Defining Culture Continued AAA statement on race I How to understand differences similarities between groups History of our notions of culture A Culture as Distinct from Race B Culture culureS plurality relativism social and behavioral learning and transmission of group differences II What does Miner force us to do Exoticizing the familiar familiarizing the exotic 1 Quiz 2 3 Excerpted from Jane Hill 2008 The Everyday Language of White Racism Malden MA Basil Blackwell pp 5 24 Folk vs Scholarly Notions about Race Common sense folk notions about race 1 Race is a basic category of human biological variation 2 Races are biologically real 3 Each human being can be assigned to a race Scholarly thinking about race 1 Race is not a fact of biology 2 Race is a social cultural political historical construct It is real only in the sense that it is socially and politically consequential 3 Racialization is the social process through which people get assigned to different categories zation highlights that this is a dynamic process 4 These races are often arranged in a hierarchy 4 Excerpt from 2010 census 5 US census 1930 1890 6 Race is a changing construct The US census race question has changed over time Who is considered in which group Ability to check more than one box Whether people picked or were assigned a label 7 https www youtube com watch v VnfKgffC Z7U 8 Race in the census of other countries http www understandingrace org lived glob al census html Please write what you would answer for each country What this shows us 9 race in other countries France Illegal to collect demographic data about race in France France Fights Racism by Outlawing Race By Harvey Morris May 17 2013 8 10 am In a move aimed at undermining the bogus foundation of racist ideology France s National Assembly has decided to drop the word race from the country s laws In a vote on Thursday night supported by the ruling Socialist Party legislators adopted a bill to ban a term that its drafters said had no scientific basis but which could be seen as giving judicial legitimacy to racist ideologues 10 July 11 2014 Can the French Talk About Race By Alexander Stille New Yorker France with its revolutionary republican spirit of egalit likes to think of itself as a color blind society steadfastly refusing for example to measure race ethnicity or religion in its censuses 11 France s Approach to Fighting Racism Pretty Words and Magical Thinking 05 07 2015 01 39 pm ET Updated May 07 2016 Crystal Fleming Writer and sociologist http www huffingtonpost com crystal fleming frances approach tofight b 7231610 html 12 Problems with Colorblindness in France and US Race is a social not biological construct but race has had and has real world consequences Important to analyze how race and racism has mattered and does matter in the social world 13 In class Write a paragraph about a situation where you ve seen people treat race as if it were natural inborn Ex Expectation that a child adopted at birth from another country should speak the language of that country 14 Who are the Nacirema 15 16 Nacirema Holy Mouth Practitioner 17 Nacirema Shrine 18 What do you think Horace Miner was trying to do by writing this piece 19 Goal Make the exotic familiar and Make the familiar exotic 20 Nacirema What according to Miner is the Nacirema s fundamental belief How do they enact it Is he right 21 Who has performed holy mouth ritual this morning 22 Miner s IMPLICIT definition of culture 23 Nacirema video http www youtube com watch v 5DMX51 NmHR4 24 Describe a different Nacirema practice in the style of Horace Miner Groups of no longer than 4 ideas phones school shopping 25 What is your current understanding of culture Why is it a tricky notion What are some pitfalls What do you still find confusing 26 Tips for reading Geertz A classic but challenging what is culture not As you read make two columns culture is culture is not to keep track of his argument Bring in a sentence you really like and a sentence you don t understand Follow his discussion about twitching vs winking What does this reveal about culture 27