Race, Racism, and Ethics

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Race, Racism, and Ethics
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Introduction

• The question of race continues to divide our
  society
• We have widely divergent views on whether a
  problem even exists
• Most African-Americans see racism as a problem
  and many feel it has gotten worse.
• The majority of white Americans see racism as
  disappearing and as no longer a significant
  problem in the United States.
• The Invisibility Thesis Racism is often
  invisible to the majority for several reasons
• They suffer less from it
• They dont attribute their misfortune to race
• They dont always see the suffering that people
  of color endure.

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The Civil Rights Movement

• Martin Luther King, Jr. dreamed of a society
  beyond racism
• Initially, the civil rights movement centered
  around injustices to African Americans.

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The Movement Expands

• Two additional civil rights movements emerged
  into the public eye
• Rights for Mexican-Americans
• Rights for native Americans

Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers
Russell Means first national director of AIM
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Five Fundamental Questions

• What is the actual condition today in regard to
  race and racism?
• What is the ideal that we want to strive to
  achieve?
• What is the minimally acceptable situation in
  regard to race?
• How do we get from the actual to the minimally
  acceptable condition?
• How do we get from the actual to the ideal?

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Developing a Moral Stance

• Heres a way of visualizing these issues

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Some Initial Distinctions

• Race
• usually biological
• Caucasoid, Negroid, Mongoloid and sometimes
  Australoid
• Ethnicity
• refers primarily to social and cultural forms of
  identification and self-identification

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Some things to note

• Racial categories appear biological, but their
  significance is often social.
• Racial categories in the United States often
  appear mutually exclusive, but may in fact be
  overlapping.
• The 2000 census was the first that allowed
  individuals to claim multiple racial
  affiliationse.g., African-American and Native
  American.

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Racism

• Racism has long been a part of American history

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What is racism?

• Descriptive refers to certain attitudes and
  actions that
• single out certain people on the basis of their
  racialor, in some cases, ethnicheritage and
• disadvantage them in some way on this basis.
• Evaluative a negative value judgement that
  racism is morally wrong because of
• intentions
• consequences

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Overt and Institutional Racism

• Overt racism intended to discriminate against
  one or more groups on the basis of race
• Example covenants in deeds preventing property
  from being sold to people of color.
• Institutional racism social and institutional
  structures that, as a matter of fact,
  disadvantage certain racial groups
• For example, do standardized aptitude and
  achievement tests disadvantage some groups?

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Official and Unofficial Racism

• Distinguish between
• Racism sanctioned by the U.S. government (e.g.,
  in laws)
• Racism that occurs in the U.S. which is not
  perpetrated by the government
• We may all as citizens be responsible as a nation
  for official racism in a way in which we are not
  responsible for it when it was not official.

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Compensatory Programs

• Compensatory programs are a way of responding to
  past injustices.
• They are justified up until the point at which
  the earlier wrong has been compensated for.
• Rests on a notion of compensatory justice
• The country may owe compensation for
  officially-sanctioned racism
• Actions against Native Americans
• Actions against Japanese-Americans in WWII
• Enslavement of Africans brought to America

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Compensatory Programs

• Backward-looking
• Do not presume that the present state of
  recipients of compensation is necessarily
  impoverished
• Important symbolic value in recognizing that a
  wrong occurred and expressing sorrow or regret

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Future-oriented Models

• Differ from compensatory models, which look to
  past injustices
• Depends on
• ones notion of an ideal society
• the means acceptable to achieving that society

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Affirmative Action

• Four Senses of Affirmative Actions
• Weak senses of affirmative action
• 1. Encouraging the largest possible number of
  minority applications in the applicant pool, and
  then choosing the best candidates regardless of
  gender, race, etc.
• 2. When the two best candidates are equally
  qualified and one is a minority candidate,
  choosing the minority candidate.
• Strong senses of affirmative action
• 3. From a group of candidates, all of whom are
  qualified, choosing the minority candidate over
  better qualified non-minority ones.
• 4. Choosing an unqualified minority candidate
  over a qualified non-minority one.

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Three Types of Modelsof the Ideal Society

• Separatist Models
• Involuntary
• Voluntary rests on identity argument
• Assimilationist Models
• Make race irrelevant
• Often presumes assimilation to the dominant
  culture
• Pluralistic Models
• Many, partially overlapping circles

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Separatist Models

• Involuntary
• Racial groups have often been involuntarily
  segregated from the rest of society
• African-Americans
• Native Americans
• Asians, especially in World War II
• Voluntary
• Rests on identity argument
• Religious groups Mennonites, ultra-orthodox Jews
• Racial groups Aryan Nation, Nation of Islam

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The Identity Argument

• Premise 1 In order to have a happy life, one
  must be able to affirm ones identity.
• Premise 2 A central part of ones identity is
  dependent on race.
• Is this true in different ways for minorities vs.
  the dominant race?
• Conclusion Society must act in such a way as to
  permit, perhaps even encourage, the affirmation
  of racial identity.

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Assimilationist Models

• Make race irrelevant
• Make race like eye color
• Melting Pot metaphor
• Eventual blurring of any racial distinctions
• Often presumes assimilation to the dominant
  culture

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Pluralistic Models

• Many, partially overlapping circles
• We are members of numerous groups, based on race,
  ethnicity, religion, geography, place in life,
  hobbies, etc. Pluralism sees identity as
  constituted by all of these affiliations together
  and does not see race-based identity as
  necessarily primary.