“…racism is not ignorance. Racism is knowledge.”

— Robin Kelley

Professor Robin Kelley’s words express a fundamental truth about the persistence of racism in our society, which is caused by the depth of knowledge attached to superficial differences in human skin and features. Throughout American history, meaning has been ascribed to racial difference, resulting in an ingrained hierarchy of privilege which advantages some while simultaneous disadvantaging others. By studying the writings of race scholars Beverly Tatum and Allan Johnson, we can deconstruct this system of privilege by examining the nature of racial difference in American society. Ultimately, the characterization of minority groups as “the other” has created a clear racial structure in the United States, through which African Americans and Latin@s have been especially subjugated and degraded. Ultimately, our social identities are shaped from a young age by the white supremacist thinking that pervades society and attaches meaning to racial difference. I believe a goal-based system of affirmative action is necessary to uplift historically underserved minorities in the United States, because such a program can greatly mitigate the racial inequities currently present in our society.

The work of Beverly Tatum and Allan Johnson explain the inherent human tendency to attach meaning to racial difference as well as the societal problems which result from this. First, it is very important to know that racial diversity is neither the problem nor the root of racial prejudice and inequity. The difference is not the problem — rather, it is the meaning ascribed to it which causes trouble. It is the construction of difference to mean something negative which is ultimately the most damaging. Nevertheless, human children naturally seek out difference from a young age, and often come to conclusions about this difference on their own or with the support of their peer group or parents. The subconscious formation of racial prejudices is incredibly important, because it shapes an individual’s racial identity for their entire life as well as their interactions with individuals from other racial groups.

The social construction of race begins quite young, generally at the ripe age of six months. At this stage, young children begin to notice differences in skin color and features around them. However, they do not yet attach meaning to the difference, rather processing the diversity of phenotypes around them like an adult might react towards different colors on an artwork. The child wants to determine the meaning of these racial differences, but is neither mature nor intelligent enough to understand their origin. Many parents think their children will be better attuned to racial difference if they don’t discuss it at home. In contrast, a racial dialogue at home bypasses a young child’s peer group, and imprints a minimally prejudiced and stereotyped view of racial difference at an early age.

The social construction of race in American society is especially problematic because an individual’s racial identity is permanent from their birth. Ultimately, the concept of race is purely a human construction. There are thousands — millions really — of different genetic predispositions among humans, yet race is the primary divisive factor because we perceive people to be different based on a few key distinctions.

In addition, race is a culturally created phenomenon, and is especially pertinent to America because of the historical racial diversity present in this country since the 17th century. For example, in Estonia or Poland race plays a lesser role since everyone is racially homogenous, so a person’s whiteness affords them no privilege. In America, however, a racial hierarchy gives white individuals privilege by virtue of degrading other minority groups. The exploitation of racial difference began with the goal of obtaining privilege and power — although diversity is generally a boon for society, it also brings a certain amount of suffering for target groups. When one group in power receives benefits afforded by their race, other groups must be denied those benefits. In the United States, privilege is organized mainly on one’s racial identity, with gender and class playing subsequent factors. White people have more social, political, and economic power and influence than people of color.

Much of modern America’s racial hierarchy came about because of centuries of imperialism and colonialism in the United States and around the world. In the First Wave of Imperialism, which lasted from 1500 to 1800, wealthy European nations established colonies in the “New World” or Americas. Spain and Portugal first sent their conquistadores to South America, who exploited and massacred the native people and established colonies of the mother country. Later, Britain, France, and the Netherlands also sent explorers and colonists to the New World, who built settlements along the North American coast and often engaged in skirmishes with the indigenous people. The ultimate goal of this colonial period was founded on mercantilism: the economic practice of establishing colonies to maximize the amount of bullion (gold and silver) in the mother country’s treasury and have more exports than imports. A racial melting pot (or salad bowl, to be more historically accurate) was created in the Americas when the Spanish (and later the English) transported millions of slaves from their villages on the western coast of Africa to the eastern seaboard of North and South America. In Brazil and the Caribbean, these slaves worked long hours on sugar plantations and suffered from malnutrition and debilitating climatic conditions. In the southern United States, slaves worked to plant cotton and tobacco and provided for the needs and wants of the planter aristocracy.

By the Second Wave of Imperialism, the United States and Japan joined in on the land-grabbing and colonialism of the original Western European nations to promote their culture, ideals, and “superior” civilization. This phase lasted from 1850 to 1945, and was founded on the goals of promoting capitalist free market economies in developing countries. In this stage, countries used their colonies as a source of raw materials, which could be shipped back to the mother country and processed into consumer goods. Colonies also provided essential military bases and coaling stations, which allowed Great Britain to become the eminent naval power. While colonialism was a means of establishing a country’s importance and dominance in the world, it also offered a mechanism of asserting white dominance and superiority. The notion of “white man’s burden” propelled US interests in the Philippines, Cuba, Guam, Puerto Rico, and Hawaii.

Indeed, by the late 19th century the United States had become one of the most ethnically and racially diverse nations in the world. This process began with the acquisition of territories which belonged primarily to people of color. The invasion of Native American land would see the establishment of white societies adjacent to tradition indigenous communities, although Native American populations dwindled significantly after colonization. With the Louisiana Purchase from Napoleon’s France, the United States expanded to twice its size, ballooning to include land which originally belonged to millions of Native Americans. After the Mexican-American War, the United States acquired land which was initially the home of Mexicans, many of whom were mestizos (mixes of white Spaniard and indigenous American).

Unfortunately, the unprecedented ethnic diversity of the United States did not result in an egalitarian society, but instead a racially stratified one. In the beginning, the most important and successful Americans were WASP, or White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. They occupied all aspects of government and business, and had the greatest life chances in society. Over time, Jewish and Catholic Europeans arrived with the second and third waves of immigration to the United States. Although these groups faced large amounts of racism and prejudice in America, their descendants were able to effectively assimilate because they couldn’t be visually separated from their WASP counterparts. While they lost the customs and languages of their native lands, they gained an unprecedented amount of privilege in American society. In contrast, African-Americans have always occupied the lowest tier of the racial pyramid, due to their hereditary skin color and features. Although non-WASP whites initially faced discrimination and prejudice, they did not face the debilitating color line which non-white Americans encountered.

There are a number of factors which contribute to the oppression which exists in the racial hierarchy of modern American society. Because meaning is attached to skin color, different races experience different advantages and disadvantages from the judgment of their peers. This ladder of oppression is multifaceted and organized into several tiers, beginning with the “thoughts” stage. The cycle begins with racially charged thoughts, which connect someone’s race to various prejudices and misinformation. From a stand up comedian’s jokes to a popular TV drama, racially charged statements are all around us. The level of oppression escalates when individual thoughts collect into a group mentality. These “feelings” express a prejudiced and shortsighted mindset towards another group based on misinformation, which is used to exclude and “otherize” the target group. This could be used to describe the bigoted attitude of many white Americans towards Jewish immigrants during the early 20th century. The most advanced forms of oppression are actions, in which there is systemic exclusion and suppression of an ethnic group. Throughout history, African-Americans have been systematically oppressed, beginning with slavery and ending with Jim Crow laws and segregation (although arguably still today with the prison-industrial complex and discriminatory hiring practices).

A number of factors combine together to create an oppressive environment. Oppression becomes a pervasive phenomenon when it occurs in an intricately woven power structure, which continually reminds the target individual of their inferiority and subjugation. Oppression is restrictive because it limits the life chances, such as education or occupation, of target individuals. Oppression is hierarchical because certain groups are elevated or given privilege while others are degraded and disadvantaged. There is a skillful terracing of people of color, designed to pit minorities against each other to ultimately strengthen white dominance in positions of power. Oppression is not confined solely to race, since gender and class play important roles in a person’s outlook and life chances as well. Ultimately, oppression often occurs on both a systemic or larger level as well as a more subtle and subversive level, resulting in an invisible state of privilege for whites and an indoctrinated feeling of inferiority for people of color.

Racism is the manifestation of racially motivated prejudice on the individual and systemic level of society. More specifically, racism is defined as a system of advantage based on race, which is a social construct based on certain hereditary features, including skin color. Racism is systemically oppressive because it permeates throughout society as a whole, and operates on institutional, cultural, and individual levels. Ultimately, racism is fueled by three main factors: omissions, distortions, and stereotypes. Omissions are errors in representation of the history or culture of an ethnic group. For example, a state legislature’s banning a history curriculum describing the slaughter of Native Americans by US soldiers would be an overt omission of historical oppression. Distortions are unfounded prejudices and perceptions of a racial group — many individuals would assume African Americans to be prone to violence due to the overrepresentation of black criminals on local news networks. Finally, misrepresentation is the mass acceptance of a degrading viewpoint of an ethnic group. In elementary schools across the country, the Native American racial experience is misrepresented in elementary school classrooms when children paint their faces, wear an “Indian” feather headdress, and celebrate the legacy of Christopher Columbus. This combination of factors perpetuates oppression on all levels of society, creating an arbitrary system of elevating and classifying individuals based on their physical appearance.