of Resentment
       

      Katherine J. Cramer is author of The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker (University of Chicago Press, 2016) and a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she heads the Morgridge Center for Public Service. Her work focuses on the way people in the U.S. make sense of politics and their place in it. Cramer’s methodology is unusual and very direct. Instead of relying polls and survey data, she drops in on informal gatherings in rural areas—coffee shops, gas stations—and listens in on what people say to their neighbors and friends. It is a method that likely gets at psychological and social truths missed by pollsters.  Summary from Scientific American is here.

       

        



      Janesville, An American Story

       The author explains that Janesville is "a microcosm of what was happening in many places in the country and with many kinds of work, because that’s what’s been happening out of the Great Recession. The unemployment level has fallen, but income levels have stayed quite depressed since before the Great Recession..."






       


      In the run-up to the 2016 election, sociologist Jennifer Silva conducted more than 100 in-depth interviews with black, white, and Latino working-class residents of a struggling coal town in Pennsylvania. Many of the people she spoke with were nonvoters in 2016 and before. Their politics, she writes in her new book We’re Still Here: Pain and Politics in the Heart of America, were often a hodgepodge of left and right. Their views could appear “incoherent or irrational” on the surface: Many of them trusted Donald Trump because of his wealth, for example, even as they supported higher taxes on the rich.

      Many of the people Silva interviewed were profoundly cynical about social institutions, government, marriage, and family ties. They had often suffered trauma, such as domestic violence or military-related PTSD, and were in near-constant physical and/or psychological pain. Instead of placing their hope in systems that have failed them repeatedly, Silva finds, they worked to recast their own stories of pain into opportunities for individual self-improvement. Organized into groups of brief profiles from the town she anonymized as “Coal Brook, Pennsylvania,” the book is an unsparing and empathetic portrait of a diverse corner of blue-collar America.

      Silva, a sociologist at Indiana University Bloomington, was raised in a working-class family in Massachusetts. Her father dropped out of high school to join the military, and she was the first in her family to get a bachelor’s degree. When we spoke on the phone last month, we talked about working-class white people’s affinity for Trump, the rise of conspiracy theories, Hillbilly Elegy, and the lessons that 2020 presidential candidates can take from her research. This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity. 

      Rory McVeigh and Creighton professor Kevin Estep's The Politics of Losing
       
      Notre Dame Sociology professor Rory McVeigh and Creighton professor Kevin Estep's The Politics of Losing trace the parallels between the 1920s Klan and today’s right-wing backlash, identifying the conditions that allow white nationalism to emerge from the shadows. White middle-class Protestant Americans in the 1920s found themselves stranded by an economy that was increasingly industrialized and fueled by immigrant labor. Mirroring the Klan’s earlier tactics, Donald Trump delivered a message that mingled economic populism with deep cultural resentments. McVeigh and Estep present a sociological analysis of the Klan’s outbreaks that goes beyond Trump the individual to show how his rise to power was made possible by a convergence of circumstances. White Americans’ experience of declining privilege and perceptions of lost power can trigger a political backlash that overtly asserts white-nationalist goals. The Politics of Losing offers a rigorous and lucid explanation for a recurrent phenomenon in American history, with important lessons about the origins of our alarming political climate.

      Andy Kim, NJ Senator 
      Kim explains the disdain for politicians in his Twitter thread here. Here is what he learned while campaigning:
      Across the board the conversations began with expressions of what I can only describe as deep disgust in politics. Severe distrust in politicians and the status quo. And this wasn’t about the specifics of the moment, but instead deep seated long-term dissatisfaction. Even after 4 yrs in office, Trump wasn’t seen as the status quo or as a “politician.” There was a clear belief that Trump was different. Some raised real concerns about Trump’s policies and personality, but those concerns didn’t override their disgust for politics. The perception that he was different and also taking on the status quo boosted him. In other words, the deep existing distrust in politics and governance gave oxygen to Trump’s strength.
       



      Masculinity, Sexism and Misogny

      Another dominant force in the election is sexism. 
      Jackson Katz has been researching and publishing about masculinity for decades including how it directly plays a role in politics.  Here is Katz on Justin Baldoni's podcast, which is also called Man Enough

      Why has the U.S. never had a woman president? With Hillary Clinton engaged in a historic campaign that could see her becoming the first woman elected president of the United States, the national conversation about gender and the presidency is gaining critical momentum. Commentators have fixated on the special challenges women candidates for the presidency face: endless media scrutiny abGender has always been a crucial factor in presidential politics. In Man Enough? Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and the Politics of Presidential Masculinity, Jackson Katz puts forth the original and highly provocative thesis that in recent decades presidential campaigns have become the center stage of an ongoing national debate about manhood, a kind of quadrennial referendum on what type of man—or one day, woman—embodies not only our ideological beliefs, but our very identity as a nation. Whether he is examining right-wing talk radio’s relentless attacks on the masculinity of Democratic candidates, how fears of appearing weak and vulnerable end up shaping candidates’ actual policy positions, how the ISIS attacks on Paris and elsewhere have pushed candidates to assume an increasingly hypermasculine posture, or the groundbreaking quality of Hillary Clinton’s runs for the presidency in 2008 and 2016, Katz offers a new way to understand the role of identity politics in presidential campaigns. In the end, Man Enough? offers nothing less than a paradigm-shifting way to understand the very nature of the American presidency.
      See the short trailers below, but for students, the whole documentary is available on Kanopy through your LUC account
      "The Man Card: 50 Years of Gender, Power & the American Presidency" takes account of Harris’s unexpected entry into the race and explores the deeply gendered cultural and political forces she’s up against. Ranging across five decades of presidential campaigns, the film shows how public perceptions of presidential leadership, and of the office of the presidency itself, have come to be linked in the American imagination with traditional ideas about manhood. It also shows how the Right has weaponized regressive ideas about manhood for decades to cast their opponents as "soft" and appeal to working-class white male voters at the level of identity rather than policy. "The Man Card" is required viewing for anyone who wants to understand why it’s been so hard for a woman to be elected president, and why outmoded ideas about masculinity and power have become central features of American presidential politics.  
      Here is a preview to the 2024 update:
       

       

      Anti-social Media
      The social class and gender dynamics above have been amplified by the widespread use of social media.
       
      As the documentary Social Dilemma explains, social media algorithms are designed to gradually, slightly, and imperceptibly change people's own behavior and perception - Changing what people do and think.  This keeps people engaged on the platforms earning more money for the companies that pay for users' attention. The way the algorithm does this is through sharing things that will draw on users' primal emotions: fear and anger. This means finding rabbit holes that will engage the user, even if those rabbit holes are false or conspiracy theories. What's worse is that nefarious agents can pay the social media platforms to  do this. 
       
       Heather Cox Richardson (Letters from an American Nov 6, 2024)

      As Heather Cox Richardson explains, the political atmosphere was, "amplified by the flood of disinformation that has plagued the U.S. for years now. Russian political theorists called the construction of a virtual political reality through modern media “political technology.” They developed several techniques in this approach to politics, but the key was creating a false narrative in order to control public debate. These techniques perverted democracy, turning it from the concept of voters choosing their leaders into the concept of voters rubber-stamping the leaders they had been manipulated into backing.

      In the U.S., pervasive right-wing media, from the Fox News Channel through right-wing podcasts and YouTube channels run by influencers, have permitted Trump and right-wing influencers to portray the booming economy as “failing” and to run away from the hugely unpopular Project 2025. They allowed MAGA Republicans to portray a dramatically falling crime rate as a crime wave and immigration as an invasion. They also shielded its audience from the many statements of Trump’s former staff that he is unfit for office, and even that his chief of staff General John Kelly considers him a fascist and noted that he admires German Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.
      As actor Walter Masterson posted: “I tried to educate people about tariffs, I tried to explain that undocumented immigrants pay billions in taxes and are the foundation of this country. I explained Project 2025, I interviewed to show that they supported it. I can not compete against the propaganda machines of Twitter, Fox News, [Joe Rogan Experience], and NY Post. These spaces will continue to create reality unless we create a more effective way of reaching people.”

      X users noted a dramatic drop in their followers today, likely as bots, no longer necessary, disengaged.



      This election in a global context
      Another reason that the election may have gone this way is completely out of the control of the campaign. The electorate's post-covid backlash is dissatisfaction with the ruling party. This happened around the globe:

      For the first time since WWII, every governing party facing election in a developed country this year lost vote share, via 2024 Democrats are the red dot. Absolutely critical context to any postmortem.

      Election in Historical Context
      This 2020 study from Politico found that the post election effects of the 1919 influenza pandemic led to the rise of right wing authoritarianism on the Nazi Party,
      The paper also shows that “influenza deaths of 1918 are correlated with an increase in the share of votes won by right-wing extremists, such as the National Socialist Workers Party” in Germany’s 1932 and 1933 elections.

      Exit Polling



      From The PEW:
      Wide differences in views of how women and men would fare under a Harris or Trump administration


      The Political Values of Harris and Trump Supporters; Wide differences over cultural issues, role of government and foreign policy


      The Effects 
      Many Americans will be emboldened by Trump's hateful and violent rhetoric and his symbolic middle finger to the system.  As in his first time, myriad hate groups came into the forefront to express words and actions of hate and violence.

      The Latin Times reports demonstrators carrying signs claiming that women are property on the campus of Texas "Christian" University.