Biological Differences Between Racism And Discrimination
Capitalism nurtures and creates imaginary dividing lines between human beings based on race and gender. This hegemonic oppression and exploitation leads to the alienation of the minority worker both from his/her labor as well as society as a whole. Racism also leads to a false sense of superiority over others and narcissism in non-minority workers in a situation where nothing separates them but race. American society is told in capitalist ideological propaganda that different races and genders have different needs that will forever keep them in conflict, and that racism and discrimination occur are natural. These workers are perpetually driven apart by the ruling class to keep down the potential for workers to organize and gain bargaining
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power to ask for increased wages and a better work environment. Capitalism forces a society into social hierarchy and promotes competition among workers. When one group of workers suffers oppression, it negatively affects the entire class. Economic determinism brings to mind the thought that a shift from Capitalism to a different economic system could end racism and exploitation. Racism directed against minorities in America has been a continuing issue in society. However, according to Karl Marx, American capitalistic society is to blame for racist ideologies. Capitalism is defined as: an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state. The issue with this structure is that it is designed to create differences amongst society and perpetuate a hierarchal or caste system. Capitalism is based on two separate and unequal classes; bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The bourgeoisie owns and controls the means of production and uses the proletariat to increase profits. The proletariat makes up most of the population, and sells their labor for a wage. The bourgeoisie is able to make profits due to agreeing to pay the proletariat class less that they deserve. Karl Marx calls this concept exploitation. Workers, who try to improve their wages and working conditions, cause a problem for the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie strives for disunity as it weakens the ability for opposition to their control. Race seems to be the easiest way to divide workers. For example: if white workers primarily identify as whites, and not workers, they will not act in the common interests of their minority counterparts. “Capitalism has ever striven to keep the workers divided. Without division in their ranks capitalism could not and cannot preserve its rule of human ruination. Nothing was more effective to that end than the fomenting of racial animosities and racial conceit. These means capitalism employed. The successful use thereof has kept labor a dislocated giant.” Many people think of races as “natural” categories reflecting important biological differences across groups of people whose ancestors came from different parts of the world.
Racial classifications are generally hooked to observable physical differences between people, and the apparent naturalness of race seems obvious to most people. This conception reflects a misunderstanding about the nature of racial classifications. Race is a social category, not a biological one. Racial classifications do not logically imply racial oppression. Racial classifications may simply be a way of noting physical differences of various sorts that are linked to biological descents. However, in practice racial classifications are almost always linked to forms of unjust economic and social inequality, domination, and exclusion, as well as to belief systems that assign superior and inferior statuses and attributes according to race. It is a mistake to think of racism as something that only affects the lives of African Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos and other racially defined “minorities”. Racism has profoundly shaped American society and politics in ways that deeply affect the lives of white Americans as well, particularly the lives of working class and poor whites, not just the lives of
minorities. In the early 1800s, the slave trade tried to meet the growing demands of rapidly expanding capitalism. Early settlers and plantation owners were only looking for cheap labor to work the crops and food supplies such as wheat, cotton and tobacco. African Americans became enslaved because more labor could be produced than from Native American or European indentured servants and profits could be gained faster than before. Karl Marx understood the importance of slavery to the world economy. He stated: Direct slavery is just as much the pivot of bourgeoisie industry as machinery, credits, etc. Without slavery you have no cotton; without cotton you have no modern industry. It is slavery that has given the colonies there value; it is the colonies that have created world trade, and it is world trade that is the pre-condition of large scale industry. Thus slavery is economic category of the greatest importance. After Reconstruction, the slaves were freed leaving white plantation owners with no one to work the crops and therefore bring in capital. White plantation owners used the social and political sphere to maintain hegemonic control over the newly slaves. The Jim Crow laws were racial segregation state and local laws enacted after the Reconstruction Period in Southern United States that continued in force until 1965. Jim Crow Laws called for the separation of the races in public schools, public transportation, and the segregation of restrooms, restaurants and drinking fountains for whites and blacks. While calling for the divide to be “separate but equal,” conditions for minorities were consistently second rate, unsatisfactory and underfunded compared to those provided for white Americans. Jim Crow Laws were an ideological tool to strip minorities of their identity and make it easier to assume and maintain control of the economy. However, it is important to remember that Jim Crow laws were not set forth by the white working class but is nonetheless accepted. The flow from a profit seeking economic system to the oppression of minorities to the racist ideology to justify racial oppression has continued into present day. In order for capitalism to work effectively, it needs a certain level of unemployment is desired. This allows the bourgeoisie to maintain control through the worker’s fear of job security; however this fear is felt by both the minority worker and the poor white worker. The hegemonic fear imposed by the bourgeoisie allows for employers to pay lower wages to minorities than white workers which also leads to profits for the ruling class. Different pay for similar work is often disguised by different job titles. Racist ideologies are accepted to varying degrees by white workers. This false consciousness allows the racial divide to continue and even deepen, thereby ensuring that the workers will not unite and demand more from their employers. False consciousness is simply a ruling class ideology that is used to explain or cover up reality. Since white workers believe in white supremacy to an extent this leads to the ruling class being able to exploit more effectively. WEB Du Bois explained how the “false consciousness” worked in the South and why labor movements never developed there: The race element was emphasized in order that property holders could get the support of the majority of white laborers and make it more possible to exploit negro labor. But the race philosophy came as a new and terrible thing to make labor unity or labor class consciousness impossible. So long as the Southern white laborers could be induced to prefer poverty to equality with the Negro, just so long was a labor movement in the South made impossible.
Du Bois did posit that poor whites gained a psychological wage as opposed to a material wage from racism. This psychological wage was to make the white worker feel superior because he was not a minority, even though in the end there would be no material to show for it. Poor whites do not benefit from racism as their counterparts who belong to the bourgeoisie so why is it that they accept racist ideologies? If there is no material gain for poor whites, why do they not join forces with minorities for their common interests? The first reason would be competition. Capitalism works best by letting society believe that there is a shortage of supplies to go around, so we must compete for housing, education, jobs and anything valued as important in society. To a certain extent the scarcity is false, however the competition is real therefore, the workers fighting for items to better their own status or that of their family are willing to believe the worst about others to justify why they should have something and others should not. “Competition between Black and white workers intensifies when Blacks threaten the status of white workers, either because the Blacks have acquired the education and job skills to become competitive or because the job opportunities for whites diminish.” (Ibid, 18). The other reason is that the prominent ideas of a society are those of the ruling class. Racism works for the ruling class and therefore we live in a racist society but can the ideas of the ruling class ever change in the eyes of the workers? There is constantly a clash between ruling class ideas and that of lived experience as a result while the media portrays minorities as criminals or on welfare, people’s experience with minorities at work completely contradicts the stereotypes. However, while white workers may accept these ideas about minorities does not change the fact that the majority of the poor in the United States are whites, the majority of those without health insurance and those who are homeless are white. The shared reality experienced by poor whites and minorities shows the potential there could be for united struggle to better the conditions of all workers. However losing the battle against racism undermines the overall working class’s potential revolution. In today’s society, there is a drastic need for an alternative to capitalism. The election of President Barack Obama has given the illusion of the end of racism, but the election comes 40 years after the 1968 civil rights act of 1968 and the condition of minorities still remains perilous. For most of the 20th Century, legal racism in both the North and South created a tension in the African American community that was focused on freedom and equal treatment. The government answered in the form of laws issued to remove the barriers in place to block the advancement of colored people, but only for a small section of black America. Even the “black middle class” is tenuous, fragile and only a paycheck or two away from poverty causing alienation in the black worker. Alienation occurs in the black or minority worker due to their part in a society of stratified social classes. The worker becomes only his labor or production and is as such defined by only what they can produce. In today’s society, the need for goods and services are never ending. The workers performing the production of these tasks are stuck in an endless sequence of repetitive motions that offer the worker little psychological satisfaction. The worker has no control over how the products will be used nor to whom they will be dispensed. The most telling is that he does not directly benefit from the fruit of his labors. Since the aim of production is profit not actually human needs, the machinery and materials, controlled by the capitalists--completely dominate living labor. Workers are slaves to the machine and the work process. It controls them, rather than the worker controlling the process itself. Karl Marx describes the feeling of alienation: “He feels at home when he is not working, and when he is working he does not feel at home. His labor is therefore not voluntary, but coerced; it is forced labor. It is merely a means to satisfy needs external to it. Its alien character emerges clearly in the fact that as soon as no physical or other compulsion exists, labor is shunned like the plague.” For Marx, alienation was not a feeling or a mental condition, but an economic and social condition of class society--in particular, capitalist society. He also outlines two more types of alienation that those in the proletariat experience.
power to ask for increased wages and a better work environment. Capitalism forces a society into social hierarchy and promotes competition among workers. When one group of workers suffers oppression, it negatively affects the entire class. Economic determinism brings to mind the thought that a shift from Capitalism to a different economic system could end racism and exploitation. Racism directed against minorities in America has been a continuing issue in society. However, according to Karl Marx, American capitalistic society is to blame for racist ideologies. Capitalism is defined as: an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state. The issue with this structure is that it is designed to create differences amongst society and perpetuate a hierarchal or caste system. Capitalism is based on two separate and unequal classes; bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The bourgeoisie owns and controls the means of production and uses the proletariat to increase profits. The proletariat makes up most of the population, and sells their labor for a wage. The bourgeoisie is able to make profits due to agreeing to pay the proletariat class less that they deserve. Karl Marx calls this concept exploitation. Workers, who try to improve their wages and working conditions, cause a problem for the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie strives for disunity as it weakens the ability for opposition to their control. Race seems to be the easiest way to divide workers. For example: if white workers primarily identify as whites, and not workers, they will not act in the common interests of their minority counterparts. “Capitalism has ever striven to keep the workers divided. Without division in their ranks capitalism could not and cannot preserve its rule of human ruination. Nothing was more effective to that end than the fomenting of racial animosities and racial conceit. These means capitalism employed. The successful use thereof has kept labor a dislocated giant.” Many people think of races as “natural” categories reflecting important biological differences across groups of people whose ancestors came from different parts of the world.
Racial classifications are generally hooked to observable physical differences between people, and the apparent naturalness of race seems obvious to most people. This conception reflects a misunderstanding about the nature of racial classifications. Race is a social category, not a biological one. Racial classifications do not logically imply racial oppression. Racial classifications may simply be a way of noting physical differences of various sorts that are linked to biological descents. However, in practice racial classifications are almost always linked to forms of unjust economic and social inequality, domination, and exclusion, as well as to belief systems that assign superior and inferior statuses and attributes according to race. It is a mistake to think of racism as something that only affects the lives of African Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos and other racially defined “minorities”. Racism has profoundly shaped American society and politics in ways that deeply affect the lives of white Americans as well, particularly the lives of working class and poor whites, not just the lives of
minorities. In the early 1800s, the slave trade tried to meet the growing demands of rapidly expanding capitalism. Early settlers and plantation owners were only looking for cheap labor to work the crops and food supplies such as wheat, cotton and tobacco. African Americans became enslaved because more labor could be produced than from Native American or European indentured servants and profits could be gained faster than before. Karl Marx understood the importance of slavery to the world economy. He stated: Direct slavery is just as much the pivot of bourgeoisie industry as machinery, credits, etc. Without slavery you have no cotton; without cotton you have no modern industry. It is slavery that has given the colonies there value; it is the colonies that have created world trade, and it is world trade that is the pre-condition of large scale industry. Thus slavery is economic category of the greatest importance. After Reconstruction, the slaves were freed leaving white plantation owners with no one to work the crops and therefore bring in capital. White plantation owners used the social and political sphere to maintain hegemonic control over the newly slaves. The Jim Crow laws were racial segregation state and local laws enacted after the Reconstruction Period in Southern United States that continued in force until 1965. Jim Crow Laws called for the separation of the races in public schools, public transportation, and the segregation of restrooms, restaurants and drinking fountains for whites and blacks. While calling for the divide to be “separate but equal,” conditions for minorities were consistently second rate, unsatisfactory and underfunded compared to those provided for white Americans. Jim Crow Laws were an ideological tool to strip minorities of their identity and make it easier to assume and maintain control of the economy. However, it is important to remember that Jim Crow laws were not set forth by the white working class but is nonetheless accepted. The flow from a profit seeking economic system to the oppression of minorities to the racist ideology to justify racial oppression has continued into present day. In order for capitalism to work effectively, it needs a certain level of unemployment is desired. This allows the bourgeoisie to maintain control through the worker’s fear of job security; however this fear is felt by both the minority worker and the poor white worker. The hegemonic fear imposed by the bourgeoisie allows for employers to pay lower wages to minorities than white workers which also leads to profits for the ruling class. Different pay for similar work is often disguised by different job titles. Racist ideologies are accepted to varying degrees by white workers. This false consciousness allows the racial divide to continue and even deepen, thereby ensuring that the workers will not unite and demand more from their employers. False consciousness is simply a ruling class ideology that is used to explain or cover up reality. Since white workers believe in white supremacy to an extent this leads to the ruling class being able to exploit more effectively. WEB Du Bois explained how the “false consciousness” worked in the South and why labor movements never developed there: The race element was emphasized in order that property holders could get the support of the majority of white laborers and make it more possible to exploit negro labor. But the race philosophy came as a new and terrible thing to make labor unity or labor class consciousness impossible. So long as the Southern white laborers could be induced to prefer poverty to equality with the Negro, just so long was a labor movement in the South made impossible.
Du Bois did posit that poor whites gained a psychological wage as opposed to a material wage from racism. This psychological wage was to make the white worker feel superior because he was not a minority, even though in the end there would be no material to show for it. Poor whites do not benefit from racism as their counterparts who belong to the bourgeoisie so why is it that they accept racist ideologies? If there is no material gain for poor whites, why do they not join forces with minorities for their common interests? The first reason would be competition. Capitalism works best by letting society believe that there is a shortage of supplies to go around, so we must compete for housing, education, jobs and anything valued as important in society. To a certain extent the scarcity is false, however the competition is real therefore, the workers fighting for items to better their own status or that of their family are willing to believe the worst about others to justify why they should have something and others should not. “Competition between Black and white workers intensifies when Blacks threaten the status of white workers, either because the Blacks have acquired the education and job skills to become competitive or because the job opportunities for whites diminish.” (Ibid, 18). The other reason is that the prominent ideas of a society are those of the ruling class. Racism works for the ruling class and therefore we live in a racist society but can the ideas of the ruling class ever change in the eyes of the workers? There is constantly a clash between ruling class ideas and that of lived experience as a result while the media portrays minorities as criminals or on welfare, people’s experience with minorities at work completely contradicts the stereotypes. However, while white workers may accept these ideas about minorities does not change the fact that the majority of the poor in the United States are whites, the majority of those without health insurance and those who are homeless are white. The shared reality experienced by poor whites and minorities shows the potential there could be for united struggle to better the conditions of all workers. However losing the battle against racism undermines the overall working class’s potential revolution. In today’s society, there is a drastic need for an alternative to capitalism. The election of President Barack Obama has given the illusion of the end of racism, but the election comes 40 years after the 1968 civil rights act of 1968 and the condition of minorities still remains perilous. For most of the 20th Century, legal racism in both the North and South created a tension in the African American community that was focused on freedom and equal treatment. The government answered in the form of laws issued to remove the barriers in place to block the advancement of colored people, but only for a small section of black America. Even the “black middle class” is tenuous, fragile and only a paycheck or two away from poverty causing alienation in the black worker. Alienation occurs in the black or minority worker due to their part in a society of stratified social classes. The worker becomes only his labor or production and is as such defined by only what they can produce. In today’s society, the need for goods and services are never ending. The workers performing the production of these tasks are stuck in an endless sequence of repetitive motions that offer the worker little psychological satisfaction. The worker has no control over how the products will be used nor to whom they will be dispensed. The most telling is that he does not directly benefit from the fruit of his labors. Since the aim of production is profit not actually human needs, the machinery and materials, controlled by the capitalists--completely dominate living labor. Workers are slaves to the machine and the work process. It controls them, rather than the worker controlling the process itself. Karl Marx describes the feeling of alienation: “He feels at home when he is not working, and when he is working he does not feel at home. His labor is therefore not voluntary, but coerced; it is forced labor. It is merely a means to satisfy needs external to it. Its alien character emerges clearly in the fact that as soon as no physical or other compulsion exists, labor is shunned like the plague.” For Marx, alienation was not a feeling or a mental condition, but an economic and social condition of class society--in particular, capitalist society. He also outlines two more types of alienation that those in the proletariat experience.