‘Race’Diversity Literacy Week 8

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“… oppression designates the disadvantage and injustice some people suffer not because

tyrannical power co-oerces them, but because of the everyday practices of a well intentioned

society” (Young, p. 36)

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“A Girl Like Me” (Kiri Davis)

Insert: the “A Girl Like Me” video here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWyI77Yh1Gg

What does A Girl Like Me illustrate to us about racism and how it operates?

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“Everyday racism” (Essed)

“I was looking through the eyes of my mothers, and cousins, and aunts... I began to see how our most intimate relationships, our

abilities to love, express ourselves, and indeed to live, are deeply and permanently affected by racism”

(Dericotte, 1997 cited in Essed, p. 202

“….injustices occurring so often that they are almost taken for granted, nagging annoying, debilitating, seemingly small injustices one comes to expect” (Essed, 2002, p. 203)

“…expressed and contested in ordinary situations” (ibid.) Through discourses of ‘taste’ (Dolby) Persisting heirarchies of sexual desirability (Barna &

Pattman)Prepared by Claire Kelly

Black consciousness (Biko, p.74)

“At the heart of this kind of thinking is the realisation by the blacks that the most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed. Once the latter has been so effectively manipulated and controlled by the oppressor as to make the oppressed believe that he [sic] is a liability to the white man [sic], then there will be nothing the oppressed can do that will really scare the powerful masters.”

“… BC makes the black man [sic] see himself [sic] as a being, entire in himself [sic]…”

What would that mean for the girls in the video? What would that mean for black people in SA today?

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The “problem” of race (Peck)

“…the concept of racism is is therefore the object of political and ideological struggle….” (Miles cited in Peck, p. 92)

How we define the “problem” of race & racism determines the “solutions”

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But is it racism.....?

Insert: picture of Julius Malema

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dubula dubula (shoot shoot)aw

dubul'ibhunu (shoot the Boer)

But is it racism.....?

Insert: newspaper headlines from http://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/julius-malema-is-

a-racist-most-iol-readers-1.465472

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“Yes he is. For the simple reason that he can only see race in everything he gets involved in. And since he involves himself in everything, you get the picture. He's a tub-thumping, one-trick pony with absolutely nothing to offer this country other than hatred and stupidity.” Duncan

“He has so much hatred inside of him toward white people that he utters racial slurs on an ongoing basis without thinking what type of message he is sending across to our youth/nation. He should be disciplined and though the correct ways by his elders or he should not be allowed to make public speeches. He has no manners or respect for anybody including his own race.” Morgan

(Extracts from comments on http://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/julius-malema-is-a-racist-most-iol-readers-1.465472)

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But is it racism.....?

But is it racism.....?Insert: pictures of Barack Obama depicted as

a chimpanzee. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barac

kobama/4691161/New-York-newspaper-accused-of-racism-over-Barack-Obama-chimpanzee-cartoon.html

http://buckhornroad.blogspot.com/2011/06/local-republican-who-is-black.html

Insert: picture of George W. Bush being compared to a chimpanzee and compare why these pictures may or may not be racist. http://totallylookslike.icanhascheezburger.com/201

0/12/29/george-w-bush-chimpanzee/

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But is it racism.....?Insert: pictures of scientific-racist depictions

of African Americans in 18th and 19th century. http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2008/06/18/

whites-blacks-apes-in-the-great-chain-of-being/

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2 Major Discourses of Race (Erasmus, 2008)

Colourblind “since the end of apartheid, race is no longer politically significant, and therefore any use or recognition of the concept is itself a racist practice harking back to apartheid” (p. 173)

Essentialist “race as the predetermining and all- determining element of social life and self” (p. 175)

Antiracist

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Anti-racism (Erasmus, 2008)

“race as a social construct embedded in history and politics with fluid and changing rather than fixed and given meanings.” (p. 174)

“… draws our attention to the meanings we attach to (real of imagined) biological and cultural markers….” (ibid.)

“…and enables us to recognise the hierarchies of power and privilege located within racialised structures of meaning” (ibid.)

“recognise that race is not a scientifically valid category... this does not make race an illusion” (ibid.)

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Extra references Essed. P. (2002) Everyday racism. In D. T. Goldberg & J. Solomos

(Eds) A companion to racial and ethnic studies. Malden, MA: Blackwell

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