Quotes About Race

However, blackness, no less than whiteness, has been and continues to be a socially constructed and therefore highly contentious racial description.

This is the paradox of being white and 'seeing white', but being to all intents and purposes 'invisible' or, more appropriately, as Frankenberg, Garner, and other sociologists of 'whiteness' have suggested, 'unmarked'. In Western societies

In the light of the history sketched out above, it should be clear, counterintuitive though it may seem, that 'whiteness' (and 'blackness') is as much achieved as ascribed.

the populations being discussed as 'Muslims' were already racialized as 'Pakis' and 'Arabs'. So the point about whether Muslims are a race or not is somewhat beside the point. 'Muslims' have only appeared in the frame of 'race' after they had already put in an appearance in the framework of racialization, but under another guise, before they themselves began to assert the Islamic aspect of their identities,

The colourblind view was grounded in the perception that blacks, whites, and non-white Hispanics now operated on a level playing field, and that no special consideration was to be given to the 'racial' background of, say, applicants for jobs or college admission.

the proliferation of schemas of racial classification was one reason for the demise of 'scientific racism'.

Anthropomorphic measurements and detailed genealogies were conducted, which showed that hybrid populations resulting from 'mixture' between blacks and whites displayed a homogeneity which was even greater than that found among those of 'pure' European descent.

northern blacks had outperformed southern whites. They also undermined the belief in the existence and significance of 'pure' races.

the concept of race simply refused to provide unambiguously different types. To put it differently, no 'pure' races could be identified.

By the 1970s and 1980s, the concept of 'phenotype'—which refers to surface features of humans such as skin colour, shape of nose, texture of hair, shape and size of skull, and so forth—on which those attempting to develop a tenable concept of race and a hierarchy of races had relied, had been compellingly refuted as a guide to genuine human variation.

there was only a 15 per cent genetic variation across 'racially' and geographically classified populations.

encounters between police and young black and Asian men are not solely defined by racialization; they become contests of masculinity. Racialization is interwoven with other forms of identity, as we shall see in the discussion of 'intersectionality'.

The 'racial types' they posited are of relatively recent origin, having been replaced over and over by other types of populations in previous centuries.

This 'mantra' of race, class, and gender has now led to a new and to some extent almost separate field of research under the umbrella term of 'intersectionality' studies, which includes within its research framework an understanding that age, disability, and citizenship also have differential impacts on majority and minority communities and individuals.

But there are black Muslims and white Muslims, as well as Asian Muslims and Arab Muslims; Muslims are constituted by a wide variety of nationalities and ethnicities, while the religion itself is riven with sectarian conflict, especially between Shi'as and Sunnis. Muslims, in other words, cannot be considered a 'race'.

However, this is by no means an argument that prevents us from recognizing the myriad ways in which Muslims are racialized.

the election of Obama showed that America had moved beyond 'race' into a definitively post-racial era in which now even a black American could be president. The

Mild though Obama's observations were, all the tropes of the angry black man out to get revenge were thrown at him, especially in talk shows on radio and TV, with Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck leading the charge. Among other things, Obama's policies were accused of being covert attempts at getting 'reparations' for slavery, segregation, and discrimination.

First, the idea of 'race' contains both biological and cultural elements, for example skin colour, religion, and behaviour. Second, the biological and cultural appear to combine in variable proportions in any definition of a racial group, depending upon the group and the historical period in question. And racial status, as in the 'whitening' of Jews, the Irish, and others, is subject to political negotiation and transformation.

The idea that Jews were a distinct race was given currency by Nazi racial science. But before that, there was little consensus that Jews were a distinct race.

The idea of race was in retreat in the second half of the 20th century in the aftermath of the defeat of Nazism and discoveries in the science of genetics, although the 21st century has seen (unconvincing) attempts to revive the notion. Nowadays, there is a tendency to regard intercommunal hostilities as stemming from issues of cultural rather than racial difference, except on the very far right and among some who (misleadingly) base their assertions on recent biomedical research.

Epigenetics is a discipline that relies more on speculation than genuine scientific understanding. Nevertheless, scholars of race and racism would do well to keep a wary eye on epigenetic research, as this is an avenue whereby many researchers will attempt to resurrect the biological concept of race. Defining 'race': is there a consensus that race is a social construct?

Most sociologists in the UK and many in the USA are now convinced by scientific research that 'race' is a social construct rather than a biological fact.

Certain white people in particular can look right through young people and also black and mixed race people like we aren't here.