Week 9 - Deviance and Inequality - Race PDF

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Summary

Seminar and lecture notes for week 9 subject....

Description

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Race theory (definitions and history)

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Imperialism and its legacies

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Deviance as integral to construction of racial difference

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New Racism – Cultural Racism

Sociological definitions of race… •

Biological race differences have no scientific grounding

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More genetical difference within ‘races’ than there are across ‘races’.

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In 1972 statistical analysis using 17 markers, including blood group proteins, from individuals across classically defined "races" found that the majority of the total genetic variation between humans (i.e., of the 0.1% of DNA that varies between individuals), 85.4%, is found within populations, 8.3% of the variation is found between populations within a "race", and only 6.3% was found to account for the racial classification. Lewontin (1972) concluded, "Since such racial classification is now seen to be of virtually no genetic or taxonomic significance either, no justification can be offered for its continuance."

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Cheddar Man is a human male fossil found in Somerset, England. The skeletal remains date to the Mesolithic Period (around 10, 000 years ago)

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Analysis of his DNA indicates that he was a typical member of the western European population at the time, light eyes (most likely green but could be blue or hazel), dark brown or black hair, and dark or dark to black skin.

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These features are typical of the European population of the time

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This population forms about 10%, on average, of the ancestry of Britons without a recent family history of immigration

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The concept of racial categories with inherent differences only emerges as an ideology alongside oppression and subjugation

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Most significantly by Europeans during the colonial era (15th Century - 20th Century)

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The idea Whiteness and Britishness as synonymous was integral to Empire building. Colonialism was a violent global project of invasion and rule…

Colonisation as a violent economic project… •

Whilst white colonisers defined themselves as ‘civilised’, and Black and Brown natives as ‘savages’ – the occupation of the colonies was an inherently brutal, violent and inhumane project that was enacted for centuries.

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In the Republic of Congo alone, between 1980 and 1920 the population is estimated to have decreased by 50% - from 20 million to 10 million.

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Colonial wars, genocides, forced famines, torture, brutal violence (of all kinds) - define these conquests. Yet the colonial imagination was able to interpret these events in a way that constructed native populations as deviant and in need of external control

Colonialism functioned ideologically – coercive politics of domination through an ideology of biological and cultural superiority – “Imperialism”

Whiteness as an ideological construct… •

The constructed idea of whiteness as a biological superiority justified European colonial rule and domination (including the transatlantic slave trade).

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Economic as well as social project – enabling the extraction of labour and capital in a global hierarchy, naturalised through ‘race’

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Yes, socially constructed difference - BUT real differences of experience, opportunity and identity defined during this era and after

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Saying race ‘doesn’t exist’ does not erase this history or its lasting legacies.

Legacies of Imperialism… •

Global inequality (think economic, cultural and social capital)

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Stereotypes of racial inferiority -

Low Intelligence

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Emotional

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‘wild’ or animalistic

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Violent

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Child like (in need of leadership/rule)

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Lazy

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Dysfunctional families

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Disorganised

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Lacking Ambition or innovation

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Reduced to physical attributes, or exoticised (physical strength, sexualisation)

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Structural and institutionalised racism incorporating the above.

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The enacting of racial difference through micro aggressions (hair touching, “where are you really from”) Social marginalisation and ‘Othering’

Race making as a social and political process… "Racial Formation in the United States," Winant and Omi (2014) explain that race is: ...an unstable and ‘decentered’ complex of social meanings constantly being transformed by political struggle,” and, that “...race is a concept which signifies and symbolizes social conflicts and interests by referring to different types of human bodies”. Studying race not as a static social ‘fact’, but rather as a fluid process of ‘making race’ or ‘racialization’ (Murji 2003) Patricia Bidol, (1970) famously defined ‘racism’ as "prejudice plus institutional power”. According to this definition, two elements are required in order for racism to exist: racial prejudice, and social power to codify and enforce this prejudice… I.E…. Black people cannot be racist to white people. New Racism or ‘Cultural Racism’ •

In the age of globalization and ‘multiculturalism’, particularly since the 1990s onwards, we’ve seen a shift towards ‘colour blindness’

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This kind of ‘new racism’ is much more slippery to pin down and acts to silence anti racist voices by refusing to see the systemic and institutional legacies of imperialism - through the “don’t see difference” argument

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Nikita Carney (2016) writes about this in detail (seminar reading on moodle) through the example of #AllLivesMatter as a response to #BlackLivesMatter.

In Summary •

The concept of race does not exist as a biological fact – but rather as a differential system that was constructed through political, economic and social processes.

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The imperialist project is tied up with notions of inherent deviance and the need for control and oppression – legacies of this continue today.

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Contemporary race theory moves towards thinking about ‘racialization’ or ‘race making’ – and the construction of deviance is central to recent social movements (more in this is second video)

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Racialization as socially constructed difference - but real experiences of inequality are real.

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Deviance and race are historically linked through the imperialist project.

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Race is made through the reproduction of racial difference in everyday encounters. •

The impact of racial inequality on crime rates (‘real’ differences)

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Racialisation of Deviance and Crime

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Disproportionate enforcement (Racial profiling and CJS)

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Black Lives Matter - Reclaiming the dominant narrative

The impact of racial inequality on crime rates (‘real’ differences) •

After the war Britain invited commonwealth citizens to help rebuild the nation in 1948.

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Known as the ‘Windrush generation’ thousands of Caribbean's emigrated to Britain to answer this call… becoming the first wave of post-colonial migrant workers to settle in Britain (African and Asian were to follow)

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Many were middle class and highly skilled worker in their countries and expected to be welcomed by Britain and included fairly in work and social life.

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Instead the members of the common wealth were economically excluded from well paid jobs, socially excluded from areas of the city, and subjected to police brutality.

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This exclusions from social, cultural and economic capital has led to disproportionate representation of Black people in poorest areas and economic marginalisation (Think Merton Strain Theory - 1938)

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8.7% of the white population live in the most deprived 10% of neighbourhoods, compared to 19.6% of the black population (Gov.uk 2018).

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In London in 2007, 40% of people from Black or minority ethnic backgrounds lived in low-income households, compared to 20% of the white population (MacInnes & Kenway 2009:61).

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Living in deprived areas increases the probability of encountering everyday violence and criminality and this can lead to disproportionate crime statistics (Eades 2007:24).

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Complex experiences of multiple marginalisations (class and race)

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Deviant subcultures as resistance (Further reading…The Empire Strikes Back: Race and Racism in 70s Britain – Paul Gilroy 1982)

Racialisation of Crime •

If ‘race’ is constructed through processes of ‘racialisation’ then deviance and criminality is formative in our understanding of difference.

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Criminal acts that fit racial stereotypes are amplified through increased newsworthiness, a label is attached (mugging, gangs, knife crime) and public attention is sustained.

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Deviance and crime by minority groups is not seen as individual acts, but as representative of the racial group in its entirety. Black and Asian ‘communities’ often asked to condemn particular acts in ways that white groups aren’t

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The concept of ‘Black crime’ rates is itself racist. Whilst economic context is taken into account for ‘working class’ white criminality - Class and economic inequality is removed from statistics on ‘Black crime’

Crime as Culture - New Racism •

‘…stating that ‘black people have a criminal nature’ is not politically acceptable. Stating that ‘black culture glorifies crime’ is. Yet both statements are saying the same thing: crime is endemic within the black population, and is unrelated to the structure of British society and the experience of black people within it’ (Sveinsson 2007:6,7).

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Culture replaces biological difference as politically correct racism

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More discrete, harder to identify

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Negates discussion of social causes (structural racism)

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Holds the group itself responsible.

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‘Fascinating tales of gangs, murder and mayhem become part of insisting that culture is once again the key to seeing how blacks have been the primary authors of their own urban misfortune’ (Gilroy 2010:22).

In 2017 Black people were 7 times more likely to be stopped and searched in England and Wales than white people

2019 Met figures compared to National: Black people 4.6 time more likely in London to be searched, 6.3 times more likely outside of London

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Targetted campains against criminal cultures - such as the ‘war on gangs and knife crime’ increase disproportionality Comparing the rate of searches in London per thousand of the population disproportionality peaks to 116 Black people per 1000 of the Black population searched in 2008/2009, this is a sharp increase from 78 per 1000 the year before.

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White proportionality demonstrates very little change throughout the ‘war on knife crime’, increasingly only slightly in 2008 from 15.5 to 17.3 out of every 1000 of the population (Home

Office 2017)

Along with stop rates, Met Police are more likely to use force against Black members of the public…

Racial disproportionality in the CJS… •

Reproduced from Case et al (2017) Criminology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. NOTE – rates are shown per 1000 of the population.

Understanding deviance is crucial to understanding disproportionality…. •

On the one hand institutional racism constructs disproportionate crime rates by interpreting the acts of Black people as deviant more often - and enforcing these with greater force (deviance amplification)

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On the other hand, it is the response to crime through race that is formative in the construction of racial difference itself.

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I.E the notion of ‘Black crime’ or ‘Black criminality’ is part of the race making process - separating race from class in the understanding of crime - and reinforcing ideologies of difference and deviance.

Black Lives Matter •

Beginning in America in 2012, but now active in the UK, the rallying cry “Black Lives Matter” has mobilized a movement against the criminalization, over policing and state violence against Black people and the devaluing of Black bodies and Black lives.

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Your reading this week (Carney 2014) provided an analysis of BLM on Twitter demonstrating “a struggle for power over the discourse on race and racism across the nation… using this technology to voice their experiences and concerns in ways that challenge dominant ideologies about race” (p181).

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I would like you to think about this battle over the narrative of deviance between #BlackLivesMatter and #AllLivesMatter and why the discourse is so important in the framing of police shootings or police brutality.

In Summary

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Crime data analyzed by ethnic representation can be misleading and tends to separate race from class in ways that present crime as culture (new racism)

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The bigger picture: •

Structural racism (imperialism)

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Multiple marginalisations

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Labeling and subcultures of resistance

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Deviance amplification through racial profiling

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Disproportionate use of force, arrest and sentencing

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There is a cycle of amplification in which the data itself becomes justification for further profiling.

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Unless you believe in biological racial inferiority/superiority, then statistical crime difference between groups can only demonstrate social inequality – because melanin is not criminogenic!...