Race and Racism Midterm

In what respects can race be said to be real and in what respects is it an illusion?

• race is a social category

• these labels effect things like laws, wealth, and healthcare

• it has real effects

• but it is a biological illusion

• skin color has a alot of variation based on region, doesn’t necissarily fall into neat boxes

• skin color and race only has weight to it because human beings made it that way

What were the key tenets of “racial science” and why is it now largely dismissed as a “pseudo-science”?

• racial science: set of ideas claiming that humanity is divided into races and ranked by superority

• key tenets: races are fixed, skin color could show lack of intelligence naturally, and races shoudlnt be mixed because of this

• this was used justify things like slavery and the holocaust

• it is now dissmissed because the evidence doesn’t actually equate to their claim

• theres no evidence actually backing up what was being said

In what respects does the social construction of “race” yield or produce biomedical or health consequences for those classified as belonging to racial minorities?

• discrimination and unequal treatment can create stress, leading to other health issues

• segregation and unequal wealth push minorities into impoverished communties

• bias and racism can lead to untreated pain, lower quality care

In what respects can humor or play be understand as constituting “reversible worlds” that hold up critical mirrors to lived experiences of race and racialization?

• within humor things can be mocked and the unsayable can be said

• people can be racist through humor and create stereotypes

• humor can also be a way to cope for marginalized communities

How over time have concepts and imagery of “Whiteness” been broadly established as natural or the norm in mainstream North American social spheres?

• through law and culture, everyday habit

• made it seem like whitness was the norm/default

• slavery and civil rights era

• housing policies like redlining

• beauty standards

Under what conditions can works of art or performance contribute to the interrogation or undoing of racial hierarchies?

• art can expose stereotypes

• art can unsettle viewers instead of comforting them and using humor

• it doesnt always connect to a wider message and instead just pushes stereotypes

What do you consider to be the most compelling explanation or explanations for the rise and  long-term persistence of racial terror lynching in the post Civil War United States?

• used for social control

• white southeners really wanted the racial hiearchy back

• economic motives: lynching targeted wealthier black people

• states allowed it

• public spectacle

How have cinematic portrayals helped establish Harlem as a place of dreams and of nightmares?

• some films show Harlem as a place of creativity

• some films show Harlem as a place of violence

• shows real hardships in Harlem such as housing discrim and drug epidemics

• flattens the complex situation in Harlem into a stereotype

If you were to author an interpretive banner to be placed on the National Mall, in front of a Smithsonian museum, about how legacies of slavery or racism ought to be understood, what might such a banner say?

“The Past has Not Passed”.

• civil rights and slavery was not a distant chapter in US history

• affected everything to this very moment

• new systems of discrimination continued after slavery and will continue after civil rights

• not assigning blame to the living but showing how the past shapes the present

To what extent can the Western Apache joking practice of “playing the Whiteman” be understand as a political critique of colonial racial hierarchies?

• kinda

• exaggerating how white people speak and act

• they reverse the traditonal hiearchies

• lets the marginalized group express their frusrations

• private not as public as racist jokes

• subtle, everyday critique