Appropriation vs Assimilation

This is pretty much my favorite gif-set right now, and a good example of the active backlash going on in internet circles that we were talking about.

 

Let's be real, acting white is acting "right," and people of color get complimented for doing it. We are actively encouraged to look down on those that don't. From 7th grade til graduation I lived in Olive Branch, Mississippi. I was usually the only Hispanic person in my class. Pretty much all of my friends were white. The few that weren't, like me, tended to tone "the otherness" down. One of my fellow Latina classmate went as far as never speaking Spanish in front of anyone while in school.

And for a really long time I thought this was absolutely normal. I thought that that was just something you had to do to get ahead in life: learn to do things "the right way."

And right there is the difference between appropriation and assimilation. I was trying to change how I dressed, how I talked, what I ate because I thought I had to to fit in. Appropriation on the other hand is what white people do when they try on other cultures as a costume. It's when people dress up as a "sexy geisha" for Halloween, or when people do this on Cinco de Mayo

(Sidebar: why in the world do Americans even pretend to celebrate Cinco de Mayo? How did this even happen? Even if it was Mexico's independence day [which holy hell, it was a just a battle the town of Puebla won against the French; no one outside of Puebla celebrates it in Mexico], why in the world would America feel the need to celebrate another country's independence day? No, "people just want an excuse to drink" is not in any way acceptable)

I've also seen a lot of people that genuinely love another culture and want to take part in it. However, most of the time even they tend to exotify a that culture and sigh sadly that theirs isn't as "exciting/beautiful/interesting" etc. A good quote that sums it up is David Wong's line, "But remember, there are two ways to dehumanize someone: by dismissing them, and by idolizing them." I've also seen way too many white people lament that they don't have a culture, which is always baffling and mildly upsetting for me to hear. They might not mean any harm, but it means that they see white culture as being the standard, the norm, so predominant that it is invisible to them. America damn well has a culture because the rest of us bump against it every single day. 

Link to the original gif-set

Link to the video

Flaws of Eliminationism

I do agree with many of Appiah’s arguments on the flaws of our current conception of race, however, I still don’t quite understand how one can ultimately hold an elimitavist view on the concept of race as a whole. I don’t mean to be redundant from my previous post or prior statements made some time ago in class, but the idea of separating ourselves by means of physical appearances shouldn’t seem so scary. In fact, I think it’s necessary so long as it is NOT used to actually divide ourselves into a hierarchy of inherent accreditations and rights. Race can be used to promote diversity and serve as an easy means of broadly classifying what we look like as well as where our ancestors descended.  How does Appiah suppose we go on without grouping ourselves into differing categories again? As I stated a while back, it’s hard for me to believe that, if we somehow did manage to completely eliminate the use of the idea of race in modern society, we would not more or less replace it with a new means of setting ourselves apart that would prove to be just as scary and dangerous. The fact is: while we are all overwhelmingly the same, we ARE different. Many of us share similar traits that set us apart aesthetically from others, and as humans, we can recognize this. I imagine people progressively classifying each other in new ways, using new terms that correlate to the way we behave or the way we look that, over time, collectively evolve into a new system of classification that essentially mimics what Appiah wishes to eliminate today. The issue is not race; it’s how we handle race.

Same Difference (Yes, that's an oxymoron)

I found this conclusion interesting because it is widely unknown: “The chances of two people who are both Caucasoid differing in genetic constitution at one site on a given chromosome are about 14.3 percent, while, for any two people taken at random from the human population, they are about 14.8%” (129).  A given race does not explain biological characteristics contrary to many people’s understanding.  This is important to realize because we often discredit how much we have in common with our fellow humans. It is cliché to say “we all bleed red” or “we’re all the same underneath,” but it’s true and necessary to realize. 

I like the way Appiah breaks down Du Bois' theories; If Du Bois wants to classify race as a vast family of humans, he is using the concept of common ancestry which adds muddiness.  As we spoke about in class, identification comes prior to history. To identify a group's behavior, one is already identifying that group as a whole. 

Contrary to Du Bois’ belief, I don’t think any race makes a contribution to humanity that no other race is capable of achieving. Though I see nothing wrong with embracing a cultural identity, belief system, language, area, etc, I think the ‘strivings’ of one race that Du Bois mentions should not be toward a particular ideal, rather the human race strive toward ideals together.  On the sociohistorical level, if something is worthy of attention and progressing toward, we should all consider that a goal – not leave it for a sole race to pursue. 

Appiah’s “The Uncompleted Argument: Du Bois and the Illusion of Race”

Appiah’s critique of DuBois’ change of thought about the concept of race is, what I believe to be extremely understandable, and proves to be a good argument. As Appiah states that the logic of race “is the sane logic that has brought us to speak of genders where we spoke of sexes…” Hearing this made the notion of race more understandable than ever. When gender was explained to me, it was explained as a social construct. Reading Appiah’s conclusion about race, the reality of what race actually is and its impact on society is understandable in this excerpt:

“If we can now hope to understand the concept embodied in this system of oppositions, we are nowhere near finding referents for it. The truth is that there are no races: there is nothing in the world that can do all we ask “race” to do for us. The evil that is done is done by the concept and by easy-yet impossible assumptions as to its application. What we miss through our obsession with the structure of relations of concepts is, simply, reality.”

The concept of race is what has killed so many for centuries. It is astounding to think that an insane concept that has lead to the thought of some people being inferior to others has been the cause of murders and hate crimes. While Dr. J has stated that she doesn’t believe that the south is more racist than the rest of the United States, I must say that, unfortunately, from experience, small rural towns still believe that race is purely biological, and they think that their habitus is something that is genuinely biological. The things that people from my hometown say are absolutely astonishing. They legitimately believe that culture and personality is something that is genetic and inherited. It’s just astonishing to me that these things are still relevant.

Social programs and race

On Thursday Joey was talking about how a lot of Nordic countries have managed to pass great socialist programs where they really focus on education (making it free and top-notch for everyone) and they have free health care and more time off for maternity leave and less crime and all of this other great projects that seem almost utopian.

America won't be able to pass these kinds of reforms nationally since it's still chasing the dragon of sweet, sweet Capitalism ideals. We have the resources (if we stopped spending so much on war) but not the charitable will. 

I wonder how much that has to do with race, though.

Those Nordic countries are more homogeneous when it comes to race. Don't get me wrong, there are definitely people of color living there and they face some awful racism with little support. Europe is by no means free of racism. But these socialist programs are created by and for these people. Would they still pass them if a good chunk, like America's 40%, was non-white?

Let's apply it to America: if a state was exclusively white, would they allow some parts of it to live in devastating poverty? Would they let schools in certain areas fall apart? Would they complain about those people on welfare if everyone was white? 

I honestly think that a big reason that America has trouble giving equally to all is because that would mean handing "hard earned tax dollars" to those "undeserving" blacks, hispanics, muslims, etc. Remember when Coca Cola made that commercial where people sang America the Beautiful in different languages and conservatives were frothing at the mouth with rage? Those are the same people that cry a little inside just imagining two pennies of their taxes helping a black family in need.

Hell, here in CBU the guy in charge of handing out tax forms refused to give it to a bunch of us (us being Hispanic students) because he didn't think we should be getting anything back from the government despite the fact that all of us work legally and are doing are taxes like we are supposed to. My friend reported him and got an apology from the dean and he's not happily handing us our tax form now, but let me tell ya, that left a nasty lump in our throats. That's no way to achieve equality.

Du Bois Kind Of Mindset

The conservation of races was an interesting read but reading about it was almost surreal because it's actually some I grew and was raised on and that's why I am here today, because of hard work and working twice as hard to plan the unfair game to come in a "predestined" second place. Du Bois had some very well  stated arguments of why race should be conserved and preserves. In pushing for conservation, it should be natural that he was PRO-BLACK. This was seen in him starting the NAACP.  He brings up that in conservation, we must pull ourselves up from the whole we were placed in with a smile/grin on my face and say, "No sweat". I guess that's the piss poor excuse of reparations... But I'll digress... I would agree with Du Bois when he is talking about how blacks must embrace being African and present our heritage to the world before we assimilate and become African American.  I feel as if he was heading somewhere with the  stance of history has had many power players and it just hasn't been the African Americans time yet to shine. He is pushing for findings self identity first and foremost and then embracing and working together to create the true ideal American deal and equal rights and a balanced equilibrium. IT IS AN UNCOMFORTABLE FEELING really having to question identity and status everyday when you pass the threshold of your neighbor hood..... Your own home.... In parallel to Du Bois I can support his claim by adding another layer from personal experience, via sexuality. The same form of suppression and oppression is held against you when you have to live in a predetermined world of who you are suppose to love and not love. Questioning are you American? Gay? Or am I going to be Black today?  In my own ideal world I would love for us to be just one America, beautiful in all of its variety but to have and build that America, the people MUST know what the African American race has to offer.... And it's through the talented tenth that will pave the way! Little do a lot of people know, the black race has already trailblazed many paths before the European race.... Lol for example.. The bible isn't the final word... It was retold... Lol pulp fiction in so many words. Do your research! Du Bois did raise some good points and arguments however I do feel as if we should address things on a more systematic scale versus individualist. It is too messy and time consuming!

Blurred Lines

I, too, am torn between the elimination of the concept of race as we know it and conserving it.  As we’ve mentioned repeatedly in class, to instill the “color blind” theory right now would be to damage an existing population: race has caused minorities hardships, therefore if it is to ever disappear, it should not be until the members of each race are susceptible to the same opportunities and proportionately subject to harm.  Categorizing people has created more harm than good. I think race can be embraced among communities through traditions, but overall it has led to hierarchies and caste systems.  Ideally, appearance would be irrelevant and we would all take the time to acknowledge meaningful characteristics, but I don’t have that much faith in humanity.  I think we will always categorize people one way or another which means altering our ideas of race is necessary.  I don’t think we have to eliminate race to eliminate the ignorance surrounding.

As time progresses, people will continue to challenge the current concepts of race by mixing among themselves.  This will take time as there are still stigmas surrounding exogamy, but I’m interested to see how categories develop as we develop as the human race. I think we will still categorize biracial children by their appearance, but I think with more biracial people comes more acceptance.  If someone is truly racially ambiguous, then you cannot pin stereotypes to them.  If biracial people were as common as monoracial people, lines would be blurred, categories would be blurred, and perhaps more understanding of people as individuals would develop.  

Redefining "Race"

It’s a fact that we are all different, and we always will be -- and this is a good thing. The word “race” has definitely retained a fairly dirty history, however, this doesn’t mean we should do away with the term all together, as Montagu proposed. Given our human ability to analyze differences in each other, we will always find some way to split ourselves into differing sects of the same species, however, this doesn’t have to be an issue of superiority as it has for so long. I agree with Locke in the notion that “race” can still be used to promote our differences in a positive way without tainting our relations with one another. While I agree with Locke’s idea of redefining the way we think about and use race, I still think he discredits a few important distinctions race can make between us. Locke seems to want to treat race purely as a cultural distinction as opposed to a biological distinction. I can mostly agree with this, however, I can’t tell if he’s wanting to exclude any kind of aesthetic distinctions between races in this proposed revision. I agree that purely aesthetic distinctions between humans can’t accurately account for a ‘solid’ method of identifying our differences, as we are much more complex than that, however, our physical differences should still be held as significant if we want to truly endorse what makes us unique. We are not purely defined by our appearances; however, to disregard the way we look is to ignore a part of who we are. Both physical and mental traits should be taken into account when defining any given individual, and thus, when defining a vast cluster of humans, we should not only take the cultural aspects of these peoples into account, but the physical distinctions that set them apart as well. I believe diversity should set us apart in order to bring us back together.  Diversity is something that should be cherished, as it’s not just what we all hold in common that makes our relations so beautiful, but what makes us different. 

Eliminativism

When we were discussing Montagu, and the eliminativism versus conservation I felt pretty torn between the two. Now that “race” has basically been established for hundreds of years, I feel like we may never be able to “get rid of it.” It has had such an impact on history that it’s just too broad of a concept to do away with.

I believe that some people use eliminativism as colorblindness, basically. I think this would minimize all the things that minorities have accomplished. For example, when you all were discussing this I couldn’t help but think about how African Americans literally created Rock and Blues music. Every time I hear people refer to Elvis as the king of rock, I cringe because the African Americans were the first in rock ‘n roll and should be recognized for their contribution to music history. Minorities have also contributed to science, and of course, history, which we should celebrate.

 I also believe, like Dr. J said, crimes against minorities would not be recognized, as they should be. Of course, people still ignore crimes against minorities today, but completely erasing something that has been so relevant and detrimental to our history would give people even more of an excuse to eliminate the problems minorities face. Every time I get on the internet I see that there has been some act of violence towards a minority. Right now, I feel like the people who are trying to ignore the violence and the hate crimes towards minorities are trying to be “colorblind,” which they would most definitely be on the eliminativist side of this.

However, I like eliminativism in the fact that it states that race is not biological. It tries to eliminate the belief that some people have that races are hierarchical, which has, obviously, caused numerous catastrophes such as segregation, racism, and genocide, hate crimes, and cults.