I found Chapter 2, Silent Racism in Trepagnier’s book to be particularly interesting for a rather abstract reason. Her opening sentences about race, culture and its contagious permeability within society is undeniably powerful, and true. She states “Silent Racism is a cultural phenomenon, not a psychological one. This does not imply that all whites are affected in a similar way, but it does imply that all whites are affected. No one is immune to ideas that permeate the culture in which he or she is raised” (Trepagnier, 2006). It certainly got my attention and was a personal reality check on the issue of racism at large, and my unquestionable contribution. In addition, it supported Trepagnier’s imperative ideal for a racism spectrum, rather than a two-dimensional figure of racist vs. non-racist.
However, towards the middle and end of the Chapter, she started to lose me in her web-like classifications of racism. An example of this can be seen in her endless terminology such as symbolic racism, aversive racism, systemic racism, dominative racism, metaracism, racial formation, everyday racism, color-blind racism, abstract liberalism, naturalization, minimization of racism, and the list goes on. In addition, she discusses how certain forms of racism are associated with specific political parties. An example of this can be found on p. 18, when she states “Unlike symbolic racism, which is linked to conservative politics, aversive racism is closely related to self-proclaimed liberals” (ibid). This mouthful of a statement was not even cited. I felt that amidst all of the terminology, there was some really great material that would have been great for her to expand on, such as the statement just mentioned. Yet instead of doing so, she just chose to make these thoughts into transition sentences that could be used to provide her readers with the next vocabulary word. I was too busy trying to get the terms down to study for the pop-quiz than actually read the material in between. I was truly exhausted after all of this, and found it hard to understand racism at large as opposed to all of the terminology out there.
So my question here is this: What is more important, understanding and comprehending all of the web-like terminology, or attempting to understand racism today? At what point do we as humans stop trying to classify racism in such a way that it exhausts the subject, and try to work toward reversing its effects? There’s only so many terms that one can use or create to describe a horrible phenomenon that is dominating in our society, but the opportunities to counteract its effects have yet to truly be explored. Perhaps Trepangier’s next book should be titled Today’s Top 100 Ways to Fight Racism: its Attitudes and Actions, for a Better Tomorrow. Just a thought…
Don’t hesitate to comment. I would love to hear someone’s reaction.