Race Theory Research Articles

Ancient Aliens, Modern Fears: Anti-scientific, Anti-evolutionary, Racist, and Xenophobic Motifs in Robert Charroux

The French author Robert Charroux (1909–1978) contributed to the popular discourse about alien visits to earth in the remote past, that he advanced in voluminous books replete with narratives of anomalous “facts.” According to Charroux, humanity is divided in “races” whose existence is explained in reference to greater or lesser “genetic” similarity to the “ancient aliens,” as well as to radiation that genetically modified humans on the occasions of major catastrophes (natural as well as human-induced). Additionally, he was convinced that a factor in humanity’s decadence was its attachment to technology, that he regarded as detrimental in various ways; science, in his opinion, was overrated, a case in point being the theory of evolution. Extending the analysis of Charroux’s work offered by scholars like Wiktor Stoczkowski and Damien Karbovnik, I scrutinize Charroux’s books, reconstructing his ambiguous attitude towards science, his criticism of evolution, his racist theories, and his xenophobic worldview.

Interactive Effect of Caste and Disability: An Analysis

When Disability theory was formulated, the thinkers hadn’t imagined that their idea would intersect with multiple other concepts and themes; for example, Racial theory, then Feminism, Queer and LGTB. The disability theory originated on the western frontier, but its application requires contextualization and localization. This is the reason why, in the case of India, as a third-world country, needs multiple focus lenses for the applicability of disabled discourse; Dalit discourse is one such lens on which disability discourse can be tested, extended, and improvised. We here try to link "Dalit" as an identity with a disability, to understand its cumulative effect on the Dalit person with a disability. We believe that by taking this approach, we can raise the missing questions and assist the disability discourse in addressing the marginalised and neglected issues. In our analysis, we would first define the Disability and Dalit as distinct entities, and highlight the ordeal and discrimination they face. Then, we would take a look at the life of a Dalit person in India living with a disability, as we have described their situation as doubly disadvantageous and miserable, with particular mention of women with disabilities. We examined Indian laws related to, and addressed the problems of, both identities, and the intersection they forget. In conclusion, we would try to justify the need to look into the intersection of the Dalit identity with a disability, to address the raised concern regarding policy formulation and awareness in civil society and academia.

Editors’ Introduction

Editors’ Introduction

Carceral Intent

For decades, scholars across disciplines have examined the stark injustice of American carceralism. Among that body of work are analyses of the various intent requirements embedded in the constitutional doctrine that governs the state’s power to incarcerate. These intent requirements include the “deliberate indifference” standard of the Eighth Amendment, which regulates prison conditions, and the “punitive intent” standard of due process jurisprudence, which regulates the scope of confinement. This Article coins the term “carceral intent” to refer collectively to those legal intent requirements and examines critically the role of carceral intent in shaping and maintaining the deep-rooted structural racism and sweeping harms of America’s system of confinement. This Article begins by tracing the origins of American carceralism, focusing on the modern prison’s relationship to white supremacy and the post-Emancipation period in U.S. history. The Article then turns to the constitutional doctrine of incarceration, synthesizing and categorizing the law of carceral intent. Then, drawing upon critical race scholarship that examines anti-discrimination doctrine and the concept of “white innocence,” the Article compares the law’s reliance on carceral intent with the law’s reliance on discriminatory intent in equal protection jurisprudence. Critical race theorists have long critiqued the intent-focused antidiscrimination doctrine as incapable of remedying structural racism and inequities. The same can be said of the doctrine of incarceration. The law’s preoccupation with an alleged wrongdoer’s “bad intent” in challenges to the scope and conditions of incarceration makes it ill-suited to remedying the U.S. prison system’s profoundly unjust and harmful features. A curative approach, this Article asserts, is one in which the law focuses on carceral effect rather than carceral intent, as others have argued in the context of equal protection. While such an approach will not remedy the full scope of harms of U.S. incarceration, it would be a start.

"La variedad de los exemplos" and "la verdad de la estampa": Race and Exemplarity in Virtudes vencen señales

Abstract: Drawing from critical race theorists and focusing on premodern ideas of race, inheritance, and hereditary imprinting, this essay explores the alternative possibilities for governance suggested by Luis Vélez de Guevara in Virtudes vencen señales through his conceptualization of race, inherited traits, gender, and exemplarity. As the play's semiotic argument is anticipated by its title, an examination of exemplarity and precisely coded "señales"—that is, "signs," or "marks"—helps inform the disparity between who is initially assumed to be "virtuous" and who is ultimately proven to be so. The "señales" represented in the play confront ideas of political and hereditary continuity and rigid theories of legal and genetic succession that account for, mitigate, and hierarchize difference. In its engagement with exemplarity via key intertextual borrowings, Virtudes situates race and gender as the problematic backdrop for gauging an exemplar's replicability against its singularity and difference, thus offering a pointed critique of governmental continuity and hierarchal understandings of inheritance.

Between Racialization and White Supremacy: Another Marxist Response to Sean Walton

Following the debate between Marxists and the Critical Race Theorists (CRT) over the analytical utility of the concept of White supremacy in the contemporary discourse on racism, this paper offers an additional Marxist response to Sean Walton’s article to complement the existing Marxist thoughts on the debate. This paper further deepens the discussion on racialization as the general descriptor of racism in western societies, by introducing the class context in which racialisation has sustained and maintained racism in the contemporary era. Racialization is defined in this paper as an ideological process that involves racialising benefits, privileges, and opportunities to one group [possibly an ethnic group] over other groups by the capitalist ruling class and the state, and legitimising it by using policies, media, laws, regulations, and institutional practices as a means of entrenching division and disunity in the society and preserving their system of control under capitalism. Following this definition, it is argued that racism is being reproduced through the process of racialization in the contemporary western society. In the overall discussion on racialisation and White supremacy, the ideology of racism was espoused, and the future of racism as articulated in Critical Race theory and Black radicalism is reviewed.

A perna esquerda era uma massa de carne e ossos esmagados, presa por milagre ao resto do corpo: os excluídos como monstros no neorrealismo português

This article starts from the correlation between the concepts of commu- nity and immunity, from its common radical munus, proposed by Roberto Es- posito, in the book Bios – Biopolítica e Filosofia, to think how the whole idea of community is made not only from of a notion of mutual belonging, but also of exclusion from the different. Throughout the history of both political and literary representations, this figure of the excluded appeared in different ways, very com- monly characterized in different types of monstrosities. My objective in the present work is to explore the biological senses and the legal-political implications of the representation of the Werewolf as monstrosity in the literature, discussing how the beings represented as aberrations, especially the figure of the werewolf, not only put in tension what is conceives as a human being, but allows to account for the proper functioning of the politics of societies, a focus that is of interest to Portu- guese neorealism. Thus, I intend here to discuss, in the first place, the relationship between the representation of biological monstrosities and the possibility of dege- neration of the social body, as proposed on the basis of racist theories that under- pin authoritarian regimes during the 20th century. Then, specifically discuss the figure of the werewolf and its implications in political theory so that, in order to be able to resume the polyvalence of the sign of the werewolf in the novel Casa na Duna, by Carlos de Oliveira.

ФРАНЦУЗСКИЙ ИССЛЕДОВАТЕ ЛЬ ФРЕДЕРИК ЛЕПЛЕ КАК ОСНОВОПОЛОЖНИК ЭТНОСОЦИОЛОГИИ БАШКИР

The subject of the article is the analysis of the state of the Bashkir patriarchal family as a representative part of Bashkir society in the middle of the 19th century, undertaken by the French sociologist Frédéric Le Play (1806–1882). The object of the research is his monographic study on this topic. The aim of the article is to determine the methods, which Le Play applied for studying the everyday life, economy and material culture of the Bashkirs, to analyze the facts, which he revealed and the conclusions he drew. The tasks proceeding from this goal are based on studying the features of the author's research methodology, empirical material, identifying original conclusions regarding the life support system of a large Bashkir family in the 19th century as a structural element of Bashkir society. The article shows the necessity of using methods of qualitative sociological analysis, applied by the author, in the domestic science. For the first time, a critical analysis of a previously unknown in the Russian historiography is given, its advantages and disadvantages are appreciated, as well as the possibilities of its use in the sociology of race and ethnic relations and anthropology of the Bashkirs.

The Representation of American Dream in Lorrain Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun

In this article, the aim is to analyze theme of ‘American Dream’ within Lorrain Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun. Such a theme has appeared roughly as a recurring theme of debate in literary works and drama undoubtedly is not an exception of that. This paper tries to figure out an answer for the question in which how is the American Dream exposed according to every character within the play? Playwrights attempted through their artistic productions and reproductions to exhibit such a theme while writing dramas to enlighten the image of America on a societal ground. As for the play itself, the spread of African- American ideas in literature is made use of in socially depicting humans’ rights. Lorrain Hansberry being one of the prominent black writers, has been telling the world concerning the Black people’s pain and awes. The distresses, thwarting and domination of the subjugated Africans are exhibited in her writings. Throughout the drama, the protagonist is shown as controlled by the White and the way she strived being discriminated. The methodology of this article is a textual analysis for the excerptions under investigation making use of the Theory of Racism and Racial Discrimination to comprehend the sociological status of the characters in the play. It is found that Black people – under the siege of the Whites – have suffered the discrimination due to oppression, color and social status.

Fear of a Black planet: Climate apocalypse, Anthropocene futures and Black social thought

In recent years, images of climate catastrophe have become commonplace. However, Black visions of the confluence of the Anthropocene and the apocalypse have been largely ignored. As we argue in this article, Black social thought offers crucial resources for drawing out the implicit exclusions of dominant representations of climate breakdown and developing an alternative account of the planet’s future. By reading a range of critical race theorists, from Frederick Douglass and W. E. B. Du Bois to Octavia Butler and Ta-Nehisi Coates, we propose a rethinking of the climate apocalypse. The African American theoretical and cultural tradition elaborates an image of the end of the world that emphasises the non-revelatory nature of climate catastrophe, warns against associating collapse with rebirth, and articulates a mode of maroon survivalism in which the apocalypse is an event to be endured and escaped rather than fatalistically expected or infinitely delayed.

Say my name

This essay is a call out and a roll call of Black women scholars – Black Feminists, Critical Race Theorists, Intersectionality Theorists and co-conspirators – doing the work of the elder women and ancestors whose shoulders we stand on. I frame the research on African American Women’s Language around Hull, Bell-Scott and Smith’s (1982) seminal book All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave to shout out not only how language and linguistics researchers got it twisted and need to reckon with truth and say my (language’s) name: African American Women’s Language. And put some respeck on it while you’re at it.

'Mad', bad or Muslim? The UK's Vulnerability Support Hubs and the nexus of mental health, counterterrorism and racism.

The UK government's 'Prevent' counter-extremism policy was placed on a statutory footing in 2015, requiring specified authorities including NHS providers by law to work to 'prevent people being drawn into terrorism', leading to calls for a boycott on ethical grounds. Since 2016, mental health professionals have been embedded within counterterrorism police units in 'Vulnerability Support Hubs', to assist in the management of individuals referred to Prevent perceived to have vulnerabilities related to mental health. Drawing on data obtained through Freedom of Information requests, this paper examines these hubs in the context of Prevent's racial politics. It examines the pseudo-scientific concept of radicalization through the lens of racialization theory and explores the whitewashing and colourblindness endemic to most research and practice at the nexus of counterterrorism and mental health. Four ethical issues arising from the hubs are highlighted: (a) the securitization of care, including the way counterterrorism concerns appear to influence medical treatment regimes; (b) harm, including potential criminalization; (c) the erosion of patient agency and confidentiality; and (d) the pathologization of political dissent. It is argued that due to the UK's status as a leading innovator in the field of counter-radicalization, all of these highly racialized phenomena hold wider relevance and augur a troubling direction of travel for counterterrorism's turn towards mental health.

Embedding Racism: City Government Credit Ratings and the Institutionalization of Race in Markets

Abstract How does racism and racial inequality manifest in contemporary markets? Leveraging insights from the sociology of race and economic sociology, I highlight how ratings and scores operate as key mechanisms institutionalizing racism in markets according to an epistemology of racial ignorance. While ratings and scores give a veneer of individualized objectivity, their actual inputs reflect decades of racial disadvantage. The use of such racialized inputs embeds historical racism in ratings allowing racial inequality to persist and escape cognition as seemingly race-neutral inputs “explain away” racial disparities. I demonstrate this argument using an original dataset to approximate the evaluative criteria used in rating city government creditworthiness. I show that cities with larger proportions of Black residents receive worse credit ratings when controlling for the non-racialized inputs in the evaluative criteria. This racial disparity only attenuates after the inclusion of the criterion median family income, which I argue is a fundamentally racialized input owing to the legacy of racism in the United States. Establishing this point provides key theoretical takeaways at the intersection of race and economic sociology as scores and ratings pervade more corners of social life and push up against the epistemological seams of how we understand and identify inequality.

The colour-line of journalism

This article argues that Danish journalistic boundary producing practices and principles uphold a representation of racial disparity. Based on critical theories of race and racism in journalism and a boundary work framework, we conduct a discursive analysis of two collective case studies that encompass 56 articles and 23 Facebook posts. Focusing mainly on 1) the construction of knowledge about potential racism, 2) who are positioned as authorities on the topic of racism, and 3) who are missing among the potential actors in the stories, we identify meta-journalistic discourses and the (re)establishment of journalistic principles and practices. We conclude that journalistic norms and practices, for now, withstand the challenges posed by minority media’s call for the recognition of race as structure by applying discursive strategies of firstly rejecting racism as structure and secondly asserting principles and practices of specific kinds of objectivity, utilising, for instance, elite sources.

Faith, Secularism, and the Need for Interfaith Dialogue in Writing Center Work

This article argues that religious and secularist identities complement and intersect in political ways with race, class, gender, sexuality, and nationality and that they inform writing center practice because belief exists along a spectrum that involves all writing center inhabitants and affects all writing-centered conversations. We suggest that this spectrum of faith is evocative of the spectrums that theorists of race, gender, and sexuality in particular have discussed, yet often faith has been overlooked in discussions of identity in writing center work (Denny, 2010). We propose that theories of race, gender, sexuality and other identities that have served as springboards for professional development in writing centers can help to facilitate the development of a greater literacy of faith and secularism as complicated and nuanced identities. Specifically, we believe theories involving intersectional social justice work and hybridity can help to facilitate self-reflective and productive interfaith dialogue or dialogue about faith and secularism. Thus, such theories can help writing center professionals dismantle stereotypes about believers and secularists and problematic notions of what faith, or a conversation about faith, is or should be.

A Piece of the Action: Race and Labor in Post–Civil Rights Hollywood

A Piece of the Action: Race and Labor in Post–Civil Rights Hollywood

REPENSAR A LITERATURA INFANTIL COM A PERSPECTIVA DA TEORIA RACIAL CRÍTICA: ANÁLISE DO LIVRO AS BONECAS NEGRAS DE LARA

This article proposes to bring some reflections about social identities with regard to the racial issue intersected with gender, and the ways in which these issues are represented in a children's book Lara's black dolls. The theoretical framework adopted for the discussion on Critical Racial Theory and the Theoretical support for the analysis of children's literature worked from a racial perspective From a methodological point of view, this is a bibliographic research, which aims to discuss the relevance of Critical Racial Theory in education and bring an analysis of a book with black characters. As a result of the research, I emphasize the importance of this Theory to unveil racial prejudice in school institutions and to review the choices of Children's Literature. I emphasize the need to break with the silences that permeate the pedagogical context around differences, problematizing them.

Debate: Decolonising Fascist Studies

Abstract The drive to decolonise is of central importance to the study of fascism, which after all was and remains a politics rooted in specific conceptions of colonialism and race. In this article, we have invited both leading academics and early career scholars to reflect on how we might ‘decolonise’ fascist studies. Their comments approach fascism in a range of contexts, and offer reflections on how to frame future research questions, approach methodological issues, and consider how fascism studies might develop a more overt and clear stance on the problems posed by decolonising the subject area more broadly. It is hoped that these commentaries will enrich the field of fascist studies and, in turn, do more to relate it to the work of scholars in other relevant areas of study, particularly those working on critical theories of race and racism. Contributors to this debate are: Leslie James, Raul Carstocea, Daniel Hedinger, Liam J. Liburd, Cathy Bergin, Benjamin Bland, Evan Smith, Jonathan Hyslop, Benjamin Zachariah, and Caroline Campbell.

Kontribusi Aktivis Mesjid Lautze 2 Bandung dalam Merangkul Mualaf Tionghoa Tahun 2016-2021

Lautze 2 Mosque in Bandung was established in January 1997. The location of Lautze 2 Mosque is on Jl. Tamblong number 27 Bandung City. Lautze 2 Mosque is a branch of Lautze 1 Mosque in Jakarta. Lautze 2 Mosque in Bandung has its uniqueness, especially in the architecture of the building. Lautze 2 Mosque, conceptualized in the shape of a temple. The red, yellow, and gold paint colors that adorn the walls of the Lautze 2 Mosque reflect Chinese culture. In addition to the paint color, the ornaments that adorn the mosque also have a Chinese nuance. From 2016 to 2021, there were 151 who took the oath of faith at the Lautze 2 Mosque. In addition to religious activities, the Lautze 2 Mosque always held social programs. One of them is the iftar program and on the road a thousand dates. This activity was supported by various parties, one of which was the Salman Charity House. Not only Muslims who support this, but even many interfaith also donate to keep this activity. In writing this article, the theory used is the racial theory proposed by Murtadha Muttahari. According to him, the leading cause of historical progress is certain races.

Kant's use of travel reports in theorizing about race — A case study of how testimony features in natural philosophy

A testimony is somebody else's reported experience of what has happened. It is an indispensable source of knowledge. It only gives us historical cognition, however, which stands in a complex relation to rational or philosophical cognition: while the latter presupposes historical cognition as its matter, one needs the architectonic “eye of a philosopher” to select, interpret, and organize historical cognition. Kant develops this rationalist theory of testimony. He also practices it in his own work, especially while theorizing about race as a subject of natural philosophy. In three dedicated essays on this subject, he treats race from the standpoint of a philosophical investigator of nature (Naturforscher), who (as Kant puts it in the first Critique) learns from nature “like an appointed judge who compels witnesses to answer the questions he puts to them.” This view underwrites Kant's use of travel reports (a type of testimony) in developing and defending his theory of race.