Paulina Ekstowicz
BLST 101
Race was a construct by
people; it was not a naturally occurring idea. In order for race to happen, the
process of racialization had to occur. Hirschman had mentioned early in his
paper that “race and racism are not ancient or tribal beliefs but have
developed apace with modernity over the last 400 years and reached their apogee
in the late nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century”( 2004, p386).
Stating that Africans have not seen themselves as one united group; there were
many different tribes and empires that were seeking power. Often those tribes
would sell people from other tribes or prisoners of war in order to improve and
enlarge their empire. When Europeans arrived to Africa to trade, colonize and
later enslave the African people they made it clear that there is a distinction
between Europeans (White) and Africans. That distinction was not only based on
skin color, but also on cultural ideas, languages and religious beliefs and how
Whites were portrayed as pure and Africans as impure.
The first few lessons
about race were not something shocking to me since I am anthropology major. I
have been exposed to the idea that race was constructed not naturally
occurring. However, many of my classes focused on the ideas why we are
different focusing on physical differences, but we rarely focused on how race
came to be. It is interesting to see this notion of racialization be brought up
in a class, because it definitely made me think of the question if it was not
for colonialization and the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade when would the
differentiation between Black and White arise? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnN0RurtJWc
which is something this video talks about, I do not agree 100% with the things
they say but I found it interesting.
Lastly, I personally
think that the idea of race started off in order for Europeans to distinguish
themselves from Africans. The Europeans thought very highly of themselves and
did not want to be compared to the enslaved Africans. To quote Hirshman “Racism
is a structure of belief that the "other community" is inherently
inferior and lacks the capacity to create a society comparable to one’s own”(2004,
p389).This idea unfortunately still stands today, the higher powers who are
mainly white, want to distinguish themselves from the blacks. The idea of
keeping power still stands; the white man in power will go to great extents to
make the minority powerless.
This idea could be seen with the Police Brutality
and Black Lives Matter. Shortly after the Black Lives Matter riots and protests,
whites decided to start saying that All Lives Matter, which was taking away
people from the main focus of the protests. The focus being that it’s the Black
Lives are the ones at risk, therefore we need to focus on that problem. Black
men are often seen as thuggish or aggressive, yet that portrayal is often due
to whom controls the media, which in majority of the cases are the White
people. It circles back to the idea how White people who are in power are
scared of losing it, they continue on with race because it seems to benefit
them.
Academic Sources:
Hardimon, M.O. (2003). The Ordinary Concept of Race.
The Journal of Philosophy, 100,
437-455. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3655723.
Hirschman , C.(2004). The Origins and Demise of the
Concept of Race. Population and
Development Review, 30, 385-415. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3401408.
Image by Matt Bors “Why do you people inject race
into everything”
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/d0/27/04/d0270464307128016b2692f1b4128a9b.jpg
I found this image ironic and very sad, because even
though White Europeans were the ones who constructed the idea of race up until
this day many White Americans tend to get aggravated, uncomfortable or annoyed
when the idea of race comes into the conversation.
Extrenal sources:
Short reading: http://www.pbs.org/race/000_About/002_04-background-02-09.htm
