Race and Racism

Studying identity, complicating ourselves: Engaging with privilege and place in higher education

by Victoria Kannen

In "Too Asian?" Racism, privilege, and post-secondary education, edited by R. J. Gilmour, D. Bhandar, J. Heer and M. C. K. Ma. Toronto: Between The Lines Press.

The now notorious Maclean’s article “’Too Asian?’” from the magazine’s 2010 campus issue has sparked a national furor... more The now notorious Maclean’s article “’Too Asian?’” from the magazine’s 2010 campus issue has sparked a national furor about race in Canadian higher education. Since the founding of the federal policy of multiculturalism, Canadians have prided themselves on their ability to integrate diversity into a broader multicultural environment, but the often heated discussions about race point to fissures in this national project. This collection uses the controversy about the Maclean’s article as a flashpoint to interrogate issues about race and representation on Canadian campuses and what it means for students and learning across the country.

Addressing ethnicity in social care research

by Tom Vickers

co-authored with Gary Craig and Karl Atkin, published by Social Policy and Administration, 2012. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9515.2012.00851.x

This article surveys recent developments in relation to the dimensions of ethnicity and ethnic disadvantage in social... more This article surveys recent developments in relation to the dimensions of ethnicity and ethnic disadvantage in social policy research and practice, with a focus on social care. While there has been limited increase in attention to ethnicity within general policy discussion and increasing sophistication within specialist debates, advances in theory and methodology have largely failed to penetrate the mainstream of research, let alone policy or practice. This is a long standing problem. We argue for a more focussed consideration of ethnicity and ethnic disadvantage at all levels. Failure to do so creates the risk of social policy research being left behind in understanding rapid changes in ethnic minority demographics and patterns of migration, and increasing disadvantage to minorities.

Bensonhurst, Brooklyn: Italian American Victims and Victimizers

by Jerome Krase

This is a draft of an article published as “Bensonhurst, Brooklyn: Italian American Victimizers and Victims.” In The Review of Italian American Studies. 2000: 233-44.

Is Australia Racist?

by Ghassan Hage

The New Jim Crow - A Textual Analysis

by William Cerf

Unpublished. This is the very first paper I've posted to academia.edu.

Waking up Muslim on 9/11 by Jameelah Medina

by Feminism and Religion

Originally published on the Feminism and Religion project

I have often stated that I went to sleep as an African American woman on September 10, 2011 and woke up Muslim on... more I have often stated that I went to sleep as an African American woman on September 10, 2011 and woke up Muslim on 9/11. It may seem odd to say this since I am a third-generation Muslim; however, my reason for doing so is that my life as an American Muslim now has two main eras: 1) pre-9/11 and 2) post-9/11.

In the pre-9/11 era of my life, I felt more black than Muslim because my color was a point of conflict and controversy throughout my life. I grew up in two areas as a child—an urban area with majority Latinos/as and then in a very rural area with majority whites. In both areas, being black was not so popular. I was called “mayate,”which is a bug but also the Mexican term for “nigger.” I was also called, “tar baby,” “nigger,” “African booty scratcher,” and a host of other hurtful names as a young black child.

Review of Un/Common Cultures: Racism and the Rearticulation of Difference

by Shui-yin Sharon Yam

Co-authored with Zachary Marshall. Published in Intervention, 2011

A Besieged Tribe"?: Nostalgia, White Cultural Identity and the Role of Rugby in a changing South Africa

by John Nauright

Published in International Review for the Sociology of Sport (1996).

South African society has been in a state of tremendous changes in recent years. These changes have been seen by many... more South African society has been in a state of tremendous changes in recent years. These changes have been seen by many whites as a threat to their society and "way of life". South African rugby success through its national team, the Springboks, has been one of the most potent sites for the demonstration of white power and cultural identity. This paper explores actions of white rugby fans on South Africa's return to international rugby against their arch-rivals the New Zealand All Blacks in 1992 in the context of white cultural retreat into nostalgic representations of the past in resisting cultural assimilation within a black dominated new South Africa.

White man’s burden revisited: race, sport and reporting the Hansie Cronje cricket crisis in South Africa and beyond.

by John Nauright

Published in Sport History Review. 35:1 (2005), 61-75.

Betting scandals shook the world of international cricket during the
1990s with players from Australia, India,... more Betting scandals shook the world of international cricket during the
1990s with players from Australia, India, Pakistan, South Africa, and Sri
Lanka being implicated or indeed involved. The most notable case was
that of then South African national team captain Hansie Cronje, who was
to that point noted for his competitive but clean and gentlemanly approach
to the game.

This article examines South African and international media responses
to the crisis as it unfolded, focusing on the themes of the historically constructed “purity” of cricket, the supposed morality and “purity” of white
Western athletes, and then, as the truth was revealed, “shock and horror”
that this “purity” was betrayed as Cronje confessed. Press reports from
South Africa, Australia, and England were examined for their coverage of
the scandal as international and national issues overlapped. The article
discusses the ways in which the scandal was framed as it unfolded, then
briefly explores the beginnings of Cronje’s rehabilitation, his subsequent
death in a plane crash in 2002, and his “resurrection” to cricketing immortality.

"Am I my brother's keeper?" Discriminatory practices in the name of security

by Miguelángel Verde Garrido

Published in: Identity and Alterity in Multiculturalism and Social Justice: "Conflicts", "Identity", "Alterity", "Solutions?" (2008). (vol. 4). (pp.128-148). Kyoto: Research Center for Ars Vivendi/Ritsumeikan University.
ISSN 1882-6539

Seven years after the Japanese government abolished fingerprinting of foreign nationals due to an unusual display of... more Seven years after the Japanese government abolished fingerprinting of foreign nationals due to an unusual display of discontent in civil society, it has decided to amend its immigration laws (改正入管法) to allow, once more, for fingerprinting and photographing of foreign nationals, no matter their visa or residence status. In blatant contradiction with Japanese law, which makes it illegal to fingerprint anyone that has not been charged with a crime, this controversial measure is weakly justified by stating it will help to “prevent the occurrence of acts of terrorism against Japan.” However, with the exception of the Japanese Embassy hostage crisis in Lima, Peru, Japan has never suffered a terrorist act that didn’t involve Japanese nationals solely. The arrests that followed the Aum Shinrikyou’s (オウム真理経) fiendish Tokyo sarin gas incident lead approximately twenty Japanese nationals to be tried and convicted by the justice system, but none of the cult’s internationals members were ever found to be involved in the attacks. Similarly, the infamous Japanese Red Army (日本赤軍), which hijacked airplanes, bombed and stormed company facilities and embassies, and murdered civilian bystanders indiscriminately, perpetrated thirteen terrorist acts between the 1970s and the 1980s. And yet, only two on them were committed on Japanese soil, while the other eleven were committed abroad; in every case, nonetheless, the participants involved in the attacks were solely Japanese nationals.
The Japanese word for a stranger (他人) is an “other person.” Foreigners (外国人, “outside country people”), likewise, are usually called gaijin (外人), “outside people” or “outsider,” in informal circumstances. The Japanese scholar Ohsawa Masachi has forwarded that the Aum sect “can be seen as an extreme reflection of Japanese society in general,” since it “mirrors the same type of fear toward the ambivalent ‘other’ common within the Japanese population.” For Ohsawa, that fear of the ambivalent ‘other’ is “a symptom of the social disintegration brought forth by advanced capitalism,” and in that manner “not particular to the Japanese, but rather reflected in many ethnic nationalisms and religious fundamentalisms of contemporary global society.” Nowadays, when globalization leads us inevitably to attempt to constructively deal with the intricacies of multicultural contexts, the return of undeniable racisms and state-sponsored discriminatory policies must be carefully analyzed and protested.

The Uses of a Good Theory

by Steve Bearman

Co-authored with Faye Crosby

How does one diminish discrimination? Many members of SPSSI, including the present authors, have tried to reduce... more How does one diminish discrimination? Many members of SPSSI, including the present authors, have tried to reduce discrimination through the application of good theories. We outline three theoretical approaches that Crosby, like many other psychologists, has taken as she has struggled with discrimination. Sometimes missing in Crosby's approach, and often missing in the approach of others, is a frank avowal of values. We argue that the attempt to divorce science from values renders theories less effective than they need be and even allows unexamined values to contaminate good research.

La Pelea del Southern Poverty Law Center contra el racismo y la intolerancia organizada

by Oleski Miranda

Artículo de opinión

The Mecca of Native Scum' and 'a running sore of evil': white Johannesburg and the Alexandra Township removal debate, 1935-1945

by John Nauright

Published in Kleio 30 (1998), 64-88.

A hapless attempt at swimming': Representations of Eric Moussambani

by John Nauright

published in Critical Arts 17:1/2 (2003), 106-122, co-authored with Tara Magdalinski

One of the most powerful images to emerge from the pool at the Sydney 2000 Olympics was that of Eric Moussambani from... more One of the most powerful images to emerge from the pool at the Sydney 2000 Olympics was that of Eric Moussambani from Equatorial Guinea who swam his heat of the 100-meter freestyle alone after the other two swimmers in his heat were disqualified. Moussambani completed the distance over one minute slower than eventual gold medallist Pieter van den Hoogenband. The media coverage of Moussambani's performance illustrates that the discourses of colonialism, paternalism, and racial stereotyping remain central in the modern Olympic movement. This paper analyses media reports of Moussambani and identifies three main frames used to contextualize his performance at the Olympics. We situate Moussambani's swim within a broader framework that reveals the mechanisms used to display African bodies for the European gaze as well as the paternalist Olympic discourse that seeks to universalize Western sporting practices within a global culture that privileges Western cultural and economic practices.

PAUL ROBESON: Renaissance Man, Political Activist, Performer and Football Legend

by John Nauright

The ‘Dudley Mosque Project’: a Case of Islamophobia and Local Politics

by Tahir Abbas

co-authored with Frank Reeves and Dulce Pedroso

Participating in Beauty Culture by Grace Yia-Hei Kao

by Feminism and Religion

originally published on the Feminism and Religion Project

At the most recent Society of Christian Ethics annual meeting, I got into an impromptu late night discussion with... more At the most recent Society of Christian Ethics annual meeting, I got into an impromptu late night discussion with several women friends about why some of us participate in “beauty culture” and how we feel as feminist Christian ethicists and moral theologians about our decisions. Each of us shared why we have chosen to wear make-up (or not), keep up with fashion (or not), dye our greying hair to mask the signs of aging (or not), or put in the effort to maintain a certain physique (or not). We also addressed what role our own mothers and larger communities have played in our decision-making processes.

Since it is certainly not my place to reveal what others disclosed behind closed doors over wine, let me expand upon a few things I shared that night.

First, I told them that when I used to work at Virginia Tech (2003-2009), I had both noticed and been a little self-conscious about the fact that I was the only faculty member in Women’s Studies who regularly wore make-up. My self-consciousness stemmed from multiple sources:

Race', normativity and the history of sexuality: Magnus Hirschfeld's racism and the early-twentieth-century sexology

by Heike Bauer

Black and White. On Symbolical Implications of an Aesthetical Polarization.

by Roman Meinhold

In: Boleswa Journal of Philosophy, Theology and Religion. Vol.1, No.3. December 2007. 155-166. ISSN 1817-2741

This paper attempts to show that the aesthetic opposition of black and white as
aesthetic perceptible... more This paper attempts to show that the aesthetic opposition of black and white as
aesthetic perceptible "colours" applied to the description of the density of human
skin pigment (as it is still done, for example, in southern Africa) does not reflect
aesthetic reality. To make its case, the paper argues that human beings are not
simply black or white in skin colour; this categorisation is not precise, because
the black and white scheme is a simplifying reductionism. Besides being a
simplification and reductionism, the application of this colour scheme to humans
is also wrong, because from the perspective of human perception black and white
"colours" are opposites or extremes, while humans with contrasting skin
pigmentations are by no means necessarily opposites or extremes. Another
argument advanced in the paper is that this aesthetic opposition may lead to an
anthropological extremism and thus to an ethical problem. The paper concludes
with two normative suggestions, namely that the black and white scheme should
be replaced with a non-binary scheme and that an individual should not be
signified by her/his skin colour alone.

A face in the crowd: examining race perception and lightness contrast

by Kevin Brooks

Gwinn, O. & Brooks, K. R. (2010). A face in the crowd: examining race perception and lightness contrast. In W. Christensen, E. Schier, & J. Sutton (Eds.), ASCS09: Proceedings of the 9th Conference of the Australasian Society for Cognitive Science (pp. 119-125). Sydney, Australia: Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science.

The aim of the current experiment was to explore the possibility that people’s perceptions of race could be altered... more The aim of the current experiment was to explore the possibility that people’s perceptions of race could be altered using lightness contrast effects. To test this, faces ranging from typically Caucasian (white) to typically African (black) were surrounded with either black or white faces. Participants were asked to rate how stereotypically white or black they perceived the central face image to be. A 2x5 repeated measures ANOVA revealed that participants rated faces as looking the same whether presented in white or black surrounds. A second experiment consisting of two parts was conducted in an attempt to explain this lack of an effect. In experiment 2a, the effect of skin tone luminance variations without differences in facial morphology were investigated, while experiment 2b studied the effects of morphology without differences in skin tone. While skin tone alone yielded an effect of perceived lightness, the perceived race of faces was not affected by the morphologically different surrounds. This suggests that although perceptions of skin tone can be altered using lightness contrast effects, this is not sufficient to alter overall racial appearance, questioning the role of skin tone in the perception of race.