Neocolonial racism

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Neocolonial racism is a subgroup of racism, inspired by the power dynamics left by the power and wealth disparages of a colonial landscape.

Contents

This subgroup of racism is typified by a hierarchy of classes dictated by race or ethnic group whose place in the hierarchy coincides with the level of the ethnic group during time of the foreign control; often colonial racism is seen as a power tool of elites to maintain order. Some qualities of the racism include a mainstream history that is imposed by elites, "willfully accepted false memories" [1] of popular icons who fought the racial ideas, and large disparages between the elite of colonial ruler ethnicity and the poor of the colonized ethnicity. Most often this type of racism lends to continuous and long term violence, but it can also include power dynamics continued by volunteering activities. It does not apply when Native peoples dominate the political landscape after an uprising or forced destruction of the invaders control, nor when the invasion itself was ineffective and never completed.

1943 Colored Waiting Room Sign, a display of cultural racism against any colored people including but not limited to: Native Americans, African Americans, Mulatto Americans, Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, etc. Although not a colony anymore, the same racism exists as during the time it was a colony. 1943 Colored Waiting Room Sign.jpg
1943 Colored Waiting Room Sign, a display of cultural racism against any colored people including but not limited to: Native Americans, African Americans, Mulatto Americans, Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, etc. Although not a colony anymore, the same racism exists as during the time it was a colony.

Types and Forms

Volunteer tourism, in which international volunteers seek to aid poorer countries has been critiqued as a practice as teaching neocolonialism and racism among the international community. Proponents cite the power differences between the volunteers and indigenous folk, as well as interactions between the groups being decided on race and gender differences rather than other factors. [2]

Colorblindness, not to be confused with the eye condition, has been critiqued as a practice of hiding racism by eradicating any comment about race from dialogue while still allowing racist sentiments to continue. In this manner, the effects of racism can be denied in legal court due to the non-use of any designated racist comments. Meanwhile, proponents of colorblindness maintain its use in preventing racist beliefs as a different explanation or perspective must be used instead of an overtly racist one. [3]

Increasing needs of investments, as the powerful continue to prevent the poor from learning and moving up in station, there becomes more necessity for foreign investments to aid necessary maintains national functions and to fill in the gaps via imports of what is not made in country. This prevents internal businesses from profiting when imports can be made cheaper and sold via the distribution of the already rich. [1]

Literature

Marlon James' A Brief History of Seven Killings is a critique of neocolonialism in Jamaica after the assassination attempts on Bob Marley. [1]

Related Research Articles

Racism is discrimination and prejudice towards people based on their race or ethnicity. Racism can be present in social actions, practices, or political systems that support the expression of prejudice or aversion in discriminatory practices. The ideology underlying racist practices often assumes that humans can be subdivided into distinct groups that are different in their social behavior and innate capacities and that can be ranked as inferior or superior. Racist ideology can become manifest in many aspects of social life. Associated social actions may include nativism, xenophobia, otherness, segregation, hierarchical ranking, supremacism, and related social phenomena.

Neocolonialism is the continuation or reimposition of imperialist rule by a state over another nominally independent state. Neocolonialism takes the form of economic imperialism, globalization, cultural imperialism and conditional aid to influence or control a developing country instead of the previous colonial methods of direct military control or indirect political control (hegemony).

Color blindness is a term that has been used by justices of the United States Supreme Court in several opinions relating to racial equality and social equity, particularly in public education. The term metaphorically references the medical phenomenon of color blindness. Beyond, psychology professionals also study the racial color blindness approach in social psychology and multicultural psychology.

Postcolonial feminism is a form of feminism that developed as a response to feminism focusing solely on the experiences of women in Western cultures and former colonies. Postcolonial feminism seeks to account for the way that racism and the long-lasting political, economic, and cultural effects of colonialism affect non-white, non-Western women in the postcolonial world. Postcolonial feminism originated in the 1980s as a critique of feminist theorists in developed countries pointing out the universalizing tendencies of mainstream feminist ideas and argues that women living in non-Western countries are misrepresented.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Intersectionality</span> Theory of discrimination

Intersectionality is an analytical framework for understanding how a person's various social and political identities combine to create different modes of discrimination and privilege. Intersectionality identifies multiple factors of advantage and disadvantage. Examples of these factors include gender, caste, sex, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, religion, disability, weight, and physical appearance. These intersecting and overlapping social identities may be both empowering and oppressing. However, little good-quality quantitative research has been done to support or undermine the theory of intersectionality.

Transnationalism is a research field and social phenomenon grown out of the heightened interconnectivity between people and the receding economic and social significance of boundaries among nation states.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Critical race theory</span> Intellectual movement and framework

Critical race theory (CRT) is a cross-disciplinary examination – by social and civil-rights scholars and activists – of how laws, social and political movements, and media shape, and are shaped by, social conceptions of race and ethnicity. The word critical in the name is an academic reference to critical thinking, critical theory, and scholarly criticism, rather than criticizing or blaming people.

Transnational feminism refers to both a contemporary feminist paradigm and the corresponding activist movement. Both the theories and activist practices are concerned with how globalization and capitalism affect people across nations, races, genders, classes, and sexualities. This movement asks to critique the ideologies of traditional white, classist, western models of feminist practices from an intersectional approach and how these connect with labor, theoretical applications, and analytical practice on a geopolitical scale.

Covert racism is a form of racial discrimination that is disguised and subtle, rather than public or obvious. Concealed in the fabric of society, covert racism discriminates against individuals through often evasive or seemingly passive methods. Covert, racially-biased decisions are often hidden or rationalized with an explanation that society is more willing to accept. These racial biases cause a variety of problems that work to empower the suppressors while diminishing the rights and powers of the oppressed. Covert racism often works subliminally, and often much of the discrimination is being done subconsciously.

Internalized racism is a form of internalized oppression, defined by sociologist Karen D. Pyke as the "internalization of racial oppression by the racially subordinated." In her study The Psychology of Racism, Robin Nicole Johnson emphasizes that internalized racism involves both "conscious and unconscious acceptance of a racial hierarchy in which whites are consistently ranked above people of color." These definitions encompass a wide range of instances, including, but not limited to, belief in negative stereotypes, adaptations to white cultural standards, and thinking that supports the status quo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joe Feagin</span> American sociologist

Joe Richard Feagin is an American sociologist and social theorist who has conducted extensive research on racial and gender issues in the United States. He is currently the Ella C. McFadden Distinguished Professor at Texas A&M University. Feagin has previously taught at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, University of California, Riverside, University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Florida.

Hawaiian studies is an academic discipline dedicated to the study of Hawaiians. It evolved in the second half of the 20th century partly in response to charges that traditional disciplines such as anthropology, history, English language, ethnology, Asian Studies, and orientalism were imbued with an inherently eurocentric perspective. Ethnic Studies has mostly been a study of minority settler cultures although Hawaiian Studies shares with Ethnic Studies attempts to remedy problems with other academic disciplines by trying to study Hawaiian culture and people on their own terms, in their own language, acknowledging their own values.

Laissez-faire racism is closely related to color blindness and covert racism, and is theorised to encompass an ideology that blames minorities for their poorer economic situations, viewing it as the result of cultural inferiority. The term is used largely by scholars of whiteness studies, who argue that laissez-faire racism has tangible consequences even though few would openly claim to be, or even believe they are, laissez-faire racists.

Belize's social structure is marked by enduring differences in the distribution of wealth, power, and prestige. Because of the small size of Belize's population and the intimate scale of social relations, the social distance between the rich and the poor, while significant, is nowhere as vast as in other Caribbean and Central American societies, such as Jamaica and El Salvador. Belize lacks the violent class and racial conflict that has figured so prominently in the social life of its Central American people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Postcolonial international relations</span> Critical theory approach to international relations

Postcolonial international relations is a branch of scholarship that approaches the study of international relations (IR) using the critical lens of postcolonialism. This critique of IR theory suggests that mainstream IR scholarship does not adequately address the impacts of colonialism and imperialism on current day world politics. Despite using the language of post-, scholars of Postcolonial IR argue that the legacies of colonialism are ongoing, and that critiquing International Relations with this lens allows scholars to contextualize global events. By bridging postcolonialism and International Relations, scholars point to the process of globalization as a crucial point in both fields, due to the increases in global interactions and integration. Postcolonial IR focuses on the re-narrativization of global politics to create a balanced transnational understanding of colonial histories, and attempts to tie non-Western sources of thought into political praxis.

Racism has been present in Brazil since its colonial period and is pointed as one of the major and most widespread types of discrimination, if not the most, in the country by several anthropologists, sociologists, jurists, historians and others. The myth of a Racial Democracy, a term originally coined by Brazilian sociologist Gilberto Freyre in his 1933 work Casa-Grande & Senzala, is used by many people in the country to deny or downplay the existence and/or the broad extension of racism in Brazil.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cultural racism</span> Alleged type of racism that discriminates people for being culturally different

Cultural racism, sometimes called neo-racism, new racism, postmodern racism, or differentialist racism, is a concept that has been applied to prejudices and discrimination based on cultural differences between ethnic or racial groups. This includes the idea that some cultures are superior to others or in more extreme cases that various cultures are fundamentally incompatible and should not co-exist in the same society or state. In this it differs from biological or scientific racism, which refers to prejudices and discrimination rooted in perceived biological differences between ethnic or racial groups. The term has been criticised as being based in moral relativism and enabling systemic or culturally normalised bigotry among minority groups.

The White Racial Identity Model was developed by psychologist Janet Helms in 1990. It is a racial and ethnic identity model created specifically for people who identify as white. This theory, heavily influenced by William Cross, has become a widely referenced and studied theory on white racial identity development. This model was created "to raise the awareness of white people about their role in creating and maintaining a racist society, and the need for them to act responsibly by dismantling systemic racism through a framework of power and privilege,". In addition, Helms presented the idea that all people have a racial identity in some way that is influenced by power and privilege.

The word Nagos refers to all Brazilian Yoruba people, their African descendants, Yoruba myth, ritual, and cosmological patterns. Nagos derives from the word anago, a term Fon-speaking people used to describe Yoruba-speaking people from the kingdom of Ketu, Toward the end of the slave trade in the 1880s, the Nagos stood out as the African group most often shipped to Brazil. The Nagos were important to the history of the slave trade at that time in the 19th century, as Brazil requested more enslaved persons as demand for products from this region grew and harsh conditions on plantations entailed a high turnover.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Racial capitalism</span> Post-Marxist social and economic concept

Racial capitalism is a concept reframing the history of capitalism as grounded in the extraction of social and economic value from people of marginalized racial identities, typically from Black people. It was described by Cedric J. Robinson in his book Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition, published in 1983, which, in contrast to both his predecessors and successors, theorized that all capitalism is inherently racial capitalism, and racialism is present in all layers of capitalism's socioeconomic stratification. Jodi Melamed has summarized the concept, explaining that capitalism "can only accumulate by producing and moving through relations of severe inequality among human groups", and therefore, for capitalism to survive, it must exploit and prey upon the "unequal differentiation of human value."

References

  1. 1 2 3 Fraser, Rhone (2 January 2017). "Confronting Neocolonialism: An Evaluation of Marlon James's A Brief History of Seven Killings". Caribbean Quarterly. 63 (1): 67–82. doi:10.1080/00086495.2017.1302155. ISSN   0008-6495. S2CID   165054955.
  2. Blum, Alice; Schäfer, Dorothee (4 May 2018). "Volunteer work as a neo-colonial practice: Racism in transnational education". Transnational Social Review. 8 (2): 155–169. doi:10.1080/21931674.2018.1463055. ISSN   2193-1674. S2CID   220274627.
  3. Jackson, Mariss a (January 2009). "Neo-Colonialism, Same Old Racism: A Critical Analysis of the United States' Shift toward Colorblindness as a Tool for the Protection of the American Colonial Empire and White Supremacy". The Berkeley Journal of African-American Law & Policy. 11: 156–194.