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The Social Contract By Charles Mills

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In 1997, Charles Mills wrote his book The Racial Contract to put his own philosophical spin on his response to how the role of race is portrayed in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s earlier book The Social Contract. Mills uses his book as a platform to discuss how white supremacy is still prevalent in today’s society. He uses the beginning of European expansionism and how the Europeans began their worldly domination that would eventually lead to a society heavily influenced by racist individuals to set context for the book. Mill’s book put this contract that is widely unacknowledged (in his opinion) into light to show how that European expansion and domination brought forth the ever occurring battle between “whites” and “non-whites.” One way that Mills expresses how white supremacy has taken over since the start of our nation is through use of language that I believe to be a bit outdated coming from the generation I live in. Term’s such as “savage” and “barbarian” (Mills, The Racial Contract) are found throughout the novel as a way for Mills to show readers how whites have referred to non-whites for centuries. To put the word “savage” into context Mills writes: “white men who are [definitionally] already part of society encounter …show more content…

20) once they dominated a huge part of the globe. White Europeans coined these terms as a way to show that non-whites simply cannot survive in this society and that non-whites needed them in order to survive. Nothing about how the white Europeans treated the non-whites was fair. While I know that slavery and racism were the societal norms centuries, even decades ago; I truly believe that my generation is of a different mindset. While I think some of the points Mills presents are relevant, I do think some of them are a bit extreme for today’s times. He paints all whites as being racist and supremacists, which I can only speak for myself in saying is simply not

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The major thesis in this book, are broken down into two components. The first is how we define racism, and the impact that definition has on how we see and understand racism. Dr. Beverly Tatum chooses to use the definition given by “David Wellman that defines racism as a system of advantages based on race” (1470). This definition of racism helps to establish Dr. Tatum’s theories of racial injustice and the advantages either willingly or unwillingly that white privilege plays in our society today. The second major thesis in this book is the significant role that a racial identity has in our society.

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So you just any of them. There are no innocent white people, because every one of them is potential nigger-killer, if not an actual one. ”Guitar is dehumanizing white people in the same way that he feels like he has been dehumanized as a black man. Gutiar no longer views white people as humans because, he states that every white person could kill black people, no matter, what circumstances. Gutiar is also dehumanizing white people because throughout this section, he is speaking of white people’s death so openly.

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Racism continues to be an issue that causes a great deal of tension in the United States. While some believe that we are living in a post-racial society, others are aware that racism can take different forms in this day and age. In White Bound: Nationalists, Antiracists, and the Shared Meanings of Race, author Matthew Hughey tackles the topic of racism in a unique way. Hughey focuses on how the members of the two groups that he conducted the study on conceptualize their whiteness and how that relates to racism. Hughey spend a little over one year conducting his research for this project.

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In his article “White Ignorance, ” Charles Mills argues that ignorance has largely contributed to the creation and segregation of racial and gender groups. He supports his case by identifying the “originally solitary Cartesian cognizer,” which is the imperialistic British state of mind where whites, especially white males, were dominant, and the historical implications of that state of mind, specifically the idea that all non-whites were inferior in thought process and mannerisms therefore do not deserve the time of day required to be understood. Although he labels this ignorance “white ignorance,” he does not limit this intentional ignorance to just white males or the repercussions to racial separation. Instead he designates it as a specific way of thinking that encourages ignorance in favor of the dominant party in a given situation. At the end of his article, Mills comes to the conclusion that ignorance, in general, is damaging to society, specifically interactions between people, and comes up with

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In the ‘30s people of colour were treated even worse than they are in today’s society. They made crooks sleep separately from the rest of the workers. They discluded him from games and festivities. Worst of all they called him a slur. A slur being a derogatory or insulting term applied to particular group of people, in this case being the n-word directed at crooks.

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Fahad Albrahim Response 1: Review/Summary: “Whiteness as property” is an article written by Cheryl Harris, in which she addresses the subject of racial identity and property in the United States. Throughout the article, professor Harris attempts to explain how the concept of whiteness was initiated to become a form of racial identity, which evolved into a property widely protected in American law (page 1713). Harris tackles a number of facts that describe the roots of whiteness as property in American history at the expense of minorities such as Black and American natives (page 1709). Additionally, Harris describes how whiteness as property evolved to become seen as a racial privilege in which the whites gained more benefits, whether

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In this paper, I will be critiquing these articles and films in order to evaluate the purpose of these readings and how they have helped further develop race in America. But most importantly, whether the author has achieved its purpose to inform readers about CRT, whiteness, and racial inequality. First article, I will be analyzing is Critical Race Theory: An Introduction by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic. Both authors explore Critical Race Theory in detail. As I previously mentioned, CRT is one of the most important developments mainly in the legal studies department.

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In the essay, “A Genealogy of Modern Racism”, the author Dr. Cornel West discusses racism in depth, while conveying why whites feel this sense of superiority. We learn through his discussion that whites have been forced to treat black harshly due to the knowledge that was given to them about the aesthetics of beauty and civility. This knowledge that was bestowed on the whites in the modern West, taught them that they were superior to all races tat did not emulate the norms of whites. According to Dr. West the very idea that blacks were even human beings is a concept that was a “relatively new discovery of the modern West”, and that equality of beauty, culture, and intellect in blacks remains problematic and controversial in intellectual circles

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As a result of its invisibility, the predominant systems of white racism operate on an unconscious level (McIntosh, 1988). White people have come to adopt certain physical and mental ways of interacting in the world that lack conscious attention and reflection which ultimately perpetuate systems of white privilege (Sullivan, 2006). White

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Benjamin Franklin’s essay, “Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America,” depicts the Native Americans as civilized people, but many dub them as “savages.” Franklin discreetly describes the Indians as civilized, polite, peaceful people; while, the white people are really the uncivilized slavish people. The essay contrasts the way most general white people diminish the lives and nature of the Native Americans. Based on feelings of superiority, the whites believe to be a more “perfection of civility,” believing that they are more civilized then the Indians. Franklin’s essay states, “Savages we call them, because their manners differ from ours, which we think the perfection of civility,” the whites think of themselves in a higher esteem then the Indians.

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The story represents the culmination of Wright’s passionate desire to observe and reflect upon the racist world around him. Racism is so insidious that it prevents Richard from interacting normally, even with the whites who do treat him with a semblance of respect or with fellow blacks. For Richard, the true problem of racism is not simply that it exists, but that its roots in American culture are so deep it is doubtful whether these roots can be destroyed without destroying the culture itself. “It might have been that my tardiness in learning to sense white people as "white" people came from the fact that many of my relatives were "white"-looking people. My grandmother, who was white as any "white" person, had never looked "white" to me” (Wright 23).

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