1. Perceptions as Reality/ the Power of an ‘Illusion’
Week 10
The Politics of Race:
The Riddles of Race/
Perceptions as Reality/
the Power of an ‘Illusion’

3. Post racial Canada/USA: Myth or reality?
Race doesn’t matter
Racists are dwindling exception
Race based programs (EE) = racist
But….

4. The Paradoxes of the Race Concept
It did, it didn’t, it still does, should it, will it?
Why dated concept persist in contemporary Canada that commits to colour blind pple. of meritocracy?
Race Matters.

5. Overview of Chapter Race mattered Race classifications + typology
Justify colonialism [Social darwinism, eugenics, scientific racism (IQ testing)]
Enlightenment - explanatory framework
Race can’t matter
- No empirical reality, not natural, but socially constructed yet construction concealed
Race matters
Not real, but….
COGNITIVE: believe its real….
STRUCTURAL: Social location/lived ex
INSTITUTIONAL: racialized/racialization
“Phenomena do not have to be real, to be real in consequences’
Should race matters?
- ‘Fighting fire with fire’/race = prob = solution
Will race matter?
= source of identity, belonging
Canada = racialized or color blind society?
= whiteness as racialized privilege

6. Race Mattered
The history of the world is ‘epitomized in one word – Empire; the domination of white Europe over Black Africa and Yellow Asia through political power and built on the economic control of labour, income, and ideas. WEB DuBois 1940
* Not accident but integral to western society

7. Race matters MATTERS = causes something to happen Eye of the Storm
Blue / Brown Eye ‘experiment’
Social Location
Phenomena do not have to be “real”…
Predictor of success and failure

8. Race Matters Police Race Profiling
Kingston Police Services Survey+Toronto Carding ( )
Blacks stopped at rates 3 1/2 times their pop.
Why- more crime?
- more visibility?
- more profiling (discrimination)?
Whose Right? – statistics?
- Racial Rashomon ( what you see depends on where you stand (social location)
- racialized divide – over/under – bad apples/rotten barrel

9. Race Matters:Sport and Race
Disproportional numbers in NFL and NBA
Race?
Society/Social
Anatomical diffs yes, race no.
Anatomy + Society = explanatory framework

10. Race Matters: Race and Crime
Racialized minorities + Aboriginal Peoples = disproportionately represented in CJS
Aboriginal Peoples = 4% of pop but 22% of prison
Race? Or Race as proxy?
Or Society or culture or CJS bias?
Should race based crime statistics exist?
- help or hinder?

11. Race Matters: Racialized Society
Socially constructed yet concealed
all societies = distinction
= division of labour
= devaluation
= deeply embedded in founding pples of society
Not neutral but ideologically loaded
Racialized = biased against racialized minorities (etc)
society = slanted toward whiteness as normal etc.
= systemically organized around beliefs about race and entitlements (power etc) based on membership in perceived race.

12. Race Matters: Racialized Institutions
Ideas and ideals about what is acceptable, normal and desirable
Deeply embedded in design, organization, agendas, values, operations, rewards, outputs
Inadvertently benefitting some, biasing others
Yet little awareness of this systemic bias
Critical Race Theory

13. Race Matters: Racialized mindset
People reject race concept
But people (a) believe (b) act © live it
as if race were real
With very real consequences
“Race still a strong factor in US, a major study says” (Montreal gazette, 2 Oct 99)

14. racialization
Process by which powerful impose negative race labels on groups or activities because of their perceived inferior status as race
Ex – racialization of crime
- Jane-Finch, Gangs, Guns, Drugs
- Middle Eastern = terrorism
From Biology/thing to Social Construction (verb)
- process by which “others” are biologized, stigmatized, excluded
- more about us
- not race relations, but racialized relations,
- not racial minorities, but racialized minorities

15. Race, Racialization, Racialized
Race = divide world into fixed groups
- based on physical, psychological etc ch.
- believed to determine thought + beh.
- arrange in ranking from superior….
Race = misconceived “thing” out there.
Racialization = race = ‘process’, socially created
= says more about “us”
Racialized – structural entrenchment of race as bias

16. Race Matters: Whiteness as racialized privilege/as white supremacy
As social location
As relation of Dominance
Normative/normal status
Unearned privilege + power
White as race or as if race?
Whiteness as racism?
Whiteness still matters

17. See online case study: Afrocentric/Black-Focus Schools in Toronto
Against Black Focus Schools
For Black Focus Schools
Separatist in style
Inclusive in logic
Segregationist/marginalize
Self Determining/empower
Skills focus = key to success
Identity focus = key to success
Rationale = race
Rationale = choice
Blacks = problem
Education system = problem
Slippery Slope
Alternative schools in existence

18. Will Race Matter?
Is a race blind society possible or desirable?

19. Concluding comments/Past Exam Questions
Race not just mindset/bad attitudes but a system of power, domination, and control
Human differences, not race (see race and sport)
Race matters (3 ways)
Race = social construction + social location
Race = predictor of success or failure ….
Race not accidental/incident /flawed but integral to society/society building.
society = designed to reflect, reinforce, advance white interests (ex immigration program
* Is Race blind society possible?

20. Not for soc 2eo6 - Tutorial Questions
How does this video reinforce the sociological expression that “phenomena do not have to be real to be real in their consequences”?
How does this video reflect another sociological truism: success breeds success (that is, a self fulfilling prophecy).
How does the video demonstrate the validity of the statement that race is socially constructed?
How are concepts of racialization and racialized expressed in the vid