Racism

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Racism

• Understanding Racism
• Undoing Racism
• Racism and Faith
• Educational Resources

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Understanding Racism

• Individual attitudes and behavior
• Institutional practices and procedures
• Structural policies and patterns
• Who benefits?

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Paradigms / Conceptions of Race

• Biological/genetic
• Cultural ethnicity
• Structural/materialist

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Defining Race

• A population considered different because of
  physical characteristics
• A social construct, an epiphenomenon with little
  or no scientific justification
• However, race has enduring social significance

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Defining Racism

• A system of racially conferred -- and denied
• Privilege
• Advantage
• Benefits
• Status
• Racism a defense of racial privilege

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RacismisPrejudice Plus Power
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Distinguish BetweenPersonal Prejudice and
Personal ActsversusSystemic and
InstitutionalPreferences for Whites
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Individual Racism

• Discrimination Model
• Victim/perpetrator
• Prejudice (bad actor / bad apple)
• Intent (purpose and motive)

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Institutional Racism

• Recognizes that racism need not be individualist
  or intentional
• Institutional and cultural practices can
  perpetuate race inequality without relying on
  racist actors

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What is Structural Racism?
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If the KKK keeps people out of school, we
understand that as racism
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But if Fewer People of Color Can Afford to
Attend Private Schools, College and Graduate
Schools Is that Racism?
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Structural Racism

• Attention to inter-institutional arrangements and
  interactions
• Structure the arrangement or interrelation of
  all the parts of a whole (Websters Dictionary)

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Flip side of stark racial disparities

• White privilege
• The reality of unearned advantage, conferred
  dominance, and invisible privilege enjoyed by
  white Americans, to the detriment, burden and
  disadvantage of people of color.
• the reality that in U.S. society there are
  opportunities which are afforded whites that
  people of color simply do not share.

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We have long since grown accustomed to thinking
of Blacks as being racially disadvantaged.
Harlon Dalton
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Rarely, however, do we refer to Whites as
racially advantaged, even though that is an
equally apt characterization of the existing
inequality. Harlon Dalton
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Race Advantage
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Racism enters into every sphere of social
relations

• Economic exploitation
• Military subjugation
• Political subordination
• Cultural devaluation
• Psychological violation
• Sexual degradation
• Verbal abuse
• Racism a defense of racial privilege

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Racism is a whole of interacting and developing
processes which operate so normally and naturally
and are so much a part of the existing
institutions of society that the individuals
involved are barely conscious of their
operation James Boggs, Racism and the Class
Struggle 147-148.
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Not Just White and Black
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HISTORYRacism has been part of the social
fabric of America since its European
colonization. Whether it be the tragic past of
the Native Americans, the Mexicans, the Puerto
Ricans, or the blacks, the story is one of
slavery, peonage, economic exploitation, brutal
repression, and cultural neglect. None have
escaped one or another form of collective
degradation by a powerful majority.
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Racial JusticeEconomic JusticeGender
JusticeAre Intertwined
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Isnt Racism Over?
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Because the Courts have eliminated statutory
racial discrimination and Congress has enacted
civil rights legislation, and because some
minority people have achieved some measure of
success, many people believe that racism is no
longer a problem in American life.
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The continuing existence of racism becomes
apparent when we look beneath the surface of
our national life.
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Look beneath the surface
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Education? African-Americans receive more and
tougher disciplinary action than their white
counterparts, even for the same infraction.
Drop-out rate is far higher than their white
counterparts' rate.
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Housing Segregation Patterns
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Opposition to Immigrants
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Blacks comprise 13 percent of the national
population, but 30 percent of people arrested,
41 percent of people in jail. Human Rights
Watch Incarceration and Race
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Opposition to Affirmative Action
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(No Transcript)
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Undoing Racism Moving Beyond

• Beyond polite behavior
• Beyond intentionality to results
• Beyond our comfort zones
• Start at home and look more deeply within the
  worlds around us

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How start to combat racism?
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Can You Restrict With One Wire?
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Depends on How You Arrange the Wires
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Start with the understanding that racism is
hard-wired into our society and institutions.
It is like the electric wires in the walls,or
the plumbing, or the air and heat ductwork.
Invisible. Important. Always There. It is a
life-long struggle for justice.
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Structural Racism Directs Us to Examine the Way
the Wires (Institutions) Are Interconnected
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Importance of Structures
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Race Disadvantage
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6 Stages of Becoming Anti-Racist Institutions

• Exclusive Segregation
• Passive Club
• Symbolically Multicultural
• Anti-racist identity
• Structurally transforming institution
• Fully inclusive transformed society

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Stage 1 Exclusive Segregated Institution

• Intentional exclusion
• Enforce racist status quo
• Formal policies institutionalize racism
• Usually also excludes other oppressed groups

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Stage 2 Passive Club Institution

• Tolerant of limited of proper people
• Secret limits despite public policies
• Intentional maintenance of white privilege
  through policies, decisions
• We dont have a problem

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Stage 3 Symbolic ChangeA Multicultural
Institution

• Multicultural policies
• non racist open self identity
• Intentional inclusivity recruiting
• Expanding view of diversity
• BUT
• Little or no change in culture, policies
• Unaware of continuing patterns

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Stage 4 Identity Change an Anti-Racist
Institution

• Anti-Racist Institutional identity
• Growing understanding of racism
• Analyzes systemic racism
• Anti-racism training
• Conscious of institutionalized power and
  privilege
• Beginning accountability to excluded
• BUT
• Unchanged structures and culture

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Stage 5 Structural ChangeA Transforming
Institution

• Process of intentional restructuring
• Based on anti-racist audit
• All aspects of institution examined
• Inclusive decision making
• Commits to dismantle racism
• Multicultural diversity as an asset
• Redefines all relationships based on anti-racism

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Stage 6 Fully InclusiveTransforming Institution

• Future Vision of overcoming racism
• Full participation with diverse groups
• shared power, shared decisions shaping the
  institution
• Sense of restored community
• Becoming allies with others combating oppression

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Racism and Faith

• Christian Social Responsibility
• Feeling Right
• Thinking Right
• Social Analysis
• Theological Reflection
• Acting Right

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Catholic Resources

• Brothers and Sisters to Us (1979)
• Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself - Compendium
  (1997-2000)
• Catholic Charities USA Poverty and Racism
  Overlapping Threats to the Common Good 2008

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Sinful Racism personal and social
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Racism is a sin a sin that divides the human
family, blots out the image of God among
specific members of that family, and violates
the fundamental human dignity of those called to
be children of the same Father.
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Goal is Justice not Guilt
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Movement toward justice demands a simultaneous
attack on racism and economic oppression.
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Bishops point to 5 areas that illustrate
continuing racismEmploymentEducationHousingC
riminal JusticeOpposition to Affirmative Action
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The educational, legal, and financial systems,
along with other structures and sectors of our
society, impede people's progress and narrow
their access because they are black, Hispanic,
Native American or Asian.
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The structures of our society are subtly racist,
for these structures reflect the values which
society upholds.
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They are geared to the success of the majority
and the failure of the minority. Members of both
groups give unwitting approval by accepting
things as they are.
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Perhaps no single individual is to blame. The
sinfulness is often anonymous but nonetheless
real. The sin is social in nature in that each
of us, in varying degrees, is responsible.
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(No Transcript)
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Under the guise of other motives, racism is
manifest in the tendency to stereotype and
marginalize whole segments of the population
whose presence is perceived as a threat. Racism
is manifest also in the indifference that
replaces open hatred.
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The minority poor are seen as the byproduct of a
post-industrial society -- without skills,
without motivation, without incentive. They are
expendable people.
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In my class and place, I did not recognize myself
as a racist because I was taught to see racism
only in individual acts of meanness by members of
my group, never in invisible systems conferring
unsought racial dominance on my group from birth.
Peggy McIntosh, 1988
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Today's racism flourishes in the triumph of
private concern over public responsibility,
individual success over social commitment,
and personal fulfillment over authentic
compassion
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(No Transcript)
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Be willing to move beyond your comfort zones
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Transformative EducationEducate Self and
Community about history and realityof the
barriers of structural racismHow it affects
us,How it affects others.
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CREATE a safe environment for open and honest
discussion
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Study Bishops Pastorals

• Brothers and
• Sisters All

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Listen to People of Color
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There are resources for training expert help
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Secondary Educational Resources

• School atmosphere
• School structure
• Campus ministry
• Academic disciplines
• Social science
• Natural science
• Literature, etc.
• JSEA?

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Questions for Reflection

• Personal observations of examples of Prejudice
  Plus Power?
• Structural or Institutional Racism in our
  community Housing patterns? Criminal justice?
  Education public private? Employment?
  Response to Affirmative Action? Economic Justice,
  Gender Justice
• Not about guilt, but identifying and challenging
  unearned privilege and replace it with Justice.

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Future Ethical ReflectionBryan Massingale

• Shift from racism to white privilege
• Shift from parenesis to analysis
• Shift from personal to structural sin
• Shift from decency to distributive justice
• Shift from moral suasion to liberating awareness
• Shift from unconscious supremacy to intentional
  solidarity

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• Roots/Genesis
• Mission
• Activities
• Staff

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Roots/Genesis

• Jesuit Province Initiative (pre-Katrina)
• The Mission of the Society of Jesus
• serving faith, promoting justice
• Recent Document
• The Importance of Social Research
• JSRI Concept Paper developed 2005-2007
• Proposes a collaborative institute between SJ
  Province and Loyola

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Joint Loyola/Province Committee

• Provost Walter Harris
• Dean Brian Bromberger
• Dean Larry Lorenz
• Vice Provost George Capowitz and several others
  representing
• SJ province and Loyola

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Memorandum of Understanding (11/26/07)

• Purpose
• Mission
• Geographical Scope

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Affiliation (CSS)

• Activities
• Collaboration

• Structure
• Staffing
• Board
• Facilities

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Mission

• Based in
• Catholic Social Thought
• SJ mission
• Interdisciplinary
• Participatory research
• Social analysis
• Theological reflection
• Practical strategies focusing on
• Migration
• Poverty
• Racism

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Resources

• Funding Operating Expenses
• New restricted endowment
• Not out of salary pool
• 1/2 Province 1/2 Loyola
• Goal 6 million -- 2/3 already raised
• Projects, Presentations and Programs
• Income based on stipends, fees, grants, donations

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Activities

• Research and Analysis
• Education
• Facilitation
• Advocacy
• Immersion Experiences

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Activities 2007-2008

• Year of planning and development
• Consultation / Listening
• Within Loyola
• Southern/ Southwestern U.S.
• Gulf / Caribbean Region
• Mexico Central America
• Common reflective process

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Activities 2007-2008

• Infrastructure, board and staff development
• Migration articles, testimony, visits to
  detention centers, advocacy.
• Racism collect, study of best practices e.g.,
  Black Males Left Behind.
• Poverty consulting on economic development
  project in Central America

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Staff 2007-2008

• Edward B. Arroyo, SJ, Ph. D. Duke
• Director / Senior Fellow / Sociologist
• Michael Bouzigard, SJ, D. Phil. Oxon.
• Research Fellow Poverty/Economic Development
• Thomas Greene, SJ, J.D. Loyola
• Research Fellow Migration
• Mary Baudouin, MSW Wash.U (1/4) time
• Link with SJ province ministries / Social Justice
• Shera Maiden, MA Southern U
• Administrative Assistant

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http//www.loyno.edu/jsri

• JESUIT SOCIAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE
• Loyola University New Orleans
• Website www.loyno.edu/jsri
• e-mail jsri_at_loyno.edu
• 6363 St. Charles Avenue, Box 94
• Mercy Hall 306
• New Orleans, LA 70118
• Tel [phone]
• Fax [phone]