Week 4: Property, Privilege, and Envi'al Racism

(On Harris' "Whiteness as Property"
and Pulido's "Rethinking Environmental Racism: White Privilege and Urban Development in Southern California")

Both Harris and Pulido focus on racism rooted in what they refer to as 'whiteness as property' and 'white privilege,' respectively. These concepts are alternative ideas that can replace racism, which is easily negated in today's society. Harris especially makes this point clear as she opens up her paper with her analysis of the study of racial inequality. She points out the study's literature lacks "substantive discussion of racism" or "rarely explicitly discussed" (12). This made me relate this week's readings with Week 3's readings, in which writer's argued that limited citizenship reflected racism. While reading the text and during in-class discussion, I kept thinking that a government of any state has the right and authority to make it difficult for one to acquire citizenship. Citizenship is definitely a privilege that should not be given out to anybody easily. My thought process ultimately concluded with the notion that it only becomes a problem when the government limits citizenship based on race, which is what the readings were maintaining. Similarly, Harris and Pulido are underlining the consequences of racism in the context of property and housing. It was interesting for me to note that the existence of racism is even questioned. The problematic nature of the ideology has definitely been revamped over the past centuries, but it is still part of our society. As one mentioned during our in-class discussion last week, it is becoming easier for people to deny the existence of racism, let alone inequality, and justify themselves for various reasons, including having Obama as the President of the United States. (This is a really long ramble before I actually talk about this week's readings)

Pulido's research is based on the environmental racism in Los Angeles, California. After developing and establishing her concepts, she reflects on the situation in the city of LA and its surrounding suburban areas. By doing so, she reaches the conclusion that "the emphasis on siting, intentionality and scale have contributed to conceptualizing both racism and space as discrete objects, rather than as social relations" (33). Such emphasis on those three things result in "erroneous understanding of urban dynamics," racism "reduced to an aberration," and production of "a narrow conception of racism" (18-9). In one of Professor Brenner's lectures on Introduction to Metropolitan Studies, we discussed the process of suburbanization and decentralization in reference to Engel's "The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844," which accounted for the situation in Manchester. This gave insight to what Pulido called "instances of white privilege [...that] have contributed to contemporary patterns of environmental racism" (12). Reading Pulido allowed me to connect more dots and put ideas together.

On the other hand, Harris had a more thorough and general argument. She went beyond the production of space, to property. After a brief (but relatively long) overview of the construction and historical background of 'whiteness as property,' she explains the current situation with her focus on affirmative action. As Schein has pointed out in his text that was part of Week 2's readings, the legacy of racial housing and ownership continues today as "real power and wealth never has been accessible to more than a narrowly defined ruling elite" (1758). Affirmative action doctrine was established with the intention to amend this problem, but Harris introduces the doctrine as nurturing the idea of whiteness as property (1766). She spends the rest of her paper writing about the consequences and course of development of affirmative action. I look forward to focusing and discussing about affirmative action during class.

Week 3: Race, Space, and Nation

(On Ngai's Impossible Subjects Introduction and Part 1
Kim's "The Racial Triangulation of Asian Americans"
and De Genova's "Latino and Asian Racial Formations at the Frontiers of US Nationalism)

The readings of this week collectively accounted for the historical context of contemporary racialization. The relationship and dynamic between various ethnic groups and the state that we see today did not develop over night. They are products that were deliberately created by the government and the "white" society to keep other races 'in place' (I do not agree with or endorse this phrase at all. I only mean to speak from the 'oppressing/dominant' party's perspective. No race belongs to a particular level of the hierarchy.)

De Genova focuses on the triangulation of White, Black, and Red, referring to Native Americans (also discusses about Asian American and Latino later). It was interesting to read De Genova's comparison between Black and Red, different treatments by the White, and consequential place in society. Right from the beginning, De Genova puts Black and Red in different contexts: "racism were devised not singularly around the enslavement of Africans and the denigration of racial Blackness but also by the genocidal dispossession and colonization of American Indians" (no page number on print out. First pg). Slightly on a side note, I enjoyed De Genova's text specifically for such succinct phrases. He uses words, such as enslavement, denigration, genocidal dispossession, and colonization, that are powerful enough to speak for themselves and explain a lot. Back to the comparison between Red and Black, De Genova thoroughly supports his argument that both Black and Red were and perhaps are, though differently, racially mistreated. He maintains that the Native Americans were considered annihilated. This "ideological 'removal' of the Indians likewise signals an analogous collusion with that distinctive historical amnesia [...] reinforced the myth that the North American continent had really been empty all along [...] rightful and preordained inheritance of the U.S. 'nation'" (second pg). Essentially, the White denies Red's existence. On the other hand, the Black are "fully encompassed within an "American" social order of white power and prestige" that "their own cultural specificities, any shred of Africanity, had been effectively obliterated" (third pg). Unlike Red, who are denied existence, Black do not have their own identity. De Genova continues to give an overview of past laws (People v. Hall caught my attention the most) to state that "such intimate entanglements between racial formations and the state thus remind us that all racial identities are always preeminently political identities and, moreover, U.S. nationalism itself to be a racial formation." (second to last page before Notes).

Kim and Ngai also write about immigration laws that reinforced racialization in the past. Kim emphasizes the triangulation of Asian American in reference to Black. In World Culture: Asian Pacific American, I learned about the concept of 'model minority' and how such attribute of Asian American has allowed White to chastise Black and consider them even more inferior. Kim asks in her conclusion, "Must Asian Americans still attempt to be White in order to get ahead?" This question also brings awareness to "the impact of each group's empowerment strategies upon the relative positions of other subordinated groups" (130). In note 107, Kim gives an example of the position of Black in relation to Japanese when the law rewarded Japanese American but slighted Black for the same action. While both De Genova and Kim focuses on one racial group (perhaps their own) in relation to Black and White, Ngai gives a relatively objective historical overview of immigration laws. Prior to the Johnson-Reed Immigration Act of 1994, there were no restrictions for immigration. The law had many consequences and Ngai analyzes and accounts the historical trajectory of immigration policy that followed the restrictions.

Week 2: Space and Racial Formation

(On "Normative Dimensions of Landscape" by Richard H. Schein

and "Racial Formation" and "The Racial State" by Michael Omi and Howard Winant)

I had the opportunity to read an excerpt by Omi and Winant during my freshmen fall semester for World Cultures: APA. I enjoyed gaining further insight on racial formation, especially on the role of institutions. While the authors briefly related the historical background, I made an obvious conclusion that racial states are increasingly becoming revamped. On page 72, it says, "system of racial subjection has been more monolithic, more absolute, at some historical periods than others," in reference to times of colonialism and slavery. During those times, there were definitely a lack of questions asked, challenges posed, and aspiration to reform. Nowadays, such racism or assumed characterization that causes racial formation are not tolerated as much as they were before.

It was also interesting to note the various stages or phases in which the government or state institution would take action in response to those that it governs. The definition of politics as, "the continuous process of formation and superseding of unstable equilibria" did have resonance for me as it did for the authors. It is said that the Chinese dynasties had a routine, or the Dynastic cycle, in which a dynasty rises, gains prosperity, corruption happens, and eventually the dynasty falls. The racial state showed many resemblance to this cycle: "a phase of crisis is initiated," "institutions adopt policies of absorption and insulation," "a series of reforms is enacted which partially meets oppositional demands" (81-2).

I learned much about racial formation last year, but the role of state allowed me to put my knowledge into a bigger context and understand how such ideologies are set in place and accepted in society.

I also had the opportunity to learn about space during freshmen fall semester by taking Prof. Brenner's Intro to Metropolitan Studies, in which we started the semester by analyzing how space is produced and used in cities. On page 202, a reference to Pierre Bourdieu is made. He theorized how social space is an articulation of capital and class distinction. He also maintained that such social networks produce inequality. With that said, establishment of 'racialized landscapes' is inevitable with regulations such as redlining that supports racial hegemony, hence the establishment of ethnic enclaves.

One thing that bothered me while I was reading this chapter by Schein was how the word "normative" or "normal" was used so often to describe this happening. It seemed to be a keyword: "This power of landscape makes it inescapably normative" (203), "normative dimensions of any landscape operate at a structural level: unconsciously promoted and unrecognized as anything other than common sense" (217).

These normative things, common sense, or absolute ideologies that prevent people from asking questions or challenging those obviously flawed ideas are what creates and recreates, establishes and reestablishes racism and racial formation.