Racial Ideology Research Articles

Challenging anti-racism in nursing education: A moral and professional call to action

The call to implement anti-racism pedagogy in nursing education and practice is reverberating globally. Racist ideologies are foundational to systems of health inequity. An antiracist approach is critical to dismantling systemic racism and promoting optimal health outcomes in the quest for health equity. Therefore, employing an anti-racist pedagogy within nursing education that allows students and teachers to reflect on their roles in dismantling racist structures and transforming equity outcomes in practice and society, is a moral undertaking. However, for nursing education to make significant inroads in health equity, it cannot be guided by the same Eurocentric motives and value systems that continue to shape health inequities. We must transcend the boundaries of Eurocentric knowledge construction to intentionally shift how nurses think and practice within systems of inequities. Alongside the pressing and growing call for radical transformation of students and teachers through anti-racist pedagogy, we also provide directions to teaching strategies that support the uptake of anti-racism in nursing curricula and classroom engagement.

Franz Boas in Kiel

This paper sheds light on two crucial phases of Franz Boas’s life linked to Kiel: his early academic pursuits leading to his PhD in 1881 and his return fifty years later to deliver a lecture that would become a seminal text in the fight against racism. Boas initially arrived in Kiel in 1879 and completed his PhD on the optical properties of water in 1881. During that time, he had to deal with anti-Semitism, sometimes even with the rapier. In 1931, Boas returned to Kiel University to receive an honorary doctorate for his achievements. At this occasion, he gave a lecture entitled ‘Race and Culture,’ which directly opposed the racist ideologies gaining traction in Germany. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, Boas wrote an open letter to Reichspräsident Paul von Hindenburg, bemoaning the restrictions on freedom and the anti-Semitic actions in Germany. As a result, Boas was blacklisted, and his books were removed from the Kiel University Library, even allegedly burnt. Irrespective of his global significance as a founding father of four-field anthropology, Boas’s connection with Kiel remains little known, perhaps long overshadowed by Kiel University’s reluctance to address its problematic past.

Racist and antiracist conspiracy theories

ABSTRACT In conspiracy theory philosophy the primary debate has been epistemic, but the concern is now also shifting to the ethical and political implications of taking conspiracy theories seriously. This shift is epitomized in the work of Quassim Cassam, whose focus has moved away from the epistemic faults of the theories and theorists to the political function of conspiracy theories. This function, he argues, is to ‘express and promote an ideology’, specifically, racist, antisemitic, and extremist ideology. In this essay, I will challenge two of Cassam’s assumptions. First, I will disagree with his claim that racist conspiracy theories ought to be treated dismissively as a class. This is due in part to the difficulties in defining racist conspiracy theories and due in part to what I call the Conspiracy Theory Location Problem, which is the challenge of identifying what constitutes ‘the theory’. In response, I suggest we need to be even more particularistic about ‘instances’ of a theory. Second, I disagree that the only function of conspiracy theories is to promote racist ideology. Instead, I argue that there exists a class of antiracist conspiracy theories that resist white supremacy by uncovering racist conspiracies and challenging racist institutions, systems, and ideologies.

The Arrival from Abroad: Train Travel and Mobile Ideas of Race in Pre-Apartheid South African Literature

ABSTRACT This article identifies and explores an inciting incident in two pre-apartheid South African novels: the trope of an ‘arrival from abroad’. This trope centres on a character arriving by train from a place figured as foreign, whether that is Cape Town or London, to the rural South African setting of the story, bringing ideas of interracial togetherness with them that challenge local racial hierarchizations. Two novels are used as case studies, one from the beginning of the 20th century – Perceval Gibbon’s Margaret Harding (1911) – and one written on the eve of apartheid – Peter Abrahams’s The Path of Thunder (1948). The traveller from abroad is either a black South African who has been educated in Europe or Cape Town and arrives home to effect change, or the traveller is a white character from Europe whose values are pitted against those of white South Africans. In both cases, the ‘arrival from abroad’ is a destabilizing force to the local community, bringing often unwelcome ideas from outside. Together, Gibbon’s and Abrahams’s novels allow me to explore the interrelations between the mobility of ideas from one place to another, ideologies of race, the figure of the outsider, and train travel in South African literature from the first half of the 20th century. Comparing Gibbon and Abrahams enables me to trace differences and continuities over time and in diverse uses of the trope. This article argues that the ‘arrival from abroad’ trope is used to embody a notion of mobile ideas at a time when trains served to shift both goods and people to radical effect on society.

"Remove Kebab": The Appeal of Serbian Nationalist Ideology among the Global Far Right

This article examines the appeal of Serbian nationalist ideology among the contemporary far right. We argue that the discursive othering of Bosnian Muslims as “Turks” as well as the Serbian grand narrative presenting the Bosnian War as a civilizational struggle between Christian Europe and Islam are uniquely resonant with the popular anti-Muslim and xenophobic discourses that are mobilizing right-wing extremists across the globe. Through an analysis of Serbian and far-right discourses, we demonstrate how the patterns of representation that were used to incite and justify the violence committed against Bosnian Muslims in the 1990s are being exported to remote corners of the world via the internet, where they merge with extraneous Islamophobic and racist ideologies to inspire a new generation of extremism, hatred, and violence.

Gendered anti-blackness, maternal health & chattel slavery: OB/Gyn knowledge as a determinant of death of black women

This archival investigation of the Southern Medical and Surgical Journal (SMSJ) focuses on the construction of the American Ob/Gyn profession's medical knowledge system alongside chattel slavery, between 1834 and 1860. I find that language, methods of clinical management of bodies and decision-making processes illustrate the pathways that obstetrical knowledge served as a determinant of death for Black women under chattel slavery. These are byproducts of the condition of possibility, my theoretical framework. The condition, or use of gendered anti-Black logic/practice, specifically the social death and biological indispensability of Black women in the context of chattel slavery, shapes the subjective nature of medical knowledge into a determinant of maternal death for Black women. Using the condition of possibility as a theoretical framework, I will lay the groundwork to reframe the Ob/Gyn knowledge system as a current and ever-present threat to Black women and girls' health. This study's sociological contribution lies in examining medical knowledge construction as a series of social interactions, informed by gendered and racial ideologies, that determine health outcomes for Black women.

Politický mýtus, Thomas Robert Malthus a vznik árijské rasové imaginace

The emergence of Nazi ideology and the rise of Nazism represented one of the most dramatic and tragic events of modern times, the consequences of which humanity is still dealing with today. The doctrine of the superiority of the Aryan race was an integral part of Nazi doctrine and served as a “scientific” justification for German expansionism and the policy of ethnic genocide. The Nazi conception of the German nation as the chosen Aryan racial community was identified as an example of a modern political myth by Henry Tudor in the early 1970s [Tudor 1972: 16]. We will attempt to explain the rise of Aryan ideology using the concept of political myth and Blumenberg’s notion of “work on myth” as the result of the long development of Western genealogical speculation, which underwent a process of secularization during the Enlightenment and once combined with stimuli coming from contemporary natural sciences, was used under the conditions of modern industrial society to “rationally” legitimize inequalities between people. A parallel development, consisting in the attempt to deny by scientific arguments the equality of human beings, despite the spread of liberal ideas inspired, among others, by the American and French Revolutions, took place in the economic sciences, where the doctrine of the British political economist Thomas Robert Malthus gained prominence at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Malthusianism, Aryan race ideology, Social Darwinism, or the eugenics movement thus had a common denominator, which Friedrich August von Hayek called the “counter-revolution of science” or Zeev Sternhell “counter-Enlightenment”.

Marcha das Vadias: performing disidentification in transnational protests

Abstract In 2011, protests against rape culture ignited across the globe. Inspired by SlutWalk Toronto (SWT), organizers planned protests that adapted the rhetorical features of SlutWalk to their local contexts. This article examines the visual rhetoric of Marcha das Vadias (MDV), a series of satellite protests in Brazil. I argue that protestors enacted disidentification as a response to the constitutive rhetoric of SlutWalk, bringing into focus how ideologies of race, class, and religion interact with norms of sex and gender to reinforce rape logic. The translation of “slut” to “vadias” centered the linguistic and cultural contexts of contemporary Brazil while maintaining solidarity with the broader SlutWalk movement. Protestors deploy seven rhetorical personae that resituate the constitutive narrative of the movement. Altogether, their performances of personae enact a rhetoric of survivance, which utilizes collectivity, structural critique, non-linear temporality, and storytelling to resist systems of oppression.

Critical Consciousness and Sex Positivity: Opinions on Race Play within Alternate Sexuality Communities

ABSTRACT Race play, the act of making explicit overtures to race, racial differences, or political racial dynamics within the context of a kink or BDSM (bondage dominance/submission, sadism/masochism) can be a contentious topic among scholars and members of alternative sexuality communities. In the current study, we explored how individuals’ ideologies about race and sex are associated with their opinions of race play. Two-hundred thirty-four participants recruited through sex-positive and BDSM community spaces between January and June of 2021 completed measures of color-blind racial ideology and sexual comfort as assessments of critical consciousness and sex-positive values. Additionally, participants provided open-ended responses to a description of race play. Mixed-methods analyses using k-means clusters and crosstabs approaches indicated that the interaction of critical consciousness and sex positive attitudes influenced participants’ views on race play. Among those with strong sex-positive attitudes, those who denied institutional racism were more likely to provide unequivocal support for race play while those who acknowledged institutional racism were more likely to emphasize the nuance of balancing personal sexual freedom with the implications of race for practitioners as well as spectators. Additional research is needed to further determine whether racial group membership has an impact on opinions toward race play.

Debating Decolonization: The Use of Postcolonial Metatheatre in Murray Carlin’s Not Now, Sweet Desdemona

This article considers Not Now, Sweet Desdemona (1967) by the South African playwright Murray Carlin as an intervention in the critical and performance histories of Othello, situating Shakespeare’s tragedy within contemporary postcolonial and apartheid-era debates. Carlin’s play reveals multiple interlocking layers of meta-commentary to illustrate the ways in which Othello is haunted by postcolonialism. This reading builds on Marvin Carlson’s notion of the haunted stage as well as Joanne Tompkins’s account of postcolonial metatheatre, in which an embedded counter-discourse assists in the rereading, restructuring, and resituating of a “base” play. In the case of Not Now, Sweet Desdemona, Carlin engages metatheatrically with racist and misogynist discourses as well as with fields that are less often mentioned in discussions of postcolonial metatheatre, such as literary criticism and theatre history. Through these engagements, Carlin positions Othello as both a historical vector for racist ideologies and a more contemporary tool for challenging and dismantling systemic oppression.

Colorblind racial ideology and student expectations and reactions to a university-sponsored diversity workshop.

Colorblind racial ideology and student expectations and reactions to a university-sponsored diversity workshop.

Does color-blind racial ideology moderate the internalization of the model minority myth on race-related stress among Asian American college students?

Does color-blind racial ideology moderate the internalization of the model minority myth on race-related stress among Asian American college students?

Mestizaje for Blaxican Theology

precis: In this essay, I explore the emergence of mestizaje (mixedness) as a Latin American racial ideology that emerged in the early twentieth century. I begin by exploring the work of Mexican theorist José Vasconcelos and especially his work La Raza Cósmica , which emerged at the end of the Mexican Revolution that foresaw the emergence of a "cosmic race" that would render obsolete African and Indigenous races. From there, I explore Vasconcelos's influence on Mexican-American theologies and especially the doctrine of Christology in the work of Virgilio Elizondo. Finally, I explore the problems and possibilities of mestizaje for people whose Blackness plays an integral part of their mixedness—namely, "Blaxicans."

The Mountain Dew Commercial and the Intersection of News, Information, and Racial Ideology

In the context of America’s active movement toward equality and the unity of races in the post-racist era, the Mountain Dew commercial demonstrates that the media realm continues to be dominated by the biases and stereotypes of racist origin. The study aimed to examine the case study of a Mountain Dew Commercial and critically documented its racial elements which sparked widespread criticism. Using Stuart Hall’s model of Encoding/Decoding, the study disclosed both the denotative and connotative meanings contained in the most racist advertisement in the history of commercials, as called by one of the critics. It examined the commercial from the viewpoint of the different levels of meanings and investigated the relationship between the portrayal of Black people and the ideological meanings that they carry in terms of the existing stereotype and its relation to other racial minorities. Also, the viewpoints of Tyler, the Creator, and Dr. Boyce Watkins were given which presented the arguments in favor and against racial content, aired by commercial entities. The study provided insight into how the idea of a post-racial society is discussed within the Black community, where experiences, education, and class play a major part in shaping competing racial politics.

Social work’s grandest challenge: re-contextualizing racism and reducing its deleterious effects on its members and those we serve

ABSTRACT Social work as a profession has a legacy of racism, bigotry, and White supremacy that has harmed a number of racially marginalized groups of people. To this day, social work continues to be beleaguered by racialized activities at the student, practitioner, and research levels that stain its reputation. The author discusses how racist ideologies negatively affect the social work profession and how members of the profession can make immediate changes in social work practice, education, and research in an effort to eliminate racism as one of the grand challenges for social work.

Scotus Rewriting the History of Race in America

Robert L. Nelson on the racial ideology of a conservative-majority court.

The ideology of racism and ways of combating it through the formation of a patriotic information policy

The ideology of racism and ways of combating it through the formation of a patriotic information policy

Saving Hattah Lakes: Changing Masculinities and the Campaigns for a National Park, 1900–1960

Hattah Lakes is a network of lakes in Victoria’s north-west in a region known as the Mallee. This article focuses on three white men who were critical to saving the Lakes: a bushman, a naturalist, and a scientist. All recognised the unique nature of the Lakes and each operated within changing understandings of masculinity as they sought to protect the Lakes from development. These three men viewed the Lakes as a place of natural beauty and abundant wildlife which needed to be cherished and protected, but they were also men who in different ways profited directly or indirectly from the exploitation of the land. Their relationships to the Lakes were shaped by gendered and racial ideologies that privileged different ways of knowing the area: as a bush landscape; as a wonderland of birds and trees; as a sophisticated natural system to be studied.

The racial and ethnic socialisation continuum: racial oppression and resistance in Latinx families

ABSTRACT Research on racial and ethnic socialisation of Latinxs has focused on ethnic socialisation while under-examining the racial discourses and ideologies that Latinxs use when discussing racial and ethnic identity and stratification in their families. This study draws on 65 interviews with predominantly U.S.-born Latinxs. Using the theoretical framework of racial formation, I develop the racial and ethnic socialisation (RES) continuum to conceptualise the content of racial discourses present in Latinx families that reflect a range of racial ideologies. There are five discursive styles that fall into three general types of racial ideologies: (1) maintenance of hierarchies, (2) lack of direct discussions about race and ethnicity, and (3) anti-racist and feminist socialisation, but with flaws. The RES continuum contributes to research on racialisation by developing the processes of how structural racism unfolds in Latinx families through racial discourses and racial and ethnic socialisation.

Altruistic concern: how racial ideologies explain racial differences in concerns for Black victims of crime and the police

We explore how concerned Americans are about the risk of violence faced by Black Americans. Using a 2022 American National Election Studies (ANES) survey, we compare concern for Black Americans as the victims of crime versus the police. We find White Americans to be the least concerned about both kinds of victimization, Black Americans the most concerned, and Latinx Americans in between. Interestingly, White Americans expressed significantly less concern about Black Americans being victimized by the police than by civilians. People’s racial ideologies play the largest role in explaining the average differences in concern between people with different racial identifications.