2009). In the context of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality, ideologies rationalize social inequalities as “just” and “fair.” Some oppressive ideologies are explicitly hostile to groups, painting them as morally or intellectually inferior, based on religious or scientific standards, and so deserving of unequal treatment, such as neo-Nazism. These explicit beliefs continue to shape how people think, but alongside them are ideologies that appear benign or even progressive yet still reinforce racial (and other social) hierarchies. For instance, the dominant American liberal ideology of self-sufficiency and bootstrap mentality (i.e. “pull yourself up by your bootstraps”), which asserts that any group can rise up if it tries hard enough, has strong racial implications (Bonilla-Silva 2003). This set of beliefs is premised on the notion of an open, meritocratic economic system that allows individuals to succeed if they work hard and are deserving. Individuals’ rights matter more than groups’ rights. If individuals fail, it is their own fault. So, policies that assist people as members of groups, such as affirmative action, are critiqued.
This ideology has been proven false, for there are many challenges to rising up economically for minorities and women, including inadequate access to quality education, closed-job networks, recessions and other macro-economic trends, and more (Fischer et al. 1996). And the ideology covers up many of the atrocities perpetrated on minorities, such as genocide, slavery, forced labor, loss of land, internment, and more. Still, this popular ideology blames minorities for their lack of upward mobility. Connected with this is the popular ideology of “color-blindness,” discussed in chapter 1. This ideology is purportedly anti-racist in its calls to ignore race and treat people as individuals, with the assumption that racism has already gone or will go away. Yet this represents wishful thinking rather than a realistic appraisal of racial dynamics. As explained above, institutional discrimination persists even for color-blind individuals.
The combination of belief in American meritocracy along with the post-civil rights push to be color-blind has led most recently to a “laissez-faire racist ideology.” This ideology accepts institutionalized discrimination as the natural order of social relations. As sociologist Lawrence Bobo writes, “laissez-faire racism involves persistent negative stereotyping of African Americans, a tendency to blame blacks themselves for the black/white gap in socioeconomic standing, and resistance to meaningful policy efforts to ameliorate US racist social conditions and institutions” (2006: 17). Because the economic system in the United States, in particular in the South, no longer depends on a caste-like system of highly exploited labor serving white elites in a few capacities, the ideology of race has changed. The new ideology no longer needs groups to be so marginalized along all conditions of social life, and so legislated racism (e.g. Jim Crow segregation laws) and racist anti-immigration laws have faded. Yet this does not mean that the dominant group wants frequent association with minorities and immigrants. It only means that the current economic system does not require extreme discrimination.
Within this framework, the economic system continues to de-privilege minorities, but concerns over persisting racial inequalities are few. Minorities are blamed for their own conditions, partly because the ideology of color-blindness, promulgated most forcefully by white elites, affirms the racial status quo (Bonilla-Silva 2003). A belief in American liberalism – that individual freedoms and responsibilities are paramount to American identity and upward mobility – supports this ideology. Policies that promote interactions across groups, such as affirmative action, receive tenuous support at best. Regarding Asian Americans, some may become “honorary whites,” that is, seemingly accepted as akin to whites and separate from blacks, but not equal to whites (Bonilla-Silva 2003). But laissez-faire racism makes people ignore problems, such as overcrowded neighborhoods in Chinatowns, garment workers in sweatshops, anti-Asian quotas in higher-education admissions, and other forms of institutionalized discrimination discussed throughout this book.
Privilege
The flipside of discrimination is privilege. Privilege refers to the benefits of being in the dominant group, namely white, male, heterosexual, and middle class and above. Numerous examples of privilege exist in daily life where the dominant race, gender, sexuality, or class considered “normal” is supported in the media, political discourse, and daily interactions. Rather than only focusing on the disadvantages facing subordinate groups, it is necessary to account for the benefits that the dominant group receives. Some are seemingly trivial, such as finding “flesh”-color Band-Aids in any convenience store that actually match one’s skin color (McIntosh 1989). Some are of deep consequence, such as being able to rent an apartment of one’s choice and price range while others are kept out due to their perceived race or sexual orientation (Lipsitz 1998).
This is not to suggest that white middle-class men do not face their own hard-ships. Wages have not risen at the same pace as expenses. Families are working harder in order to afford the same quality of life as the earlier generation. Cities and states have less money to invest in infrastructure, such as bridges and roads, which all people depend on. Yet these same problems impact women and people of color, often in more consequential ways.
These racial, gender, and sexual inequalities and supportive ideologies create challenges for minorities. Yet it is an open question as to how much active discrimination continues to occur. As noted, explicitly racist ideologies are no longer accepted publicly. Much discrimination stems from institutional practices rather than by intent. Minorities have attained impressive positions of authority. As explained in chapter 1, some theories of adaptation argue that minorities can overcome what little discrimination still exists.
Class exercise
Read Peggy McIntosh’s “Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” (available at: https://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/mcintosh.pdf) and discuss how it pertains to people’s lives in the class.
Asian Americans as racial, ethnic, gender, and sexual minorities
How do Asian Americans experience the intersection of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality? What do Asian Americans tell us about how and how much these hierarchies work? The book takes up these questions in different arenas, such as how Asian-American women and men experience the labor market, intermarriage patterns, and more. Here we elaborate on what these categories mean for Asian Americans more broadly. Again, we focus on race and attend to how other social categories shape the construction of race.
Black–white binary
When one of us asked his students in an Asian American Studies class for examples of racism, the students responded by listing profiling by the police, mass incarceration, enduring poverty, and the like. While of course these are clear examples of racism, they are a particular kind, that which affects primarily African Americans (and men). This shows the power of the black–white binary when it comes to understanding race, even among an Asian American Studies class. We typically think of race within the black–white binary. This means that the minority is defined in the United States as being black, and to be black means to be the opposite of white. We measure racial disparities by assessing trends among whites and the differences, typically negative, among minorities. For instance, prison incarceration rates are lower for whites than blacks or Latinxs.3 This is a clear example of racial disparities tied to institutionally discriminatory conditions. Differences in stereotypes and media images are similarly assessed. Common stereotypes of blacks are as lazy (in contrast to industrious whites), as criminal (in contrast to upstanding whites), and as sexually aggressive (in contrast to puritanical whites). This is the black–white binary. Minorities are assessed as either like blacks, and so victims of racism, or like whites, and so
