Comments on Bahá’í Thought: Racism: It's Not All In Your Head

Barney excellent points, thanks for making them. M...

2008-04-01T19:22:00.000-03:00

Barney excellent points, thanks for making them. My critique is essentially a question of balance in the analysis of race as a problem. Psychologizing race is taking the psychology of race (which is legitimate) beyond the bounds of moderation (when it becomes illegitimate). In addition to meeting the psychological needs of those who view racism in these kinds of ways, it also fits the political/ideological needs of those who seek to convince everyone the racism as structure (ie, institutional racism, or racial discrimination) no longer exists. If it no longer exists, then there is no need to attempt to address it other than trying to get people to think and feel the right way. This is the real harm that psychologizing race does, it distracts us from addressing squarely the issue of the distribution of power which not only impacts race/ethnicity but virtually every problem that we are facing at this time. The Baha'i approach to power is itself worthy of much study and reflection.

I agree very much with Lev's comments on your coge...

2008-04-01T17:14:00.000-03:00

I agree very much with Lev's comments on your cogent post about the need to think about social and power structures in dealing with racism.

We certainly have to work to change the social relations in which we are embedded. When I studied sociology in the 1960s, we heard about "the authoritarian personality". The sociological critique of personality-based theories of social phenomena was precisely that such psychological theories ignore the reality of social structures and differential power relations.

However, I wonder if we need to consider racism as a set of relations at different levels: societal, inter-group, intra-group, inter-personal, intra-personal? In other words, I'm not entirely sure that we can ignore the psychological aspects of racism, without at the same time trying to reduce racism purely to a matter of psychology.

Thank Lev for being the first out of the gate on t...

2008-04-01T10:02:00.000-03:00

Thank Lev for being the first out of the gate on this one. In fairness though, it is not just whites who psychologize racism, it's fairly common in our society in general right now. It has to be named and critiqued in all its forms regardless of who engages in this practice.

Thank you for this clear and powerful examination ...

2008-04-01T09:14:00.000-03:00

Thank you for this clear and powerful examination of the difference between individualized racism and the racism embedded in the social order. I'll be coming back to this post many times to help remember.

I think it's an easy trap for white folks to repeatedly fall into. (You'd think we'd see the hole in the ground - it's right there in front of us...) As a social group, we're invested in the myth of equality, and individualized racism lets us hold on to that myth... Pinning a paragraph like this to my wall will help combat the daily forgetting and complicity of whiteness.

The Baha'i Writings tell me that our current social order is falling apart, and that we need to build new institutions that will function better. I like the though of new social institutions with true representation, institutions that are willing to listen to the REALITY of racism, and not the intent of individuals. I wonder: at this early stage, does that miss the many realities treated at Baha'i Thought in Black America. (Racialized health epidemics, racialized housing crises, etc.)

Maybe I should just be putting more effort into building that new world, instead of taking my time with it -- blind to the urgency of so great a Cause.