Mel Brookss Blazing Saddles (1974) ranks #6 in the top 100 comedies of the twentieth century, according to the American Film Institute, with Brookss Young Frankenstein ranked #13 and The Producers #11. Brooks is less interested in social commentary or satire than in laughs and yet Blazing Saddles does contribute to the awareness of racial discrimination. Spike Lees Bamboozled has one aim, not to amuse but to smash racial stereotypes that linger on in the collective unconscious in spite of all the progress made in civil rights and the rolling back of racial prejudice.
Blazing Saddles is a scattershot comedy that sets out to offend as many people as possible even as it makes us laugh at the clichés that have been drummed into our heads by countless Hollywood films and television situation comedies. It is anachronistic, referential and rude. The characters names are jokes in their own right, from Governor Le Petomane who is named after a French vaudeville performer to Lily von Shtüpp, the Teutonic Titwillow, based on Marlene Dietrich. If the film had to be put into one category it would be a satire on Hollywood but its secondary purpose is to debunk the racial prejudices that are so often mistaken for universal truths.
Stereotypes are Brookss special target, whether it is the Yiddish-speaking Indian chief, the colorful Wild West character Gabby Johnson, or Buddy Bizarre directing the dance sequence on the Hollywood set. Bart, the black railroad worker who is due to be hanged but is sent to Rock Ridge as its sheriff instead, rises above racial stereotypes with grace and style; that is, all but one stereotype, the exception being the one von Shtüpp discovers.
State Attorney General Hedy Lamar is evil and conniving, the Governor is sex-crazed and stupid, and the railroad gang boss, Taggart, is a racist redneck. Brookss characters are not evil, even those who routinely consign others to the gallows; rather they are blinded by greed, lust or ignorance, and theyre all funny in their own way. By throwing all these caricatures into the mix without singling out any one of them as being especially wicked, Brooks may well be advocating greater tolerance for diversity.
Ironically, while the script of Blazing Saddles is close to chaotic, the filming is very focused, even traditional. Bamboozled is the exact opposite. Lees shooting style is anarchic. The film jumps from one situation to another, characterization is second in importance to a snappy line and smoothly segued transitions happen only by accident. Some scenes drag on, others are too elliptical, and the plot is based on dubious premises. For all that, the satire, although extremely heavy-handed & is disturbing and thought-provoking (Turner), the message being that we may think we are free from racial stereotypes but when put in a situation where we are permitted to enjoy them, we effortlessly lapse back into the old way of thinking.
Racial prejudice in Bamboozled is both inter- and intra-racial. Pierre Delacroixs white boss, Mr. Dunwitty, is the ultimate racist who believes he is blacker than black people. Delacroixs female assistant, Sloan, seems to represent the films sane center but her brother Julian calls her a house nigger (Bamboozled). Julian is part of a rap group called Mau Mau which resents bourgeois blacks such as Sloan and Delacroix and which finally executes Mantan, who plays the part of the black-face minstrel with the educated feet (Bamboozled).
When the first New Millennium Minstrel Show airs the white audience is uncomfortable, reluctant to laugh or clap because people sense there is something deeply wrong about all those grinning darkies making jokes about watermelon and fried chicken; but as soon as the show is declared a hit they crowd into the theater, dress in the shows T-shirts and put on blackface make-up. The shows writers, all of them white and politically correct, soon join in with the racist merriment, Mr. Dunwitty included. Soon the whole country is going blackface, Lees point being that all we need is televisual permission in order for us to happily re-embrace the racism of these stereotypes (Turner).
Some think that Lees satire comes fifty years too late, that the civil rights movement and laws against hate speech have abolished crude racism of the kind lampooned in this film. However, Lee not only delves into the history of blackface performing itself, showing such talents as Hattie McDaniel and Bill Bojangles Robinson degrading themselves, and many trinkets and figurines depicting racist images of blacks but he also satirizes malt liquor and clothing advertisements targeting todays black community (Anderson). More to the point, Lee clearly believes that racism has not disappeared but is evident everywhere. As one critic asks,
Is Lee targeting TV shows such as The PJs and The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer? Is he castigating Eddie Murphy (Nutty Professor II: The Klumps), Martin Lawrence (Big Mommas House) and the Wayans brothers (Scary Movie), who all scored box-office hits this summer by pandering with minstrel-show humor? (Rogers)
When Pierre Delacroixs father says, Every nigger is an entertainer (Bamboozled) this is what he means; it is what white people want black people to be.
Both films take aim at racism but from very different vantage points. Mel Brooks has clearly made his peace with anti-Jewish prejudice and all the other preconceptions that plague the USs multicultural society, and has decided that it is best to ridicule racism to death. Lee is less philosophical, perhaps because his fight against racism is immediate and ongoing. Since there is no known antidote to racism, it is impossible to say which film is more effective; but for sheer enjoyment, Blazing Saddles is the better choice.
Works Cited
Anderson, Jeffrey M. Off-Color Television.Combustible Celluloid. 2000. Web.
Introduction: Blazing Saddles is rated as one of the funniest movies of the 20th century. Bamboozled is less funny but more focused on racism.
2nd paragraph: Blazing Saddles takes potshots at a wide range of targets, mostly to debunk stereotypes but also to get laughs.
3rd paragraph: The stereotypes are mostly produced by Hollywood but since none of them are especially evil, Brooks invites the viewer to laugh at them.
4th paragraph: Blazing Saddles script is chaotic but the film is tight. Bamboozled is the opposite. His greatest concern is to attack racism which, he believes, may be hidden these days but is only waiting for a chance to re-emerge.
5th paragraph: Prejudices divide blacks as well as blacks and whites. Lee especially targets politically correct whites who, as soon as television gives them permission, relapse into the racism of their parents generation.
6th paragraph: Is Lees satire too late? He examines the relics of the old racism together with the new, and the continued demand for black entertainers to make fools of themselves for the pleasure of a white audience
7th paragraph: Both films make a valuable contribution to the fight against racism, but Blazing Saddles is funnier.
The Pacific War had deteriorating impacts on civilians. Following the Japanese invasion in China, people were buried alive while fathers were forced to engage in sexual affairs with their daughters. Besides, boys were forced to engage in similar sexual practices with their mothers. Many people were beheaded. The committed acts of cannibalism targeted the prisoners of war. According to Iriye, Japanese soldiers also engaged in indiscriminate raping.1
Women were coerced to utilise the available Japanese military brothels. However, the brothels turned out to serve other purposes, as opposed to being commercial sex centres. They were places where women were forced into sex. Many of them died in the process. In line with Hotta’s views, the Pacific War emerged from Japanese quest to invade Indonesia and other regions that had large deposits of natural resources, including oil reserves, to avoid reliance on imported natural minerals, especially metals and oils, to run Japanese industries.2
The reliance has threatened the capacity of Japan to run its economy and/or sustainably feed its people due to high population growth. The attacks in China would culminate into World War II and the Japanese declaration to withdraw from the war after 140,000-240,000 Japanese civilians were left dead through two nuclear bombings. As the paper confirms, the Pacific War featured new and brutal connections between race, violence, and captivity. In the first section, this paper discusses this proposition in an attempt to relate the war with race and violence. The second section discusses the brutality faced by captives
Race and Violence during the Pacific War
During the Pacific War, the imperial Japanese army and its allies together with the US and its collaborators committed various atrocities that led to large-scale human sufferings. While no evidence is available on where the senior officers who led the armies commanded such atrocities that fuelled the war, it may be inaccurate to hold all the combatants responsible for the atrocities at random.
However, Matsumura asserts, “some early foreign coverage of atrocities, such as the mass killings and rapes that occurred in the Chinese capital of Nanjing in 1937–1938, described IJA officials as embarrassed and determined to conceal the significant fact of continued insubordination of Japanese troops”.3 This claim suggests the collective responsibility where such atrocities were committed with strong and unconditional allegiance to the army.
Nevertheless, irrespective of who was responsible for the violent activities such as nailing people on walls, beheading, rape, indiscriminate shootings, bombings, burring people alive, and using iron hooks to hung people by their toques, an emerging scholarly question is whether such atrocities selectively targeted people based on some preconceived biasness, for instance, race.
Some parts of the administration’s leadership and the Japanese armed forces regarded western authorities as being committed to ruining the nation. The western powers, including American allies and the Europeans, contributed significantly in controlling the Pacific Asian region. Therefore, Japan considered itself being surrounded by colonialists. To make the situation more severe, the US introduced some new set of immigration laws, which Japan largely considered discriminatory to the Asian race. To add insult to this situation, Duus reveals how English nations made a declaration that sought the ratification of the Anglo-Japanese alliance.4
Hence, although Japan did not engage in the 1937 Asia Pacific War that aimed at executing violent race-based attacks, perceptions of racial inferiority that the western power imposed on Japan and the ability to control the Asian Pacific region were key to getting into war. The goal was to prove to these nations that Japan had the capacity to control the region and/or obtain oil and other natural resources that were necessary to support its employment sector, including feeding its growing population.
As Twomey asserts, the unrelenting non-inclusion of Japan in taking a key role in the leadership of the Asian region and the limited accessibility of natural resources and oil continued to create circumstances that exorbitantly compelled Japanese planners to consider military confrontation with neighbouring nations, especially China and the Soviet Union.5 Indeed, even before the Pacific War broke following the invasion of China in 1937, Japan had shown incredible interest in controlling the Manchuria province of China because of its rich mineral resources.
Japan disguised its interest as economic development. This situation led to the establishment of Kwantang Army that had 80, 000 people. The implication here is that Japanese foreign policy towards China even before the war broke did not uphold racial discrimination, but pure economic interest. However, racial aspects in the pacific war emerged when Japan attacked the US’ Pearl Harbour in Hawaii.
Before the pacific war broke towards the end of 1941, the United States had not taken a decision to help China in fighting Japan. Nevertheless, according to Kit-ching, the nation had already put economic pressure as a way of expressing its displeasure with Japans’ attacks on China.6 The embargoes and trade sanctions became even more severe when the US convinced Holland and Britain to reduce resources that were expatriated to Japan in an effort to wage war.
After Japan moved to occupy Vietnam by cutting oil and other supplies to Japanese industries that were manufacturing war equipment and weapons, the US was sure that Japan would run short of supplies when its reserves were fully utilised and consider withdrawing from the war. Although Japanese people shared a similar sentiment, another way was devised to ensure that Japanese war machines would not run out of oil supplies.
The established option involved apprehending Malaysia. After being convinced about this possibility by the British Prime Minister (Churchill), President Roosevelt warned Japan that in case it continued to expand further into Southeast Asia, it would face the American military interventions. Therefore, until 1940, evidence was inadequate that the progress of Pacific War had racial stereotypical mindset.
Japan remained vigilant and stuck on Malaysian rich oil deposits. Its planners knew about the possibility of the US intervention. However, it decided to capture Malaysia with the view of using the acquired oil in supercharging war in China, thus concluding it. The next strategy was to deploy the acquired oil in Indonesia to collaborate with China to help it to develop the Chinese human resource potential fully. As Duus reveals, this plan would lead to the creation of a very strong co-prosperity sphere in East Asia that no nation could challenge.
Therefore, the US would only seek negotiations to help in concluding the war. However, for these strategies to work, Japan had to challenge the Pearl Harbour in Hawaii by attacking it. Although it successfully attacked it to the extent of causing significant losses to the US, Japan faced severe consequences due to its mistakes.
When Roosevelt first learnt about the attack, his immediate reaction was that German pilots were flying the planes that attacked the pacific fleet since the Japanese people could not possibly launch a successful attack on the US. In the attempt to magnify the psychological implications of the attack, the white American race-focused commentary emerged, as Whitfield reveals, suggesting, “Little yellow men with buck teeth and thick glasses who make toys and trinkets”7 did not have the capacity to successfully launch an attack on the US.
Pictures 1 and 2 from the Pacific War: Japan’s Revolt against the West depict the depiction of racial characteristics by the Japanese people in the white American mindset.8 Hence, the Pacific War took a different perspective that involved racial underestimation of the capacity of Japan. The US declared its resolution to engage in the Second World War with the view of showing the ‘yellow’ men that they were militarily insignificant to America. Indeed, America succeeded in this quest. Apart from launching successful aerial bombings on Japan to the extent of almost incapacitating its (Japan) military operations, the climax was marked by nuclear bomb attacks in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan had no alternative, other than declaring defeat and seeking withdrawal from the war.
Picture 1: Depiction of Japanese Racial Characteristics.Picture 2: Depiction of Japanese Racial Characteristics.
Captivity
Captivity in the Pacific War may be studied in a bi-dimensional manner. The first approach involves the prisoners of war. The second dimension encompasses all other forms of captivity such as comfort women or Japanese army brothels. The brothels had people from different nations, including Korea. The discussion of captivity in the Pacific War also warrants the consideration of the prospects of captivity.
For example, confinement was something that characterised the nature of fighting and treatment of enemies by the Japanese, Americans, and their allies. However, each of the participants in the Pacific War applied this principle in different ways. For example, while Americans respected the Geneva and Hague conventions on prisoners of war and civilians where possible, this strategy did not apply in the case of the Japanese armies.
The Pacific War led to the emergence of a large violence against its target adversaries. The violence translated into captivity. A key indicator of captivity effects of the Pacific War that remains fresh in the memories of China was raping of Nanking. This experience was not just a sexual captivity. Rather, it was the Chinese version of holocaust orchestrated by the Japanese armies. Kingston supports this assertion by adding, “Nanking should be remembered not only for the number of people slaughtered but for the cruel manner in which many met their deaths”.9 Chinese men became tools that were used during bayonet practices. They were also utilised in decapitation contests.
Jungmin approximates that 20,000 to about 80,000 Chinese women were raped.10 Yoshida also informs that men were not only castrated but also had their organs curved out while people were roasted.11 On the worst scale, Stevens confirms how diabolical tortures were executed, including “hanging people by their tongues on iron hooks or burying people to their waists and watching them get torn apart by German shepherds”.12
This insight of experiences at Nanking illustrates that the Pacific War did not just involve military confrontation in the battlefield but also led to immeasurable violence that targeted innocent civilians. Human rights that were anchored on the League of Nations pacts were broken. However, the breaking of these laws was anticipated. Japan had already withdrawn from the pacts when China raised questions over the legitimacy of Japan in occupying the Chinese territories.
The Japanese emperor was unwilling to prevent his people from engaging in armed conflict. Japan simply declined the demands of the anglicised systems of rules, for instance, those of the US, especially when the issue in question was a concern to Asia. Japan believed that Asia was to be under its leadership and that no compromise was acceptable even if violence was the justifiable way of demonstrating its pride and right of rule. Indeed, the consequence of the attempts to secure China under its emperor system of rules was the emergence of violence that even amazed Nazis in the city. Roger supports this assertion by claiming that the Nazis in the metropolitan were shocked by the levels of violence channelled towards the Chinese that they claimed the mass execution was achieved by ruthless technologies. 13
The Japanese war codes did not consider surrendering an important factor in putting violence towards an enemy to a halt. Captives were treated accordingly. Japan did not adhere to the Geneva and/or Hague principles, which had established rules on defending battle hostages and civilians during combat. Allen recounts how captives in Kanchanburi were thoroughly beaten to the level that some suffered broken jaws, ribs, and arms while others died.14
This beating was done in a prejudicial manner since no trial was done. However, even in cases that involved other nations such as Britain and the US, prisoners of war were a normal form of captivity during the Pacific War. Upon the declaration of war in the Pacific region by Japan, the initial victory was devastating.
For example, when Singapore fell, the British rule that was operational in Asia also fell. To this extent, Nathan and Economy assert, “fighting in New Britain, Bougainville, Borneo, and the New Guinea mainland saw Australia alone lose 22,000 men to prisoners of war camps–8,000 of which were to die in captivity.”15 Indeed, Noble and Sobocinska maintain that throughout the time in which the Japanese armies occupied the newly conquered regions, many incarcerated troops had to experience years of hardship coupled with physical torture in captivity.16,17
Conclusion
All wars have brutality as their common characteristic. However, the level of brutality in the Asian Pacific War was extremely high since many non-combatant people died in captivity. Hostilities coupled with racist attitudes fuelled the war. The paper has argued that the invasion of Chinese and other Asian Pacific nations such as Malaysia had economic motives, rather than racial attitudes. Nonetheless, racial attitudes were common where America and its allies such as Britain intervened and/or where the US was an active participant in the Asia Pacific War.
For example, the arrogant white Americans presented Japanese adversaries as ‘yellow’ pigmented having buck-toothed Orientals. On the other hand, Japanese warriors regarded colonial Europeans as supernatural demons who their emperor had commanded holy war upon them. After several months of groundwork to participate in an foreseeable battle on China, Japanese armies engaged in confrontation with immense cruelty as manifested in the manner in which they handled captives of war and non-combatant ordinary citizens. The soldiers had been ordered not to surrender since such a move would dishonour the armies coupled with their parents.
Bibliography
Allen, M., ‘Ghostly remains and converging memories: Yushukan and the Australian war memorial exhibit the pacific war’, Asian Studies Review, vol. 39 no. 3 (2015), pp. 430-446.
Duus, P., ‘Imperialism without colonies: The vision of a greater East Asia co-prosperity sphere’, Diplomacy & Statecraft, vol.7 no. 1 (1996), pp. 54-72.
Jungmin, S., ‘Politics of memory in Korea and China: remembering the comfort women and the Nanjing massacre’, New Political Science, vol. 30 no. 3 (2008), pp. 369-392.
Hotta, E., Pan-Asianmism in the Co-Prosperity Sphere’, Pan-Asianism and Japan’s War 1931-1945, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
Iriye, A., Japan and the Wider World, Abingdon, Routledge, 1997.
Kingston, J., ‘Awkward talisman: War memory, reconciliation and Yasukuni’, East Asia, vol. 24 no. 5 (2007), pp. 295–318.
Kit-ching, C., ‘Symbolism and Diplomacy: the United States and Britain’s China policy during the first year of the pacific war’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, vol. 16 no.1 (2005), pp. 73-92.
Matsumura, J., ‘Combating indiscipline In the Imperil Army: Hayo Torao and Psychiatric studies of the crimes of soldiers’, War in history, vol.23 no.1 (2016), pp. 79-99.
Nathan, A & Economy, E., ‘Asia Pacific’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 93 no.1 (2014), pp. 205-207.
Noble, R., ‘The Australian prisoner of war experience and national identity’, Australian Defence Force Journal, vol.165 no.4 (2005), pp. 23–33.
Pacific War: Japan’s Revolt against the West, Chadwyck-Healey, Cambridge, UK, 2008.
Roger, J., ‘Victims or victimisers? Museums, textbooks, and the war debate in contemporary Japan’, The Journal of Military History, vol. 69 no. 2 (2005), pp. 149–154.
Sobocinska, A., ‘The language of scars: Australian prisoners of war and the colonial order’, History Australia, vol. 7 no.10 (2010), pp. 3–19.
Stevens, K., ‘A Token Operation: 204 Military Mission to China, 1941–1945’, Asian Affairs, vol. 36 no.1 (2005), pp. 66-74.
Twomey, C., ‘Emaciation or emasculation: Photographic images, white masculinity and captivity by the Japanese in World War Two’, Journal of Men’s Studies, vol.15 no.2 (2007), pp. 295–311.
Whitfield, S., ‘The theme of indivisibility in the post war struggle against prejudice in the United States’, Patterns of Prejudice, vol. 48 no.3 (2014), pp. 223-247.
Yoshida, T., ‘Whom should we remember? Japanese museums of war and peace’, The Journal of Museum Education, vol.29 no.2/3 (2004), pp. 16–20.
Footnotes
A. Iriye, Japan and the Wider World, Abingdon, Routledge, 1997. p. 73.
E. Hotta, Pan-Asianmism in the Co-Prosperity Sphere’, Pan-Asianism and Japan’s War 1931-1945, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007, p. 199.
J. Matsumura, ‘Combating indiscipline In the Imperil Army: Hayo Torao and Psychiatric studies of the crimes of soldiers’, War in history, vol.23 no.1(2016), p. 80.
P. Duus, ‘Imperialism without colonies: The vision of a greater East Asia co-prosperity sphere’, Diplomacy & Statecraft, vol.7 no. 1(1996), p. 54.
C. Twomey, ‘Emaciation or emasculation: Photographic images, white masculinity and captivity by the Japanese in World War Two’, Journal of Men’s Studies, vol.15 no.2 (2007), p. 297.
C. Kit-ching, ‘Symbolism and Diplomacy: the United States and Britain’s China policy during the first year of the pacific war’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, vol. 16 no.1 (2005), p. 77.
S. Whitfield, ‘The theme of indivisibility in the post war struggle against prejudice in the United States’, Patterns of Prejudice, vol. 48 no.3 (2014), p. 223.
Pacific War: Japan’s Revolt against the West, Chadwyck-Healey, Cambridge, UK, 2008, p. 5.
J. Kingston, ‘Awkward talisman: War memory, reconciliation and Yasukuni’, East Asia, vol. 24 no. 5(2007), p. 298.
S. Jungmin, ‘Politics of memory in Korea and China: remembering the comfort women and the Nanjing massacre’, New Political Science, vol. 30 no. 3 (2008), p. 369.
T. Yoshida, ‘Whom should we remember? Japanese museums of war and peace’, The Journal of Museum Education, vol.29 no.2/3 (2004), p. 17.
A. Stevens, ‘A Token Operation: 204 Military Mission to China, 1941–1945’, Asian Affairs, vol. 36 no.1(2005), p. 67.
J. Roger, ‘Victims or victimisers? Museums, textbooks, and the war debate in contemporary Japan’, The Journal of Military History, vol. 69 no. 2 (2005), p. 152.
M. Allen, ‘Ghostly remains and converging memories: Yushukan and the Australian war memorial exhibit the pacific war’, Asian Studies Review, vol. 39 no. 3 (2015), p. 435.
A. Nathan & E. Economy, ‘Asia Pacific’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 93 no.1(2014), p. 206.
A. Sobocinska, ‘The language of scars: Australian prisoners of war and the colonial order’, History Australia, vol. 7 no.10 (2010), p. 4.
R. Noble, ‘The Australian prisoner of war experience and national identity’, Australian Defence Force Journal, vol.165 no.4 (2005), p. 27.
Reformatting a disk is a form of high-level formatting which is normally carried out on a functioning hard drive. The major reason as to why the formatting is done is in order to free the contents of the disk so that it can be used for other data. Each operating system has its own reformatting methods. The reason for this difference is that whatever is done to existing data in one OS is different from the data in other operating systems. Once a disk has been reformatted, the implication is that all the other programs have to be installed again.
In order to carry out the formatting process properly, one will have to take notes on some of the common terms that one is most likely to come across. It is essential that the instructions should be clear even to the people who do not specialize in information technology and software. Hence, the following issues need further clarification:
Operating system (OS): the key program that allows for using a computer.
Hard disk drive: a magnetic disk for data storage.
Soft disk drive (floppy disk): a disk for data storage that is not attached to the computer.
Formatting: preparing the disk for reading and writing.
Storage medium: the tool that allows accumulating data and keeping it.
Sector: the smallest unit of a hard disk drive.
Address: the information that indicates the location of data.
Windows product key: the set of symbols that allows for activating the Windows OS.
F8: the keyboard key that starts the safe mode in Windows 7/8.
Safe mode: the option for booting the Windows OS that is enabled in order to carry out troubleshooting and boots the system in a limited state.
F10: the keyboard key that allows viewing the boot menu.
Driver: the software that is used for allowing the OS to coexist and cooperate with different types of software installed on the computer.
Backup: the process of copying and securing computer data for its further restoration in case of formatting or a system crash.
Clonezilla: a disk cloning program.
Disk cloning: copying the disk data onto a soft disk drive for further data restoration.
Virus: a malicious program that destroys information, encrypts it, transfers the user’s data to the third party, etc.
There are a number of reasons why a disk can be reformatted. Among them includes; security compromise of a computer, malfunctioning due to a virus, when the disk is too full, and when the computer becomes too slow. Reformatting can also be done when one wants to add more partitions on the disk (Liu 309).
Determine the restoration method the manufacturer has provided
Traditionally, the manufacturers of computers provide a restoration disk that goes with the machine. Once the restoration disk has been provided, it means that one does not require restoring a partition. However, in the event that the restoration disk is not provided, one may need to restore a partition. The principles of restoring a partition will be provided in the corresponding section of the paper.
Locate the Windows Key
Most laptops today are sold with a Windows product key. There are laptops that are usually purchased with Windows OS pre-installed. In the event that the laptop was purchased together with the installation disk, the Windows key will normally accompany the disk (Liu 310). The key will normally be found on a sticker that is fixed at the bottom of the computer. When installing the Windows OS one should use the provided key in order to make the OS genuine.
Warning: it is essential to make sure that all the software downloaded on the PC is licensed. Otherwise, it may conflict with the licensed Windows software.
Assess the installation ability
Before commencing the reformatting of a disk, one needs to ensure that they have the ability to install Windows. Ensure that the Windows installation disk is there and that it is in good condition. In case the laptop did not have a physical disk at the time of purchase, it has its system file normally hidden on one of the hard drive partitions. To confirm that such a hard drive is functioning, one presses the keys F8 or F10 during start-up. It is also important to note that the system files can be burnt into a DVD with the help of a utility that allows the burning of files.
Check all other software
Before starting the re-formatting process, make sure that you have all the other software for re-installing the programs. Ensure that the driver discs are available as well as the hardware device drivers (Andrews 829). In the event that the software was downloaded from the internet but not deleted from the computer, find the files and then save them on a removable disk so that they can be used to install the programs.
Back up the important data
Reformatting a disk means that all the data will be lost. It is therefore important to save some of the data that may still be useful on a different disk as a backup. The computer hard drive can be cloned into an external hard drive using programs such as Clonezilla and DriveImage XML among others. Supposing the hard drive is not very big such that it is not capable of holding all the data in the computer, some of the data can be backed up manually (Andrews 829).
Warning: the backup process may take a long time depending on the number of contents on the hard drive. It is essential not to interrupt the process.
Warning: Backups are retained in the PC memory for seven days. In a week, the data will be erased permanently unless it is restored in a timely manner.
Insert the OS into the CD/DVD Drive
The operating system disk will autorun. Once the options page opens, select the option for installing a new copy of the operating system. Alternatively, insert the disk and then restart the machine. Then restart the computer and hit either the F8 or F10 key immediately (Andrews 829). Some options will be displayed on the screen that should be followed for the rest of the steps. In case the operating system is being used, press either the F8 or the F 10 and choose to boot it from the CD/DVD drive.
Warning: carrying out this step will lead to permanent deletion of all the data stored on the hard drive.
Watch the CD proceed to the other steps automatically
Once the boot from the CD/DVD drive has been chosen, the operating system disk will move to each of the next steps automatically. As it pauses, give your input.
Warning: do not interrupt the following installation.
Once the installation is complete, restore the backed up files at this point. Alternatively, the files can be restored once all the other programs have been installed.
Update drivers and utilities (if necessary)
Some Operation Systems already have drivers with them however, some do not have and in that case, one will have to install drivers and utilities. When installing drivers, make sure to start with the chipset drivers first. The selection of chipsets may be manual at times. The chipset driver is differentiated from other drivers such as the video and/or sound driver. The installation of drivers may vary in terms of complications (Andrews 829). For instance, some drivers have simple options, which can be understood and followed by even people, who do not have much computer knowledge without any confusion. Among the drivers that one may require to install include; sound drivers, video drivers, and internet drivers deserve to be mentioned.
Restart the computer
The computer will give a prompt to restart. Restart it at that instant. This will allow the proper installation and functioning of the installed programs. It may give an option for the later restart as well. In the latter case, the computer can be restarted later.
Install other programs
Install the programs one at a time (Sandler 640). Each program may have different steps that need to be followed during installation. Follow the steps displayed by the program disks. Once all the programs have been installed, the reformatting of the computer can be considered complete and successful.
The overall process of disk formatting (with the exception of the time that it will take to install the additional programs) is around an hour. The time, however, depends on the amount of data on the hard drive.
Reformatting a computer using a Restoration Partition
This is much easier compared to reformatting using the operating system disk. The restoration disk is usually provided with the computer during purchase. Not all computers come with the restoration disk. Follow these steps to perform the partition:
Restart the PC
Once the machine has been restarted, during rebooting press the shortcut key F 10 repeatedly. This is done until the computer boots. After booting, it will lead to a partition that will offer options for repairing the operating system or restoring the same. Since the focus is on reformatting the machine, choose the option of installing the system from scratch.
Chose the option of installing a new operating system
Once this option has been selected, take some rest and let partition do the rest of the job. It will run the program without any intervention, format the hard drive, reload the operating system, and install all the software that came with the computer together with all the drivers.
Warning: the specified design of a hard disk drive formatting will require that the programs, which were installed on the computer prior to the partition process, should be reinstalled in accordance with the corresponding rules in the same way as the alternative formatting described above involves. Partition also takes a lot of time (from one to several hours).
Conclusion
Reformatting a disk is important as it improves the performance speed of a computer. It also removes any virus that may have got into the machine. Reformatting has been made much easier in recent years as manufacturers nowadays include a restoration disk that is used to reformat the machine. In the event that the reformatting disk is not provided, one uses an operating system disk to reformat the computer.
Works Cited
Andrews, Jean. A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining Your Pc. Boston, Mass: Course Technology/Cengage Learning, 2010. Print.
Liu, Ashok. Computercare’s Laptop Repair Workbook: The 300 Cases of Classic Notebook Computers Troubleshooting and Repair. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2012. Print.
Sandler, Corey. Laptops All-in-One Desk Reference for Dummies. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2008. Web.
The American dogma proposes that all its citizens are entitled to equivalent opportunities notwithstanding racial pressures (Patterson & Susser, 2001). There are several citizens without any cultural issues or influences mainly due to the presence of a populace which is primarily not based on ethnic connections.
There are several regions where human exchanges may be racialized mainly due to the occurrence of a diverse population which may entail black Americans, Latinos, or West Indians. In my community, mainly comprised of African Americans and West Indians, unfairness and stereotypes affect all features of our social associations including political standings and other opportunities in the locality, groups, academic and job centers, and community environments.
My Community
Similarities and Differences in Community
I am an African American residing in St. Albans where the community is mainly working class and the populace is generally encompasses African Americans and West Indians. My region is encompassed by a suburban community which is in an averagely middle-class society (Perna & Henderson, 2010).
Members of my community look like me, as the neighborhood is greatly encompasses middle-class African Americans. There is amplification in the development of houses in the region, hence escalating the strains of residing in high-density localities. The populace is more clustered, hence greater diffusion of cultures. African Americans have some characteristic features pertaining to, for example, coping with difficult situations and the relationships with the general family structure and extended relations.
West Indians on the other hand have their own diversified culture owing to the several nationalities it encompasses (Patterson & Susser, 2001). They speak English, but in different vernaculars which initially was pidgin. They regularly use these dialects whenever they are with their tribesmen, but try to cope with the normal pronunciations when interacting with other cultures.
The region experiences assortment in cultures particularly due to the high migration flow and its candidness to visitors. In the broader New York, there is no ascendancy by any particular ethnicity or race (Patterson & Susser, 2001). There are diverse individuals representing dissimilar nationalities worldwide. Business and societal exchanges are conducted freely by people from, unlike countries of origin.
Leaders in Community
Leaders in my area, Mr. Meeks and Scharsbough are African Americans, and so are several other officials with central positions. African Americans are the most occupied minority group in the U.S. political arena judged by their high registration turnout and input in elections. Through the dominance of blacks on my community, most of the leaders are African Americans (Perna & Henderson, 2010).
However, there is no discrepancy in treatment for any of the other cultures, as the leaders seek to uphold accord in the community (Patterson & Susser, 2001). Therefore both African Americans and West Indians obtain equal treatment and access the same academic and social facilities.
Government departments serve the general population as the verbal communication is widespread across the population. There are no offices intended for West Indians, neither are there those for only the African American population. For the average citizen, services are afforded evenly. For a smaller populace who are not very flowing in English, there are interpreters offered in agencies such as the judicial system.
In access to governmental services, West Indians and African Americans are accorded with same chances without any substantiation of impartiality (Patterson & Susser, 2001). There are diverse leaders from both races and hence community members are allowed to favor who they prefer in case they are not contented with the headship offered by other cultures. For example, in sectors like the army, there are both races, proving that people who may be deemed as singular fewer in the society may also access such headship positions.
Attitude Towards People
My neighborhood is typically settled down and everybody is engrossed in self-development and the accretion of property. There is a general cohesion in the society, with the diffusion of cultures occurring (Jefferson Matte). The West Indians, however, feel like their dialects is fading because of such pressures, chiefly now that the way of life of African Americans is more evidenced in diverse institutions and governmental centers.
In schools and other learning institutions, there is not much disparity in education as English is a predominant language. Most of the West Indians speak English as a native language despite the language influences. Hence there is a better amalgamation of all the members of the society, providing no room for unbiased treatment.
Activists and academicians also uphold gender impartiality and social integration (Patterson & Susser, 2001), ensuring that people from diverse localities are treated equally. Racial integration is progressed in the community to guarantee the races cooperate freely and diffuse positive cultural influences. There is a general improvement of welfare conditions, typified with the expansion projects provided to ensure accessibility of proper structures for shelter.
Educational Manuals and Structures
Educational methodologies and structures have an impact on access to edification opportunities and performance in academic levels (Perna & Henderson, 2010). Many texts and work manuals hold information about African Americans, most of which afford an opportunity to be better prepared to gratify the needs of the community’s racially and ethnically diverse learners.
There are several publications in the locality, some of which target the West Indian community; but they are in English as they can understand it despite their variances in dialects. The literatures offer proper coverage of the neighborhood, citing the happenings of different members in the society (Patterson & Susser, 2001).
The courses offered in my locality are naturally interdisciplinary and seek to sanction the general populace to comprehend how their cultures play a role in manipulating attitudes and behaviors while appreciating differences in principles and perceptions in the societal interactions. The literature also gives the overall community the aptitude to constructively deal with communal problems arising from cultural diversities in the society and the administrative centers.
Local Media
The local media represents us in diverse ways both in print and television. Unlike the past where media materials evidenced notions of lowliness in principles where African Americans were typified as being crude in language and more physically aggressive. Intelligent individuals were commonly referred to as white people (Jefferson Matte).
The media, however, does not symbolize most of the ills affecting the African American society (Patterson & Susser, 2001). Concerns affecting the community and other social evils are not prioritized in news coverage, probably because they are seen as common and customary among the black society. Rape and lethal gang violence cases in the streets may go unreported or covered.
There is a tendency of the community members to watch particular programs specially related to the African American culture, for example, Black American Television (Perna & Henderson, 2010).
Channels which underscore the cultures of the black population are preferred as such cases may be reported and more alertness is created on the matters pertaining to our community. News on the happenings in the home areas of the community members is given in various publications, thus offering the citizens with notifications on current trends back home.
Leadership Positions and Minority Group Interests
Several headship positions in my community are held by African Americans, where I am integrated. Thus there are not many resemblances and differences arising from race. However, ideological differences exist based on government and how the West Indians receive opportunities for development.
Minority group interests are represented within the community, exemplified by the presence of both African American and West Indian leaders. Most of the people in headship positions are African Americans and hence there are not many physical dissimilarities (Patterson & Susser, 2001). There are various interest groups who ensure that all the groups are well represented and offered with alike opportunities.
Inequities
With a larger black population, there are not many cultural imbalances within my community. However, there are some which must be resolved in order to create a more self-motivated environment where citizens can work for their common good. A society with different ethnic affiliations will typically present some inequalities in the access of basic resources, education, employment, assets, health, and accommodation. This generally presents a society of social peacefulness
There are several new constructions and redevelopments of homes in various locations, most of which are unlawful, thus damaging infrastructure. This has eventually affected the superiority of life in the overall community, ranging from educational facilities and other amenities (Perna & Henderson, 2010).
Leaders in my community seek to promote a multicultural society in which lenience and integration is promoted. Both the two races in my community receive racial isolation in the wider community, especially by the White, because the two both arise from a tradition of slavery.
Race
There are several concepts pertaining to race from the text. My community is developing into a society where the residents have the potential to obtain a fiscal and social status through determination, without any bases on ethnicity and racial prejudices.
Race may be analyzed based on the social and cultural interface of individuals, rather than their heritable influences. Absorption of the minorities into the African American culture thus does not depend on the heritable factors characterized by race, but rather the social interactions and the availability of equal prospects to accumulate assets. Groups can adopt characteristics of other cultures which may be perceived as superior in the region, typified by ways of dressing and communication styles.
Conclusion
The restrictions that racial influences present influence both the individual facing the typecast and discrimination and the general society they inhabit. In America, both African Americans and West Indians face racial amalgamation in spite of their divergence in cultures and occasionally their viewpoints (Patterson & Susser, 2001).
There is a better progression in the interaction of societal members from all the races typified by the greater incorporation by leaders and other interest groups.
Leaders in the community guarantee equivalent treatment for all races and provide opportunities for job formation for the community members. The various publications also offer imminence on the diverse cultures and happenings in the society, thus promoting assimilation as community members from different races can learn and comprehend the cultures of either society.
There are not many instances of inequity in the region mainly due to the assimilation of both cultures and the provision of apt leadership skills that also represent minority interests. There are several concepts in the text which refer to race and can be aptly applied in my project.
References
Perna, M. & Henderson, V. (2010). The West Indian community in New York. New York University. Web. Web.
Jefferson Matte. (2010). Cultural diversity. Interviewed on September 17th, 2010.
Patterson, C. & Susser, I. (2001). Cultural diversity in the United States: a critical reader. New York: Wiley-Blackwell.
North Little Rock is ranked number six in the population density among all the cities in Arkansas. This city was founded as Argenta in 1866, but it was incorporated in 1901 under the name North Little Rock. The population of this city in the 2000 census was approximately 60,500 people inclusive of about 25,000 households and 16,000 families. This community is made up of people from different cultural backgrounds though the whites’ population is the majority at around 63%, followed by the blacks at around 34%.
The other ethnic communities in this city include Native Americans at around 0.4%, 0.6% being Asians and 0.03% being the pacific Islanders. 1.18% of this community is made up of the other races which include minority races such as the Hispanic and Latino (Pitts, 2002). The government of this city is headed by a mayor together with eight other aldermen serving to a maximum of four years period.
In many discussions on racism, the most famous races are usually the whites and blacks. The main difference between these two races is their skin color though their cultures also differ a great deal. Blacks for example are known to be rowdy though this is more of a stereotype than a fact. Other elements that bring about differences between whites and blacks are their entertainment industries.
Music done and listened to by blacks is generally hip-hop which contrasts with the soft classical music preferred by the whites. Their preference in terms of movies also differs a lot with the whites preferring the romantic movies while the blacks are mostly inclined to thrillers and action movies. The existence of these two ethnic communities in the same region has always been a problem especially where the whites are dominant.
They are known to discriminate against the blacks asserting that they are criminals and they typically work towards eliminating them in their neighborhoods. This has however never worked particularly after bills against blacks’ discrimination were passed in parliament, and this tendency was now being treated an offense against the law chargeable in court.
Just like in any other region in America in the 1950’s the Arkansas state, was thoroughly dominated by cases of racial discrimination against the black community.
They were being referred to as the colored people who were never allowed access to most of the social amenities including the learning institutions. A movement was formed dubbed National Association for the Advancement of Colored people and the main aim of this movement was to attempt to terminate the discrimination especially in the learning institutions (Egelman, 2002).
It was believed that the black people would always remain servants if they were never given the opportunity to obtain higher education and become professionals. The court however, came up with a conclusion that there was nothing wrong with there being independent schools as long as they were equal. This movement however, did not agree with the ruling stating that blacks, and whites schools had never been equal, and they would never be.
The information provided by the movement to the court was proof enough that these schools were not equal and therefore, the previous judgment was overruled, and the separate schools policy was declared unconstitutional. The state of Arkansas was one of the states that refused to abide by the new rulings of abolishing the independent schools policy.
A good example of this is that of a student who had been admitted to a previously white’s only school and ended up facing unbearable humiliation on the first day. She had enrolled at the Little Rock Central High School, and when she went on the reporting date, she happened to be the only black on site. On her arrival, the people who were at the entrance moved away as she approached and they began shouting insults at her.
There were guards on site whom she thought would protect her in case the crowd turned violent but she was wrong about that. She was forced to leave the school neighborhood for her safety as she realized the extent of racial discrimination in this community was way beyond what she had thought. This is just an example of the severity of racial discrimination in North Little Rock city.
The municipality leaders made up of the mayor and the aldermen are also highly affected by racial discrimination issues. A good example of this is whereby the governor once hired guards to prevent blacks from accessing a school’s premises. The fact that there are different joints in town for whites and the colored is enough indication that the leaders are in the front line in promoting racial discrimination.
There are shops for whites and for blacks and as expected those for the whites have an advantage over the blacks. When it comes to the payment of government dues such as taxes, complains have been raised that blacks are charged more than the whites especially in investments (Pitts, 2002).
When it comes to the elections, the whites stand a better chance of winning owing to their great numbers and so the black contestants have never gotten the chance to acquire positions in the government. This explains why the battles against black discrimination are always lost.
The whites however are usually treated in a different way. They are given all the privileges denied to the blacks including well- kept facilities and more investment opportunities. They freely attend the best schools in the city and as a result end up taking up the best professional jobs. This is owed to the fact that the leaders of the city are largely whites. The joints allowed for the whites in the city are more in number compared to those allowed to the blacks.
These facilities are also well kept and stocked in a way that the whites are able to access whatever services and products at their own convenience. Their stores for example are located in the largest malls in the city while those for the blacks are located in the outskirts of the city. The products are also sold at lower prices in the most of the white’s stores and this discrimination issue is blamed on the local government because they are never take any action against this despite the fact that they are in a position to do so.
The texts used in the study of race and ethnicity mostly address the blacks’ discrimination owing to the fact that this has been the most recognized category of people who have suffered this ordeal. An example of such texts is the Racial and ethnic groups by Richard T. Schaefer. This book presents the different races in the city of North Little Rock which includes the whites as the dominating population followed closely by the African Americans.
Others include Native Americans, Asians, Hispanics, and other races in the world. The text however concentrates more on the blacks/whites relationships in relation to racial discrimination (Schaefer, 2006). It brings out the challenges brought about by racial discrimination in the local government, the service groups, and clubs as well as in schools. According to the text, this problem has been persistent for a long time and this has resulted in an almost permanent hatred between the whites and the blacks communities.
Most of the texts and manuals that are published however contain little information on the blacks and the challenges they face as a result of racial discrimination. This is mainly due to the fact that such information always raises eye brows especially in the international community.
To prevent this therefore, the local government of North Little Rock city prevents much publication of the levels of discrimination in the city. Some black writers have however tried to publicize this whole issue and one of such successful attempts was by Daisy Bates who was at that time the president of NAACP in Arkansas. She wrote a book titled The Long Shadow of Little Rock and this was aimed at bringing up the issue of how the blacks suffered under the segregation policies.
This book showed how the students were treated in the schools and the leader’s utterances concerning this problem. One of the local government leaders was heard saying “blood will run in the streets if Negro pupils continue with their attempts to enter central high school” (Schaefer, 2006). The leaders attempted to stop the publication of such books but since they are constitutionally permitted, they writer was protected by the constitution.
The local media in the North Little Rock city have also been affected by racial issues a great deal. The media is biased in producing its reports in the sense that the black community is only mentioned in relation to crimes and other bad things in the city such as drug trafficking and other forms of hooliganism.
The whites on the other hand are mostly displayed as being the victims of crimes committed by the blacks. This therefore brings about the idea that blacks are the bad people in the society and they fall victims to police harassment. Young people walking on the streets in the evening are most likely to be arrested if they are blacks with the assumption that they are about to commit some sort of crimes.
This is owe to the portrait had been painted by media concerning the black youths. As a result of this harassment, these people automatically turn into criminals alleging that they had better be harassed for what they have done rather than suffer innocently. At the end of the day, they believe they have nothing much to lose compared to what they have already been stripped of, that is their dignity.
In most parts of the United States, the leadership positions are dominated by the whites and so racial discrimination against the blacks seems inevitable. These people are usually mean to the point of preventing the other races from developing and obtaining relevant positions in the leadership circle.
This is why despite the many years of campaigning, racial discrimination still remains a big problem. Rules are passed and implemented in writing but when it comes to practicing, things are different. People are not in a position to incorporate non -discriminatory policies because they even do not know how to handle them.
The blacks for example are used to being discriminated against such that they do not believe whites can treat them well without any ulterior motives. The result of this therefore is that both parties are not able to embrace a non- discriminatory society even when it is created. It therefore proves difficult to fully represent the interests of the minority groups because of the whites’ supremacy.
From the text, it is notable that the main concept in relation to race is that of discrimination. In most cases, the term race is usually followed closely by discrimination and this is an indication that different races in the United States have never been able to coexist without there being some sort of discrimination, whether direct or indirect.
This is therefore considered as an issue that will never be fully settled though the government is trying its best to reduce the magnitude of the same. In the study of racial discrimination, the relationship between the whites and blacks features most of the discussions owing to the fact that these people have been in a constant conflict since the days of the slave trade to date. This explains why these two ethnic communities have always been important in the study of racial discrimination.
Reference List
Egelman, W. (2002). Understanding racial and ethnic groups: Critical thinking and analysis. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
Pitts, P. (2002). Anti-Racism Leadership: The strategic response to Neo-Racism. Little Rock Nine Remembered, 10(3), 23-28.
Schaefer, R. T. (2006). Racial and ethnic groups. Upper saddle River, NJ: Prentice hall.
In the criminal justice system, racial disparity occurs when a proportion of an ethnic group or race within the system’s control is bigger than proportions of other groups in the general society (Spohn, 1999). Causes of the disparities change from one system to another and include legislative policies, emphasis of law enforcement on some communities, criminal activity levels and decisions made by criminal justice officers who in one or more stages of the justice process exercise broad discretion.
Unwarranted or illegitimate racial disparity within the criminal justice system occurs when people of different races with similar offences are treated differently. In some cases this may be caused by overt racial biases while in others, it could be as a result of influences of factors that are not directly related to race. In addition, disparities could also be caused by institutions or individual decisions that may be race-based.
When race biased decisions are made at one stage during the sentencing process, they greatly affect outcome of the subsequent stages. For example ,if the minority group which is composed of the blacks get detained without proper trial more frequently compared to the whites because of the bail practices, they also face challenges of reduced access to treatment options, defense council and community resources.
The issue of ethnic and racial disparity in sentencing and imprisonment has been a central area of concern for many criminal justice researchers and scholars.
Disparities in the incarceration rates between the African-Americans and the whites have existed for many years. Research reveals that, black offenders tend to receive more serious and severe sentences compared to their white counterparts (Steffensmeier, 1998). Study done in the New York State revealed that minorities faced felony charges and had high chances of detention compared to their white counterparts.
The researchers came to a conclusion that 10 percent of the minority group detained within New York city and 33 percent of the inmates detained in other prisons within the state would have been set free before arraignment if the detention rates had been the same between the whites and the blacks (Spohn, 1999). Most recent evidences suggest that, although racial disparities have greatly changed over time, race stills plays a big role in the sentencing process.
Generally, racial discrimination is not explicitly displayed as it was fifty years ago in the American south, where the whites and blacks were handled differently by judicial authorities and law enforcement. Rather, currently discrimination happens in a more surreptitious manner, manifesting itself through connection of different factors which produce racially discriminatory outcomes (Thornberry, 1994).
Currently, African Americans constitute about 38% of USA jail and prison inmates when compared with their general population share of thirteen percent. The Latinos constitute around nineteen percent of the jail and prison population compared to their general population share of about fifteen percent.
An American black man born in 2001 has 32% chances of being imprisoned at some point in life; the Hispanic male posses about 17% while white men posses 6% chances of imprisonment (Spohn, 1999). In addition, while the African American youth constitute about seventeen percent of their age group in the general society, they represent 31% of cases referred to juvenile courts, 46% of the juvenile arrest and 41% of cases waived to the adult courts.
Racial disparities continue to challenge the basic value of the criminal justice system. In cases where disparities in handling criminal cases are as a result of racism, it is considered as an outright rejection of the core values and principle of equality in justice (Steffensmeier, 1998).
Professionals should always be committed towards exercising justice all the time regardless of the offender’s race. Similarly, in order for the members of the society to respect the sentencing process, the system should also reflect the expected and required societal values.
References
Spohn, C.A., Gruhl, J.B., & Welch, S.D. (1999) Effect of Race on Sentencing: A Re-Examination of an Unsettled Question.Sociology, 16(6), 71-76.
Steffensmeier, D.A., Ulmer, K.A., & Kramer, J.A. (1998). The interaction of race, Gender and age in criminal sentencing: The punishment cost of being young, black, and male. Criminology, 36(4), 763-798.
Thornberry, T.P. (1994). Race, socioeconomic status and sentencing in the juvenile Justice system. The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 64(1),90-98.
Race prejudice can be defined as the act of having prior judgment and or assumption of a person or something without having enough knowledge about the person or something in order to do so. Race prejudice has been here for the last few centuries and though a lot has been done to minimize it, it has not been wiped out entirely.
It has been said that it is a product of a group position which is partly true but it is also limited to an individual. Normally, an individual will tend to do things and be around people one is familiar with. Trudging in unfamiliar new grounds and doing things which are out of what someone is used to, in most circumstances will cause resistance and inherent need to eliminate the threat.
According to Blumer, racial prejudice comes from different group relationships other than an individual point of view. People from a specific group come together because their way of life is similar and it is easy to get along and live together (Blumer, 1979). This leads to the rise of a group that feels it is more superior, also known as the in-group, and every other group that is deemed less superior becomes known as the out-group.
The in-group which is the dominant group discriminates on individuals from the inferior groups which are subordinate. He also argues that the dominant group believes that the subordinate group is fundamentally different and estranged. Believing this is the case, they feel more entitled to some rights, resources and certain standing in society.
The superior group has constant threat from the desire of the members of the subordinate group who want to be on the same pedestal as them. Members of the superior group want to maintain their society status, power over the rest of the group and maintain their livelihood, if this is threatened; they develop apprehension, fear, bitterness and resentment.
Therefore, prejudice against the subordinate members stems out from these feelings of the superior group. This prejudice is merely a protective mechanism which aims at safe guarding the interest of the dominant group.
Blumer never forgot to highlight how race had power to shape and influence the economy and social classes in the society. He did so knowing that other factors like technology and history dynamics played an important role in shaping and maintaining the racial order.
In the changing economy, the dominant group will take up key managerial roles and leave the lesser groups to the lower positions. Basically, these clear cut racial systems bring about oppression, hierarchy and inequality. Organized racial groups with defined agendas may influence the public and achieve a political standing (Blumer, 1979).
Allport on the other hand argues that prejudice is brought about by an individual’s prior experiences, decisions and training. He defines prejudice as hostile feeling toward someone because they belong to a group one has ascribed abhorrent qualities (Allport, 1958).
He further adds that this hostile feeling is not just a hastened prior judgment before one gets to know all the facts but it is judgment resisting facts and is oblivious to the truth and honesty. The prejudice may be channeled to an individual or a group as a whole, he goes on to explain that this act makes one feel more powerful and heighten their self esteem. It is just a way of venting out someone’s or a group’s underlying problems.
He analyzes further the various levels of violence escalating from negative prejudice and discrimination. The first level is Antilocution which is the spoken abuse. People here talk freely to their neighbors, family and friends about their feelings but they do not act on this, it is very mild at this level.
The next level is the avoidance, in cases where the prejudice is intense; an individual avoids members from the sidelined group. The person being prejudiced against is not harmed in any way; instead the prejudicing party takes the entire burden and accommodates the other person. Third on line is discrimination which is leaving out members of a certain group from certain functions, employment, residential houses and even schools.
Next on the list is physical attack, here violence is directed towards the people being discriminated on. In cases when the discrimination is extreme, there is extermination which is getting rid of the person or people being discriminated against. In this level there is lynching, killings and genocide which crown the highest degree of violence. An individual is fully responsible for their feelings and actions (Allport, 1958).
In conclusion Allpor’s argument is true but only to some extent. This is because if someone from a particular group chooses not to act on the group’s interest, they may end up being discriminated against. Therefore, an individual will not have a big impact on these unending differences. Blumer’s argument stands out more because when you act out as one, there is no fear of discrimination hence a positive impact can be made.
Works Cited
Allport, Gordon W. “The Nature of Prejudice.” The Pacific sociological review 1. 1 (1958). Print.
Blumer, Hebert. Race prejudice as a sense of group position. San Diego: Perseus books, 1979. Print.
The American society has been trying to strive for a state that is non-discriminative but is yet to succeed. These inequalities started during the colonial and slavery periods. During the difficult racial segregation period, races such as African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latin Americans were discriminated by the whites.[1]
In addition, they were mainly deployed on the white man’s land as sources of cheap labor for the whites.[2] They were not accorded fair rights, such as freedom to acquire education, to vote, or to be citizens. In America, discrimination was based on race and skin color.
Most processes in the American society are executed based on the ethnic and social status of the affected individuals. In my perspective, the discriminations from the past have hindered the progress of colorblindness in the United States. It has made our society unable to truly practice colorblindness because of the racial discrimination that deteriorated people’s value and generated poverty as well as negative stereotype.
The creation of Jamestown in Virginia in the year 1657 serves as a perfect example of racism and discrimination. Jamestown was characterized by bushes and trees. The natives who spoke Spanish chose to improve the appearance of Jamestown. The Englishmen assimilated and cooperated with the natives by learning Spanish. However, it was only for the sake of the personal benefits of attaining wealth and control over the natives.
Several Englishmen started to move in to James town with the passage of time. They settled and enslaved the natives to work on the lands owned by the whites. As a result, the whites perceived themselves as a superior race with special duties of dominating the world and civilizing it[3]. The slaves were forced by the colonies to till the land in preparation for planting tobacco while the white men took the management and sales jobs.
This case demonstrates the whites and their ideology, which civilizing the native of this town is their mission. It also reveals how color has always influenced several processes in the United States. Whites formed an idea in which an individual who wanted to share privileged in the society must be assimilated to whites.
The whites forced other Americans to become whites in order to be treated fairly by the authorities.[4] Such an idea from the early 17th century hindered people from progressing to a colorblind society. In my opinion, this was actually the beginning of the idea of Manifest Destiny, which white men have power over any other races in the world.
The influences of racism and Manifest Destiny were demonstrated in the job market of the United States during the 19th and 20th centuries. All the white-collar jobs were offered to the white Americans while other races were given substandard jobs. The working conditions were poor for the non-white Americans.[5]
The Mexicans were not allowed to participate in politics, own properties, go to the same schools with other Caucasian students. For example, their major economic practice (nomadic farming) was also being prohibited[6]. In addition, Mexicans, who declined to be labeled as whites, did not earn the rights to be citizens until the constitutional changes in the mid-20th century.[7]
Ultimately, they were forbidden from practicing the Chicano culture in the U.S because it classified them as illegal immigrants in America. Since they were foreigners in America, they were denied all the services expected from the government. They were forced to adopt the white culture and pretend to be white in order to enjoy the privileges enjoyed by the whites in the U.S during the early 20th century[8].
In my opinion, changing their identity to another skin color was the only way to save Mexicans in the American society. Since the color of skin equaled to social status, being a Mexican has been nothing more than being a property. With the twisted value form by the racial discrimination, it actually became something that was normal to do.
Racial discrimination exists at times without the consent of the perpetrator. Immigrants from Africa usually experience the highest degree of racism due to their dark complexion. The stereotype of the poor living condition of blacks has been deeply injected into people’s mind. It is one of the main reasons why discrimination is taking place.
These poor immigrants are assumed as unfortunate people who are intending to grab the American resources[9]. The poor education institutions that students go through do not fully equip them to be self-reliant after completion of their studies[10]. The fact that the non-white immigrants face challenges in the U.S makes the idea of colorblindness a fable.
The levels of literacy among most African Americans are low due to the educational institutions that favor white students[11]. Justice systems are also different. The punishments that the two distinct legislations are likely to impose on acts of crime differ greatly.[12] The American constitution is one of the best since several laws and policies have been implemented in order to eliminate disparities. Reforms have been witnessed in various government sectors.
These reforms aim at reducing incidences of social disparities. For instance, the Magnuson Act of 1943 ensured that all Chinese immigrants in the U.S. were nationalized. It invalidated the Chinese Exclusion Act that suspended the migration of Chinese people in America. In addition, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 also played a major role in the fight against all forms of discrimination.
As much as the current America is perceived as a transparent and integral state, researchers and anthropologists in biology and social science argue that race is a cultural aspect among human beings[13]. Racism still exists in some parts of America. Minorities have difficulties to fit in some practices that are dominated by the whites[14]. In my opinion, this has become one of the major reasons of the domination of several state departments by the whites.
I believe this domination of whites in the United States is due to the prolonged advantage over any other races for centuries. As much as the American constitution is rational, some segregation still exists. These segregations have led into groupings whereby people associate with individuals of the same skin color. Once again, the culprits of racial discrimination are usually the African Americans.
They are minorities and their skin color makes them impossible to be treated as whites like other minority races. The black Americans have their own culture and occupy the same habitats. However, the white Americans, on the other hand, have a very different culture to the blacks. For instance, their residences are also located in areas where blacks do not reside.[15]
Back in the post, World War II, Caucasians claimed that wherever blacks lived, the neighborhood was inevitably deteriorated.[16] Furthermore, they referred to the black migration as an invasion and penetration to the community. This systemic discrimination which existed in the past has continued to the present. This discrimination of separating and creating communities for different ethnic groups in the past has inadvertently caused discrimination.
The communities inhabited mostly by minorities became poorer neighborhoods because they were discriminated from opportunities and facilities. As a result, they could not invest much into their communities. As a result, the Caucasian majority neighborhoods have a better real-estate value when compared to the local blacks’ neighborhood. Such phenomenon still exists in present day but happens passively in the society.
Even though minorities are not forced to stay in certain areas anymore, they still stay in poorer neighborhoods. Not only because they cannot afford to move to a better one, but also the negative stereotypes generated from the past in which minority neighborhoods are below standard.
If the Americans had been color blind, the immigrants and settlers who are non-whites in America would have been more successful and welcomed. The level of segregation that is witnessed in America results from racism associated with the differences in skin color. There exist two major societies, namely the whites and the others. Since the whites have possessed privileges for many years, their social status is automatically higher.
They prefer segregating themselves into the white settlements commonly located in the suburbs[17]. These scenarios and many others described above highlighting several processes that are affected by the skin color, the ethnicity and the type of citizenship of an individual. As much as America strives to observe integrity, the ghost of segregation that defines the American history is still around. Moreover, various processes still witness the unequal treatment of American citizens.
Americans of different races are treated differently in the public. For instance, there was a case when five American police officers fired gunshots to a black person in New York. They shot the man forty one times because he was not of their race[18]. This case does not merely display the different treatment of races; it also reveals how individual discrimination forms the worst form of violence.
Moreover, the African Americans and the Mexicans are perceived by the whites as arrogant people and are thus treated inhumanely by government officers especially when the officers are white. This has heightened tension between the whites and blacks resulting thereby into indifferences on how the law enforcers should handle such cases.
Our modern day experience to achieve a colorblind society has increased our tolerance but it is still a question of whether we are in a colorblind society. Individual, institutional, and systemic discrimination that still exists in our society has been hindering progress of our society to be color blinded. Even though living with a variety of races causes so many incidents, there are still splendid positive outcomes.
For instance, multi-culture is still the most unique aspect of America. Our nation is known as the melting pot because we are able to identify ourselves to the different races. However, we are yet to be able to live together. We need the distinction of race to uphold the culture and tradition that belong to it. I believe that the ideal society would not be colorblind. It should be able to accept people from different ethnic backgrounds.
Footnotes
Horsman,“Race and Manifest Destiny: The Origins of American Racial Anglo – Saxonism,” in Critical White Studies: Looking Behind the Mirror,140
Roediger, “Whiteness and Ethnicity in the History of ‘White Ethnics’ in the United, 2
Horsman, “Race and Manifest Destiny: The Origins of American Racial Anglo – Saxonism,” in Critical White Studies: Looking Behind the Mirror (1997),143
Martinez, “Mexican-Americans and Whiteness”, Harvard Latin Law Review, 210
Edmund, “Toward Slavery,” and “Toward Racism,” in American Slavery American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia , 298
Martinez, “Mexican-Americans and Whiteness”, Harvard Latin Law Review, 212
Martinez, “Mexican-Americans and Whiteness”, Harvard Latin Law Review, 211
Martinez, “Mexican-Americans and Whiteness”, Harvard Latin Law Review, 210
Omi &Winant, “Racial Formation,” in Race Critical Theories(2002),135
Omi &Winant, “Racial Formation,” in Race Critical Theories(2002),135
Omi &Winant, “Racial Formation,” in Race Critical Theories(2002),137
Edmund, “Toward Slavery,” and “Toward Racism,” in American Slavery American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia , 295
Omi &Winant, “Racial Formation,” in Race Critical Theories(2002),124.
Omi &Winant, “Racial Formation,” in Race Critical Theories(2002),129
Martinez, “Mexican-Americans and Whiteness”, Harvard Latin Law Review, 210
Thomas J. Sugrue. Crabgrass- Roots Politics: Race, Rights, and the Reaction against Liberalism in the Urban North, pg 71
Omi &Winant, “Racial Formation,” in Race Critical Theories(2002),138
Omi &Winant, “Racial Formation,” in Race Critical Theories(2002),130
Nowadays, it became a commonplace practice among many social scientists to refer to the concept of race, as an essentially social construct. That is, they believe it came into being on the account of representatives of European elites striving to retain their social dominance in the Europe. As Arnesen noted, “One common denominator of most whiteness studies is a core belief in the ‘social construction of race’… scholars remind us that race has no biological or genetic basis’.[1]
Such a point of view, however, cannot be referred to as representing an undeniable truth value, because there is a plenty of empirical evidence as to the fact that the concept of race may indeed be considered thoroughly objective, in social and biological senses of this word. In our paper, we will aim to substantiate the validity of this suggestion at length, while outlining the historical aspects of how the notion of race came into being and elaborating on what may account for the implications of race studies in the future.
For historians, it does not represent much of a secret that Europeans used to be be endowed with the rudimentary awareness of their racial affiliation, as early as during the course of the Dark Ages. This awareness, however, had clearly defined cultural and religious undertones to it. According to Baum, “Medieval Europeans… emphasized cultural criteria of (racial) difference and lacked any clearly developed notion of ‘fixed natures’ of different descent groups”.[2]
In essence, Medieval Europeans used to think of themselves as ‘cultured people’, while referring to everybody else, beyond the boundaries of Christendom, as ‘uncultured barbarians’. However, it would be quite inappropriate to think of such a tendency, on their part, as having been nothing but solely the extrapolation of their cultural and religious arrogance.
Apparently, it was the fact that most Europeans never ceased professing the so-called ‘Faustian’ values, based upon the assumption that, “Individual’s willpower must never cease combating obstacles… and that the conflict is the essence of existence”[3], which naturally prompted them to think of people, emotionally detached from these values, as being inferior.
The reason for this is simple – one’s endowment with the ‘Faustian’ mentality is a necessary precondition for him or her to be able to push forward cultural and scientific progress. In its turn, people’s affiliation with the concept of progress automatically empowers them. Consequently, it naturally predisposes them towards exploiting underpowered ‘aliens’, especially if they happened to be visually notable.
This simply could not be otherwise, because just as it is being the case with plants and animals, the representatives of the Homo Sapiens species never cease being subjected to the laws of nature. And, as we are now being well aware of, the foremost evolutionary principle is being concerned with the living organisms’ strive to expand their living space.
In its turn, this points out to the objective nature of European Colonialism, which created objective preconditions for the emergence of a scientific racism in the latter centuries, “Africans and other non-Europeans were initially enslaved not so much because of their color and physical type as because of their legal and cultural vulnerability”.[4]
In other words, even though that the institutionalization of slavery did contribute towards the strengthening of a racial consciousness in Caucasians, it cannot be referred to as such a consciousness’s actual trigger.
This is exactly the reason why the emergence of a number of racial theories, during the course of 17th-20th centuries, appears to have been inspired by White intellectuals’ desire to explain the Western civilization’s geopolitical dominance (power), rather than to simply maintain it. And, just as it was the case with other scientific theories, as time went on, the racial theory continued to become ever more intellectually refined.
For example, one of the European earliest proto-racialists, William Petty used to refer to the ‘fixed’ morphological discrepancies between men, as being reflective of God’s ‘design’. According to Petty, just as it is being the case with a hierarchical gradation of ‘heavenly beings’ in the ‘kingdom of heaven’, people are also graded, in regards to what happened to be their actual ‘worth’, “Placeing Man on the top of the lower scale, I make many sorts or species of Comparisons between him and his Inferior animalls, downe to the lowest”.[5]
Even though that another prominent proto-racialist of the era, François Bernier used to be just as religiously-minded as Petty, he nevertheless proposed that the race-related morphological differences among people are rather environmentally then ‘divinely’ predetermined.
As he noted, “Although the Egyptians… are very black, or rather copper-colored, that color is only an accident in them, and it comes because they are constantly exposed to the sun”.[6] Nevertheless, as European intellectuals were gaining a better understanding of the nature of a surrounding reality, they were growing increasingly aware of the fact that racial phenotypes are not being merely concerned with the particulars of people’s physical appearance, but also with the qualitative essence of how people address life’s challenges.
After all, throughout the course of the Exploration Era, when Europeans used to travel to the Earth’s furthermost corners, in a search of new lands, they were unable to find even a single indigenous culture/civilization that would equal Western civilization, in terms of scientific, cultural or social achievements.
Therefore, it does not come as a particular surprise that by the mid-18th century, people’s biological inequality became a well-suspected fact. This was the actual reason why, during the course of the 18th-19th centuries, it started to account for a commonplace practice among European scientists to refer to the principle of living organisms’ hierarchical ranking, as such that had clearly defined societal implications.
Apparently, European intellectuals of the era simply could not help noticing the fact that people’s ability to act as the agents of civilization is being reflective of their morphological constitution. That is, the more there are atavistic features to a particular individual’s appearance (broad nose, dark skin, curly hair, bulging eyes, wide cheeks, sloped forehead), the less such an individual is likely to profess the ideals of Western rationale-based (civilized) living, and vice versa.
Therefore, it is fully explainable why strong racialist overtones could be found even in the works of the18th century’s empirical scientists, such as Carl Linnaeus, for example. While referring to the ideological significance of Linnaeus’s intellectual legacy, Sloan stated, “For Linnaeus… one could follow a line of descent within the human species from Homo Sapiens Albus [white European] to Sapiens Afer [black African]”.[7]
In its turn, this brings us to the discussion of why, despite the fact that the 18th century’s European prominent intellectuals used to endorse the idea of egalitarianism, they nevertheless remained skeptical, as to whether this idea applied to non-Whites.
After all, even such an ardent supporter of ‘people’s equality’ as Voltaire was known for his tendency to refer to Black people as being inferior to Whites, “The Negro race is a species of men as different from ours as the breed of spaniels is from that of greyhounds… Their understanding is… at least greatly inferior”.[8]
The same could be said about another famous promoter of ‘people’s equality’ of the era – Thomas Jefferson. In all probability, it never even occurred to this particular America’s founding father that the Blacks were endowed with as many human rights as the Whites were.
Apparently, the fact that during the course of the earlier mentioned historical era, many European and American intellectuals/political figures tended to combine seemingly irreconcilable ideas of people’s racial inequality and egalitarianism, suggests that rather than being solely ‘instrumental’, these individuals’ racialist convictions were indeed genuine.
In other words, it was namely their observations of what accounts for the particulars of people’s behavioral mode, which served the 18th century’s racialists as a theoretical framework, within which they went about prescribing higher/lesser humanity to the representatives of both: non-White and White populations.
In its turn, this also explains why, despite their formal ‘whiteness’, Irish people used to be treated by the representatives of Anglo-Saxon (Nordic) elites as somewhat ‘less White’. According to Bronwen, “A key aspect of the constructions of Irishness is the paradox by which the Irish are represented… as ‘other’, and also the ‘same’ because ‘White’ people share a similar timeless essence”.[9]
Apparently, Anglo-Saxons (the descendants of Aryans that invaded Europe around 5000 B.C.) never ceased experiencing a psychological incompatibility with the Irish (the descendants of Europe’s pre-Aryan autochthonous populations).
The reason for this is simple – whereas, Anglo-Saxons appear to be endowed with ‘Faustian’ mentality (the qualitative characteristics of which have been outlined earlier), the majority of autochthonous Irish are being endowed with genetically predetermined ‘Apollonian’(Paleoeuropean) mentality.
In its turn, this explains why the Irish have traditionally been known for their fanatical stubbornness, attitudinal arrogance, adherence to ritualistic traditions, dislike of intellectual pursuits, violent-mindedness, and their pretentious ‘seriousness’ (many representatives of Europe’s autochthonous populations, such as Irish, Corsicans, Basques and Scots, appear to lack a sense of humor).
The fact that, despite their ‘whiteness’, the Irish used to exhibit clearly primordial psychological traits, created objective preconditions for the 19th century’s scientists to begin suspecting that there are in fact a few ‘races’ within the White race.
For example, French zoologist Georges Cuvier used to classify Whites as such that fall into three distinctive ‘sub-racial’ categories: Armenians, Indians and Scythians, with the representatives of each sub-category possessing unique psychological traits. British physiologist William Lawrence, on the other hand, used to divide White people into Celts, Germanics and Slavs, while implying that Germanics were vastly superior to their ‘brethrens in White race’.
American physiologist Samuel Norton came up with a similar idea, while categorizing ‘Caucasians’, as the representatives of morphologically distinctive Persian and Pelasgic ‘sub-races’. Even though Morton regarded the Irish as an integral part of the Caucasian race, he nevertheless appears to have been aware of the Celts’ Paleoeuropean roots, “The most unsophisticated Celts… whose wild look and manner, mud cabins and funereal howlings, recall the memory of a barbarous age”.[10]
As time went on, euro-centric racial theories were becoming influenced by the contemporary anthropological data, as to how people’s physiognomic characteristics reflect the subtleties of their existential mode. In its turn, this allowed one of the America’s most prominent racial scientists Madison Grant to design his own scale for people’s racial evaluation.
This scale was based upon politically incorrect but thoroughly scientific (especially in light of recent breakthroughs in the field of genetics) idea that, “Moral, intellectual and spiritual attributes are as persistent as physical characters and are transmitted substantially unchanged from generation to generation”.[11]
According to Grant, the specifics of one’s anthropological constitution directly relate to the making of his or her character. This is why Grant’s system of racial classification of Caucasians, contained anthropological and psychological provisions for defining the representatives of Nordic, Mediterranean and Alpine sub-races.
Apparently, despite the accusations of being racist, Grant’s theory even today provides us with the insight into the very essence of historical dialectics, as much as it provides us with the better understanding of what accounts for the triggering of ethnic conflicts throughout the world.
The validity of this statement can be illustrated in regards to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, when close to a million of Tutsi tribesmen had been murdered by Hutu tribesmen, simply because Tutsi people happened to have narrower noses – hence, their perceived ‘whiteness’.
It is understood, of course, that the close analysis of 18th – 19th centuries’ racial theories will reveal many of the theoretical claims largely erroneous.
Nevertheless, the foremost theoretical premise, upon which classic racial theories used to be based – namely, the assumption that the particulars of people’s physical appearance do in fact reflect the workings of their psyche, even today remains thoroughly valid. Moreover, the validity of this assumption can be easily illustrated in regards to the most recent scientific discoveries in the field of biology/genetics.
After all, as it was shown by Lynn and Vanhanen, the qualitative subtleties of people’s sense of self-identity are being reflective of their varying ability to operate with abstract categories (IQ). In its turn, the rate of people’s IQ has long ago been proven genetically predetermined.[12] Moreover, the rate of one’s IQ can be well discussed as such that reflects the specifics of his or her anthropological constitution, which is being defined by the concerned individual’s racial phenotype.
Therefore, under no circumstances may the concept of race be defined merely in terms of a social construct. In fact, the notion of ‘race’ can be best conceptualized in terms of a ‘behavioral software’, which defines the qualitative aspects of how racially diverse individuals position themselves in life. Race is not about the variations in the skin’s coloring – it is about how people perceive surrounding reality and their place in it.
In their turn, the qualitative characteristics of people’s cognitive perception appear to reflect the subtleties of their DNA-makeup. In human DNA, there are 46 chromosomes, with the half of them being inherited from a father and another from a mother.
Out of 23 chromosomes, passed to an individual from his/her father, in Y-chromosome (in males there are Y and X chromosomes, in females only X-chromosome) there is a combination of nucleotides that continues to be passed from generation to generation for thousands of years, without undergoing any transformation, whatsoever.
This is what biologists refer to as one’s haplogroup – a modern equivalent of the 19th century’s concept of race. The density of information, contained in DNA, can be best defined as being rather enormous (with every nucleotide being responsible for defining the individual’s particular physical or mental characteristic).
This is the reason why it now became a scientifically legitimate assumption that a particular person’s physical and psychological characteristics cannot be discussed outside of what happened to be his or her haplogroup.[13] As of today, the haplo-maps of the world’s different regions are easily available for public access. In its turn, the analysis of these maps exposes the essential validity of racial insights, on the part of 19th century’s racialists, such as Madison Grant.
For example; whereas, prior to 2001 (when first haplo-maps have been compiled), the earlier mentioned psychological characteristics of Irish people used to be commonly referred to in terms of a ‘racist stereotyping’, this can no longer be the case today.
This is because it has now been well proven that 85% of Irish citizens are the bearers of Paleoeuropean haplogroup Y1, which prior to Aryan invasions (haplogroups R1a and R1b), used to dominate the Europe’s genetic landscape – hence, the particulars of Irish people’s existential uniqueness.
Moreover, the very notion of ‘Aryan race’, which during the course of 20th century’s second half has been ostracized, due to being ‘unscientific’, appears fully scientific in light of what haplo-maps tell us (the path of Aryan invasions can now be traced genetically and not merely linguistically). Also, the analysis of these maps reveals an undeniable fact there are indeed a few ‘races’ within the White race– just as the 19th century’s racial scientists were suggesting.
Therefore, there can be no good reasons to think of the concept of ‘race’ as being thoroughly irrelevant. Quite on the opposite – it appears to be only the matter of time, before people’s interest in researching race-related issues will be revived. The very course of an ongoing technological progress establishes objective preconditions for such an eventual development.
We believe that the provided earlier line of argumentation, in defense of a suggestion that the concept of race is not merely a social construct, is being fully consistent with this paper’s initial thesis. Even though that, as time goes on, people’s understanding of race does undergo a qualitative transformation, their commitment to researching this subject matter could never cease being thoroughly legitimate.
This is because the specifics of one’s racial affiliation do define the concerned individual’s behavioral patterns – regardless of whether the hawks of political correctness want to admit it or not. In its turn, this explains why in today’s America, even the most progressive Caucasians, who take pride in their adherence to the ideals of multiculturalism, clearly prefer residing in a racially secluded ‘white suburbia’.
Apparently, these people’s deep-seated racism has nothing to do with the existence of social preconditions, which would prompt them to refrain from socializing with ‘colors’, but solely with the fact that they are being ‘programmed’ to act as subtle racists by the very specifics of their genetic makeup – pure and simple.
Therefore, it will only be logical, on our part, to conclude this paper by reinstating once again that there is nothing ‘unscientific’ about the concept of race and that this concept will continue to remain discursively relevant in the future.
Bibliography
Arnesen, Eric. “Whiteness and the Historians’ Imagination.” International Labor and Working-Class History 60.3 (2001): 3-32.
Baum, Bruce. Rise and Fall of the Caucasian Race: A Political History of Racial Identity. New York: NYU Press, 2006.
Bronwen, Walter. Outsiders Inside: Whiteness, Place and Irish Women. New York: Taylor & Francis Group, 2001.
Fredrickson, George. White Supremacy: A Comparative Study in American and South African History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981.
Grant, Madison. The Passing of the Great Race, or the Racial Basis of European History. New York: C. Scribner’s, 1918.
Greenwood, Susan. Anthropology of Magic. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2009.
Lynn, Richard & Vanhanen, Tatu. IQ and the Wealth of Nations. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002.
Petty, William. The Collected Works of Sir William Petty. London: Routledge/Thoemmes Press, (1667)1997.
Rindermann, Heiner., Woodley, Michael & Stratford, James. “Haplogroups as Evolutionary Markers of Cognitive Ability.” Intelligence 40.4 (2012): 362-375.
Sloan, Philip. “The Gaze of Natural History”, in Inventing Human Science: Eighteenth Century Domains, edited by Cristopher Fox, Roy Porter & Robert Wokler, 112-151, Berkeley: University of California Press,1995.
Spencer, Frank. “Bernier, Francois (1620—1688).” In History of Physical Anthropology: An Encyclopedia, vol. I., 161-175. New York: Garland Publishing, 1997.
Spencer, Frank. Ecce Homo: An Annotated Bibliographic History of Physical Anthropology. New York: Greenwood Press, 1986.
West, Cornel. “A Genealogy of Modern Racism.” In From Modernism to Postmodernism: An Anthology, edited by Lawrence Cahoone, 298-309, Boston: Wiley-Blackwell, 2003.
Footnotes
Eric Arnesen. “Whiteness and the Historians’ Imagination.” International Labor and Working-Class History 60.3 (2001): 6.
Bruce Baum. Rise and Fall of the Caucasian race: A Political History of Racial Identity (New York: NYU Press, 2006): 36.
Susan Greenwood, Anthropology of Magic (Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2009), 53.
George Fredrickson. White Supremacy: A Comparative Study in American and South African History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), 70.
William Petty. The Collected Works of Sir William Petty (London: Routledge/Thoemmes Press, (1667)1997), 23.
Frank Spencer. “Bernier, Francois (1620—1688).” In History of Physical Anthropology: An Encyclopedia, vol. I,161-175, (New York: Garland Publishing, 1997), 169.
Philip Sloan. “The Gaze of Natural History”, in Inventing Human Science: Eighteenth Century Domains, edited by Cristopher Fox, Roy Porter & Robert Wokler, 112-151, (Berkeley: University of California Press,1995), 126.
Cornel West. “A Genealogy of Modern Racism.” In From Modernism to Postmodernism: An Anthology, edited by Lawrence Cahoone, 298-309 (Boston: Wiley-Blackwell, 2003), 306.
Walter Bronwen. Outsiders Inside: Whiteness, Place and Irish Women (New York: Taylor & Francis Group, 2001), 22.
Frank Spencer. Ecce Homo: An Annotated Bibliographic History of Physical Anthropology (New York: Greenwood Press, 1986), 178.
Madison Grant. The Passing of the Great Race, or the Racial Basis of European History (New York: C. Scribner’s, 1918), 226.
Richard Lynn & Tatu Vanhanen. IQ and the Wealth of Nations (Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002), 34.
Heiner Rindermann, Michael Woodley & James, Stratford. “Haplogroups as Evolutionary Markers of Cognitive Ability.” Intelligence 40.4 (2012): 368.
The significance of race has always been evident in the social practices of human beings. Biology was used to explain racism before the 20th century. Currently, racism is only viewed from a social point of view.[1] The concept of racism was developed in the European region by the whites who viewed themselves as a “superior race”.
This ideology was enhanced by biblical explanations that were used by the whites to support their arguments. After the migration and settlement of the whites in many parts of the world, racial hierarchy and discrimination came into being.
The race factor has always been a central issue in controlling how several issues are handled in the United States. The race factor has also affected myriads of activities in the American history.[2] The analysis of the positive and negative effects that accompany racism demonstrates that the race factor has negatively affected social integration in the U.S. Besides, there are numerous cases of segregation and exclusion that have emerged from the race factor.
Discussion and analyses
The whites have always been the most influential race in the United States. The Anglo-Saxon ideologies that people with white skin are god chosen and are supposed to rule the world made them to dominate in the United States.[3] The white culture has been taken as the basic American culture for many years. Besides, there are other Americans and immigrants who prefer adapting the white cultural practices. It is perceived as the best way of fitting in American society.[4]
This has resulted into the conversion of many white skinned Americans to whites. On the other hand, the dark skinned people are sometimes self-driven to lighten their skin. For instance, they use plastic surgery to make their complexion to appear white as they struggle to adapt to the American culture.
The whites have completely absorbed the Mexican Americans. This scenario was driven by various reasons. It is factual that their skin complexion is almost the same as those of their white counterparts bearing in mind that were easily accommodated by the whites. However, the Mexicans are still a minority race in the US. They were afraid of being segregated. This fear was enhanced by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that promised American citizenship to the native Mexicans.
This never came to pass until the mid twentieth century. Before then, Mexicans were forced to pass as whites in order to enjoy the privileges enjoyed by the whites.[5] They preferred to be integrated among the whites rather than undergo segregation. Therefore, the Mexicans in the United States are treated as whites to some extent.[6] Other minorities in the United States with a skin complexion that is similar to the whites have also opted to be integrated as the white population.
They believe that being whites is accompanied by improved social, economic, and political security.[7] The inclusion principle however could not be effective on African Americans and other minority races that have a darker skin complexion. The skin color factor favored the Mexicans while it completely segregated other American races. The language factor was not of much significance when the principle of inclusion came into play.
There are several fears associated with race mixing and cultural contamination. For instance, some minority ethnic groups fear being alienated on the basis of their small population segment. It is against this backdrop that several amendments have been made in the constitution with the aim of ensuring equality in the US.
The level of racism has subsided although there are some cases of racial segregations, inclusion and exclusion that have been witnessed in some areas in the United States.[8] The most significant segregation was witnessed between the blacks and white. During the 1960s, courtship and marriage between whites and blacks was prohibited. Furthermore, the blacks and the whites attend different schools.[9]
In the 19th century, African Americans were completely separated from the whites. The constitution recognized the whites as being superior with higher social statuses than the blacks. The public facilities were to be offered to both the two groups. However, this was done in a very different manner.
There are currently two major groups that are identified in the US. These are the whites and the blacks. Since these are the major classifications of the Americans, it has resulted into the disregard of other minority groups especially when classifying the American societies. The non-white Americans are the most affected.
The Spanish, Jewish, and the Germans among are generally classified as the whites. During the 19th and early 20th centuries when the constitution treated the whites differently, the other communities that were white enjoyed the privileges meant for the whites.[10] African Americans on the other hand have never been confused and the race factor has always resulted in the segregation of the blacks and the red Indians.
The race has played a major role in classifying the American society. People from the same communities tend to occupy the same area. The African Americans normally occupy the central parts of the American cities that are densely populated.[11] The whites on the other hand occupy the suburbs of the cities that are well spaced although the habitants are mainly the white communities. The race factor has therefore hastened assimilation of the whites into the broader white American population.
Furthermore, it has enabled the acceptance and peaceful coexistence among the white Americans. African Americans are also known to easily accommodate immigrants who have a dark complexion without necessarily investigating the background and the origin of these people.[12] Race has helped in the Americanization of many immigrants who come into America. Racism is a major factor that defines American culture. It has promoted integrations as well as segregation.
Worse still, racism has compelled several minority ethnic groups in America to be assimilated by the whites. As a result, it has created a larger integrated white society. The whites decided to occupy the suburbs of the cities to avoid the large African American populations that occupy the city centers of major cities.
Covering the outskirts of the city is one of the ways in which this could help regulate the urban migration of the African Americans.[13] Any other non-whites who want to coexist peacefully must adopt the cultures of the whites in order to ensure good neighborhood.
In cases whereby the natives were treated as whites, their ethnic groups were undermined.[14] The whites assumed their cultural practices are the most advanced and civilized. They were introducing these practices to others as a form of civilization. [15] Natives were expected to adopt the cultural practices of the whites. Besides, their cultural practices were perceived to be barbaric and as such, undermined the other white skinned people in the United States.
The race factor in this case completely excluded the natives from their cultural practices. The natives who did not observe these regulations were alienated from the rest of the white community in the United States. The Mexican farming practices of the natives such as those around Texas who were nomadic farmers were completely discouraged. These people were forced to become whites in order to live comfortably in the United States.
The school environment has suffered the segregations that are associated with racism. Pupils tend to group themselves in terms of race. The Latinos are the worst hit by the effects of segregation. The number of Latinos who attend the white schools has greatly reduced due to the fear of segregation that is apparently high in the white schools. The learning process of these Latinos is greatly affected by racial segregation.[16]
The African Americans are also segregated in the education sector as a result of racial differences. In most of the schools attended by the majority whites, it is rare to find the African Americans in such schools. The African Americans have ended up embracing the American society. This has in some cases created a social distance between the African Americans and the whites.[17]
The minority American races have always been radicals. They have often been associated with democrats. On the other hand, the white Americans have preferred to maintain the status quo and as such, prefer to be republicans.[18]
Conclusion
In summing up, it is worth to note that racism has defined the American society. Any person with a light skin complexion is taken to be “white” while the dark complexion is a “black”. Any person who is in America has to choose where to belong. Deciding to be white implies that an individual has to learn the white culture. The same principle applies to the assimilation process of African Americans.
Footnotes
Winant, “Race and Race Theory,”1
Menchaca, “Anglo-Saxon Ideologies in the 1920s-1930s:The Impact on the Segregation of Mexican Students in California,” 229.
Roediger, “Whiteness and Ethnicity in the History of White Ethnics in the United States. Towards the Abolition of Whiteness,” 181.
Roediger, “Whiteness and Ethnicity in the History of White Ethnics in the United States. Towards the Abolition of Whiteness,” 184.
Griswold del Castillo, “War’s End: Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo,” par, 11
Martinez, “Mexican Americans and Whiteness in Critical White Studies,”212.
Martinez, “Mexican Americans and Whiteness in Critical White Studies,” 213.
Menchaca, “Anglo-Saxon Ideologies in the 1920s-1930s:The Impact on the Segregation of Mexican Students in California,” 235.
Africanamericans, “Segregation: The Fights Between Blacks and Whites”, par, 3
Menchaca, “Anglo-Saxon Ideologies in the 1920s-1930s:The Impact on the Segregation of Mexican Students in California,” 229.
Macías, “Bringing Music to the People: Race, Urban Culture, and Municipal Politics in Postwar Los Angeles,” 697.
Roediger, “Whiteness and Ethnicity in the History of White Ethnics in the United States. Towards the Abolition of Whiteness,” 193.
Macías, “Bringing Music to the People: Race, Urban Culture, and Municipal Politics in Postwar Los Angeles,” 701.
Macías, “Bringing Music to the People: Race, Urban Culture, and Municipal Politics in Postwar Los Angeles,” 706.
Macías, “Bringing Music to the People: Race, Urban Culture, and Municipal Politics in Postwar Los Angeles,” 706.
Menchaca, “Anglo-Saxon Ideologies in the 1920s-1930s:The Impact on the Segregation of Mexican Students in California,” 223.
Menchaca, “Anglo-Saxon Ideologies in the 1920s-1930s:The Impact on the Segregation of Mexican Students in California,” 224.
Menchaca, “Anglo-Saxon Ideologies in the 1920s-1930s:The Impact on the Segregation of Mexican Students in California,” 228.