Race and Ethnicity in New York

Ethnic Studies 125.FS002, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York. SPRING 2010. Analyzing the intersections of race, culture, class, gender, and ethnicity in New York. How much of this do we carry with ourselves? Who are you? Who am I? Who are we? Respond to your readings. Respond to your classes. Respond to each other.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Pluralist vs Racist

IS it possible for someone to get accused of being a racist when their not? i was watching the bad girls club reunion and one of the girls was called a racist. now she's from boston which has been called and thought of a racist town(that's not my personal opinion thats what i heard please dont get it confused). i was hinking maybe its not racist, maybe its a town thats dominantly white so the people from the town are use to being with and around white people. so thats their comfort zone thats what they know which is my understanding of being a pluralist or demostrating pluralism. idk i could be wrong but im just thinking outside the box everything isnt always black and white sometimes there are some areas of grey
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2 comments:

  1. j.alexanderMarch 22, 2010 at 10:45 AM

    good point, but i don't think that's what pluralism is about... its about maintaining cultural diversity and i don't see how lack of can be determined as pluralism and not racism. of course, it depends on the situation of why she was called a racist, too.. but going back to the thought that whites are dominant in that town, if we really think about it whites are dominant almost everywhere. even when there aren't many white neighborhoods, people automatically think that most of the rich are white population.

    maybe Marco can shed some light on this?

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  2. MFNMarch 22, 2010 at 9:07 PM

    Let's look at this scenario.

    A student plagiarizes. That student is unaware that he/she has done anything wrong. Is that student responsible for her/his actions?

    In college, yes.

    I think this is a way to look at racism, prejudice, discrimination, xenophobia, etc. Just because someone comes from an area, it doesn't mean they are incapable, or not committing acts, of racism--even if their thoughts (and actions) are the result of a lack of interaction with another group.

    I would argue that our thoughts and our actions, as much as we LOVE to say are our own, are also influenced by the world around us. And different worlds have different de facto (and de jure) systems of control/segregation/etc.

    Great post and comment!

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