Race Continues to be at the Center of American Life
Rashawn Ray

Our mission at EngageDiversity is to educate individuals about diversity so that they may become action-oriented social change agents, accountable for their fellow man and woman, and assist in our struggle to combat discrimination and prejudice. A large part of this mission centers on individuals understanding the operation of race. Before moving to more complex issues and assumptions surrounding race, it is important to define race and place it in a sociohistorical context. In the columns to follow, we will discuss what, why, and how race structures opportunities and life chances in a broader context including how race intersects with gender, sexuality, class, family, education, health, law, and politics. We will also discuss group relations, privilege, assumptions, and stereotypes about race.

You may initially ask, why is race important? Besides the fact that America was founded on the spoils of African slaves where race was utilized as a primary means to enforce the captivity of Africans and use these slaves as labor to supply their economic fortunes (which currently resides in institutional biases that have cost the current generation of Blacks an estimated $82 billion), unfortunately, the first characteristics that individuals see when they engage in social interaction with others are race and gender.

As a result, race continues to be at the center of American life and shapes life chances and social interactions. However, whites and minorities alike perceive race to be less significant now than in the past. Many believe we are moving into a color-blind society where class matters more. Individuals are not seeing the covert racism and discrimination that still occurs. The fact that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 has to be periodically renewed is an example of the relegated and marginalized status placed on minorities and purported by whites. The recent Supreme Court ruling that race cannot be used as an indicator for school placement further belabors the point (see the Noteworthy News section for more on this case). Furthermore, the same states that voted for President Bush in the 2004 election are the same states that voted to keep slavery.

Thus let me repeat my previous statement. Race continues to be at the center of American life and shapes life chances and social interactions. With this in mind, scholars and community activists cannot discuss education, voting, or community involvement without understanding why it is important to and for minorities to actively engage race relations.

Race is a socially constructed status that is real in its consequences. Race can be defined as ethnoracial, historically rooted distinctions or social constructions. Ethnicity, on the other hand, can be classified as a subgroup that shares a common ancestry, history, and/or culture. Race is systematically rooted in American culture to create, establish, maintain, and enhance group differences. In America, race seems to function on two main levels—1) Individual, micro-level through face-to-face interaction and 2) Institutional, macro-level through institutions such as education, family, and/or community. The effects of socioeconomic status are more prevalent for opportunities than in everyday interactions. Although individuals’ class status gives them more security for opportunities in the work force, socioeconomic status does not provide security for individuals in everyday interactions in regards to being susceptible to racism and discrimination.

“Racism is a set of institutional conditions of group inequality and an ideology of racial domination, in which the latter is characterized by a set of beliefs holding that the subordinate racial group is biologically or culturally inferior to the dominant racial group” (Bobo and Fox 2003: 319). Moreover, racism is a social system that conveys an ideology of inferiority, which is often affiliated with individual- and group-level prejudice and discrimination. Similar to sexism, racism alters social systems and various institutional arrangements whereby the entire institution becomes racialized. This leads to a divergence in various outcomes such as lower educational outcomes, lower occupational prestige, relatively deprived neighborhoods, schools, and hospitals, and worse mental and physical health outcomes.

In the following column, we will discuss The Science of Race. Moreover, how race was invented. Currently on the site, check out Alicia Burns-Wright’s article Bratz: Friend or Foe to the Movement towards Racial Equality, Joslyn Talley's article How to Raise a Responsible Child, and Israel Laguer's and Ray's articles on mentoring. We look forward to chatting it up with you on the EngageChat blog about these issues and others you see we need to engage and discuss.

References are available upon request.