study help due Saturday

Racial Formation or Racialization Notes

hi guys so we are moving into our next part of the race unit where we're going

0:11

to be looking at theories to interpret uh race um

0:17

racialization and the impacts of race okay so uh today

0:23

we're gonna cover racial formations and then next time we're gonna cover intersectionality

0:29

these analytical frameworks are important for us to understand because it will help us one

0:35

unpack what is race how it is kind of evolved over time and then what are its

0:41

material effects next week we are going to cover what is racism and look at systemic oppression

0:47

on a much more um uh focused and broad level so these

0:54

theories will actually help us um parse through that as a part of a process of race germinating from one

1:01

historical point uh that i kind of talked about last time which we'll revisit in a second

1:09

that looks like in terms of where we are today okay so first

1:14

let me uh get our nifty slides up

1:20

okay so

1:26

what will be covered today is race we're going to revisit this and kind of ask some rhetorical questions to think about

1:33

what this actually is in relationship to what we've learned so far the phases of race thinking uh the only

1:40

one not reading uh kind of unpack these as a part of a historical trajectory and

1:46

as i've always mentioned um race is not something that is some that comes individually but is a part of a

1:52

concerted effort by multiple forces to define human beings as different with an

1:59

explicit purpose um namely it has been for economic exploitation um

2:05

this has been true of both um uh all or should be this is true of all

2:12

critical race theorists and thinkers from chicago next latinx studies asian american studies uh or aapi studies

2:20

native american studies and african-american studies when we think about the formation of race it has been

2:26

predominantly to um uh enshrine certain groups as different in less than and in doing so that has

2:34

allowed for um uh individuals or communities or or

2:39

empires for that matter um namely the british spanish and portuguese empires to uh you know colonize lands um

2:46

eradicate indigenous peoples and then obviously plant um those populations with

2:52

indentured servants which were you know mostly the chateau slaves this is now um

2:57

evolved in many ways into the larger system of racial difference that we see today

3:03

where individuals from these um disparate and historically marginalized communities

3:08

again the the four that we've kind of mentioned in the past have different life outcomes compared to the dominant

3:15

group okay um with that we are going to look at some racial prerequisite cases and this

3:21

is going to help us um understand the evolving understandings of race okay uh we're going to cover racial formation

3:28

theory this idea of what's called racialization or um taking a certain group of people and uh

3:35

ascribing them with a with a race or or defining them by a racial uh marker

3:42

um and then we're gonna talk a little bit about race making okay this is all gonna be within this idea of one what is race

3:49

how is it where does it come from how has it evolved and where we are today the two key terms um that i want us to

3:55

focus on are racial formation theory okay this stems out of sociology the uh authors of today's uh chapter or

4:03

the authors of the chapter that you reviewed michael only and howard first developed this um as an analytical

4:10

framework to think about uh race uh socially constructed identity and

4:15

it's important as determined by social political and economic forces okay and this is gonna be very um crucial

4:22

especially when we get into race making as we look at how concerted parties from different aspects

4:28

of society um uh push or promulgate an idea of human

4:33

difference and then other individuals capitalize on that

4:38

to pass laws and uh or enact policies that um one either separate uh

4:46

communities or ensure that certain individuals uh are not treated fairly or equally again

4:52

we will also be looking at racialization and this is the process social understandings i think

4:58

stereotypes are used to classify individuals or groups within a black white colored binary or continuum

5:04

remember we talked about this with race last time and with aestheticity where what we've really seen is

5:11

this understanding of whiteness and blackness is a part of a social construct and continuum where certain

5:17

individuals depending on the political moment can or cannot be accepted and i'll show a video example of this a

5:23

little bit later that'll explain that more an example i have quickly provided here is that we can see um this being a

5:30

good or bad thing right so asians are good at math although we don't necessarily know that all um aai

5:37

individuals are good at math or are good at other subjects and that all immigrants are criminals right so these

5:43

kinds of stereotypes are those that follow within this idea of racialization were ascribing characteristics of race

5:50

to a certain community and therefore dehumanizing them uh presupposing that they

5:55

uh act and operate in certain ways right um what i wouldn't know is that again this is a century long process

6:03

we talked about how this originated from either 1492 with the arrival of columbus in the new world and his kind of contact

6:09

with the taino indians can be called you know indians um even though they were the taino peoples um and or 1619 with

6:17

the first arrival of african or slave ships with africans you know from africa right um notably with this right uh this

6:25

is a social categorization that is ensuring that um

6:30

individuals can be exploited for capital gains or removed because they no longer serve a function in the capitalist

6:36

society again um this is very important for us to think about especially when we look at the

6:42

long arc of racialization of certain communities so again first um you know

6:47

columbus has contact with the natives um he butchers them and and enslaves them

6:53

um as you saw in the reading with howard zinn and john iceland eventually that became untenable because it's hard to

6:58

enslave people on their home turf they know how to fight there what they realized was that

7:04

it was easier to in indentured servants than africans the problem with indentured servants is that

7:10

they're indentured servants so they can serve out their indenture and then become free men because they're also white it's harder

7:17

for them to um face the long uh arc of mistreatment that is normally

7:23

reserved for africans that we saw at the time and it was much easier and more

7:28

profitable to just imp some amount of africans mix them all up spread them all over the united states

7:34

and create this crazy chapter system that garnered billions and billions of dollars to the us

7:40

um and then that's where we have this kind of state today where we've seen this sense of anti-blackness and this

7:47

long arc of um really uh damning racism against uh

7:52

black folks and then you know essentially all of the other communities of color face some kind of racism following a

7:59

kind of anti-black framework and i'll talk about that more when we get into this idea of anti-blackness when we get

8:05

into african or african-americans of the u.s so first

8:11

let's go back so race right what are our four or five primary race categories okay so that's

8:17

going to be again homo americanus homo africa uh homo afer homomer uh sorry homo

8:24

americanus homo afer homo asiaticus and homo europas right so homo europeans is

8:30

being white right this this european population um homo afros being black right from the

8:36

continent of africa homo americanus being those from you know what we now consider to be the americas

8:43

uh this reddish population and then homo asiaticus which is this yellow population which is constituting most of

8:49

the continent of asia we do have the in or the inclusion of brown communities

8:56

particularly the malays but that malay population is an interesting aboriginal

9:02

kind of nexus between various groups um although as many would argue that brown

9:08

is mostly just this kind of mixture between um

9:13

spanish spanish conquest or i'm sorry spanish conquistadors and other

9:19

indigenous communities in latin america we don't really see that in north america with um

9:25

uh english colonists and the natives here um but primarily we're still thinking about

9:32

race within this either four or five categories of colorism right so white black

9:38

yellow red brown right um these are considered to be what kind of a construct again a social construct and

9:44

this is very important for us to remember because race is a social construct right it is

9:50

not grounded in any scientific reality and nor is it grounded in any other type

9:55

of historical tradition human beings were nomadic they traveled all over the world um the origin you know we

10:02

originated from the continent of africa there's tons and tons of evolutionary science that shows that we you know

10:08

evolved essentially from monkeys and i understand that maybe a hard pill to swallow or primates right

10:14

um but where we are today and where we came from is still linked by that matter right so we all evolve into this hominid

10:21

species that became homo sapiens you know who we are today and what we now understand as these

10:28

categories of you know race and then also ethnicity because of culture um is largely socially constructed right

10:35

we develop these in our own human interactions when did these understandings of race and racial differences emerge again

10:42

right within the enlightenment and colonial anywhere between the 1400s or the 5th

10:49

street up until the 18th century we pretty much promulgated by europe

10:56

and u.s thinkers and when we get into institutional or when we get into racism next week we're going to really dive

11:03

into this where we look at folks like samuel p morton uh and again carl linnaeus who've already reviewed um and

11:09

how they've thought of this idea of human difference and how that's been utilized um to specifically uh dis

11:17

particular or specific right and then again what is the primary purpose of

11:22

establishing race and racial and ethnic difference it is to create a social hierarchy okay and this social hierarchy

11:29

um what it does for those on the bottom is it open up for exploitation or those

11:37

empower the dominant group to exploit that population and although again we've had slavery um throughout human society

11:45

um the new type of degree that emerged in the colonial period was unique because there was a

11:52

level of brutality that we've not seen previously for the most part there was a type of serfdom you know where you were

11:59

able to operate with some level of rights and pay tribute to a monarch or some other kind of um dynastic person

12:07

what happened in the colonial era um was this type of uh brutality against individuals where

12:14

gold was the primary you know purpose of exploration and enslavement and trying

12:20

to and in doing so there was a complete absence of humanity in the sense that

12:25

um we you know butchered people um beat them and worked them until they

12:31

essentially you know died right so

12:36

there are three particular phases that are covered in the text about this idea of race thinking it

12:43

first emerges within this christian and theological context right so there are two

12:49

primary ways that race was talked about in this time

12:54

one was with this nice idea of polygenesis so as european explorers

13:00

started to move about the world right they would interact with these native peoples and see that there was a clear

13:06

difference right skin tone and culture in this right they claim that all of

13:12

these people from all over the world who look different than them actually came from a different um species right that

13:20

there was adam and eve or something like that that god had made it multiple human races

13:25

right and this actually contested the kind of book of genesis um uh

13:30

creationism narrative i provided a a um early sketching of colonists arriving at

13:37

the quote-unquote new world trying to christianize um the natives above right

13:43

and then what that or what contested that was was this idea of monogenesis

13:49

right so the church argued that there was only one species of man but that different races were at

13:55

different levels of piety right and so this this idea of godliness so by poc

14:01

groups were basically pagans and in need of rescuing and civilizing right this particular

14:07

rationalization is important for us to hold on to because this justified the

14:12

conquest of lands and the enslavement and eradication of people okay i know i mentioned this um in the

14:19

race lecture but i wanted to show it again here this comes from john osborne uh in a global studies publication where

14:25

he kind of outlines how the um the

14:30

the political and power-based framework of spanish uh uh

14:36

peoples were during the um the colonial era right so at the top we have these

14:42

are risky aristocrats that were mostly spaniards they were considered to be peninsulares there were creoles uh the

14:50

descendants of these peninsulas so these folks were born in america but they were primarily they were almost

14:55

overwhelmingly spaniard purebred by birth right and so they had a

15:01

a little less um political and economic rights than the peninsula's the ones that actually came from spain um but

15:08

still far above um others right mestizos were a mixture of caucasians

15:48

right so they're just below that asterisks

16:07

not to blackness then um you know then they're they're they have

16:12

some more political power right

16:18

this then gave way to um this idea of biological science and social science so

16:23

uh moved towards the enlightenment period and we have more um you know academics and think critical

16:31

thinkers emerge that are contesting the sense of the church um they don't necessarily depart from the thinkings of

16:37

race rather what they try to do is they try to scientize it right or rationalize it within a science-based framework so

16:43

evolutionary biologists botanists and medical scientists actually argue that human races were different down to a

16:50

cellular level right that they were um uh uh had you know basically um

16:56

evolved right into or came from completely different um uh species based frameworks right and

17:05

again this gave rise to this kind of four types of man and i'm gonna go a little

17:10

bit more into this when we get into institutional racism or when we get into um racism next week when we look at

17:15

scientific racism um but again you know another example of a textbook showing you know caucasian right mongol

17:23

uh mongolian the malay uh the american and the african right

17:29

and what i want to be very clear about and the reason why it's important for us to think about this is that one the

17:34

writers of this textbook are white right and so they're a thinking about these ideas and then

17:39

creating these ideas of human difference this is not necessarily intrinsic to

17:45

you know any of these other groups and there's been a lot of research and science showing that you

17:51

know africans were here in the americas prior to the colonial conquest um there actually were some asians that made it

17:57

this far out too and they had very peaceful um coexistence and and um

18:04

uh peaceful um interactions and coexistence what is important to note is that

18:10

it was mostly europeans that one we're moving across these different borders

18:16

but also really working on trying to differentiate each of these

18:21

populations right um after that we have the rise of social sciences right and so um

18:29

when freud and marx and weber and francis boaz are starting to try to

18:35

understand human behavior um within these kind of social or sociological frameworks um they argue that race was a

18:43

social concept right that it was created out of social historical and political

18:48

moments when various people were defined as different right and that's very important for us to think about because

18:53

that's largely where we are today is that we we do for the most part consider all of

19:00

each other the same right we don't hold on um biases that say either god made us

19:07

different or that we evolved differently however we do do a lot um within these

19:13

other political and legalistic frameworks to ensure that people are treated different maybe

19:19

it's or maybe not necessarily directly there was a time we actually did that directly in the post reconstruction area

19:25

up until the civil rights era um but you know there are

19:30

um concerted uh movements by you know various individuals to ensure that

19:36

people are to to pass laws that will um ensure some people are treated

19:42

differently right and we've seen this with anti-immigration laws we've seen this with criminal justice laws so on and so forth

19:48

what i've provided you here is a bulletin um from the from the department

19:53

of health in virginia and it's uh a uh note talking about a law that was passed in

19:59

1924 to preserve racial integrity and um this is uh kind of centered around the

20:04

idea of anti-miscegenation laws or these laws that ensure that people of color could not

20:10

marry um excuse me could not marry um

20:16

white folks essentially and in doing so uh they would break the law could be

20:21

fined in prison so on and so forth i mentioned this previously that um there was a supreme court case

20:26

virginia where um you know a couple

20:32

his white husband and um african-american woman had argued or had

20:39

filed suit against virginia that's where the loving verse of virginia comes from you know mentioning virginia here

20:45

um arguing you know that they were legally married they were married in the north that their you know their marriage was valid they were attempting to

20:52

confine uh miss loving to a um to a segregated um hotel suite

21:00

because you know they wouldn't allow her to cohabitate with her her white husband and that law uh or that case i'm sorry

21:08

um brought about the end of miscegenation law for many many states in the united states

21:14

had anti-miscegenation laws or had done a lot to ensure that um people of color

21:20

did not um sexually and or romantically mix with white folks

21:29

and so this um social understanding and legalistic understanding gave rise to a

21:35

lot of cases that started to push um the boundaries of what was white okay

21:40

so whiteness has always been a kind of unstable category i've mentioned this in

21:45

the past where uh essentially who gets to be considered

21:51

white and who doesn't changes over time we saw this with the italians when we saw that uh small video clip from um

21:59

adam ruins everything where italians were not being welcomed as such and when they were

22:04

uh when the narrative of columbus was infused into their uh into the historical tearing telling of the united

22:10

states or the myth the united states they were seen as much more a part of this american-based framework um

22:16

there have been others that have tried to make this case as well what it provides you here on the right is a news

22:23

clipping where uh it talks about in um i'm sorry in

22:29

uh new york in buffalo new york a uh a grouping of three individuals had

22:35

fought to be uh or to be given citizenship because they were mexican

22:41

uh but uh effectively considered to be white because under the treaty of lupe

22:48

and other uh long time mexicans were considered but this

22:53

judge actually denied um these mexican citizenship because of their indian

22:59

blood and there was this understanding that native americans were not white and those with native american ancestry

23:06

would also not be considered white so i'm going to show this short video clip that will explain it a bit further with

23:13

these two very important cases ozawa and thin um that many folks reference when we're talking about the instability of

23:19

race and and whiteness and then we're gonna actually go over some of these court cases

23:43

when we discuss whiteness in america we often use the term caucasian to refer to white people takeo zawa was a japanese

23:50

immigrant who fought to be recognized legally as white because at the time naturalization laws required you to be

23:56

either a free white person or an alien of african descent his case went all the

24:01

way to the supreme court and ultimately supreme court justice george sutherland ruled that white was a term that

24:07

referred exclusively to the caucasian race but what does caucasian even mean

24:13

the term caucasian was coined by german philosopher christoph miners and his treatise the outline of history of

24:18

mankind his work was wildly popular in the scientific racism that i described

24:24

in my first video miners was a polygynist and believed that each race had different

24:30

in the 18th century it was a common belief that beauty equated to perfection

24:35

so miner's findings were based mostly on the level of attractiveness according to him of every racial group he set up a

24:42

racial hierarchy from least to most attractive and established two racial categorizations the caucasians and the

24:49

mongols caucasians were intelligent cultured morally sensitive and attractive while the mongols encompassed

24:56

every non-european group and were viewed as the complete opposite of the caucasians miners compared and

25:03

contrasted several physical features like hair and body type but like most early racial theorists he used skin tone

25:10

as a way of determining supposed natural degrees of inferiority and superiority at some point he even suggested that

25:16

caucasians with darker skin were somehow part mongol though he revised this later realizing that not all caucasians have

25:23

the benefit of staying inside all day and waxing poetic about racial superiority minors concluded that out of all

25:30

european groups the germans were the most superior of them all and as you can imagine the german public

25:36

ate it up his work became heinously popular and he went on to publish several more articles reinforcing his

25:43

idea of racial hierarchies and the superiority of the caucasian race he'd often use physiology as a way of making

25:49

a connection between the cultural and political power of people of color in 1790 he published several articles in

25:56

response to the slave uprising in the french colony of saint dominic and in these articles he argued that not only

26:02

was it impossible but also simply unjust to give negroes any modicum of equality

26:08

because as he put it they were born inferior and predisposed to slavery he

26:13

often compared negroes to animals and argued that they didn't feel humanity in the same way that their white christian

26:19

masters felt it he stated that they were cowardly unintelligent easily irritable

26:25

promiscuous and lazy creatures with insensitivity to beatings and torture

26:31

minors based in science but he often twisted the work of scientists to confirm his

26:38

bias this got him a lot of critics from the scientific community and one of his biggest critics was johann friedrich

26:44

blumenba blumenbaugh was a german physician naturalist philosopher and psychologist unlike minors he argued

26:51

that the human race was only separated by opportunity and all originated from one source this of course coincided with

26:58

the idea that all of humanity originated from adam and eve he saw the gradation of humans across the world but disagreed

27:05

with miners that these differences related to natural degrees of security or inferiority he set out across the

27:12

world seeking skulls from various regions to compare and contrast by 1765

27:17

he had collected about 60 craniums but his favorite was that of a georgian female he found this skull to be the

27:24

most aesthetically pleasing because of its symmetry its high forehead its pronounced eye ridges and roman jawline

27:31

because he found the georgian skull to be the most beautiful he concluded that all of human life must

27:36

have originated from the caucasus region one of his now disproven arguments for that was that it was easier for a person

27:43

with light skin to become darker than it is for a person with dark skin to become lighter by 1795 bloombaugh had

27:49

established five racial categorizations the caucasians the ethiopians the mongolians the americanoids and the

27:57

melees blumenbaugh published his findings under the title the natural variety of mankind he went on to give

28:04

more familiar terms to his biracial categorizations and he officially deemed the caucasian race as white i know what

28:11

you're asking what does this all have to do with american racism well both minors and

28:16

blumenbach's work was popular in the late 19th to mid to late 20th century and their findings were used to justify

28:23

race-based discrimination in the united states the definitions of many of their racial categorizations shifted as a

28:29

result of racial prejudice in 1870 thomas henry huxley classified all populations of asia

28:35

out of the [ __ ] or yellow race however in 1920 locrip stoddard stated that the brown race consisted of south

28:42

and central asians in the 1920s in the united states the naturalization act of 1906 was still in action and this act

28:49

only allowed free white persons and aliens of african descent to naturalize

28:55

these narrow qualifications left many people racially ineligible for naturalization and one of these people

29:01

was a world war one veteran named singh finn find was an indian sikh man who

29:06

identified himself as a high caste hindu of pure indian blood he immigrated to america in 1913 and found work in an

29:14

oregon lumberville through his hard work and dedication he was able to fund an education at the university of

29:19

california berkeley in 1917 he enlisted in the army and fought during the first world war unfortunately though he was

29:26

honorably discharged in 1918. after fighting for the country he loved he filed the petition for naturalization in

29:32

1920 and initially he was approved however the government cancelled his naturalization when they discovered that

29:39

he was a member of the party the guitar party was a north american punjabi indian organization

29:45

that fought to secure india's independence from british colonial rule sindh did not deny his political

29:50

activity and instead it took a note from takeo azawa and argued that because he was part of a high caste that he could

29:56

categorize himself as a free white person he argued that his aryan indian language came from the aryan part of

30:04

india since his language was that of the conquering people he argued that he could be categorized as white remember

30:10

that since the ozawa case the term white had been a term that was defined as exclusively referring to people of the

30:16

caucasian race but recently lothar stoddard had to find people from those parts of asia as brown finn cited

30:23

blumenbach and said that he had designated people from his birthplace as caucasian and he reiterated the fact

30:29

that because of his high caste and his pure indian blood that he could be categorized as white arguing that though

30:36

cast often mixed his high cast prevented that from happening in his bloodline he also stated that he was repulsed by the

30:43

idea of marrying an indian woman of a lower race or an aboriginal indian [ __ ] his lawyers argued that his

30:50

disdain for inferior races furthermore categorized him as white after hearing

30:56

all of his arguments supreme court justice george southerland stated that then was not caucasian in the common

31:02

understanding of the term citing encyclopedia britannica's entry on hinduism justice sutherland argued that

31:08

racial mixing did occur among the aryan invaders of north india and though caste systems were supposed to prevent this

31:15

they weren't entirely successful interestingly enough though the 1910 edition of the encyclopedia britannica

31:21

actually does describe the aryan invaders of north india as part of the white race and made a point of saying

31:27

that they maintained racial purity contradictions aside ultimately finn was

31:32

denied naturalization on the grounds that even though an argument could be made that he is technically caucasian it

31:38

was unlikely that he was racially pure racial purity was of course encouraged because of the history of racial

31:44

discrimination in the united states in the 1920s darwinism and eugenics had

31:50

started to influence the legal and social perception of non-white people in america charles davenport was the head

31:56

of the eugenics records office in 1913. president theodore roosevelt wrote a

32:01

letter to him praising his work and fighting to maintain anglo-saxon racial purity an influx of non-white immigrants

32:08

caused fear among many americans of a so-called racial suicide where the white race would be cancelled out by the rapid

32:14

reading of non-white people anti-miscegenation laws criminalize marriage and intimate relationships

32:19

between white and non-white people these laws trace back to the late 17th century in america in the 13 colonies while

32:26

anti-miscegenation laws were not national the idea of maintaining racial purity and the threat of the negative

32:32

outcome of interracial relationships didn't pack legislation across the country in the thin case ultimately they

32:38

stated that the racial differences between indians and white people were just too vastly different and that white

32:44

americans would reject the idea of indians assimilating into the white place the supreme court's decision had a

32:51

major consequences for many asian indian immigrants many people had their land taken away from them and their

32:57

citizenships rescinded in california the alien land law of 1913 in conjunction

33:03

with the supreme court's decision in the thin case empowered the asiatic exclusion league and their fight to

33:09

revoke indian land purchases by 1940 about half of all asian indian

33:15

immigrants have left the united states in 1935 congress passed the nylia act

33:20

that allowed all world war one veterans to naturalize regardless of their race in 1936 then finally became a citizen of

33:28

the united states after his third attempt to naturalize at the end of the day caucasian has very

33:34

little to do with what we associate as white in america caucasians come from the caucasus region which includes

33:40

modern-day countries like iran kurdistan armenia and georgia while definitions of

33:46

the caucasus region are debated by those who live within them one thing is clear the people of the caucasus region are

33:52

diverse and most of them look nothing like the blonde hair blue eyed people who we think of when we hear the term

33:59

caucasian looking at the thin case through contemporary eyes the arguments seem silly and the racial categorization

34:07

seemed flimsy but god seeing finn had to go to court to come up with every possible stretch of an argument in order

34:14

to argue that he deserved to become a citizen of the country that he risked his life to defend historically speaking

34:21

america has used racial hierarchies as a way of who is and who isn't worthy of

34:28

prosperity in this country this country is built on the backs of slaves and immigrants at the behest and benefits of

34:35

white men and to this day people of color have to fight to maintain their validity and how they measure up to

34:42

white people who have historically rewritten history and twisted science to maintain their superiority and that's

34:49

why history so again when we're thinking about cat's

34:54

uh argument here right one of the things that i think is very important is to really focus on this

35:00

idea of white being unstable um she mentions you know clear uh scientific

35:06

precedent that argued in you know encyclopedias that uh folks

35:12

from uh finn's region of um folks from finn's region of

35:19

uh india were clearly white um and despite that scientific knowledge and

35:26

information they still are the supreme court i should say still decided to rule

35:32

that he was not white and not worthy um and so when we go to

35:39

our sorry we go here to our examples of this

35:47

right so here is all of the cases all 51 cases

35:53

for the supreme court trying to argue who was and wasn't white so the first

35:59

people to lob cages were chinese and i think what japanese and chinese folks

36:04

argued at the time was although yes they were considered to be yellow they didn't actually look yellow in their skin tone

36:10

right physically white um and so if you look at some of the

36:16

rationales for uh denying these folks whiteness or or assuming whether or not they were white

36:22

right scientific evidence calming knowledge congressional attend tried to deny chinese as white and that's really

36:28

important because at the time of 1878 and 1890 which is around the chinese exclusion

36:34

act of 1882 there was a big push to remove many chinese folks and in these uh court

36:41

cases what they were arguing is that you know you couldn't deport them because they were chinese they were actually

36:47

physically white and these cases said otherwise right um here in 1889 we see

36:54

hawaiians is not as white and hawaii is still in closer proximity to the u.s and

36:59

you know essentially an american colony at the time um but still not white right japanese not white obviously this would

37:05

make a lot of sense around the same time that we're trying to exclude chinese japanese being very similar in cultural

37:12

and ethnic garb right so we're still thinking these folks within this yellow-based framework right

37:19

here we can see mexicans is not white native americans is not white right no explanation legal president a lot of

37:25

congressional intent legal precedence in terms of the rationale here um here in 1909 we start to see the rise of the

37:32

asian indian cases probably not white or asian indians are white right uh you

37:38

know there's ocular inspection of skin uh scientific evidence otherwise right

37:44

uh you know so a lot of these cases are you know either are indian or are white

37:50

not white so on and so forth um but one of the big pieces that we want to see

37:55

through this is that this terrain of whiteness is super unstable right um

38:02

although asian indians start to become white in the latter part of the early uh

38:08

20th century syrians become not white right filipinos as not white even though

38:13

filipinos for the most part are mixed with spaniards in the same way that mexicans are right because of spanish

38:19

colonization koreans is not right even that would make sense when we consider how

38:25

korea is a neighbor of japan and or it makes sense as korea is a neighbor of

38:31

japan and again now we see armenians as being a part of life as afghanis not being a

38:38

part of of being white right and again coming from that caucasian region that doesn't make sense arabians

38:44

also from that coca-cola region right common knowledge legal president not white um

38:51

uh persons half white half japanese one-quarter chinese is not white uh person's three-quarter filipino

38:58

one-quarter white uh you know not white right all of this so

39:04

what this helps us really consider and even here right german so on and so forth in the last case that's really

39:11

arbitrating this one was very important um uh in terms of

39:17

citizenship is all of these cases are about who gets to

39:23

be white who gets not to be not white and who essentially gets to have citizenship and in the framework of race

39:30

in the us um and throughout most of the western world if you cannot be identified as

39:36

american or white for that matter and i would i would conflict the two in this argument um because of the implications

39:42

here when you were denied that citizenship um you're denied your humanity right you can't vote you have

39:48

no legal protections um there's no constitutional rights so on and so forth constitutional rights are reserved for

39:55

citizens right this is like a poli sci 101 if you're an undocumented immigrant and you are beaten by police there's no

40:01

uh fourth amendment you know fifth amendment rights to due process or uh protections from unusual punishment you

40:08

don't have um rights to an attorney so on and so forth right and there's been concerted effort by conservatives for

40:14

many many years um to even deny you know basic social rights like health care education

40:20

um social services so on and so forth so in this case right so one of the things

40:26

that we can suss out from this is that a whiteness is very unstable and that all

40:31

of these other groups are kind of um evolving and including more or less folks uh of non-whiteness right in their

40:39

in their um in their groupings and that inclusion in those um in those

40:45

uh non-white groups is opening them up to mistreatment right and that was clearly a vincent cat's

40:50

video when she mentions how many indians were denied uh their land or or had their land uh

40:58

taken from them because of the the indian land act right or the indian land laws

41:04

um so we want to be very clear that again race evolving unstable uh and constantly

41:12

changing depending on the historical and political context

41:17

so let's go back to our um slides here

41:33

so this gives rise to this idea of what's called racial formations theory right and this is what the whole um kind

41:40

of treatise of the article that you read for this session is about right so the theory of racial formations again is an

41:47

analytical tool developed by michael omian however or not which is used to look at race as a socially constructed

41:53

identity where where the content and the importance of the racial categories are determined by social political and

41:59

economic forces there are several things that we want to consider with regard to race right so it is a social construct

42:07

as i mentioned and as the information in the previous slide kind of shows us it is unstable right it involves to

42:14

include new groups over time right um both ways right into whiteness and out of whiteness right so we've seen irish

42:20

and italian and jewish immigrants be considered white we've seen asian mexican and other immigrant groups

42:27

considered to be not white right um again it's socially politically and economically defined and this is very

42:34

important because if you don't have those political rights right

42:40

you could be denied um or you could be opened up for mistreatment or be vulnerable to mystery

42:46

while imaginary it has material effects on people's lives and this next video

42:51

clip is really going to show this in the wake of how we think about whiteness and

42:57

um uh racism in the contemporary [Music]

43:05

because if you know the history of the whole concept of whiteness if you know the history of the whole concept of the

43:10

white race where it came from and for what reason you know that it was a trick

43:15

and it's worked brilliantly see prior to the mid to late 1600s and the colonies of what would become the

43:21

united states there was no such thing as the white race those of us of european descent did not refer to ourselves by that term

43:28

really ever before then in fact in the old countries of europe we had spent most of our time killing

43:34

each other we didn't love each other we weren't one big happy family side of my family that

43:39

comes from scotland hell they didn't even worry about fighting people outside of scotland highlanders and lowlanders just fought the hell out of

43:46

so there was no white race but in the colonies of what would become the united states

43:51

what did we see in the 1660s 1670s we began to see that africans of indentured

43:58

servant status many of them not enslaved yet they were not necessarily permanently enslaved

44:03

some were others were indentured like many poor europeans for periods of seven to 11 years they could work off their

44:09

indenture and then they would be free labor technically realized as did the white indentured servants the europeans

44:15

who hadn't even been called white yet that they had a lot of things in common like the fact that they were all getting their clock cleaned by the elite

44:22

and so they would get together more than our history books taught us to fame rebellion against the elite to

44:29

try to get a better deal for themselves on the basis of economic necessity and economic

44:34

justice and what did the elite do when you see that you're outnumbered by black and white folks who are

44:42

penniless landless peasants you have to do one of two things you either have to kill them all but you can't do that

44:47

because who's going to work rich folks weren't going to they had to get poor people to work

44:53

whole point was to be a person of leisure back in those days that was the goal was not to work so you couldn't

44:59

kill them all you didn't want to kill them all you have to do the work yourself not to build your own levy build your own house

45:05

no pick your own tobacco harvest your own cotton no we're not going to do any of that

45:10

so you can't kill them but you can co-opt them and so the elite in virginia for example in the colony begins to give

45:17

certain carrots to people of european descent saying things like you know

45:23

we're going to let you own a little land not much but just a little and we're going to get rid of indentured servitude now you're

45:28

free labor and by the way once you're free labor you get 50 acres of land just because you're free labor see so we're

45:34

going to cut you in on this deal we're going to let you enter into contracts we're going to let you testify in court and here's the best of all we're going

45:40

to put you on the slave patrol to keep those people in line right the idea was you're still gonna get your

45:47

clock clean we still don't like you we still aren't gonna really empower you or change your

45:52

economic subordination but we're gonna make you honorary members of this team and you're gonna help us keep those other people down

46:00

so they got a little taste of power and it did effectively divide and conquer those coalitions those rebellions began

46:05

to stop almost instantly fast forward to the civil war era you have rich white folks in the south where

46:11

i come from standing up and openly admitting that the reason they're prepared to secede from the union and the only reason they ever articulated

46:18

publicly ever was to maintain and extend slavery and white supremacy not only where it

46:23

already existed but into the newly acquired that is to say stolen territories from mexico to the west

46:30

that was what they said now we lie about it we say it wasn't about slavery but it was about states rights yes the

46:37

right of the states to keep and maintain slaves exactly but back then they had no shame so they

46:43

didn't try and cover it up they openly said it but once again the rich didn't want to go do the work are you kidding no they're going to get poor

46:49

people to go fight for them and the poor folks didn't even own slaves now think how do you get poor people who don't

46:55

even own the shirt on their back let alone slaves to go fight to keep your slaves for you

47:01

you've got to convince them that their skin is more important than their economic interests because think

47:07

about it if i am a farmer who has to charge you a dollar a day or two dollars

47:12

a week to work on your farm and harvest that tobacco or pick that cotton but you can get a black person to do it for free

47:19

because you own them who's going to get the job not me in other words slavery actually

47:26

undermines the wages and the wage base the economic floor of the typical white working class of low-income person

47:32

but they were told if these people are free they're gonna take your job no fool they got your job

47:38

that's the point and so at some level again working class white people being harmed by white

47:43

privilege relatively being advantage right being given a leg up being given a membership to the club but in absolute

47:50

terms being kept economically subordinated by the very thing that gave them a sense of superiority

47:55

how's that for irony then in the present era this hasn't stopped this is not ancient history

48:01

now we have people running around insisting that we should close the border with mexico because if we don't

48:06

the wages of working-class people will continue to fall the implication being that the only reason workers are paid

48:12

like crap in this country is because the border is open but if you believe that you would

48:18

actually have to believe that if that border were closed that all these owners of capital and industry would just say

48:23

oh well you figured us out here it's a raise do we really believe that the only thing

48:30

keeping bosses from paying people more is the presence of low wage medium semi-skilled labor from south of this

48:36

artificial border is that really what we believe we know that if that border is closed it isn't going to be closed to capital

48:43

it isn't going to be closed to goods if you have a border that can be crossed by capital looking for the highest

48:49

return on investment or goods looking for the highest price but labor is chained to its country of origin

48:56

how is that going to work to the benefit of working people by definition it doesn't by definition it emissarates the

49:03

working class divide and conquer but the best example of all perhaps in the contemporary era

49:09

in the greater new orleans area after katrina here you have two communities that were the most hard hit

49:14

lower ninth ward mostly black community 94 african-american

49:20

about 40 official poverty rate heavy working-class community

49:26

and right across the canal st bernard parish chalmette 95 white also working

49:32

class high levels of poverty economically very similar and at the end of the day

49:38

in those first few days of september 2005 more similar than they probably would have realized

49:44

because when those levees broke they all got their stuff jacked they all got their stuff destroyed but

49:50

if you had asked white folks in chalmette and i've done it who was the cause of the problems in the

49:55

greater new orleans area prior to that flooding they would have pointed across that canal that those black folks wouldn't have called them black folks

50:02

and would have said there that's the problem 70 percent of the white folks in saint bernard parish voted for david duke

50:07

white supremacist neo-nazi former head of the largest ku klux klan group in the united states when he ran for governor

50:13

in 1991. seven out of ten gladly voted for him because he was blaming black folks for all of their problems and they

50:19

bought it what's the irony the irony is that while they were blaming black people

50:24

for their problems while they were blaming black people for the conditions of the greater new orleans area in which they lived

50:31

nobody was paying attention least of all they to the fact that these white elite politicians either in baton rouge or in

50:38

washington whose job it was to secure those levies to make sure that levy funds were spent in the proper way and

50:44

that they were spent at all those mostly white and mostly elite politicians did nothing at the end of

50:49

the day it wasn't just the black folks in the lower ninth ward they didn't care about they really couldn't have given a rat's ass about those poor and

50:55

working-class white folks either and yet when the people of chalmette people of saint bernard parish got back

51:01

into session first time they had a city council meeting parish council meeting after the flooding the lights aren't

51:07

even on yet the water isn't even hooked up and the first order of business

51:13

was to pass an ordinance saying that you couldn't rent property in saint bernard parish to anyone who

51:19

wasn't a blood relative now i'll leave it to your imagination as to why you want to pass a law that law

51:24

had never existed before but now that it's been emptied out and you don't know who might come back that's a damn good way to keep black

51:29

people out in it because if you're 95 white to begin with if you pass an ordinance that says that that's a great you can't say no blacks

51:36

need apply you can't say no blacks allowed but that was an ingenious way to get around the law now they got caught

51:42

there was a lawsuit threatened and they got rid of the ordinance but my point in bringing it up is to say once again divide and conquer is working these

51:48

white folks in chalmette need to march across that canal and join hands with the black folks who've been sitting

51:54

there more than willing to work with them for an awful long time and march on baton rouge and march on dc and march on

52:00

the corps of engineers and recognize their commonality of interest but the whiteness and the lure of

52:05

whiteness has tricked these have nothing in their bank account white people into believing that they

52:11

got more in common with the rich white folks on st charles avenue that didn't lose anything in that flooding

52:17

and they have in common with the black working-class folks who live about 500 yards away

52:23

so the reason why i bring up tim wise's argument here is to again show a that

52:28

race was unstable right we'd seen in the past white and black folks working together

52:33

um you know specifically to kind of uh uh fight for better economic conditions um

52:40

and this creation of race and this creation of a white category um lured

52:46

individuals in to um supporting whiteness and we'll talk about this more um next week when we

52:52

cover the possessive investment of whiteness by george lipsens um and you know fracture these communities

52:59

right and then um this had ripple effects over time right where we had folks being anti-immigrant for example

53:05

and also you know being indirectly and directly racist in the wake of hurricane katrina right

53:11

and this is where i want to be very clear that it does have these material effects on people's lives right these systems of race and racism

53:19

um lead to the disenfranchisement of people of color and poor whites for that matter

53:24

and and one of the things i think his loss in a kind of apologist way in an

53:31

american exceptionalist way of trying to dance around racism

53:36

is rather than um openly confronting it we say it doesn't happen and now what we

53:43

are seeing is that poor whites are more and more being affected by the system

53:49

of racism because they're not like those elite whites right um we see this all the time in the criminal justice system

53:56

um meth and heroin um addiction rates and and um kind of

54:01

epidemics have led to many poor whites being incarcerated in the mass incarceration system although so

54:07

predominantly people of color right and so that has again led to these material

54:12

effects that are leading to these disparate outcomes so this gives rise to this idea of

54:18

racialization and this is where i want to be very clear that race again is fictive and imaginary but uh gets

54:25

created by social forces and then ascribe to certain people so the theory or the process of racialization is one

54:32

where social understandings are used to again classify individuals or groups of people within that black white colored

54:38

binary or continuum right can be good or bad the example i used earlier where you're visiting here is asians are good

54:44

at math and all immigrants are criminals right this is essentially this long process right again 16 19 14 92 right you know

54:53

roughly about 120 years worth of difference right but uh following mostly on those physical

55:00

markers and that could we can go back to cats um analogy with those various enlightenment thinkers and eugenesis who

55:06

are really thinking about race and colorism as a part of this human

55:11

difference right and so what this enabled essentially was this exploitation for capitalist gains uh

55:19

that be slavery whether that be other forms of uh uh forcing nature servitude

55:24

all that right and they were uh or i'm sorry uh folks were removed because they no longer

55:31

served a function uh in the capital society and that's also very keen and i think that's where

55:36

we are today with our system of mass incarceration and deportation right we're always

55:42

needing labor uh laborers right and mostly those laborers have been you know poor folks

55:48

or people of color and or poor people of color and as they become you know

55:54

less and less important due to globalization and because of automation we've had you know a variety of people

56:00

who are no longer able to work right and we're not providing them the educational opportunities college uh so on and so

56:08

forth to get those high skilled jobs what ends up happening right is we have to do something with them they become a

56:14

social problem therefore we incarcerate them right we create a variety of laws um that criminalize their behavior

56:20

vagrancy jaywalking drug usage so on and so forth that ensures that they're out you know they're out of

56:26

there right and and this is at the same time that you know we see ubiquitous um

56:32

drug usage um you know and other types of crime rates or criminal activity

56:37

across race and class groupings however the predominant group that is incarcerated right is always people of

56:43

color one thing that we have to understand with racialization is that all groups are racialized in relational

56:49

and oppositional ways right so whenever a group comes into a new

56:55

or two groups come into contact with with one another right so it's in this relationality they understand themselves

57:02

as human beings but obviously within opposition to one each other or one another right one is

57:08

uh you know brown and the other one is white the other one is brown the other one is black the other one is black the

57:13

other one is white right and they're they're seen or or racialized in a way that is made to make

57:19

them seem different but different in this very oppositional way

57:25

here we can see some examples of racialization of latinx communities and i wanted to show this kind of historically over time um here on the

57:32

left from the fullerton daily news we can see a mexican peon immigrant pmg comes from a medieval term of serfdom um

57:41

peons are usually considered to be kind of like backwards and dumb for that uh matter and you can see him kind of

57:47

carrying the sack of ignorance he's kind of traversing the border he looks very poor you know doesn't have any shoes

57:54

right and he's just kind of waltzing across the u.s here we can see a zoot suitor that's considered to be a draft

58:00

dodger um he's uh kind of deferring his his duty

58:06

to serve in world war ii and then lastly we see this um

58:12

kind of different or this um different kind of understanding of undocumented immigrants right so on the

58:18

left you know we need help wanted chief disposable labor this kind of undocumented farmworker right and then

58:25

at the same time ice is also looking for them um to deport them right and so

58:30

um they're always kind of seen as less than backwards right or not a part of this

58:37

american framework and um even though the the stereotype itself is

58:42

not necessarily the same the negative connotation still is there and uh current over time

58:50

and so this leads me to this understanding of race making right and so in the united states and throughout most of the western world we have done a

58:57

lot to continuously rake make and remake race and so i've provided this kind of

59:02

model here where i've broken it down into three categories so race usually starts with the or the origins of race

59:09

thinking comes from the social it comes from education and theology and if you remember right christian churches or

59:16

christian leaders and scientific leaders right both in the church and in academics or in education starting to

59:22

promulgate these ideas of human difference right media then pushes that out right they publish new

59:29

sources they cover this so on and so forth um you know expounding on these ideas from these academics who are

59:35

saying this is different this is then taken up by politicians that run campaigns or you know or take

59:42

it's taken up in the political field where politicians and campaigns push these ideas of human difference to

59:49

essentially then pass laws and policies and practices right and this is very key because if we can get to the legal phase

59:55

so if we go from the social political to the legal if this gets uh codified so

1:00:00

for example anti-immigrant laws um laws on drug use right whatever that looks like these social uh thinkers of the the

1:00:08

social creators of race then um are justified right because then they can say look my theories about

1:00:15

undocumented immigrants taken up by trump uh in an effort to pass these anti-immigrant laws are sound right and

1:00:23

then i am justified and rationalized in my thinking i'm going to show one last video clip to kind of uh

1:00:29

seal this off that really i think shows how we've seen this come together so in the 1990s

1:00:46

in the 1990s there was a big uh push for um

1:00:52

um anti-immigration laws and pete wilson the governor at the time before gray

1:00:57

davis in the height of our recall election um really tried to double down on this

1:01:03

idea of anti-immigration so look at the the language in here and i think we'll

1:01:08

really again advance with the points that i'm mentioning between media politician and law

1:01:16

they keep coming two million illegal immigrants in california the federal government won't stop them at the border

1:01:22

yet requires us to pay billions to take care of them governor pete wilson sent the national

1:01:28

guard to help the border patrol but that's not all for californians who work hard pay taxes and obey the laws i'm

1:01:35

suing to force the federal government to control the border and i'm working to deny state services to illegal

1:01:40

immigrants enough is enough governor pete wilson

1:01:47

yeah and so it's how most of us got here it's how this country was built

1:01:53

american citizenship is a treasure beyond measure but now the rules what we see in this

1:01:59

video example again is this idea of you know a number of immigrants quote-unquote crossing the border where

1:02:05

they get this information from coming from either a media or academic source um

1:02:10

it's being you know uh used by a politician right to run his campaign for reelection

1:02:16

um and he actually effectively utilized this to run his um or to win re-election uh for two terms

1:02:25

um in a way that you know again codified these types of law and then he ended up actually passing this prop 187 it was

1:02:31

defeated in by the supreme court um due to a lawsuit um but very they keep

1:02:36

coming sorry how we think about this nexus of race making and what i want to say is that

1:02:42

obviously he's mentioning undocumented immigrants here but who gets to be an immigrant who gets to be american if we go back to the

1:02:49

zawa thin case is very much uh uh front and center in this type of example where

1:02:56

again who is here who is not is all determined by those in power right in

1:03:02

this sense the politician so oh right so with that we've seen you know

1:03:07

what is race we've revisited that we've talked about the phases of race thinking christian theological biological

1:03:13

scientific and social science those racial prerequisite cases racial formation theory racialization and race

1:03:20

making and again our key terms for this lecture were racial formation theory and racialization and then that you will see

1:03:27

racialization come up in your first um reading reaction paper will actually

1:03:32

give me a definition of this along with race so with that i look forward to

1:03:37

our next conversation about um intersectionality and if you have any questions feel free to email