Comments on: Paul Ryan and Cultural Racism

By: Ave.MariaLewis

Ave.MariaLewis — Fri, 02 May 2014 04:36:38 +0000

In regards to politics, I recognize this framework a lot, in media as well. Cultural racism is not helpful to our soicety but then again what is when people still try to use the colorblind framework to describe our nation. Which really disturbs me (well pisses me off) is that we as people allow these individuals to hold office yet proudly claim the fact that we are not longer racist. When you continousely put down a race and creatively find different ways to keep them as a lower socioeconmic culture, your using your power wrong and it is disgusting. In regards to countering his words, I think it would be a good to bring up mass incarceration, and the Dovido articles we have looked at.

By: brianna

brianna — Tue, 15 Apr 2014 20:43:08 +0000

Thanks for sharing, Emily. My immediate thoughts upon reading those comments shot to cultural racism and victim-blaming. It’s disturbing to me that someone who could have been the Vice President of the United States (along with many other politicians) has these kind of thoughts and opinions, which as we talked about in class, are downright racist.

By: Chris Chaky

Chris Chaky — Mon, 07 Apr 2014 02:44:31 +0000

Thanks so much for posting this Emily! You’re right, it’s a perfect example of color-blind racism, especially the cultural frame. Cultural racism is a tricky area for me, though. Progressives, such as David Simon (co-writer of The Wire), sometimes make strikingly similar arguments about the decaying culture of the inner city ghetto. This argument is accompanied, at least in Simon’s case, by a lengthy description of the socioeconomic and political factors that created these conditions for a culture like this to develop, however. I wonder if this is still a problematic claim, or if it is validated by a discussion of other factors.