Notes on: Bonilla-Silva, E. (1996) Rethinking
Racism: Toward a Structural Interpretation. American
Sociological Review.Vol. 62, No. 3 (Jun.,
1997), pp. 465-480.https://doi.org/10.2307/2657316
Racism has been treated as a 'purely ideological
phenomenon'. It is of recent origin and was
originally defined as a dogma or a set of beliefs
or doctrine.. As a result social psychology has
dominated and the focus has been on developing
prejudice, negative attitudes which have somehow
led to actions. Even Marxists have reduced racism
to a legitimating ideology with class as primary.
Some work does refer back to the labour market,
however. Some other earlier work talks about
institutional dimensions of dominance as a form of
internal colonialism [these people include
Blauner]. This seems to lead to 'nationalist
solutions' and have produced some useful empirical
studies. Yet there is no 'rigourous conceptual
framework
Omi and Winant get closest looking at racial
formation as a socio-historical process to create
racial categories, a principle of social
relationships. It still overemphasises ideological
and cultural processes, however and
'overemphasises the racial projects… of certain
actors (neoconservatives, members of the far
right, liberals)' (466). Instead, we should see
racism as an ideology of a 'racialised social
system'. (467)
The existing formulations exclude the structure of
the social system, the real forces, and this
includes Marxism. Here racism emerges as an
ideology associated with slavery and other forms
of oppression and only survives 'as a residue of
the past, a surface for class domination'. There
is no theoretical apparatus. Psychological
approaches operate at the individual level and
examine attitudes with static constructs, usually
with the result that racism appears to be
declining: racism is a characteristic of
individuals not social institutions. Racism is
treated as a static phenomenon, so that it's
possible to see a decline in racism as a natural
process, a matter of assimilation or an
adjustment in norms. Racism has an 'independent
structural foundation' (468), with no basis in
contemporary society. Racism is seen as incorrect
or irrational [Adorno is included here!] and this
misses rational elements which originally built
racialised systems and the rational foundation of
contemporary racism. Neo-Marxists and others do
insist on the rationality of racism [examples here
include Wolpe and Hall], in the form of short-term
advantages, while those stressing internal
colonial paradigms acknowledge long-term
advantages. Racism is considered as overt
behaviour, which ignores examples of practices
which are 'subtle, indirect or fluid' as many
current American practices are alleged to be, even
symbolic: lots of attitude questions still refer
back to attitudes in the Jim Crow era, and racism
in other societies such as 'Brazil, Cuba and
Puerto Rico' often do not have an overt character.
Contemporary racism is seen as a remnant of the
past, as a result of slavery, perhaps, one of the
legacies of white workers or past class interests.
Finally, racism becomes a circular matter — racism
is belief that produces behaviour which is itself
racist, and racist behaviour establishes racism or
proves it, rather than actually looking at social
relations among the races.
The alternative is to offer a more general concept
— a 'racialised social system' (469) where
'economic political social and ideological levels'
[an EPIC model! -- he must have got this
from Hall] are partially structured by racial
categories. Designations of racial groups are
socially designated. Partial structuration arises
because there are certain hierarchical patterns,
structurations [references here include Hall 1980 and
Balibar] which acquire certain autonomy and
demonstrate effects [Poulantzas now] hence the
apparent free-floating ideological nature of
racism. Racial categorisation always involves
hierarchy, including economic occupational
differences and differences in social estimation
[a long footnote distinguishes racialised and
ethnic situations as 'different basis for group
association. Ethnicity is a primarily
sociocultural foundation… Racial descriptions are
imposed externally to justify the collective
exploitation of a people' (469)]. The particular
character may be variable — dictatorial during
slavery, but hegemonic afterwards, overwork
changing to covert racism. Differences in life
chances are the main distinction, however.
Different social rewards mean that the races
develop 'dissimilar objective interests' which
leads to struggles over a particular racial order,
and these are collective, racial and practical,
not subjective and individual. They are not
necessarily directed at the complete elimination
of racial structure, but can lead to 'a different
kind of racialisation' (470) [in other words
reform].
There are internal divisions of the races along
class and gender lines, but races as social groups
are subordinate or superrdinate and racialisation
does not 'imply the exclusion of other forms of
oppression but can accompany them'. The issue is
which interests move actors to struggle and this
is historically contingent — class interests may
take precedence 'as they do in contemporary
Brazil, Cuba and Puerto Rico' (471) but race takes
precedence in the USA. Much depends on the
economic political and social distance between the
races, although narrowing differences can cause
more rather than less racial conflict as
competition increases. Even where there is
class-based conflict the racial component can
survive until mechanisms producing racial
differences are eliminated — Brazil, Cuba, Mexico
still have a racial problem.
The independent effects of race can be assessed by
comparing data between whites and nonwhites in the
same class and gender positions, or evaluating the
proportion of different races in some domain of
life, or examining racial data at all levels to
assess the general position of racial groups. The
first procedure is standard practice, where racial
statistics are controlled for gender and class, as
in many sociological studies. However, limits
arise because a large amount of racial data cannot
be retrieved through surveys, and controlling for
variables tends not to investigate why groups are
underrepresented in control variables in the first
place. It also tends to assume an artificial
separation between the variables [may be].
There have been important racialization processes,
racial classifications, highly political acts
associated with domination of various kinds, often
conquest. Categories of others were invented
together with binary categories of sameness
[presumably whiteness as well then?]. These had
real effects on human associations. They went on
to limit life chances and interactions. Races are
analogous to class and gender in this respect, so
that characteristics like skin tone and hair
colour are used to denote racial distinctions, but
these are not particularly relevant in all
classifications, and there is always contestation
over meanings, for example several white ethnic
groups have struggled to become accepted as
legitimate Americans, and others have struggled to
avoid being classified as black. The racial
structure is not immutable although it tends to
become institutionalised, through the form of
constraints on what individuals may do.
Initially, categorisation arose from 'the
interests of powerful actors in the social system
(e.g. the capitalist class, the planter class,
colonisers)' (473) but after that 'race became an
independent element of the operation of the social
system' [creeping idealism]. He wants to insist
that racism occurs only when 'a racial discourse
is accompanied by social relations of
subordination', which would exclude mediaeval
versions.
In racialised social formations, there is always a
racial component, even if struggles are based
primarily on class or gender, so South African
workers in 1922 struck for a white South Africa,
and opposed black workers acquiring
apprenticeships, while the struggle of women in
the USA to attain civil rights has always 'been
plagued by deep racial tensions'. There are also
specific racial contestations over matters like
who can live in particular places who can vote,
who can take particular jobs, and what ideological
labels might be attached to different races.
Contestation can be individual or collective,
passive and subtle or active and overt. It doesn't
always end in violence but structural foundations
might need to be shaken.
He reserves the term racism for racial ideology,
the particular segment of the ideological
structure that provides rationalisations, acting
with 'relative autonomy' [quoting Gilroy here]
offering common sense, a practical way to regulate
relations.
So the whole alternative framework proposes
racialised social systems allocating different
rewards along racial lines. A set of social
relations based on racial distinctions. Together
these can be called the racial structure of the
society. Races are historically constituted as an
effect of these relations. On the basis of this
structure a racial ideology develops which might
be seen as racism, but this is not just a
superstructural phenomenon but instead 'an
organisational map that guides actions of racial
actors in society' (474) with the reality of its
own. Most struggles over resources have a racial
component and sometimes they have a distinctive
one.
So, in summary, racism is more than just a series
of ideas, not a derivation of the class structure,
not the result of an irrational ideology. It needs
an alternative framework to focus on racialization
itself, a process that begins and then develops a
life of its own, interacting with class and gender
structuration but then becoming an organising
principle of social relations in itself. Once
established 'race becomes an independent criterion
for vertical hierarchy in society' (475) producing
different experiences of subordination in society
and different interests for different races.
It follows that racial phenomena are normal
outcomes not derived from other structures. That
racism is going to change as racialization
changes, that it includes overt and covert racial
behaviour, for example in historically specific
forms [Hall 1980
is cited here]. Rational emotive behaviour can be
rational 'that is as based on the races' different
interests'. It follows that racial phenomena are
systematic so everyone participates in racial
affairs regardless of whether they do so overtly
or aggressively. This process goes on in
contemporary society and is not an historical lag
— it follows that racialised social systems cannot
easily be eliminated especially through efforts to
cure it as a belief or an irrational view in
education, for example. Stereotypes only work if
they access 'the group's distinct position and
status in society' and will disappear otherwise
(476).
Lots more needs to be explained especially how
race interacts with class and gender, and how
societies are structured in dominance [again
reference to Hall 1980]. We also need some
comparative work, including comparing different
historical practices
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