Critical Reflection 2

                                                                               

In my last reflection I focused on race as a social construction and more specifically on Miles and his use of quotation marks when using the word race. Upon reading and analyzing Miles’ look on race I had thought maybe ignoring race could in fact be the answer to solving some problems pertaining to classifying race as we do, which in turn allows for racism. There is so much historical context to consider on the topic of race, especially in the Americas, for example “new world”, colonialism, slave trade and so on. The creation of the U.S is an example of a new society that was developed and constructed from its beginning around the ideology of white supremacy and of “colored people” being classified as the “other”. The ideologies remain to be unacknowledged and therefore people of other races are still treated unequally and unfair. The ignorance of this continuing phenomena and its lack of acknowledgement is the very problem that allows for racism to persist. Ignoring this is itself a reason for the presence of white supremacy. I will analyze these phenomena with support of Mills’ article “Racial Liberalism” and Twine and Gallagher’s “The Future of Whiteness,” as well as take a critical perspective on these articles.

A quote that really caught my eye from Mills (2008) is one that deals with the concept of color blindness, “the white citizenry increasingly insists that the surest way of bringing about a raceless society is to ignore race and all that those (largely people of color) who still claim to see race are themselves the real racists” (p.1385). To analyze this it is important to consider the nonideal theory perspective in which history plays an important role. To ignore the history involved would be to ignore the history of injustice and white supremacy, as Mills (2008) states, by taking the “decision to focus on ideal theory, white philosophers are immediately exempted from dealing with the legacy of white supremacy in our actual society” (1385). If philosophers are to use the ideal theory they are supporting the concept of “color blindness”. In terms of the nonideal theory I would have to agree with what Mills is saying. To have society in a “color blindness” state would be to completely ignore the history and the fact that our current foundations of contractarian liberalism is a white experience and results in racial structure and furthermore in inequality and injustice.

An important question to ask is simply - why have we chosen to ignore the history and the truth of a terrible past of racism, slavery and genocide? The answer, broadly, would be that it benefits whites. As Mills (2008) states “These structures did not just happen to come into existence; rather, they were brought into being and are maintained by the actions and inactions of those privileged by them” (p.1387), referring to the whites who are the ones privileged by current structures and maintain these structures as it sustainswhite advantages. White supremacy persists because ignoring the current structuring of white dominance benefits them and therefore changing it is not in the white’s interest. Mills (2008) explains the phenomena as “The atrocities of the past now being an embarrassment, they must be denied, minimized, or conceptually bypassed. A cultivated amnesia, a set of constructed deafness and blindness, characterizes racial liberalism”(p.1391). Mills is explaining how the European colonizing powers and white settlers have erased this from the conscience and “national memory” to continue on with white supremacy. Transparency would not be in their best interest as it would “make it impossible to continue as before: one would see and know too much” (Mills, 2008, p.1391).  

One of the most important aspects to studying sociology is to discover whether something is problematic. So, what are the results of paying little attention to and ignoring the historical context of race? As Twine and Gallagher (2008) mention “In the United States a majority of whites (71 percent) believe blacks have “more” or “about the same opportunity” as whites (p.8) (Kaiser 2001), although it is clearly not the case and it must be brought to the attention of society in order to move forward.

Third wave whiteness is explained by Twine and Gallagher (2008) as “an attempt to make the privileges associated with whiteness ‘conscience’ by illustrating how white advantage are maintained through various ideological narratives” (p.9). I believe that this is a formidable and sturdy approach, although only a step, to bringing about race equality. Before these two articles I thought that treating race as a social construction and trying to ignore it was the best answer. Although I will continue to see race as a construction of society I will not ignore race and its historical context and therefore have a conscience of the white identity formulated through the current system.

Mills, C. W. (2008). Racial Liberalism. PMLA, 123, 1380-1397.