RACISM

Racism



Racism

How are unintentional and intentional racism similar?

Racism is the intentional or unintentional use of power to isolate, separate and exploit others as defined in the Webster dictionary. People generally respond to others differently based on what they know, which may include superficial characteristics often associated with race.  The popularity of emphasizing unintentional racism, as opposed to intentional racism, in the environmental racism charge is no coincidence. Indeed, the choice to use the term "unintentional" both definitionally and instrumentally in policy and political response is directly connected to the use of the term "unintentional racism" in Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964(Trepagnier 2006). The appeal to Title VI allows a reply to those claiming that the distribution of environmental burdens is based on socio-economic considerations, because Title VI directly concerns the disparate impacts of social burdens upon racial minorities and the disabled whenever federal agencies, like the EPA, are involved in the distributive process. However, the use of Title VI does not restrict attention to distributive issues alone the mark of the distributive paradigm as it has been described it. Instead, those charging environmental racism rely upon Title VI as the federal government's recognition that racism may be discovered through disparate effects of social policies on minorities. As well as by the intent to discriminate(Nieto Bode 2008). As a result, the crux of Title VI's appeal is that it enforces recognition notions of justice in its insistence that distributive disparities exist in virtue of racial characteristics. In contrast, the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution limits the designation of racism to proven discriminatory intent.  The use of the Equal Protection Clause is therefore regarded as the intent-standard for judging distributive disparities according to race, while the use of Title VI can properly be regarded as the effects-standard. The intent-standard would also indicate an appeal to recognition considerations of justice, as the injustice would lie in the intent to discriminate on the basis of cultural status, like race, ethnicity, gender, (dis)ability, and sexuality in several cases(Feagin 2009). But, Title VI not only introduces a recognition notion of justice, which emphasizes injustices connected to racism, particularly those connected to habitual racism and ongoing legacies of racism, but it also introduces remedies based on racial demography. It therefore represents legislation for the politics of recognition by enforcing an interpretation of injustice, collectivities, and remedies that are culturally defined by race, gender, and ethnicity. 

Why do teacher education students view diversity as a problem? What could be done to change that sentiment?

Much has been written in the U. S. about the growing disparity in backgrounds and life experiences between teachers and teacher educators, on the one hand, and public school students, on the other. It is clear from our work, as both researchers and teacher educators, as well as the work of others that most prospective teachers come to teacher education with very little direct intercultural experience. In addition, they tend to view diversity as a problem rather than as a resource. They possess little knowledge about different ethnic and racial groups in the United States and their cultures, histories, and contributions to the making of the nation, and especially their records of ...