Does race still matter?

If one listens to the media and politicians, one could eventually conclude that in our post-civil rights era, race and racism have almost, if not completely, disappeared. However, sociologists and other scholars from many different fields such as Ethnic Studies, Women’s Studies, History, Geography, Law, Language and Semantics, Religion Studies, Psychology and others have constantly shown that race, while more difficult to study today, continues to shape our public policies and our everyday lives.

One also need to understand that scholars are NOT the one reproducing race and racism by constantly studying it. Race is one of the major historical elements of this country. Race has been socially constructed to decide who would get access to the goods and resources of society. Race is NOT a biological construct. Therefore, we have to understand who benefits from this social construct.

Critical Race Theorist argue that if we believe that racism is only expressed nowadays through hate crimes, then we can conclude that racism is extraordinary and the law is therefore equipped to deal with it. However, if we believe that race is embedded in the very legal foundation of the constitution of the United States and the structure of our society, then racism is ordinary and the law cannot address it since it, itself, reproduces elements of continual discrimination. This latter point is very hard to decipher but by focusing on larger issues, one can witness the destructive force of racism without alarming those who benefits from the current arrangement.

For interesting discussions on race and white privilege, please read the following articles by Tim Wise:

1. • Content of Whose Character?: Race, College Admissions and the Myth of Merit
   

2. • It's the Racism, Stupid: Bias, Not Affirmative Action Stigmatizes People of Color
   

3. • Rationalizing the Irrational: Racism and the Fallacy of Personal Experience
   

4. • What Kind of Card is Race? The Absurdity (and Consistency) of White Denial
   

5. • Of Chocolate Cities and Vanilla Indignation: Reflections on the Manufacturing of "Reverse" Racism
   

6. • A Dream Distorted: Reflections on the Hijacking of Martin Luther King Jr.
   

7. • Collateral Damage: Poor Whites and the Unintended Consequences of Racial Privilege
   

8. • Sins of Omission: Race, Media and the Perpetuation of Stereotypes
   

9. • The Oprah Effect: Black Success, White Denial and the Reality of Racism
   

For more, check www.timwise.org

Reports:

1. • Targeting Blacks: Drug Law Enforcement and Race in the United States by Human Rights Watch (May 2008)
   

2. • Disparity by Geography: The War on Drugs in America’s Cities by The Sentencing Project (May 2008)
   

3. • Race & Ethnicity in America: Turning a Blind Eye to Injustice by ACLU (December 2007)
   

4. • Structural Racism and Katrina by Center for Social Inclusion
   

5. • The Vortex: The Concentrated Racial Impact of Drug Imprisonment and the Characteristics of Punitive Counties by Justice Policy Institute (December 2007)