Function of Racism
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The problem of racism is not specifically an American problem, though Americans have made it into an important political and social issue as they have tried to find a way to eliminate racism from their society. Racism occurs whenever there is a dominant racial group that uses its position to discriminate against a minority racial group on the basis of racial characteristics. Traditionally, discrimination has been seen as a creature of prejudice, and until the late 1960s the dominant perspective among social science analysts of discrimination was that prejudice and intolerance were the causes of discriminatory actions. Other observers have focused on individual racists and have seen the problem as the individual motivated by hatred of a given "outgroup." Still others consider the issue in terms of patterns of segregation and community practices (Feagin and Feagin, 1986, 1). Racism in the United States has been related to the issue of slavery, since the blacks in American society are nearly all descended from slaves brought to this country beginning at the end of the seventeenth century and only freed from slavery at the end of the nineteenth century. Many Americans probably believe that the problem of racism has been virtually eliminated from American life, though there is ample evidence to the contrary, evidence that is unfortunately increasing with racial incidents all across the country, including the massive riots in Los Angles in 1992 and the incidents that prece
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ace of the feudal system and produced new class relations. Marx sees this as tied to the development of bourgeois society, which he also notes is
itself the product of a long course of development, of a series of revolutions in the modes of production and of exchange" (Tucker, 1978, 475).
Each step in the creation of the bourgeoisie included a corresponding political advance for that segment of society, and as bourgeois society gained the upper hand, it
put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his 'natural superiors,' and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest. . ." (Tucker, 1978, 475).
What took place within a society, the stratification of society into social classes with one dominant, occurred as well internationally with developed societies exploiting colonized peoples. Racial divisions such as are found in the U.S. are based on the same economic arguments, with blacks maintained in a lowly position to be exploited by the white economic structure. Racism is the means to effect this.
Max Weber used cultural analysis to examine societies and to see why they had the features that marked them.
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1494
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
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