Introduction to Asian American Studies: Race and War
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Each of the readings this week helps us better understand race and social war in America. Du Bois opens up The Souls of Black Folk with a discussion of the black man’s struggle in America. Even after the Emancipation which was supposedly “a key to the promised land,” African-Americans suffered from disenfranchisement and prejudice that threatened the “suicide of a race.” While the black population in America was considered a problem, the influx of Asian immigrants was hailed as a solution. Here was a demographic that “works hard without complaint” and thus constituted a model minority that contrasted with the lazy, welfare-demanding African-Americans. Prashad acknowledges the fact that many immigrants were happy to accept this “benevolent racism” without challenging their supporting role in black oppression. In addressing these racial and social issues, Du Bois and Prashad write their essays specifically targeting the African-American and Asian audiences respectively in order to raise awareness and promote solidarity. In Black Reconstruction and Black Marxism, there is a heightened focus on the influence of capitalism and mercantilism on social conditions in America. Robinson writes about the origins of capitalism that were steeped in the racially charged feudalism of the Medieval age. Similarly Du Bois writes about the labor market of the 19th century that contributed to anti-black sentiments among immigrants. The class struggle between bourgeoisie and proletariat is one that is predicated upon racial boundaries both in Europe and in America.
Online reflection – Karen Zhang
In this week’s readings, especially Black Marxism and Black Reconstruction, I was struck by how far back into history the authors reached in their analyses of the origins of racism, and how entangled these origins were with economics and warfare. Cedric Robinson, in Black Marxism, starts by identifying the emergence of a slave labor-based economy all the way back in the 11th and 12th centuries, then follows the history of the European economy through feudalism, the middle ages, and finally capitalism to show how racial divisions became a necessary tool for nations to rally up forces and make war against competing economies in other nations. Meanwhile, W. E. B. Dubois, in Black Reconstruction, zooms in on American slavery as “the foundation stone not only of the Southern social structure, but of Northern manufacture and commerce, of the English factory system, of European commerce, of buying and selling on a world-wide scale.” (5)
It is especially interesting to see how the authors use their theories of economic development and warfare as explanations for what causes racism, because I think we often discuss economics and war as effects of racism. For example, I’ve often seen discussions involving race examine how race contributes to economic inequality or certain kinds of violence, but these authors were going in the opposite direction: looking at how existing economic systems perpetuate/necessitate racial divisions. These readings could challenge us to consider race and economics as part of a positive feedback cycle, rather than as pure causes or effects of each other.
Karen’s reflection strikes me a particularly interesting after the discussion we shared in class where it was suggested/asserted that race is both the basis and product of racism. In the Black Marxism reading, I think the description of the barbarians helps us to understand just how race was first constructed, long before many believe race and racism existed. As Dr. L stated in class, it is commonly believed that slavery marked the beginning of racism, and that racism has always entailed white superiority and black inferiority. Robinson, however, disproves these ideas speaking about the barbarians as the first “racial” group who were socially categorized as into a racial group, even though barbarians came from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, in addition to having some members who were white. I do wish the class had dug deeper on this topic, although I know we were short on time.
After having had some more time to reflect on this assertion that race is both the basis and product of racism, I have come to the question: how can race be the basis or even product of racism when race can be performed? For example, a light-skinned African American man can perform Indian American-ism by putting on a turban, and talking in an Indian-American accent. If he does so, he will be subjected to racism as an Indian American, not an African America, even though he is an African American. In this case, is this man’s “race” African American or Indian American? This is further complicated with the advances in plastic surgery today that allow for the permanent cosmetic changing of physical attributes including those that play a large role is determining race and racial treatment in today’s society, even if they did not in the 11th and 12th centuries.
Ryoo, your initial question strikes me as quite interesting and one that I wish to grapple with. You ask, “how can race be the basis or even product of racism when race can be performed?” I interpreted your question as an extension of Dr. L’s analysis of race and racism, which concluded with her argument that these two concepts are not only intertwined, but are continuously being defined relative to one another. Furthermore, racial categorizations and classifications are the products of deeply ingrained racist economic ploys, acts of exclusion, and white domination.
I think you raise a valid concern about the practice of racial performance. However, your subsequent hypothetical of a light-skinned African American man passing as an “Indian American” poses several issues. First, racial performance is not merely an act of wearing traditional ethnic garb and adopting a faux-accent, but is a social practice, an act of some sort, to claim a particular hegemonic racial identity, in most cases whiteness, in order to acquire assumed privileges, tacit subjects, and social acceptance. More thorough examples of race performativity are evidenced in landmark judicial decisions in “white by law” cases such as Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), Morrison v. White (1862), In re Ah Yup (1878), United States v. Thind (1923). Second, your question assumes that there is a monolithic conception of racism that is then parceled according to race-based categories. However, as we have read in Claire Jean Kim’s “The Racial Triangulation of Asian Americans,” race and racism are not measured on a singular axis, but rather a multidimensional field of racial positions. Thus in your hypothetical, I think you fall victim to the “different trajectories approach” (Kim) which treats the experience of racism as distinct along the lines of race, which is putting the cart before the horse because the categorization of race is a product of racist practices. Lastly, you bring up the modern practice of plastic surgery as a means to escape or alter one’s race, subsequent racial treatment, and experiences with racism. However, you make a problematic pivot from understanding race as a social construct to assuming that race is biological or skin deep. In this context, the act itself of cosmetic surgery should not be seen as a solution or end result, but rather the pervasiveness of racism and the harmful effects of white dominance.
Hi Ryoo and GJ,
I think GJ has made some really important points in responding to your initial question and your hypothetical about racial performance. I’d like to just add to GJ’s second point — that the positioning of a particular race on a multidimensional field requires a careful analysis of racism, and so treating racism as “distinct along the lines of race” can lead to some fallacious understandings of racial assignment — and bring this question back to our class discussion and to some of the key terms we defined last week. We learned that part of what makes “race the product and basis of racism” is the “stacking and sorting of people into different groups,” using large-scale structural forces that can impact the material conditions of entire groups of people, such as slavery and legislation. Racial categorization is the result of this type of historical and structural sorting — I believe this is what we mean when we talk about race and racial treatment, not the treatment of an individual performing race in a particular way. I don’t think we would do particularly well trying to draw conclusions about the origins of race and racism by examining first individual hypotheticals or personal experiences, just because this type of single-case thinking can sometimes mask the historical forces that went into defining the racial categories of “African-American” and “Indian-American” in the first place.
The readings for this week act as a theoretical framework situating our contemporary understanding of the Asian American experience within a historical background of the Black-white binary, the common battleground of race war rhetoric. Although we did not read Devin Carbado’s text outlining racial naturalization, I find it a useful concept connecting W.E.B. Du Bois, Vijay Prashad, and Cedric J. Robinson. According to Carbado, to be a citizen completely socialized into American society means to undergo a process of racial naturalization, or an almost baptismal experience into deep racial conflict, lifting the Veil to the morass of the American ethnoracial hierarchy. Du Bois first makes mention of this Veil, or the distinct color line between Black folk and whites, in The Souls of Black Folk. This seminal text, addressed to fellow African Americans, wakes them to the debilitating consequences of a psychological double-consciousness. In response to Souls, Vijay Prashad extends the framework of double-consciousness to the South Asian American. Prashad speaks directly to “desis,” arguing that they have been and are continuing to be used as anti-Black weapons and ethnic tokens of success, cross-cutting the sociopolitical landscape and economic fields of America.
Outlining the specifics of the Black-white racial conflict leading up to the Civil War, Du Bois’ Black Reconstruction points to the fundamental problem of slavery within the context of American democracy. Du Bois argues that slavery and the deification of social, economic, and political freedom are antithetical to one another. Moreover, the end of slavery was written on the wall due to the widening gaps between the white ruling class and poor whites. Throughout Black Reconstruction Du Bois makes an economic argument for the overall demise of the plantation south, fundamental to Cedric Robinson’s claim that race and class are inseparable. In Black Marxism, Robinson outlines the historical evidence for racial capitalism, which is bred from the marriage of State domination and social ignorance of unjustified slavery. Robinson uses the transition from a feudal state to one of European capitalism, as evidence to lay claim to the argument that race cannot be divorced from State-level economies. Furthermore, Robinson argues that racism is not a contemporary concept, but is a rather historical and “natural” process within any institutional structure.
I found it interesting that this week’s readings highlighted the negative effect of racial capitalism on the identities of African Americans, Asian Americans and even the “White Worker” that Du Bois discusses in Black Reconstruction (Du Bois). In all of these cases, the notion of social value/class being defined by race creates what Du Bois describes as a “double-consciousness,” or a presence of two conflicting identities, caused by the additional, artificial identity that is derived through racial capitalism and white supremacy (Du Bois). In the case of African and Asian Americans, who are all, in reality, hardworking citizens trying to find/earn their place in American society, they receive racist stereotypes (respectively, as inferior “problems” and exotic, spiritual “solutions”) that keep them from truly becoming accepted as ‘American’ (Du Bois, Prashad). Ironically, there was a similar effect on poor whites as well, who failed to face their own insignificant, disprivileged places in society because of the illusion of being superior due to racial capitalism. Ultimately, it is clear that racial capitalism and this subsequent double consciousness negatively impacts both the white “bourgeoisie” and minorities.
One of the most interesting points of this week’s readings was the contrast between The Souls of Black Folk and its South Asian counterpart, The Karma of Brown Folk. In TSBF, DuBois addresses race and social war by describing how African-Americans were taught that the slow nature of their economic/social progress and handicaps to their mobility were natural and ingrained, due to their own attitudes; conversely, Prashad engages with the same topic when he writes about how South Asians believed that their own success was completely natural and due to their hard work. However, both authors make clear that neither assumption is correct. I found this to be a particularly compelling comparison because it speaks to the constructed nature of racial divisions; if each race is taught these flawed arguments for their social place, then they are groomed to be content with their lot in life.
The other two works deal with perspectives on historical theories or events. Dubois’s Black Reconstruction was produced in 1935, a time when there were several scholarly arguments about the ineffectivity of Reconstruction; the piece talks about the roles of white and black workers and the opportunities provided to each. Cedric Robinson’s Black Marxism is interesting because it discusses how racial subjugation and the slave trade were crucial to the development of capitalism and how capitalism itself forced divisions to be exaggerated. This works aims to address questions of how Marxism could apply to cases of racial injustice and how the history of racism and capitalism are closely intertwined.
This week’s readings evaluates the concept of race through different lenses and experiences. Previously, I have studied the social impact of race of minority groups juxtaposed against the white majority. However, this week’s readings, Prashad’s “The Karma of Brown Folk” in particular, explores the complex relationship between minority groups and how they’ve come to be formed.
Something interesting that immediately caught my attention was the fact that Prashad referred to the South Asian minority as “immigrants” whereas DuBois and Robinson do not refer to African Americans as “immigrants”, and certainly not to the white settlers population as “immigrants”. This distinction becomes important in establishing the premise of racial interactions. While South Asian immigrants became so by some degree of choice and screening (thus creating the performance gap between immigrants and second generation immigrants), African American lineages brought over during slavery had no such choice (from either end). Thus, the difference in how each group became part of American society has determined how they have more recently been pitted against each other. Interestingly enough, this concept of using race as a divisive instead of inclusive power is explored in “Black Marxism” in how the social classes came to be formed many centuries earlier. This weeks readings approach the concept of race as we know it from these different angles, and from a position broader than the black/white binary.
As the very first readings assigned to the class, the readings appropriately guided the reader down a path of critical thinking regarding the following ideas. The origins and, to an extent, the unfortunate inevitability of slavery rooted in European history (Black Marxism), a reflection and necessary course of action for Black America of a century back (The Souls of Black Folk), a response widening the conversation to encompass a different time and a different people (Karma of Brown Folk) and finally a close look at the historical and institutionalized inhumane treatment of Black folk leading up to and during the American Civil War: all extremely crucial texts for us as students embarking on the discourse of race and war.
The one word I could not help but think of while reading these text was “agency”. Du Bois and Prashad both touch on the lack of agency in controlling one’s narrative and therefore identity as someone of a particular race. As Prashad puts it, “I am being told that I am good not according to my own terms but according to terms devised by the values upheld by Helms”. In a way, Robinson also adds to this idea, saying that “what concerns us is that we understand that racism and its permutations persisted, rooted not in a particular era but in the civilization itself”. Thus, it was the course of history playing out that caused the inadvertent yet inevitable rise of racism, another perspective highlighting the lack of agency in the rise of racism: the people of historic Europe did not deliberately choose the myriad of mentioned ideas to live by (such as feudalism and slavery) but were lead into it by the course of history itself: an idea that could dangerously be used to defend racism which Robinson expertly nips in the bud with nuanced and sophisticated evidence and logic.
In The Souls of Black Folk, rather than the concept of African Americans being labeled “problems” and inferior by white society, I was particularly drawn to DuBois’ description of the African American movement of “book learning.” The “compulsory ignorance” that was mandated by White America had allowed this movement of something even further than political activism, setting the African American race on a path completely unintended by White America. In the Karma of Brown Folk, Prashad discusses the model minority discourse surrounding the Asian American community and how this construction of race was used as a weapon against Black America. Interestingly, Prashad also talks about the history of the “Indian” race- about how Indians have sought affinities among Whites, always considering themselves to be more like Whites than Africans or other Asians. These parts of the two readings support the idea that race is constructed not only by the dominant group in that society, but also by minority groups. This led me to ask the following question: 1) how much more power does the dominant group in society have in constructing race than the non-dominant groups?
Robinson’s Black Marxism discussed the history of capitalist development and how the construction of social/economic hierarchies eventually led to the classification of certain races with certain social/economic strata. The idea of non-racial slavery (comparatively) presented in this reading was very provoking at challenging to understand, as I have been exposed to almost histories of almost exclusively racialized slavery. DuBois’ Black reconstruction in America offered a new perspective of how African American slavery in America was not necessarily welcomed by all of White America, and how free African American labor proved to be threatening to many white laborers.
I think Haneul’s point about agency is an important one to consider, especially in the context of the Kim reading for February 19. While it is almost assuredly true that the dominant group in a society has the most power in shaping perceptions and establishing hierarchies, there can be no denying that subordinate groups do play their own part in this process. Considering the racial triangulation of Asian-Americans with respect to Caucasians and African-Americans, we can see that Asian-Americans often identify with one group or the other. There is great heterogeneity among the Asian population, and some individuals choose to embrace the model minority myth, while others resent being used as a tool of black oppression. For example, the fight surrounding affirmative action has been framed as a debate regarding negative discrimination against Asian-Americans in favor of lazy and demanding African-Americans. Some Asians have internalized the model minority myth and oppose affirmative action, while others have spoken out against the transparent attempt to pit Asians and blacks against each other. In either case, minority groups have their own agency to shape their perception in America, although Caucasians as the dominant group have essentially masterminded this whole debate in the first place. This example illustrates the complex interplay between different ethnic groups, and how their actions can influence the racial hierarchy in society.
This is tacked on to my previous response since I didn’t reflect on last week’s class.
I think Haneul’s last point about white laborers being threatened by black slavery ties into our class discussion about group identification and racial capitalism. The class of poor whites is very far removed from the wealthy planter class, and yet this demographic almost exclusively identifies with the white upperclass despite having more in common with black laborers. This identification allowed the planter class to maintain the status quo founded upon the tenets of racial capitalism. By exploiting the color line, the upperclass managed to keep a strict hierarchy in which blacks were at the bottom, poor whites were above them, and planters were at the top. Poor whites did not lament their own position near the bottom because they saw a vast divide between themselves and black slaves.
In trying to connect all four readings, I see a common theme of white power structures employing racism and racist institutions to protect their own wealth, against the “threat” of racial minorities. I guess this is kind of obvious, and basically just a fancy way of saying that all of these readings were about “racism,” but what I mean specifically is the DELIBERATE and STRATEGIC effort on the part of a few, powerful white people to subordinate and oppress people of color for their own economic and social benefit. In Black Reconstruction, DuBois outlines this idea explicitly in the context of American slavery, by structuring his essay in descriptions of each individual group of people involved (“The Black Worker,” “The White Worker,” “The Planter,” etc.). DuBois shows us that wealthy, slave-owning planters made up a very small minority of the Southern population, and that the institution of slavery, including elaborate biological and religious myths concocted to “prove” black inferiority, was created in order to subjugate both black and white laborers to the rule of a politically and economically empowered oligarchy. Similarly, Robinson explains in Black Marxism that the bourgeoisie and higher classes “nurtured the myths of egalitarianism” among the lower classes, in order to create “racial” class divides among their own people and the mercenaries that policed them, such that the notion of a “nation” was only a lie used to oppress the lower classes. I think what is most important about Black Reconstruction and Black Marxism is their “timeline” STRUCTURE, whereby they outline for the reader the complex historical and cultural context required to understand the inner workings of white power structures. These two readings answer the reader’s question of how current institutions of racism came to be, whereas The Souls of Black Folk and Karma of Brown Folk seem to answer the question of how these institutions manifest themselves in general societal attitudes today (“today” being the time at which these pieces were written). These two pieces seem to focus less on academic and historical context, and emphasize more of the human aspect and experience of racism. However, within the historical context of the aforementioned other readings, The Souls of Black Folk and Karma of Brown Folk become even more powerful, especially since one seems to be a direct response to the other, because it becomes easier for the reader to acknowledge that these questions, “How does it feel to be a problem?” and “How does it feel to be a solution?” are part of the greater narrative of institutional racism purposefully dividing people in order to sustain white power. From my perspective, all four readings together show that systematic and intentional racism is an age-old European institution that manifests itself today in perhaps more subtle ways, but is nevertheless still just as ruthless and disturbingly deliberate as it has been since the 12th Century.
I enjoyed reading Nick’s reflection because I thought that it was a great job of summarizing some of the key points of Black Reconstruction and Black Marxism. The point that he makes about the white elites nurturing myths among the lower classes is, I think, very salient because it applies to all of the cases of marginalized groups that we have considered so far. Our class discussion about the word ‘Oriental’ and the dichotomy between perceptions of East and West comes to mind. I found it especially compelling when we talked about the idea that the East’s perceptions are controlled through a dialogue about domestic and family life, something that I think is still very true today.
Nick’s reflection also touches on the purposeful division of groups that was shown in the Prashad and first DuBois reading. It’s especially interesting to view this in the context of our class discussion about how the West defines its identity based on the ‘other’. There are so many examples in history that show purposeful, conscious creation of divisions by the ‘dominant’ group, usually middle and upper class whites. Given our knowledge about how groups like the Irish were incorporated into that definition, what erases those lines of division? What are the causes and catalysts of that merge?
I’m glad that Kate brought up our class discussion about the word “Oriental” because I was also struck by how perfectly symmetrical the dichotomy between East and West was portrayed to be. While both Kate and Nick bring up the deliberateness with which powerful white people were able to nurture myths about minority groups, I think it is also important to recognize how a racialized power structure, once in place, perpetuates itself and lays down roots in the general population’s subconscious. For example, the perfect symmetry of the Oriental vs. Occidental worldview has a tendency to oversimplify and generalize across Asian communities. Human nature seems to like having simple explanations for the world, even for phenomena which are in reality much too complicated to be explained as cleanly as we might like. Therefore, while the initial appeal of the Orient/Occident dichotomy might have stemmed from the West’s desire to define itself relative to an Other, and to establish itself as dominant over and superior to the East, I think it is likely that the persistence of the worldview stems from the human psychological tendency to grasp for easy answers and categorizations. While the power of appealing ideas to self-perpetuate should not absolve those who deliberately and systematically perpetuate such ideas, this does complicate the question of who is complicit in sustaining racialized systems.
Adding onto Kate and Karen’s points regarding Orientalism, I agree wholeheartedly that the origins and subsistence of Orientalism should be inspected more closely. While the origins of the dichotomy between Oriental and Occidental probably arose when those such as Marco Polo (as taught in the Western centered view of world history) “discovered” China and other eastern nations, this mystic/romantic/racist view of what became known as Orientalism has also been fundamental in not only the West’s desire to define itself relative to just an Other, but to solidify and build its own mythology in a narrative space that is not a void. And so, regardless of the lack of complexity, many falsehoods and exaggerations, Orientalism persists in the form of racism and otherness, which also influences the idea that Asian Americans are “immutably foreign and unassimilable”, as said by Claire Jean Kim in this week’s reading. But I also agree with Karen that the fault of perpetuating the Oriental vs Occidental duality is not solely at the hands of those upholding the Western historical narrative, but also with those who do not identify with the Western world but have adopted this worldview as their own, subconsciously or not.
In the first chapter of The Souls of Black Folk (1904), Du Bois gives a first person account of his experience as a Black man at the turn of the twentieth century. He specifically discusses the cognitive dissonance of desiring to exist both as “a Negro and an American” (4), and the inescapable double-consciousness (3) that Black Americans experience as people oppressed under slavery and policed people. In the first four chapters of Black Reconstruction (1935), Du Bois retells the history of the last century of slavery in America up to the end of the civil war. In doing so, he emphasizes that class formation is the starting point for how we understand the creation and persistence of race and racism in capitalist society, and connects the exploitation of Black slaves to the development of U.S. capitalism. In the first chapter of Robinson’s Black Marxism (1983), he informatively traces the origins of the bourgeois as the capitalism’s pioneer in feudal Europe. Robinson’s arguments of the construction of race and racism as fundamental to capitalism is made salient through his historical analysis of European State formation and European opportunistic mercantilism, and of course bourgeois dependance on slavery. In the first two chapters of Prashad’s The Karma of Brown Folk, Prashad disrupts the uncritical acceptance of the dichotomous Black/White character of U.S. race relations and hones in on how Indian Americans (+ Asian Americans) perpetuate and reproduce anti-Black racism.
While all the texts vary in style and content, I think they all address questions of how anti-Black racism historically gives life to European and American capitalism and to this day hedonistically reproduces and fuels capital and capitalism. In Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk, the desire to be an “American” is perhaps an pseudonym for land/property owning capitalist citizen, which has it settler-colonial and slave-owning roots. In Black Reconstruction, slave labor in the south and the necessity of interstate slave trade and westward expansion epitomize America as the anti-Black capitalist state. Black Marxism makes multiple observations of the tendency of European capitalism to “differentiate” and “not to homogenize” so to easily assign value and class to different races for exploitation. And in The Karma of Brown Folk, generalizing and pathologizing Black and brown people’s behaviors and performance under capitalism effectively alienates Black people from realizing “success” under America’s capitalism while promoting anti-Black racism in the psyche of non-Black people of color.
In doing this week’s readings, I found myself constantly comparing the stories and arguments made in our readings to those from a class I took last semester in the African American studies department, Housing in the Metropolitan US. Having never taken a racial/ethnic studies class before, I learned a lot then about better recognizing and actively contextualizing current situations, good and bad, within a group’s history in this country. In AAS, this was generally always in a negative context with respect to black people and positive with respect to white, like how red-lining reinforced poverty and stereotypes while suburbs encouraged white flight and further separation of the two groups into easily stereotyped camps. A child of immigrants myself, and identifying more with the privileges we discussed of white people than the setbacks experienced by black people, I felt the view I could build of my own story could only be framed during class within a white context. Prashad’s piece provides another way to frame my own story, confirming that while there were indeed many privileges I had as an Asian American shared with white people, those privileges nevertheless differ drastically from those of a white person in this country, particularly when considering the very beginnings of each of our histories in this country. I’m glad to have a better historical understanding of why, even if I am neither black nor white, I still have an influential role in reinforcing or breaking down the opinions of our country toward white and black.
I love this idea that Vincent brings up about Asians occupying a unique space in terms of racial relations in America. This is explored in our readings for February 19th, this idea of racial triangulation, and the experiences and history of Asians creating a collective experience that cannot be defined in isolation or hierarchically. Like what Vincent talks about experiencing, in some ways, Asians have privileges that black people may never attain and vice versa in that for example, black people can always be considered “American” while Asians are perpetual foreigners. I think the concept of double consciousness is also a good term to help us explain the unique experiences of Asians who are able to receive privileges but also are faced with racism. This more nuanced understanding of race helps us better comprehend the idea of solidarity and that each racial group faces its own individual barriers; other disadvantaged groups are not the ones we should be fighting, but the ones in power.
In reading Robinson’s chapter on Racial Capitalism and WEB DuBois’s Black Reconstruction, I really picked up the idea of how racism developed in conjunction with capitalism. DuBois describes how the idea of black inferiority was espoused by Southern planters to justify their continued use of cheap labor, thus ensuring their economic dominance. Similarly, even when slaves were emancipated, they continued to be enslaved through wage labor, lack of voting rights, and segregation. Robinson further describes how capitalism is merely a contemporary recreation of feudalism—that the capitalists have always existed in European civilization in different forms, and thus racism as well with merchant capitalism featuring “peasants from still other cultures” and the “slaves from entirely different worlds.” Following this idea, would it be safe to argue that as long as capitalism remains dominant in society, racism will as well?
In addition, Prashad discusses the idea that white people set the framework for looking at racism and will often compare Asian immigrants to black people when it constitutes an ahistorical racial fallacy if you study race without considering the history behind each group of people. This idea of designating Asians as the model minority is extremely dangerous and for example, was a large factor in how the 1992 Los Angeles Riots largely targeted Korean American immigrants and businesses. When Asians are cast as success-story immigrants, this prevents them and other minority groups from identifying the structural barriers and racism that they all face. It prevents them from fighting together in solidarity because they view each other as the enemy. This constant scapegoating helps white Americans stay in power.
I think Jacy’s question, of whether capitalism can exist without racism, is a really important (although unfortunately discouraging) question to keep in mind throughout the rest of the course. Our society is so accustomed to the idea that capitalism represents an ultimate ideal of economic, and therefore societal, “freedom.” Yet as we’ve already seen in this past week’s readings, capitalism is perhaps an absolute contradiction to freedom, as it is the direct result of racism, intentional division (grouping and stacking people), and oppression. I think Jacy’s reflection also introduces the problem of how we can combat racism in a capitalist society, especially in regards to racism between Asians and Blacks, as well as other minorities. I think what is powerful about our class discussions is something that Kate pointed out during the go-arounds, that stereotypes and racial divides are purely artificial. It seems to me that in realizing this, that the societal expectations and prejudices that bind us are similar to those that oppress people of other races in that they are all socially constructed, we are able to remove the racial divisions between ourselves and other marginalized groups of people. Basically, we can all recognize our similar oppression. But this then begs the question of how we translate this to change, and how do we subvert the wealthy, white, male power structures that oppress us? Does this mean we overthrow those power structures in rebellion, and if that’s the case, then does this mean that we must essentially dismantle the capitalist system? Again, can capitalism exist without racism?
Hi Nick, I appreciate your honing in on Jacy’s question of whether capitalism can exist without racism and, furthermore, your observations about society’s diligence in and loyalty to capitalism as it is retold again and again as the true ideal of economic and social freedom. Ultimately you ask “if we must essentially dismantle the capitalist system?” and “can capitalism exist without racism?”. After revisiting chapter one of Cedric J. Robinson’s Black Marxism, I (feel like I) have a greater understanding of his argument and the framework he sets up for thinking about relationship of race/racialism/racism and capitalism. The purpose of my reply is to attempt to not only reaffirm that the development and sustenance of capitalism necessitates (the creation of race and) racism, but also assert that what we know and experience as civil society under the modern Euro-American nation-states is predicated on racialism, which we know is an instrument for expanding domination, expropriation, and exploitation of the ‘other’. That is, nationalisms and States’ nation formations are the political manifestation of capitalism’s motivations of consolidating and accumulating for the self, while destroying and dominating the other. The historical analysis that traces the “antagonistic commitments, structures and ambitions of feudal society” (9) as comfortably transferring into bourgeoisie racialized capitalist nations serves for Robinson’s argument that “racialism and its permutations persisted, rooted not in a particular era but in the civilization itself…As an enduring principle of European social order, the effects of racialism were bound to appear in the social expression of every strata of every European society no matter the structures upon which they were formed” (29). It’s crucial to see that the pattern and practice of slave and mercenary recruitment, and the purposeful differentiation of people was to seize every opportunity to divide peoples for the purposes of their domination as something integral to the construction of the ‘nation’ by the State. I wonder if knowing this is useful when we go back to Du Boise’s Black Reconstruction, where Du Boise underscores the logic of United States democracy is to uphold slavery and racial capitalism. I hope that this reply in some capacity emphasizes the role the State plays in the formation, production, and protection of racial capitalism.
Because I found this set of readings to be particularly dense in their content, I chose to focus on the writer’s methodology and intended audience for each text as a way of identifying commonalities in their approaches to the questions of race, class, and identity.
In Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition, Cedric J. Robinson presents a chronological tracing of the development of class and race in the western world. Similarly, W.E.B. Du Bois’ text Black Reconstruction in America also employs historical analysis and interpretation with a clear focus in each of the first four chapters: The Black Worker, The White Worker, The Planter, The General Strike. The shared usage of historical events and analysis amongst all of the texts from this week asserts that historical precedence plays a key role in the development of race and class, and the various -isms from which they spring. For me, this emphasizes how racial oppression historically and currently manifests in systems, structures, and institutions as opposed to being limited to individual identity and experience. One particular aspect that I find helpful about the detailed presentation of historical events in these texts is how the writers demonstrate how social orders of power are in many cases constructed, but normalized and regarded as “natural” over time, which ups the stakes of rewriting or reframing certain canonical narratives related to the historical formations of race and class.
In The Karma of Brown Folk, Vijay Prashad directs a set of inquiries and challenges to Asians at large, but maintains a particular focus on South Asians and the reconciliation between culpability and victimization in racist structures and systems in the United States. Prashad relies heavily on the use of “us,” “we,” “our,” throughout the text, invoking sentiments of collectivity, thus imparting a sense of universality that opens itself up to self-criticism, critical reflection, and solidarity-building rather than positioning the author as an authoritative voice. However, the “we” address also strikes me as an approach that runs the risk of ascribing to the author the role of a spokesperson who is tasked to speak representatively about the entire group as a whole (which is not necessarily true). Similar to Robinson’s Black Marxism, Prashad engages in historical analysis with specific citation of key events and figures that inform and shape South Asian Americanism, but Prashad also shifts to a more personal register, especially at the conclusion of chapter one, leveraging both historical evidence and lived experience to articulate the racial position of South Asian Americans in the U.S.
It is not surprising then, that Prashad refers to Du Bois’ The Souls of Black Folk as an influence for his own text. Du Bois’ work alternates between a first person “I”-centered perspective and third person perspective, which allows Du Bois to shift from an intimate, personal register to one of narration and critical analysis that grapples with both historical events and issue of race in the time of his writing (From “Between me and the other world there is ever an unasked question…” to “The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife….”), without employing “we.” Du Bois then, addresses both an audience who shares in his racial identity and one that does not, though I believe that his text, especially his “Forethought” demonstrates a sort of impossibility of understanding blackness without lived experience, without having been subjected to the world within “the Veil.”
**Reading response post for class I missed
After class last week, the biggest takeaway I had and one of the key questions I hope to answer in this week’s class is the use of the Asian American identity as a weapon. Prashad begins to touch on this in his arguments that the assumption held by many Asian American’s of success due to ingrained culture is one that has been constructed by someone else and is just as false as contrasting arguments that African Americans have struggled because of culture too, but we haven’t yet explored just where the history of that assumption (the model minority myth) arose from and by whom to serve what particular purpose. Gaining an understanding of this as an Asian American will hopefully help me to better analyze my own role in our country’s racial issues, and framing it as a matter of me being used as a weapon will hopefully increase my own urgency to detach myself from the assumptions placed upon me by any outside groups.