Raced and Classed Bodies

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Raced and Classed Bodies

• Imagining the Body
• November 3, 2008
• Laura Citrin

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What does it mean to say bodies are raced?

• Comparison to gendered bodies
• Gendered bodies are those shaped by ideologies
  about gender
• These ideologies affect how we adorn the body,
  how we modify it, how we treat it, how we move it
  (walk, sit, gesture, shake hands, dance, hold
  books)
• Ex the belief that men should be big and strong
  and women should be petite and thin impacts how
  men and women work out at the gymhow they sculpt
  their bodies

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What does it mean to say bodies are raced?
(continued)

• Similarly, raced bodies are bodies shaped by
  ideologies about race
• Like gender, racial differences do have a
  biological component, BUT
• It is racial belief systems that determine
  biologically-based racial classification systems
• Racial ideologies shape our bodies (how we adorn
  the body, how we move it, how we modify it, how
  we perceive our bodies and those of others)
• Example skin tone privilege

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What does it mean to say that bodies are classed?

• Similarly, saying bodies are classed refers to
  the way that ideologies about social class shape
  the body (how we adorn it, how we move it, how we
  modify it, what we consume with it, etc.)
• Ex braces (orthodontia)

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What the raced and classed body reveals to us

• The body can be used as evidence to learn
  something about how Americans think about race
  and class
• As an anthropologist from Mars, visiting the drug
  store, noticing the face whitening cream or hair
  straightenerswhat does she or he learn about
  what Americans think about race and the body?
• Saying bodies are raced and classed asks us to
  take a critical look at history, politics, social
  institutions and norms

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Raced Bodies in the US

• What is Barack Obamas race? What factors do you
  use to determine his race?

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How race is determined

• We have a racial classification system
• The system is based on skin color, hair color,
  eye color, and facial features.
• And, it is based on the perceived race of the
  parents and perceived race of the grandparents
  and so on
• But it also is based on ideology about race
• Ex One drop rulethose with one drop of
  African ancestry were considered Black for
  legal purposes

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Alternative Racial Classification Systems

• If race were purely biological, there are other
  biological traits that could be used
• Evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond offers
  equally reasonable and arbitrary divisions for
  classifying race
• Whether you have a malaria-resistant gene or not
  (this would group Yemenites, Greeks, New
  Guineans, and Thai in one race, and Norwegians
  and several black African peoples in another)

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Diamonds alternative racial classification
systems (continued)

• Whether you have the lactase enzyme that enables
  you to digest milk or not (this groups northern
  and central Europeans, Arabians, and the Fulani
  of West Africa as a lactase-positive race, and
  most other African blacks, East Asians, American
  Indians, southern Europeans and Australian
  aborigines as a lactase-negative race
• Whether you have loops, whorls or arches in your
  fingerprint (most Europeans, black Africans, and
  east Asians would be in the loops race,
  Mongolians, Australian aborigines would be in the
  whorls race, and Khoisans and some central
  Europeans in the arches race

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Diamonds Point

• One classification system is as equally arbitrary
  (biologically) as another
• He states, even if one could classify humans
  into races, one should not (1994).

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And other scientists agree

• Biologist Anne Fausto-Sterling Human racial
  difference, while in some sense obvious and
  therefore real, is in another sense pure
  fabrication, a story written about the social
  relations of a particular historical time and
  then mapped onto available bodies (1995).

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Purpose of Racial Classification

• As you can see from the one drop rule, racial
  classification systems are not rational,
  objective, or politically neutral
• The racial classification system has a clear
  purpose it is about creating groups and then
  designating power to one group over another.
• Racial classification creates divisions among
  people
• Racial classification creates hierarchies

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Becoming White

• Certain ethnic groups that are considered white
  today were not initially upon immigration to US
  Jews, Irish, Italians
• Becoming white is a route to power and privilege
• The fact that an ethnic group can switch races
  reveals how race is defined by power, resources,
  and ideology, not by biology
• This is what makes passing possiblebecause
  race is more than biology

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How are racial hierarchies embodied?

• What has been the consequence of racism on the
  body?
• Dehumanization and Objectification
• Examples?
• Exoticization and Eroticization
• Examples?
• Segregation
• Examples?
• Eugenics Ideologies

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White privilege

• White folks experience daily privilege because of
  their perceived race
• Whiteness Studies is about unpacking this
  privilege, describing how white privilege
  operates systematically, structurally, and
  sometimes unconsciously as a dominant force in
  the US and the world
• One way privilege operates is to make race seem
  invisible for whites whites are people
  whereas African Americans, Asian Americans,
  Latinos are people of color

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White privilege (continued)

• Peggy McIntosh? whites carry an Invisible
  Knapsack wherever they go filled with privileges
  they take for granted
• Whats in the knapsack?
• Ex flesh colored band aids

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Modifying the Body

• It is through this cultural lens of thinking
  about white privilege that we must understand
  body modifications such as
• Skin whitening/lightening
• Straightening hair
• Cosmetic plastic surgery on the nose, eyes, lips,
  chin
• Blue contact lenses
• Dying hair lighter/blonder
• Whiteness and European features are idealized as
  beautiful, and this isnt just a US phenomenon

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Racism shapes notions of attractiveness

• These notions of attractiveness are propagated by
  cultural institutions such as marriage, the
  family, school, and the media
• These notions permeate our individual choices and
  effect how we construct our identities
• Because of products and technologies, we can
  modify our bodies if we have the financial means
• Consumer capitalism encourages us to think that
  bodies can and SHOULD be molded

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Rhetoric of personal choice and self-actualization

• Language of individuality often used in ads for
  productsif you use this product you will be
  expressing your true self
• Yet, images aim to convince viewers that theres
  a correct way to look, belying rhetorical
  claims of individuality
• Paradoxical language of choice, freedom, and
  individuality often used in the face of
  standardizing and normalizing ideologies of beauty

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Examples of Body Modification

• Chosen to do the following
• demonstrate the normalizing ideologies of beauty
• Show how these standards are shaped by racism
• Show the paradoxical language of choice and
  individuality
• Show how the legitimating language of science is
  used

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Double-eyelid Surgery for Asian Americans
Before
After
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What lies beneath terms like Prettier

• In My Jewish Nose by Lisa Jervis, she writes of
  the pressures Jewish women face to change their
  noses
• I think that anyone who opts for a nose job
  today would say that the reason is to look
  better or prettier. But when we scratch the
  surface of what prettier means, we find that we
  might as well be saying whiter or more
  gentile (2003).

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Rhinoplasty for patients of Jewish ancestry
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Rhinoplasty to correct ethnic features
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Rhinoplasty in Korean patient
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Rhinoplasty in Black patient
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Profiles of the Teuton, the Black, and the
Jew by Albrecht Dürer

• Dürer (15th c. German artist)
• Drawings meant to compare normal to abnormal
  facial structure
• What makes the Teuton (ancestor to Germans)
  more normal? Who determines normal?

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Skin Tone Preferences

• Darker-skinned blacks have lower socio-economic
  status, more punitive relationships with the
  criminal justice system, diminished prestige, and
  less likelihood of holding elective office
  compared to lighter-skinned blacks (Hochschild
  Weaver, 2007)
• This colorism occurs both outside of and within
  the African American community
• In the early 1900s, blacks who wanted to get into
  certain clubs, fraternities, even universities
  like Howard, had to pass the brown paper bag
  test

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Ads for Skin Whitening/Lightening Creams
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Ads for Skin Whitening/Lightening Creams
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Ads for Skin Whitening/Lightening Creams
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Skin Whiteners today

• Dr.Fred Palmer Skin Whitener 2oz
• 3.95
• Dr. Fred PALMER Skin Whitener Tone and Bleach
  Cream is an exclusive formula designed to help
  you achieve a lovelier complexion. Your skin will
  be lighter and smoother and seem to glow as it
  suddenly comes alive! This pleasant, easy-to-use
  cream is the perfect way to soft, lovely, glowing
  skin. In addition, it helps fade age spots,
  freckles and brown spots while it smoothes your
  skin and restores a more natural balanced tone to
  blemished skin. This is a beauty cream that works
  to produce a clearer, lighter, brighter
  complexion.

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Straight, long hair

• Madam C. J. Walker (1867-1919), daughter of
  slaves, was the first female millionaireshe
  popularized the use of the hot comb to iron out
  curly hair
• Chemical relaxers and perms also were developed
  to straighten hair

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Ads for Hair Straighteners
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Ads for Hair Straighteners
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Ads for Hair Straighteners
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Social Dominance Theory (Sidanius, 1993)

• SD Theory proposes that a dominant group will
  seek to control the instruments of society to
  maintain that groups dominance by espousing
  beliefs, policies, myths that legitimate and
  perpetuate its dominance
• All members of all groups are subject to these
  beliefs, and therefore tend to believe in and
  support them to varying degrees

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Resistance

• Yet, there is resistance to dominant racial
  ideologies about body normality and beauty
• Black is beautiful is one example
• Songs celebrating the big butts of black women
  are another example
• Sir Mixalots I Like Big Butts and I will not
  Lie So Cosmo says you're fat. Well I ain't
  down with that.
• Other examples?

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Intersection of Race and Class

• Race and Class also intersect when considering
  how these ideologies are embodied
• Take the term ghettowhat does that mean?
• What about the terms white trash or trashy?
• Redneck?

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Classed Bodies in the US

• Social class is written on the bodyhow one
  moves, what one wears, ones hair style, teeth,
  how one gestures, whether one has cosmetic
  surgery or procedures, how close one stands, what
  one eats/drinks, what type of cig one smokes, and
  on and on
• Clip from People Like Us Social Class in
  America (2001)