Cornell West writes that race matters represent “the most explosive issue in American life.” West maintains that there is a relationship between the struggle against racism and the socialist theory in the United States. He states that American socialists have tried to understand racism to no avail. He examines the Marxist concepts of this issue and uses this as a springboard to discuss the new concepts that enlightens people today on the roles of racism in America both in the past and at present (West).
Race has been a very complex and ambiguous term. But in the present society the issue of race has made a significant impact on the economic, political, and cultural structures. It becomes a determining factor in man’s societal life.Race, as a construct, can also be traced by its historical roots as it developed in modern Western society. Social Construction Perspective This perspective on race and racism clearly exemplifies the social construction approach.
Historicizing is the first step to the analysis. But the economic, political, and cultural conditions are also vital aspects to the study. This greatly deviates from the essentialist approach to race and ethnicity. In this context, there have been a lot of theories that describe the ideal society.
But despite the characteristics that define and describe the ideal society, one characteristic remains constant--that is the utopia. Plato defines this utopia as the ultimate form of ideal that society can reach. Although, in his theory, utopia could only be reached in the purest of forms. This utopia is described by using the ideal world and the world we are living now. Plato says that the natural world exists apart from the ideal world.
And whatever there is in the natural world, there also exists in the ideal world, in the purest of its form. Marx’s utopia, on the other hand, is the communist republic, by which equality is the purest form demonstrated (Klosko, 2003). The concept of race and ethnicity through a social construct perspective brought back racial issues into the sphere of human interaction, human praxis.The emphasis now turns to the relationship of ethnicity with the superstructures of society in general. With a sociohistorical outlook, the concept of race is viewed not only as a product of sociopolitical forces at work but is, in fact, determinative, as well, of the transformation of such forces. Ethnicity typically emphasizes the cultural, socioeconomic, religious, and political qualities of human groups rather than their genetic ancestry.
The development of human society has been more or less a result of the prevalent racial themes. “Modernity is a global racial formation project.” (Winant 21)The link between racial issues and the emergence of capitalist economic system, with its emphasis on efficient production, are immanent in the cotton-driven economy of the 18th South. The role of black worker is significant to the point that after the emancipation of the slaves in the country.
Southern states have, by far, lagged behind the industrialized Northern states and that “it is enough to specify that slavery served the developing capitalist system that traversed the Atlantic, that it provided the exploitable mass labor nascent capitalism required” (Winant 25).This relationship between racism and accumulation is best presented in Europe, then, reliance “upon slavery and other forms of coerced labor to provide the raw materials, agricultural produce, and precious metals that were needed at home, in the colonies, and eventually across the entire world market. Particularly in the early capitalist period, slavery furnished the material inputs necessary to create the modern capitalist economy. Over time slavery shaped the European internal markets for both production and consumption of goods, creating both the mass commodification and the labor market characteristic of mature industrial capitalism” (Winant 26).The understanding of race as a social construct or a type of social relationship is the main point of the social construction approach to race. Parallel to the approach employed by Winant and Barlow in their study, race is analyzed as a social act with a historical background and a specific geographic realization.
It does not occur in a vacuum and neither is it realized through mere differentiation. Here the importance of the political, historical and economic contingencies is emphasized.The meaning of race and racism in American society is a highly debated one. The opposing approaches of essentialism and social construction add to the complexity of this phenomenon in the global perspective. Ultimately however, the concept and the signification of race can only be best understood by contextualizing it in its particular historical and social condition. Groupthink in this issue can become problematic since it tends to define the problem in an inappropriate manner.
It appears that the more cohesive the group, the more they are open to this groupthink phenomenon.This happens because a cohesive group readily agrees on a decision without a thorough investigation of its repercussions (Crabtree & Company. Ltd. Groupthink).
Thus, creativity and decision-making is jeopardized during critical evaluations. The group can overemphasize its capacity and therefore have the illusions that they can successfully carry through with their problem-solving. Applying it to the racism issue, the social construction approach abides by this analytical framework by recognizing that the concept of race is not an autonomous problem of culture. By looking for the signification of race in itself, in a total vacuum, it provides a natural and essential reason for social inequality and it fails to look at the dynamics of social structure. Therefore, the approach of social construction would better address the need for a reasonable understanding of race.
Differing Viewpoints Author Winant offers a description of race and its undeniable historical impact in his article “The Historical Sociology of Race.” He writes, “Race has been constitutive element, an organized principle, a praxis and structure that has constructed and reconstructed world society since the emergence of modernity...the founding of the modern nation-states and empires, the conquista, the onset of African enslavement, and the subjugation of much of Asia.
” (Winant 1) He emphasized the popular claim that race was merely a cultural phenomenon but rather it also had political and economic aspects.Barlow looks at race and ethnicity in this same approach. Race, he argues is “not an inherent, immutable feature of humanity, but a type of social relationship.” (Barlow 8) Appointing certain privileges according to physical attributes that categorizes groups of people to a race constitutes racism.
Winant and Barlow’s approach to race and ethnicity differ greatly with the conception of race in the early stages of modernity or the essentialist approach of it which is still being utilized by the academe. West states that democracy is not strong as a result of the hesitancy to confront difficult questions such as the ongoing U.S. history of imperialism and slavery.
There is a need for democracy to grow up according to West (Palmer, 2004).
