This extreme form ofīinary racial classification reflects the so-called “one-drop rule” that became the standard system a person is considered “Black” if they have any African ancestry.

In different times and places racial boundaries are drawn in very different ways. Translated into the categories we call “races” is defined by social conventions, not by biology. Traits as criteria for classification, nevertheless how those traits are treated and how they are While racial classifications generally use inherited biological Race is a socialĬategory, not a biological one. This conception reflects aįundamental misunderstanding about the nature of racial classifications. Since racialĬlassifications are generally hooked to observable physical differences between people, theĪpparent naturalness of race seems obvious to most people. Many people think of races as “natural” categories reflecting important biological differencesĪcross groups of people whose ancestors came from different parts of the world. Groups has also stamped the character of contemporary American society. And certainly the nature of racial domination of these other This focus onĪfrican-Americans does not imply that the forms of racism to which other racial minorities haveīeen subjected are any less real. Oppression of Native-Americans, Mexican-Americans, and Chinese-Americans. This chapter will focus primarily on the experience of racial inequality of African-Īmericans, although in the more historical section we will briefly discuss specific forms of racial The chapter will conclude with aĭiscussion of the empirical realities today and prospects for the future. This will be followed by a more extended discussion of the historical variations in theįorms of racial inequality and oppression in the United States. Inequality and needs to be part of our understanding even as we focus on the more direct effects We do this because we feel it is one of the critical complexities of racial It is surely the case that racial inequality is more damaging to the lives of people within the Might seem a little odd to raise this issue at the beginning of a discussion of racial inequality, for Racism harms many people within racially dominant groups, not just racially oppressed groups. We will then briefly examine the ways in which We mean by race, racial inequality and racism. We will begin by clarifying precisely what Its historical variations and contemporary realities.

In this chapter we will explore the nature of racial inequality in America, both in terms of This is one of the great paradoxes of American history – how could the ideals of equality andįreedom coexist with slavery? We live with the ramifications of that paradox even today. Yet, from the start, American society was equally founded on brutal forms ofĭomination, inequality and oppression which involved the absolute denial of freedom for slaves. Race and racial inequality have powerfully shaped American history from its beginnings.Īmericans like to think of the founding of the American colonies and, later, the United States, asĭriven by the quest for freedom – initially, religious liberty and later political and economic Further, both the authentic culture of the people and the minority culture of the educated elite are said to have been lost to the standardization processes of industrialized ‘mass culture’.įor traditional cultural and literary criticism the romantic idea of the ‘artistic object’, produced by the ‘artistic soul’, is allied to a sense of the complexity and authenticity of the work of art. In this context, high culture is understood to be the peak of civilization and the concern of an educated minority.

This inauthentic mass culture is contrasted to the authenticity claimed for high culture. Mass culture is a pejorative term developed by both conservative literary critics and Marxist theorists from the 1930s onwards to suggest the inferiority of commodity-based capitalist culture as being inauthentic, manipulative and unsatisfying. The basic and most popular leisure activities until today remained reading books, listening to music, and watching movies and sports. The mass culture rose because people still need to fill their leisure time with entertaining activities.

When did the south rejoin the union