Race and Power: Global Racism in the Twenty-First Century

by Gargi Bhattacharyya, John Gabriel, Stephen Small

Reviewing cutting-edge debates around racial politics and the culture and economy of globalization, this book draws together a wide range of important contemporary debates in a clear and concise way for undergraduate students. Far from concluding that racism is over, the authors contend that the forces of globalization inhabit older cultures of racial division in order to safeguard the economic interests of the privileged. Arguing that the unspoken culture of whiteness informs much that passes in the name of globalization, the book suggests that we are witnessing a reformulation of economic relations around global racisms. Alongside these shifts in economic relations, racialized identities evolve to encompass mixed heritages and mixed cultures both in personal identities and in lifestyle choices. This is one of the few texts that concentrates on the theory of race rather than politics. It looks at race in global terms, and at 'whiteness' as a part of ethnic studies.

196 pages, Paperback

First published September 13, 2001

About the author

Gargi Bhattacharyya is a Professor of Sociology at the University of East London. They have written widely in the fields of racism, sexuality, global cultures and the ‘war on terror’.

Reviews

[cindabella · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some quotes:

On the ''whitening of the Irish' and their 'assimilation' into mainstream US culture. In the aftermath of the Civil War, economic restructuring also provided the Irish in the US with opportunities for upward mobility. Industrialisation created a new manual sector in the North in which the Irish played a prominent role. For example, roads, canals and textiles became labour market niches for Irish labour'.

'Overall, political and economic factors, combined with the views expressed by cultural institutions including the Catholic Church and the print media culminated for the Irish in what Roediger refers to as an 'imperative to define themselves as white' and to treasure their whiteness as entitling them to both political rights and to jobs. The whitening of the Irish in the ways suggested by Ignatiev and Roediger does not rule out its coexistence alongside continuing anti Irish racism, including the New England custom of burning an effigy of the Pope on Guy Fawkes Day and the 'Blood Tubs' used to dip the Irish, not to mention the indicative comments of an Oxford academic who proposed that 'the best remedy for whatever is amiss in America would be if every Irishman should kill a negro and be hanged for it' (cited in Jamieson, 1992:79)'.

'[The relation between class and race] has been identified as the key to understanding both the iniquities of racist outcomes and the complexity of class relations'

On legislated death; 'The state sanctioned killing of people, and particularly, men of colour -whether through the official procedures of the death penalty or the more covert activity of police and prison guards - serves as a disciplinary mechanism in the wider context, Rather than an unhappy accident, the all too frequent killings in the name of law and order can be seen as a necessary warning in a larger system. Killings confirm the stories of ruthless enemies of society (even when these enemies are unarmed, unwell, outnumbered) -but also keep people scared, showing that rigteous defence can be ruthless too, another incentive to be obedient and law abiding and to have nothing to do with the absolute other of racialised criminality'

On debates about diaspora 'Robin Cohen (1997)...is less concerned with the diasporic condition or experience and more with particular migratory moevements and the different reasons for migration in the first place'

'The problem is that whites may not be vrey good at it, and precisely because of the 'spirit' that makes us white. Our minds control our bodies and therefore both our sexual impulses and our forward planning of children. The very thing that makes us white endangers the reproduction of our whiteness' (Dyer, 1997:27)

'In one reading, the subjuagtion of other peoples stems from a need to compensate for a sense of sexual inadaquacy (Fanon 1967, 1968). This places sexuality at the heart of racial violence and oppression. Although there may be many material factors driving the construction of racialised cultures, so that white people gain real and tangible benefits from a world that rewards whteness at the expense of everyone else, Fanon suggests that ...this neurosis is white peoples sense of sexual inadaquacy. It is true that all over we see that white cultures prohibit sexual enjoyment or empowerment, and instead use violence to achive sexual graification through other means... The celebraion of whiteness disresepects and bansishes sexuality, marking it as the terrain of us less than human peoples, yet is comsumed with fear and envy at the sexual lives of non whites' (Mercer 1994; L Young 1996, Kabbani 1994).

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read chapters assigned for a 100-level class, and its arguably a little too difficult, but for a higher level undergrad class on globalization and/or inequality, this would be an excellent text to use.