MCKENZIE GOULDPD. A-B

Racism

THE TERM RACISM

Been around since 1936.

Concept

Definition

REASONS FOR RACISM

Different Forms

personal attacks of any kind, including violence. 

written or verbal threats or insults. 

damage to property, including graffiti. 

inappropriate language

WHY ARE PEOPLE RACIST?

Where it comes from

Race, religion, or culture

Our views and beliefs

THE ROOT OF RACISM

RACISM ORIGINATED with the modern slave trade. -Just as the slaveholders of ancient Greece

and Rome created an ideology that their barbaric slave system was "natural," so did the modern slave-owning class.

HISTORY

Prior to the advent of capitalism, racism as a systematic form of oppression did not exist. For example, ancient Greek and Roman societies had no concept of race or racial oppression.

The period of the Renaissance and Reformation was also the time when Europeans were coming into increasing contact with people of darker pigmentation in Africa, Asia, and the Americas and were making judgments about them.

HISTORY- SLAVE TRADE Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade began around the mid-

fifteenth century when Portuguese interests in Africa moved away from the fabled deposits of gold to a much more readily available commodity -- slaves. By the seventeenth century the trade was in full swing, reaching a peak towards the end of the eighteenth century. It was a trade which was especially fruitful, since every stage of the journey could be profitable for merchants -- the infamous triangular trade.

WHY DID THE TRADE BEGIN?

Expanding European empires in the New World lacked one major resource.

In most cases the indigenous peoples had proved unreliable.

Europeans were unsuited to the climate and suffered under tropical diseases.

Africans were different

Racism is part of human nature. It has always existed and always will.

The liberal idea of racism, that it comes from people's bad ideas, and that if we could change these ideas, we could get rid of it.

Two opinions on Racism

According to Alex Taylor Both assumptions are wrong.

“Racism isn't just an ideology but is an institution. And its origins don't lie in bad ideas or in human nature. Rather, racism originated with capitalism and the slave trade.”

-Alex Taylor

Slavery was "natural" because of race. Africans were not human beings, and therefore, they were born to be slaves.

"Slavery was not born of racism; rather, racism was the consequence of slavery.“

- As historian Eric Williams writes in his book Capitalism and Slavery,

CAPITALISM

Capitalism created racism and can't function without it. The way to end racism once and for all is to win a socialist society--in which the first priority is abolishing all traces of exploitation and racism.

VIEWS ON RACISM - DOMINANT VIEW

The dominant view which is rarely expressed as a worked out theory but rather operates at the level of assumptions is that racism is an irrational response to difference which cause some people with white skin to have hateful attitudes to people with black skin which sometimes leads to violent and evil actions.

VIEWS ON RACISM - SECOND VIEW

The second view is that racism is endemic in white society and that the only solution is for black people to organize "themselves separately from whites " in order to defend themselves and to protect their interests.

UNDERSTANDING OF RACISM

In a short introductory video the Understanding Race project from the American Anthropological Association says race is a powerful idea and an enduring concept, invented by society. It has also fostered inequality and discrimination for centuries, as well as influencing how we relate to other human beings:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aaTAUAEyho&feature=player_embedded

QUOTE BY MARXIST WRITER CLR JAMES

"The conception of dividing people by race begins with the slave trade. This thing was so shocking, so opposed to all the conceptions of society which religion and philosophers had…that the only justification by which humanity could face it was to divide people into races and decide that the Africans were an inferior race." - Marxist writer CLR James

WAS MARK TWAIN RACIST?

After his father's death Twain spent several summers with his uncle, John Quarles. His uncle owned twenty slaves and Twain had a close-up view of slavery in action.

Huck's changes during the story in his attitudes towards Jim and slavery provides a clue as to the real "mind" of Twain. Huck comes to realize Jim's humanity and finds his own at the same time. I like to think that Mark Twain went through the same transformation.

MARK TWAIN’S HUCKLEBERRY FINN

Mark Twain was born in Florida, Missouri in 1835. Twain worked as printer and a reporter who sold

much of his work to newspapers. Mark Twain wrote the 'Adventures of Huckleberry

Finn' twenty years after the American Civil War, he based the character on himself as a boy who believes in the right thing to do even if the majority of society did not.

OPINIONS ON MARK TWAIN’S HUCKLEBERRY FINN

“African Americans in particular have objected

to the book and in many school districts (most

recently in Dallas) have either banned the

book or forced the districts to make available

alternate literary selections for any objecting

student.”

-Russell Smith (1994)"The book (Huckleberry Finn)

does contain language that has racist

connotations today, and this has been

“whitewashed” or ignored by the critical

establishment. However, even figures such

as Frederick Douglass used the same

language when attempting a “realistic”

representation of life under slavery

Furthermore, the story undermines the

logic of slavery to such an extent that “the

authorities regarded the exposure of the

evils of slavery and the heroic portrayals of

the Negro characters as ‘hideously subversive’.”

-Helen Scott

Huck isn't happy about having to apologize to a black man, but he does it. It's super impressive for the time and place that he ends up apologizing, but we can see that he's still, well, racist—he's just less racist than everyone else. Is Twain holding him up as an example, or does Twain want us to do better?

“It was fifteen

minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble myself to a nigger; but I done it, and I warn't ever sorry for it afterwards, neither. I didn't do him no more mean tricks, and I wouldn't done that one if I'd a knowed it would make him feel that way.” –Mark Twain

Here, the duke is basically saying that all black men are thieves—which, of course, is exactly what the duke is. Ah, hypocrisy. But it's really no worse than the rest of the antebellum South, which welcomes in white strangers and… locks up black strangers.

"Because Mary Jane 'll be in mourning from this out; and first you know the

nigger that does up the rooms will get an order to box these duds up and put 'em away; and do you reckon a nigger can run across money and not borrow

some of it?" –Mark Twain

SOURCES“What Is Racism” N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Dec. 2013."Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Race Quotes Page

4." Shmoop. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Dec. 2013."The Roots of Racism." The Roots of Racism. N.p.,

n.d. Web. 12 Dec. 2013."-800BC-today: A Very Brief History of Racism."

Libcom.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Dec."The Origin of Racism." Origin of Racism. N.p., n.d.

Web. 13 Dec. 2013."What Is Racism?" YoungScot.org. N.p., n.d. Web.

12 Dec. 2013."Was Mark Twain Racist?" Examiner.com. N.p., n.d.

Web. 22 Apr. 2012."Racism." - Global Issues. N.p., n.d. Web. Sept.-Oct.

2013.