Racism

doi:10.1017/9781108656184.018

Chapter 17 - Racism

from Part III - Problems of Discrimination and Inequality

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 March 2018

Heather M. Dalmage

Edited by

A. Javier Treviño

Show author details

A. Javier Treviño: Affiliation:
Wheaton College, Massachusetts

Book contents

Get access

Summary

Racism is an ideology or action predicated on the grouping and differential valuation of human beings based upon assumed inherent qualities. Race, the categorization of human beings, was historically a European project that has been mobilized to rank, control, contain, organize, and exploit people and societies. As race developed through the processes of globalization – including colonization, slavery, nation building, and capitalism – it became both a vehicle and a commonsense explanation for human exploitation. Deploying racial categories is inherently racist, and yet, historically created categories frame communities and identities that are needed for solidarity in the struggle against racial injustice. Racism can be understood through examining the creation and enactment of the concept of race over the past four centuries at the intersection of science, nation building, and shifting discourse.

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge Handbook of Social Problems , pp. 303 - 318

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108656184.018 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2018

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alberto, Pauline, and Elena, Eduardo. 2016. Introduction to Rethinking Race in Modern Argentina, 1–24. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar

Alexander, Michelle. 2010. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New York: The New Press.Google Scholar

Ansell, Amy E. 2006. Casting a blind eye: The ironic consequences of color-blindness in South Africa and the United States. Critical Sociology 32:333–56.Google Scholar

Banton, Michael. 1987. Racial Theories. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar

Baum, Bruce. 2006. The Rise and Fall of the Caucasian Race: A Political History of Racial Identity. New York: NYU Press.Google Scholar

Bernier, Francois. 1684. A new division of the earth, according to the different species or races of men who inhabit it. In Memoirs Read before the Anthropological Society of London, vol. 1, 360–64. London: Trübner for the Anthropological Society of London. https://archive.org/details/memoirsreadbefor01anth.Google Scholar

Blumenbach, Johann Friedrich. (1775) 1999. On the natural variety of mankind. In Slavery, Abolition, and Emancipation: Writings in the British Romantic Period: Theories of Race, edited by Kitson, Peter, 141–212. London: Pickerin and Chatto.Google Scholar

Bonilla Silva, Eduardo. 2005. Racism without Racist: Color-blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar

California Court of Appeals. 1939. Court transcript of Estate of Monks, 4 Civ. 2835, Records of California Court of Appeals, Fourth District (California State Archives), vol. 3, p. 978. Accessed at the Peggy Pascoe archives in the University of Oregon library, Eugene.Google Scholar

Columbus, Christopher. 2003. Journal of the First Voyage of Columbus. American Journeys Collection. Translated by Bourne, Edward G.. Madison, WI: Wisconsin Historical Society Digital Library and Archives.Google Scholar

Crenshaw, Kimberle Williams. 1997. Colorblindness, history and the law. In The House That Race Built: Original Essays by Toni Morrison, Angela Davis, Cornel West, and Others on Black Americans and Politics in America Today, edited by Lubiano, Wahneema, 280–88. New York: Vintage.Google Scholar

Dalmage, Heather. 2000. Tripping on the Color Line: Black-White Multiracial Families in a Racially Divided World. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar

Darwin, Charles. 1859. The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: or, The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. London: John Murray.Google Scholar

Darwin, Charles. 1871. The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex. London: John Murray.Google Scholar

Davis, F. James. 1991. Who Is Black? One Nation's Definition. University Park: Penn State University Press.Google Scholar

De Gobineau, Arthur. 1853–55. An essay on the inequality of the human races (1853–55). In The Inequality of the Human Races, translated by Collins, Adrian. London: Heinemann. http://media.bloomsbury.com/rep/files/primary-source-131-gobineau-the-inequality-of-the-human-races.pdf.Google Scholar

Feagin, Joe R., Vera, Hernan, and Batur, Pinar. 2001. White Racism: The Basics. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge Press.Google Scholar

Ferber, Abby. 1998. White Man Falling: Race, Gender and White Supremacy. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar

Galton, Francis. 1883. Inquiries into human faculty and its development. Institute for Policy Studies, September. http://inequality.org/racial-inequality/.CrossRef Google Scholar

Goffman, Erving. 1963. Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. London: Penguin.Google Scholar

Goldberg, David Theo. 1990. The social formation of racist discourse. In Anatomy of Racism, edited by Goldberg, David Theo, 295–318. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar

Goldenberg, David. 2005. The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar

Gordon, Collin. 2014. Racial inequality. http://inequality.org/.Google Scholar

Gould, Stephen Jay. 1981. The Mismeasure of Man. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar

Gugliemo, Thomas. 2004. White on Arrival Italians, Race, Color, and Power in Chicago, 1890–1945. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

Hannaford, Ivan. 1996. Race: The History of an Idea in the West. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar

Harris, Cheryl, I. 1993. Whiteness as property. Harvard Law Review 106:1707–91.Google Scholar

Horsman, Reginald. 1999. Superior and inferior races. In Racism, edited by Bulmer, Martin and Solomos, John, 45–48. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

James, Michael. 2016. Race. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Zalta, Edward N.. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2016/entries/race/.Google Scholar

Kant, Immanuel. (1777) 2014. Of the different human races. In Kant and the Concept of Race: Late Eighteenth-Century Writings, translated and edited by Mikkelsen, Jon M., 55–72. Albany: SUNY Press.Google Scholar

Laqueur, Walter. 1980. The Terrible Secret: Suppression of the Truth about Hitler's “Final Solution.” New York: Penguin Books.Google Scholar

Lewis, Amanda. 2001. There is no “race” in the schoolyard: Color-blind ideology in an (almost) all-white school. American Educational Research Journal 38:781–811.Google Scholar

Linnaeus, Carolus. (1735) 1964. Systema Naturae: Facsimile of the First Edition. Translated by Engel-Ledeboer, M. S. J. and Engel, H.. Netherlands: Nieuwkoop: B. de Graaf.Google Scholar

Loveman, Mara. 2014. National Colors: Racial Classification and the State in Latin America. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRef Google Scholar

Maly, Michael, and Dalmage, Heather. 2016. Vanishing Eden: White Construction of Memory, Meaning, and Identity in a Racially Changing City. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar

Marx, Anthony. 1998. Making Race and Nation: A Comparison of South Africa, the United States, and Brazil. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar

Massey, Douglas, and Denton, Nancy. 1998. American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar

Mosse, George L. 1978. Toward the Final Solution: A History of European Racism. New York: Howard Fertig.Google Scholar

Murray, Rheanna. 2015. Argentinian fashion brand John L. Cook's Confederate flag logo stirs outrage. Today, August 11. www.today.com/style/fashion-brand-john-l-cooks-confederate-flag-logo-stirs-fury-t38041.Google Scholar

Musu-Gillette, Lauren, et al. 2016. Status and trends in the education of racial and ethnic groups. National Center for Education Statistics. August. https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2016/2016007.pdf.Google Scholar

Nagel, Joane. 2003. Race, Ethnicity, and Sexuality: Intimate Intersections Forbidden Frontiers. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

Nakano Glenn, Evelyn. 2002. Unequal Freedom: How Race and Gender Shaped American Citizenship and Labor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar

Nandy, Ashis. 1983. The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self Under Colonialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

Nixon, James W. 1960. A History of the International Statistical Institute, 1885–1960. The Hague: International Statistical Institute.Google Scholar

Omi, Michael, and Winant, Howard. 2015. Racial Formation in the United States. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar

Pascoe, Peggy. 2000. Miscegenation law, court cases, and ideologies of “race” in twentieth-century America. In Interracialism: Black-White Intermarriage in American History, Literature, and Law, edited by Sollors, Werner, 178–204. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

Pew Research Center. 2016. On views of race and inequality, blacks and whites are worlds apart: About four-in-ten blacks are doubtful that the U.S. will ever achieve racial equality. June 27. www.pewsocialtrends.org/2016/06/27/on-views-of-race-and-inequality-blacks-and-whites-are-worlds-apart/.Google Scholar

Pittman, Taylor. 2015. How the confederate flag became an Argentinian clothing brand's logo. Huffington Post, August 15. www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/confederate-flag-logo-john-l-cook-argentina_us_55cb8d39e4b0f73b20bb7ce4.Google Scholar

Posel, Deborah. 2001. What's in a name? Racial categorisations under apartheid and their afterlife. Transformation 47:59–82.Google Scholar

Rattansi, Ali. 2007. Racism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

Sakala, Leah. 2014. Breaking down mass incarceration in the 2010 census: State-by-state incarceration rates by race/ethnicity. Prison Policy Initiative. May 28. www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/rates.html.Google Scholar

Shakespeare, William. 1993. Othello: The Moor of Venice. Edited by Mowat, Barbara A. and Westine, Paul. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks.Google Scholar

Shapiro, Ilya. 2009. The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race. Cato at Liberty. April. www.cato.org/blog/way-stop-discrimination-basis-race-stop-discriminating-basis-race.Google Scholar

Smith, Justin E. H. 2015. Nature, Human Nature, & Human Difference: Race in Early Modern Philosophy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar

Telles, Edward. 2014. Pigmentocracies: Ethnicity, Race, and Color in Latin America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar

Wallenstein, Peter. 2002. Tell the Court I Love My Wife: Race, Marriage, and Law – An American History. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar

Wellman, David. 1993. Portraits of White Racism. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar

West, Cornel. 2002. A genealogy of modern racism. In Race: Critical Theories, edited by Essed, Philomena and Goldberg, David Theo, 90–112. Hoboken, NJ: Blackwell Press.Google Scholar

Winant, Howard. 2001. The World Is a Ghetto: Race and Democracy since World War II. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar

Zinn, Howard. 2009. Columbus and Western civilization. In You Are Still Being Lied To, edited by Kick, Russ, 263–73. New York: The Disinformation Company.Google Scholar

Book contents

Chapter 17 - Racism

Summary

Access options

References

Save book to Kindle

Save book to Dropbox

Save book to Google Drive