Racism in American History
Advances in the study of human genetics and other fields demonstrates that there is no scientific basis for the concept of race. Yet, the idea of race as biology persists to this day, and genetic, biological, and physiological definitions of race are alive and well in the everyday speech and action of us all. Stuart Hall argues that the persistence of race lies in its nature as a discourse. In your essay, explain Stuart Hall’s argument of “race as a discourse”, and use an example of racism in American history drawn from the materials assigned during the first 2 weeks of class to briefly illustrate it.
Sample Solution
Racism in American History
Stuart Hall, a founding scholar in the Birmingham School of cultural studies and eminent theorist of ethnicity, identity and difference in the African diaspora. In the lectures, published after a nearly quarter-century delay as “The Fateful Triangle: Race, Ethnicity, Nation (2017),” Hall advances the argument that race, at least in North Atlantic contexts, operates as a “sliding signifier,” such that, even after the notion of a biological essence to race has been widely discredited, race-thinking nonetheless renews itself by essentializing other characteristics such as cultural difference. Substituting Michael Foucault`s famous power knowledge dyad with power-knowledge-difference, Hall argues that thinking through the fateful triangle of race, ethnicity and nation shows us how discursive systems attempt to deal with human difference.
