{"id":36317,"date":"2024-03-02T23:16:42","date_gmt":"2024-03-03T07:16:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=36317"},"modified":"2024-03-02T23:16:42","modified_gmt":"2024-03-03T07:16:42","slug":"race-lets-talk-about-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/race-lets-talk-about-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Race…Let’s talk about it?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cRace did not give birth to racism. Racism gave birth to race.\u201d[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

I was apprehensive about this week\u2019s reading. The idea of discussing race with my cohort was not one that I was looking forward to. I have had many discussions over the years about race, and they almost always end with someone triggered or offended. I attended a National Conference in the Fall of 2023 and one of the sessions focused on race relations within this particular Church Denomination. The speaker asked, \u201cWhat is Race?\u201d The room erupted in chatter and a few brave souls shouted out answers. The speaker then responded, \u201cYou are all wrong!\u201d I couldn\u2019t decide at that moment if he was brave or incredibly stupid. He then facilitated a discussion on how race is a social construct. He made this statement, \u201cThere is only one race, the human race!\u201d Again, the room erupted! What followed was a spirited discussion, intense at times, which led to no real consensus, but was the backdrop for many small discussions for the rest of the conference. I left the conference wondering how it was possible for seemingly like-minded people to have so many different perspectives on race. I had a very unsettled feeling. That same feeling was present when I picked up Not So Black and White <\/em>to read. I decided to alternate between two books to assist with this week\u2019s assignment. I read the assigned book Not So Black and White <\/em>by Kenan Malik and Racism, Not Race: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions<\/em> by Joseph L. Graves and Alan H. Goodman.<\/p>\n

How I Understood It<\/strong><\/p>\n

Race always seemed quite simple to me growing up. In my youth, the difference in your racial identity was pretty easy to visually distinguish. Joesph L. Graves and Alan H. Goodman articulate it this way, \u201cSo, race as a worldwide and social classification divides humans into groups based on assumptions about their appearance and ancestry.\u201d [2]<\/a> To summarize it in simpler terms, there was not a lot of complexity involved. You were either Black, White, Asian, Native American (we used American Indian or Indian), or Hispanic (Mexican was widely used at that time for all Hispanics). The \u201cone-drop\u201d rule (one- drop of anything other than white would put you in the \u201cnon-white\u201d category) applied for those that were mixed race. It was a tremendous culture shock for me to go to College at Berkeley and discover that not only an expansive view of race but a rich cultural perspective. I also discovered that racism was not exclusively inflicted on African-Americans, racism has tentacles that are widespread. Not So Black and White <\/em>offers a detailed, historical account of the origins of race as we know it today and \u201cit retells the history of race against the background of contemporary concerns.\u201d[3]<\/a> I found some parts helpful and some parts harder to digest. I found a more comprehensive perspective of race in Racism, Not Race: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions. <\/em><\/p>\n

Is it a Social Construct?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I tend to stay away from conversations that race is a social construct. For me, it feels like a gloss over of the significance that race plays in our everyday lives. I appreciate the way Graves and Goodman state that, \u201cYou might have heard people say that race is \u201cjust\u201d a social construct and therefore is not \u201creal.\u201d But equating a social construction with not being real is a mistake. A social construction becomes real in that it has real effects.\u201d[4]<\/a> If it is a social construct, it certainly has roots in a long history of racial inequality. Malik states, \u201cThe concept of race did not emerge out of nothing. Ideas about the inferiority and sub humanity of certain groups were already present.\u201d[5]<\/a><\/p>\n

The Answer?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The answers on how to define race vary depending on the source. Malik, Grave and Goodman all agree that historically race has evolved over time. The origin of race is rooted in a system based on inequality. I\u2019m not sure that I fully agree with either of the authors. What I do agree with is that racism plays a big part in how we see each other and how we treat each other. Malik states,\u201d Institutional racism of slavery and colonization gave vitality to the essentialist biological race concept. More briefly: racism made race.\u201d[6]<\/a> Racism made race!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Kenan Malik, Not So Black and White: A History of Race From White Supremacy to Identity Politics<\/em> (Somerset, London: C. Hurst & Company Ltd., 2023), 13.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Joseph L. Graves and Alan H. Goodman, Racism, Not Race: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions<\/em> (New York: Columbia University Press, 2023), 5.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Kenan Malik, Not So Black and White: A History of Race From White Supremacy to Identity Politics<\/em> (Somerset, London: C. Hurst & Company Ltd., 2023), 7.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Joseph L. Graves and Alan H. Goodman, Racism, Not Race: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions<\/em> (New York: Columbia University Press, 2023), 16.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Ibid., 37.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Joseph L. Graves and Alan H. Goodman, Racism, Not Race: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions<\/em> (New York: Columbia University Press, 2023), 5.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cRace did not give birth to racism. Racism gave birth to race.\u201d[1] I was apprehensive about this week\u2019s reading. The idea of discussing race with my cohort was not one that I was looking forward to. I have had many discussions over the years about race, and they almost always end with someone triggered or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":174,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2310],"tags":[2489,3087,3049],"class_list":["post-36317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-doctor-of-leadership-3","tag-dlgp02","tag-gravesandgoodman","tag-malik","cohort-dlgp02"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/174"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36317"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36318,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36317\/revisions\/36318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}