Actually, Franz Boas was among the earliest academics to argue that race was not biological (predating Cox).
Good luck on your prelims!
#YouNeedAShovel?
Help please: EBS Presidential Address
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Actually, Franz Boas was among the earliest academics to argue that race was not biological (predating Cox).
Good luck on your prelims!
#YouNeedAShovel?Right, which is why I dated it nearly a century before Omi & Winant. Boas didn't make the structural argument, though. That comes from Cox. EBS and O&W didn't bring anything new to the table (that's worthwhile). Boas, Cox, and Myrdal had already said it all.
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Back to the original debate: Why should anyone accept the argument from the fool above that the dictionary definition of racism (prejudice or discrimination based on race) is incorrect? Is there really a movement among sociologists to delete and replace the dictionary definition, or is it just this one idiot on sjmr?
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"Back to the original debate: Why should anyone accept the argument from the fool above that the dictionary definition of racism (prejudice or discrimination based on race) is incorrect? Is there really a movement among sociologists to delete and replace the dictionary definition, or is it just this one idiot on sjmr?"
Um,apparently you're the idiot if you're citing Webster's dictionary definitions in academic papers...
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"Back to the original debate: Why should anyone accept the argument from the fool above that the dictionary definition of racism (prejudice or discrimination based on race) is incorrect? Is there really a movement among sociologists to delete and replace the dictionary definition, or is it just this one idiot on sjmr?"
Um,apparently you're the idiot if you're citing Webster's dictionary definitions in academic papers...We’re talking about OP’s use of the word on sjmr in particular, and sociologists attempting to narrow the dictionary definition in general. Is this really a thing outside of sjmr or not?
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It is clear that the OP clearly did not understand the concept of racism (as a structural issue). Rather they responded with white fragility. Moreover, the OP was ignorant of EBS's published research on the Latin Americanization of race relations in the United States. Therefore, and basically, it was a post by someone who clearly did not have sufficient background knowledge on the research on race and racism over the last 30 years.
Regarding Cox's and Myrdal's contribution in framing racism as a structural issue (Boas, as anthropologist, did not address the structural question-he discounted the popular and mainstream biological arguments in science)-it is clearly an overstatement. Cox was a Marxist who in short saw racism as masking class relations. Myrdal's study was largely descriptive and focused on prejudice and the reproduction of racial inequality (i.e., the main finding was that white southerners were prejudice-duh). It was popular because it was big study with a lot of funding.
Despite their contributions, both Cox's and Myrdal's explanations are ultimately limited for two reasons. First, the findings cannot adequately explain the persistence of racial inequality in the Post-Civil Rights era despite the dismantlement of legalized discrimination. The passage of the Civil Rights, Voting Rights, and Housing rights and the dismantlement of Jim Crow (over 50 years ago) did not ameliorate entrenched racial inequality.
Second, they did not provide an enduring theoretical framework nor develop theoretically useful concepts to explain contemporary racism and racial inequality, and in light of shifting racial structures. Omi & Winant's and EBS's work (among others) fill in this gap ala racial formation and racial projects (Omi & Winant) as well racialized social systems, new racism, colorblind racism, and Latin Americanization. In short, they’re work is more applicable and theoretically coherent than Cox’s or Myrdal’s.
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First, you can only dismiss Cox’s contemporary relevance in light of the changing civil rights regime by dismissing his entire argument about race as epiphenominal. That requires a lot more than hand-waving about Marxism. Second, Myrdal’s analysis of white excuses for prejudice very closely resemble EBS’s frames—a half-century before Ed came up with them.
Finally, OP’s observations of the inherently racist nature of some of EBS’s statements cannot be dismissed by saying that OP doesn’t understand three decades of theory. These quotes are damning:
“Whites... derive pleasure from domination (p.8).”
“All Whites, whether consciously or not, derive a degree of satisfaction from enforcing racial boundaries (p.10).”There is no hidden theoretical insight in those statements. It’s b@lls-out anti-white prejudice.
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1. The OP is using the term "racism" incorrectly . I suggest reading EBS's 1997 ASR article for a definition. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2657316?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
2. EBS developed a Latin Americanization (i.e. a tri-racial) model of race relations so I'm confident he "knows about racism beyond the U.S."
3. Do some "research" before complaining about "mesearch"I suggest reading Loveman wrecking EBS https://www.jstor.org/stable/2657409
This is how he responded to it in 2015: "[Loveman's] boundary take on race and her sociology of group making...did make some white sociologists happy, but happiness is not a substitute for analysis." Oh what a scholar! -
^^ Myrdal�s analysis of white racism differs drastically from EBS�s "analysis"
Agreed. I was just pointing our that EBS's "frames" echo in noticeable ways what Myrdal stated about white justifications for prejudice. Only with less empirical rigor than the guy working in the 1940s without a computer....