Friday, October 24, 2008
Vestigital Term: Race
I acknowledge that the term race exists within our social language and without it we could not make certain forms of oppression, certain social phenomena intelligible. However, it seems to me that race is really a misnomer when we talk about most forms of oppression. There are other terms that explain oppression more fully and point to the real roots of it; like ethnicity, caste, class, nationality, etc. Race is a term that is like a vestigital organ; we still have it only because we misguidedly think we still need it, the way people still cling to outmoded ideas like the world being flat or evolution being false (the bible being the true representation). Time to move on and evolve.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Race is still used as a form of oppression today, to forget about it, is to ignore a significant problem for many people around the world. The Newsreel on the left side of this blog is proof enough to show the race related injustices that are still happening. Oppression in class, caste, nationality, ethnicity, gender, etc. are also important, but bringing justice to these areas alone can not solve those related to race. Race most stand alongside these concepts, rather than get out of the way.
The reality is that race is just a tool used by those in power to conquer and divide us, and rule us; race conflict is propagated by powerful institutions and corporations because the more energy we spend fighting amongst ourselves, the less we have to spend on the REAL conflicts like that between the poor/middle class and the wealthy, between corporate hegemony and the downtrodden individual. Race and racism is thrown in our faces to distract us from the most important issues facing us; so while it is important to understand and talk about for the sake of those secondhand problems I would argue they stem from bigger issues, and if we took care of those first, racism would fade away. That doesn't mean we shouldn't attend to race issues right now because they are problems we MUST deal with, but we should not spend so much energy on it as we have; we should spend our energy in such a way to bring about the greatest beneficial social change.
I agree that solving problems of class would benefit race issues, but I'm not sure they would entirely fade away by this alone. Racial injustices come in a variety of forms. It may have been started by those in power seeking to distract the public, but that distraction has taken on a life of its own. As the people started believing in its actual presence, they have started acting on those notions across class lines and in a variety of horrible ways, like the murder of Vincent Chin that Taylor keeps pointing to.(70) I agree that we must deal with these problems, but I'm not sure they will go away because we eradicate all problems in these other categories. To a certain extent we must engage in direct conflict with race.
It is quite true that the conflict has become self contained and self perpetuating, warranting direction attention and action. But there is something to the stereotypical mom solution to conflict; just ignore them. If they can't get a rise out of you they'll stop. This is in most cases of course the wrong thing to do, but it has some truth to it. We've been talking about how all these concepts are socially constructed and in that vein I would argue that any attention paid to these problems--good or bad--perpetuates them, because in either case we are recognizing their existence by acknowledging them. Now, this can't necessarily be the tact taken vs. overall oppression because there are very focused, moneyed people/organizations behind it so it won't just collapse on its own. But assuming it is mostly now in our hands, we can safely start to let it go.
eric, i see what you're saying, but ignoring your mom doesn't mean that she doesn't exist. it just means your pretending she doesn't exist so you can do what you want. and usually your mom is right even though you hate to admit it. race talk is real and ignoring the problems that still arise from it will perpetuate racism even more... things have to be talked out and resolved. ignoring something until it goes away is exactly what kids try to do, and it doesn't usually work out. i'm a little late coming into this convo though. :)
Post a Comment