Racism is word that has had a lot of use during this primary campaign. It is always a good idea to see what the user means when the word is used- for, like all words, especially those with emotional semantic overtones, it has a variety of meanings. Would I be wrong to suggest that the very meaning of the word to anyone hearing or reading it depends on the degree of their own racism? Oh yes, I know, the first reaction to my suggestion is to think "but I'm not racist!" And for certain meanings of the word that may be true. I wouldn't dare to write this diary if I were racist would I? Among the many definitions of racism the one offered by American Sociological Association president Joe Feagin stands out in the context of this year's primary contest. Let us examine it and see if we agree or not.
The definition comes from Wikipidea
Sociologist and former American Sociological Association president Joe Feagin argues that the United States can be characterized as a "total racist society" because racism is used to organize every social institution (Feagin, Joe R. (2000) Racist America: Roots, Current Realities, and Future Reparations. NY: Routledge, p. 16).
More recently, Feagin has articulated a comprehensive theory of racial oppression in the U.S. in his book Systemic Racism: A Theory of Oppression (Routledge, 2006). Feagin examines how major institutions have been built upon racial oppression which was not an accident of history, but was created intentionally by white Americans. In Feagin's view, white Americans labored hard to create a system of racial oppression in the 17th century and have worked diligently to maintain the system ever since. While Feagin acknowledges that changes have occurred in this racist system over the centuries, he contends that key and fundamental elements have been reproduced over nearly four centuries, and that U.S. institutions today reflect the racialized hierarchy created in the 17th century. Today, as in the past, racial oppression is not just a surface-level feature of this society, but rather pervades, permeates, and interconnects all major social groups, networks, and institutions across the society. Feagin's definition stands in sharp contrast to psychological definitions that assume racism is an "attitude" or an irrational form of bigotry that exists apart from the organization of social structure.
I find it interesting that different disciplines have different definitions and that they really don't seem to look across disciplines , even in such an important issue.
Another discipline that has touched on the political aspects of racism as it is a part of a reactionary world view is cognitive linguistics as practiced by George Lakoff. Lakoff's writings are of central importance here because he deals with the manner in which language itself frames people's thoughts. In his book Whose Freedom? The Battle Over America's Most Important Idea he reviews these ideas:
Cognitive science and cognitive linguistics, as these fields have developed in the past three decades, have given us new and deeper understanding of mental processes and the ideas they generate, including political ideas.
Cognitive science has produced a number of dramatic and important results- results that bear centrally on contemporary politics, though in a way that is not immediately obvious.
We think with our brains.
The concepts we think with are physically instantiated in the synapses and neural circuitry of our brains Thought is physical. And neural circuits, once established, do not change quickly or easily.
Repetition of language has the power to change brains
When a word or phrase is repeated over and over for a long period of time, the neural circuits that compute its meaning are activated repeatedly in the brain. As the neurons in those circuits fire, the synapses connecting the neurons in the circuits get stronger and the circuits may eventually become permanent, which happens when you learn the meaning of any word in your fixed vocabulary. Learning a word physically changes your brain, and the meaning of that word becomes physically instantiated in your brain.
For example, the word "freedom", if repeatedly associated with radical conservative themes, may be learned not with its traditional progressive meaning, but with a radical conservative meaning. "Freedom" is being redefined brain by brain.
Most thought is unconscious
Because thought occurs at the neural level, most of our thinking is not available to conscious introspection. Thus, you may not know your own reasoning process. For example, you may not be aware of the moral or political principles that lie behind the political conclusions that you reach quickly and automatically.
There are more and I will merely list some of them for I want to focus on the ones I need to make the connection with the other author. Here is the next part of Lakoff's list:
All thought uses conceptual frames
Frames have boundaries
Language can be used to reframe a situation
The next two are very important:
Frames characterize ideas: they may be "deep" or "surface" frames.
Deep frames structure your moral system or your worldview. Surface frames have a much smaller scope. They are associated with particular words or phrases, and with modes of communications. The reframing of the Iraq War as a "front in the war on terror" was a surface reframing. Words are defined mostly in terms of surface frames. Examples are labels like "death tax", "activist judges," "frivolous lawsuits," "liberal elites," and "politically correct," which are used by the right totrogger revulsion.
In politics, whoever frames the debate tends to win the debate. Over the past thirty-five years, conservatives have framed most issues in political discourse.
Deep frames are where the action is The deep frames are the ones that structure how you view the world. They characterize moral and political principles that are so deep that they are a part of your very identity. Deep framing is the conceptual infrastructure of the mind: the foundation walls and beams of the edifice. Without deep frames, there is nothing for the surface message frames to hang on.
There are more but we now have what we need.
Lakoff is dealing with the individual human mind and how it reacts to the sensory inputs it receives via language. But there is more. The senses also incorporate other sources of information. Symbols, for example, are triggers as well and they too can be incorporated into the mind along with language. If we go back to what Feagin is telling us, the interplay is rather mind jarring. Without writing another book, we can glimpse at the interplay in one's mind between language cues and symbolic clues, especially those coming from the instituions that make up our immediate world. If Faegin is even a little bit right, we all have had to actively reframe much of what we believe about race matters in order to escape being influenced by these many subtile cues.
During my long career as a University professor, for example, I did not have to be told by anyone that the racial composition of the faculty was very different from that of the janitorial and housekeeping staff.
I was raised in working class Chicago. There is another Chicago about which I know almost nothing experientially. Furthermore I am far more familiar with the habits and customs of the Lithuanian and Bohemian subcultures than any other since I am third generation Lithuanian on my mother's side and not too much further from the immigration of my father's family at some time in the past. Among many many other things that this background did to give me a worldview different from others not having it, was that it exposed me to some really nasty forms of racism. This was racism that was deeply framed in Lakoff's sense. The reframing has occurred over a long time and yet I will never be free of what I heard over and over again from all the adults giving me a role model when I was young.
What I heard from these people was that it was the "hillbillies" that were racist. After all we had to fight a war to free the slaves. Yet the lines between neighborhoods in Chicago will always seem far more sharply drawn than those in Virginia where I live now. I remember reading that letters uncovered from the pre civil war period between influencial Northern leaders expressed fear of slavery because it would require living in close proximity to the other race. Clearly Southerners have no problem with that idea.
We are in another phase of having to deal with chickens coming home to roost. I suspect that there are a lot more chickens out there. One thing seems certain to me. Some of the folk in Appalachia, like my family have no problem articulating their desire to distance themselves fron those other people, and they certainly don't want them telling anyone what to do. What I am wondering about is all the people pointing fingers at them.
I hope this diary has helped raise questions about a very deep problem. I hear lots of wailing and gnashing of teeth as we are forced to look our National heritage in the eye once again. What we need is deep reframing and a totally different world view. We won't get that by asking "them" to change. It is all or nothing on this one.