2/11/10: 3rd Lecture--Race Matters

google image from post-racial google search

Race Matters: Post-Racial America in the 21st Century

7:30 pm VCU Commons Ballroom 2/11/10

Panelists: Bradley Brookins (undergrad accounting), Dr. Njeri Jackson, Jennifer Black, Dr. Utsey and Dr. Wood (Religious studies/adjunct afam professor). 

 The panel was questioning the idea of a "post-racial America" and if the issue of race still exist today. Are we post racial?

Questions and some answers summarized from panelists:
What is post racial America? "Allusion, fiction, myth, propaganda".... "a construct"... "interesting how  rules have changed."

What would one be? Postracial--colorblind--appreciative of diversity. One with little culture disparities.

Thoughts on reverse discrimination? I wrote down Affirmative action when this question was brought up. The idea is grounded in Affirmative Action. Some white people are threatened by affirmative action because they think they will not be hired because the black person gets hired to fill diversity. Most of the panelists talked about how we are all human and that everyone can be discriminated against. Utsey believed that engaging in the thought of reverse discrimination is fueling the idea....Reverse..The word is assuming that discrimination is solely towards one group of people.

 They also talked about Barack Obama as president. He was considered the best candidate because he transcended race. This is seen as a double standard though because why should black have to transcend above race and not white? I also think about the fact that he is not as dark as some african americans and the fact that he has mixed background. People think that since we elected a black president that everything is okay now. This is similar to when women got the vote. "Well we gave them the vote, what do they want now?" Its more complicated than that.

The history of racial categories dates back to slavery, when it was necessary to group people.

Audrey Smedley was mentioned. I researched her and found out that she is a professor at VCU and that she thought, "Race is an ideology that says that all human populations are divided into exclusive and distinct groups; that all human populations are ranked, they are not equal. Inequality is absolutely essential to the idea of race. The other part is that the behavior of people is very much part of their biology". Smedley questioned the relationship between the color of skin and any other variable that assumed direct correlation. If black then _____. 

Its "free to speak, and expensive to be heard." To trust anything in the media one should look to several sources. Many people stay silent because of the consequences that follow. 

Clarence Walker, a specialist in African-American history at the University of California at Davis, dismisses talk of a “post-racial” society as “bulls–t.” “The U.S. has come to recognize it is multiracial. But it is not post-racial. To say it is post-racial is like saying the world is post-nationalist!” I agree with this statement. To say that America is post-racial is to say that it is free of and absent of race. There are still big gaps between fairness of blacks and whites, not to mention other ethnicities that are left behind in the white/black binary.

  Google Images that come up when searching "post-racial america":

 more lecture notes:

"Pro_______, doesnt mean anti- anything."

Race is a sociological idea. There is presumed "biological" categorization. The attempt to make anything multi-cultural has the power to actually dilute issues of people. It reduces demands groups have made. To be diverse/multi-cultural is to be non-white. Dr. Utsey questioned the term inter-racial. I have always seen it as a positive term but he made me think more about it. It echoes difference and he compared the categorization of non-whites as if they were a different species. (across races).