A slideshow presentation I gave in October 2018 for the Saranac Lake Enlightenment Lecture Series, hosted by Joe Dockery

1. Institutional Racism:
The Enlightenment Lectures
Bruce Rowe, Humanities Instructor/Dept.
Chair, North Country Community College
October 3, 2018

2. Part 1
Whiteness as the Default

3. Cultural Default (see update slides at the end!)

4. View of segregated public restrooms labeled 'ladies,' 'men' and 'colored,' circa 1960.
(Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

5. What do we mean by
“institutions” and
“institutional”?
• Mythology (symbols)
• Government (politics/law)
• Economy (production/distribution)
• Education
• Art/literature (architecture/music)
• Traditions and
artifacts/customs/beliefs/creed
• Language
• Weltanschauung
In other words, what are the
organizational structures that are
essentially required in order for us
to have something we call a culture
or a society?

6. The “Many Varieties of Humans”
Source: www.quora.cpm/why-are-different-races-of-humans-considered-the-same-sub-species
by Israel Ramirez, biopsychologist (8/21/2017)

7. “Race isn’t a valid biological concept for people because race doesn’t line up with biological realities.
In order for racial groupings to be valid, they would have to represent common ancestry and there
would have to be reasonably clear boundaries between groups. But this isn’t the case.” Israel Ramirez
• So…
…not biologically valid!
We know [from the Human Genome Project]…that human beings are..99.9 percent genetically the same.
There is more variation in a flock of penguins than there is in the human race. There is more genetic
variation within groups that have come to be called races than there is across groups that have come to be
called races.” Suzanne Plihcik (Scene on Radio podcast, “Seeing White”, Part 2: “How Race Was Made”)
www.quora.cpm/why-are-different-races-of-humans-considered-the-same-sub-species

8. Even within the
same cultural
identity we see this
hierarchical labeling
and manufacture of
difference that isn’t
biologically sound…
www.quora.cpm/why-are-different-races-of-humans-considered-the-same-sub-species

9. But even though race is “anthropological nonsense”…
• …to quote Suzanne Plihcik again…
• “Is that the same thing as saying it’s not real? No. No,
because it’s real. It is powerfully real. It’s politically and
socially real.” (Scene on Radio, Part 2, “How Race was Made”)
• And to quote Dr. Chenjerai Kumanyika…
• This is an issue of “structural racism or institutionalized
patterns of exploitation and oppression” in which the white
participants don’t consciously have racist “attitudes but
somehow they can be incentivized to participate in a system
of oppression.” (Scene on Radio, Part 1, “Turning the Lens”)

10. …and to quote John Biewen, the host of
Scene on Radio
•“[T]here’s an idea that people have talked about
that you can have racism without individual
racists, because systems and structures have
been set up in a way that they just run this way
on their own.” (Scene on Radio, Part 1, “Turning the Lens”)

11. Here are two different
institutions (we have
already named one of
them…
…the other, not yet)
Higher Education

12. …and the other
Racial/Ethnic Prison Populations
Overrepresentation of Blacks and
Hispanics as a percentage of Prison
Population

13. Part 2
How Did We Get Here?

14. It hasn’t always been this way…
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sEv-HrLQFo

15. In fact, historically people tended to enslave those they
conquered in battle…
• …and since generally those who conquered considered themselves
superior culturally to those they conquered (a rather natural conclusion to
draw because, after all, they won!)…
• …and since “to the victor go the spoils” and the spoils frequently included
lots of conquered people, especially all those now husbandless women and
fatherless children…
• …slavery could and did involve Hebrews or Israelites if you happened to be
Egyptian, Persians (if you happened to be Greek), Celts if you happened to
be Roman, Slavs (from which we get the word slave) if you happened to be
a Viking.
• You will have noticed that what came to be known as “white people” are
included in the list above of people who were enslaved historically

16. So when did racism begin and how is it related to the
“institution” of American chattel slavery?
Historian Ibram Kendi has actually tracked down an answer to
when racism as a means of thinking about other people based on
perceived racial differences to a 15th century Portuguese writer
named Gomes de Zurara who chronicled the voyages of Prince
Henry the Navigator, whose voyages to Africa (1441-1455)
led to his being the “first
major slave trader to
exclusively enslave and trade
in African people.” Zurara
glorifies Henry, claiming that…

17. …Henry’s main motivation was to bring the Africans to Christianity. To
make that leap, that justification, Zurara says of the Africans—who, by
the way, were a mix of lighter-skinned people of northern Africa as
well as darker-skinned sub-Saharan people—that “They lived like
beasts [and] they had no understanding of good, but only knew how to
live in bestial sloth.”
One thing we do know now through the groundbreaking work of
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and others is that western Africa, eastern Africa,
southern and northern Africa, all of Africa had cities, roads,
civilizations of great complexity, and Zurara’s description here is just
not accurate…it is the foundation of racist thought to justify the
exploitation of black people.

18. Part 3
American Chattel Slavery

19. Some dates…
• 1619 – first ship of
enslaved black people
lands in Jamestown
• 1640 – John Punch and
“perpetual servitude”
• 1682 – Virginia House of
Burgesses limits
citizenship to
Europeans. All non-
Europeans—”Negroes,
Moors, Mollatoes, and
Indians” became “slaves
to all intents and
purposes.” Why? Land
ownership.

20. …more dates
• 1691 – the House of
Burgesses passes another
law that, according to
historian Terrance
MacMullen, uses the word
“white” for the first time
relating to citizenship
(rather than, for example,
“European” or “English” or
“Christian”)
https://image3.slideserve.com/6238683/the-house-of-burgesses1-n.jpg

21. …and more dates
• Late 16th and early 17th centuries –
the Enlightenment brings us the
craze for classification and Carl
Linnaeus (left) gives us four
human races and Johann
Blumenbach (right) gives us five,
including Caucasian…
• 1790 – following the
Naturalization Act of 1790, the
first US census limits citizenship to
free whites. The Act
restricted citizenship to "any alien,
being a free white person" who
had been in the U.S. for two years.
At that point, all rights of
citizenship (landowning, voting,
serving on a jury, due process, are
enjoyed only by free white men)
and the institution of citizenship,
the pathway to all wealth and
privilege and success was closed
off.
Carl Linnaeus
Johann Blumenbach

22. Part 4
Post-the Enslavement of Black People

23. Of course I haven’t even
mentioned Native
Americans, yet…
After more than a century of
using conquest, thievery, war,
genocide, and corrupt treaties
and the reservation system to
grab Native American lands,
Congress passed the Indian
Citizenship Act of 1924,
granting full citizenship to
Native Americans. Here’s
President Calvin Coolidge
with four members of the
Osage Nation following the
signing of the bill.
https://newsmaven.io/indiancountrytoday/archive/

24. Leaping “forward”…
• Despite the 13th (1865) and
14th (1868) Amendments to
the Constitution, the rights
of all non-white males (and
all women) were severely
curtailed following the
Reconstruction era. The
“Jim Crow” laws that were
passed in 10 of the 11
former Confederate states
remained in place and
unchallenged by the federal
government until 1965.

25. Past is prologue…
• 1906 – The Naturalization Act
– allowed only only “free
white persons” (again)
and "persons of African
nativity or persons of African
descent“ (so it would be in
line with the 14th
Amendment), and so…
Takeo Ozawa
Baghat Singh Thind
• 1922 and 1923 – Ozawa v.
U.S. and Thind v. U.S. –neither
man, though they had lived in
the U.S. for more than 20
years, was allowed to become
a naturalized citizen.

26. Diversity and Inclusivity in Our National Literature – 2015 survey
Popular Conception – the Wikipedia page on American Literature
Clocking in at 24 pages, the article lists dozens of writers including women and minority voices, but
in its first pages (where most casual readers would probably stop) only Frederick Douglass is listed
as a prominent American writer. The rest of the list of “prominent American writers” beginning
with Samuel Adams, Ben Franklin, and the Thomases Paine and Jefferson and ending with John
Updike and Philip Roth contains 35 names. White men: 30; white women: 5. Minorities: 0.
The article breaks American literature into fifteen periods or thematic groupings or trends
including the “Colonial Period”, “First American Novels”, the “1920’s”, and “Post World War II”.
Listed last and separately, as if it doesn’t fit into any of the other periods, groupings, or trends, is
“Minority literatures” (the “l” not even capitalized).
Academic/Popular Conception – the Library of America. From their self-description on
their homepage, “a nonprofit publisher…dedicated to publishing, and keeping in print,
authoritative editions of America’s best and most significant writing” [emphasis mine].
The New York Times has called the LOA “America’s quasi-official national canon”.

27. …So it’s going to be better, more diverse and inclusive, right?
LOA makes no attempt to follow history periods or thematic presentations, but since they
number the volumes we can make some observations about how they prioritize what they
choose, and Volume 1 won’t surprise—Herman Melville—though its his early novels and not
Moby Dick. Volumes 1-10 includes only one woman, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and nine white men.
The first writer of color? W.E.B. DuBois at #34. In the top 100? Richard Wright (55-56), Frederick
Douglass (68), Zora Neale Thurston (74-75), and James Baldwin (98-99). Of the 272 volumes
published by 2015, only fifteen African-American writers made the cut, a mere 5% of what LOA
calls “America’s best and most significant writing.” There are no Asian-American writers, no
Latino-American writers, and no Native American writers represented in the top 272.
College Level Literature Anthology – W.W. Norton, The Norton Anthology of American Literature,
Volumes A – E, Ninth Ed.
As a scholarly and academic publishing firm, Norton has made great effort and strides to be
diverse and broad in its inclusive approach at representing Am. Lit. In Volume A (1492 – 1700)
they actually include pre-Columbian literature in the form of Native American tales and myths.
They also include literature by women, the Spanish explorer/writer Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca,
and Olaudah Equiano (who bought his way out of chattel slavery), and Phillis Wheatley.

28. …so how does Norton do? Are they more inclusive and diverse?
Why yes, they are…
• They include many more women than Wikipedia or LOA
• They include many more African-Americans than either of the others,
including of course the writers we’ve all heard of but many others more
obscure such as Harriet Jacobs, Charles Chesnutt, Jean Toomer, and Rita
Dove.
• Importantly, they include those voices utterly missing from the other
sources, including many Native American writers including William
Apess, Sarah Winnemucca, Zitkala Sa, Leslie Marmon Silko, and others;
Latin-X writers including Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton, Gloria Anzaldua,
Simos Ortiz, and others; and Asian-American writers including Maxine
Hong Kingston, Li-Young Lee, and Jhumpa Lahiri.

29. Finally, red-lining…
1932 - The Federal Housing Administration and the
Home Owners’ Loan Coalition (Federal programs) –
Neighborhood Classifications
HOLC appraisers divided neighborhoods by categories
including occupation, income and ethnicity of
inhabitants in an attempt to eliminate subjectivity of
appraisers:
A (green) were new, homogenous areas (“American
Business and Professional Men), in demand as
residential location in good times and bad.
B (blue) were “still desirable” areas that had “reached
their peak” but were expected to remain stable for many
years.
C (yellow) were neighborhoods that were “definitely
declining.” Generally sparsely populated fringe areas that
were typically bordering on all black neighborhoods.
D (red) (hence the term “red-lining”) were areas in
which “things taking place in 3 had already happened.”
Black and low income neighborhoods were considered
to be the worst for lending.
http://www.bostonfairhousing.org/timeline/1934-FHA.html
• From Race: The Power of an Illusion, directed by Christine
Herbes-Sommers, Tracy Heather Strain, Llewellyn Smith;
California Newsreel, prod., 2003

30. One last thing to note on that very central problem:
• According to an article in Forbes on-line edition by Brian Thompson (2/18/2018)
• According to the New York Times, for every $100 in white family wealth, black
families hold just $5.04.
• The Economic Policy Institute found that more than one in four black households
have zero or negative net worth, compared to less than one in ten white families
without wealth.
• The Institute for Policy Studies recent report The Road to Zero Wealth: How the
Racial Divide is Hollowing Out the America’s Middle Class (RZW) showed that
between 1983 and 2013, the wealth of the median black household declined 75
percent (from $6,800 to $1,700), and the median Latino household declined 50
percent (from $4,000 to $2,000). At the same time, wealth for the median white
household increased 14 percent from $102,000 to $116,800.

31. Cultural Default

32. Update – Fisher
Investments has
had a cultural shift!
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUqZc2O489w
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJbIWFXzigM

33. Let’s recall our list of institutions that make up a culture:
Mythology/Symbols – if you aren’t part of the founding mythology or you play a servant’s or slave’s role, you
aren’t really part of the institution, at least in any powerful way
Government/Law – if the government wrote you out as 3/5 of person and you did not qualify as a potential
citizen, and then once granted citizenship if that government did not use law to protect you, you aren’t really part
of the institution, at least in any powerful way
Economy – if the principle path to wealth and security, the ability to purchase a home, has been actively withheld
from you, you have no access to upward mobility and you become part of a permanent underclass, and you aren’t
really part of the institution, at least in any powerful way
Education – if you can’t choose where you live and the schools where you live are permanently underfunded
because education and property values are inextricably linked, and you lack the wealth and collateral to finance
higher education, you aren’t really part of the institution, at least in any powerful way
Skipping art/literature, traditions/customs, and language and going for the big one, if
you live in a culture whose Weltanshauung perceives you based upon erroneous
science and has for centuries used that view as justification for exploiting you…you
really aren’t part of the institution, at least in any powerful way

34. Some questions to consider:
• If you identify as white or Caucasian, did you consider it a victory for your perceived racial
group when you graduated from high school/college/landed that promotion?
• If you identify as white or Caucasian, do you think of yourself primarily as an individual or
as part of a racial group?
• If you identify as white or Caucasian, have you ever imagined what it would be like to live in
a place where that group made up 12.1% of the population? Next time you are at Starbucks
or Hannaford or church or these lectures, run that thought experiment…
• If you identify as white or Caucasian, have you ever said, “I don’t see color” or “I don’t see
race”?

35. Bibliography/Works Cited
1934: Federal Housing Administration Created. (2010). Retrieved October 2, 2018, from
http://www.bostonfairhousing.org/timeline/1934-FHA.html
Baghat Singh Thind [Digital image]. (n.d.). Retrieved October 2, 2018, from
http://chnm.gmu.edu/courses/ncc375/rp/rp2.html
Biewin, J., & Plihcik, S. (2017, March 1). Scene on Radio, "Seeing White", Part 2, "How Race was Made [Audio blog
post]. Retrieved September 28, 2018, from http://www.sceneonradio.org/episode-32-how-race-was-made-
seeing-white-part-2/
Biewin, J., & Kumanyika, C. (2017, February 15). Scene on Radio, "Seeing White", Part 1, "Turning the Lens" [Audio
blog post]. Retrieved September 28, 2018, from http://www.sceneonradio.org/episode-31-turning-the-
lens-seeing-white-part-1/
Boker, W. (2016). Johann Blumenbach [Digital image]. Retrieved October 2, 2018, from http://www.blumenbach-
online.de/j_f_blumenbach/vita/?L=1
Fisher Investments - We Do Better When You Do Better [Advertisement]. (2017, September 4). Retrieved September
25, 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uY19-Db4NSM
Gramlich, J. (2018, January 12). The gap between the number of blacks and whites in prison is shrinking. Retrieved
September 28, 2018, from http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/12/shrinking-gap-between-
number-of-blacks-and-whites-in-prison/
Hancock, L. (2014, November 6). [The House of Burgesses]. Retrieved October 1, 2018, from
https://image3.slideserve.com/6238683/the-house-of-burgesses1-n.jpg

36. Hewitt, D. (n.d.). 10 Miserable Things You’d Experience During Life on a Slave Ship. Retrieved September 25, 2018, from
https://historycollection.co/10-miserable-things-youd-experience-during-life-on-a-slave-ship/2/
Kendi, I. (2017). Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America[Kindle]. Retrieved 2018,
from https://www.amazon.com/Stamped-Beginning-Definitive-History-National/dp/1568585985
Meet The Investment Policy Committee | Fisher Investments [Digital image]. (2017, September 22). Retrieved October
3, 2018, from
https://www.youtube.com/redirect?v=8tPKJs1TL4I&event=video_description&redir_token=zfy4gK_09zHa3nb
Jf6BvVxyTAuZ8MTUzODY4Mzk1NEAxNTM4NTk3NTU0&q=https://www.fisherinvestments.com/en-
us/portfolio-management/investment-policy-committee
Native History: Citizenship Thrust Upon Natives by U.S. Congress. (2014, June 2). Retrieved October 2, 2018, from
https://newsmaven.io/indiancountrytoday/archive/native-history-citizenship-thrust-upon-natives-by-u-s-
congress-diZuPnKVq0C3vugN0JlgQQ/
Herbes-Sommers, C., Strain, T., & Smith, L. (Directors). (2003). Race: The Power of an Illusion[Video file]. United States:
California Newsreel. Retrieved October 2, 2018, from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW764dXEI_8&index=5&list=PLt6nX4f8WjdWgeomQQ3oLzVH5EoahlcQ
B&t=54s
Ramirez, I. (2017, August 21). Why are different races of humans considered the same sub species? I mean if
neanderthals are a different sub species, why not different races? Retrieved September 25, 2018, from
https://www.quora.com/Why-are-different-races-of-humans-considered-the-same-sub-species-I-mean-if-
neanderthals-are-a-different-sub-species-why-not-different-races

37. Sawyer, D., & Painter, N. I. (Writers). (n.d.). The History of White People [Television series episode]. In The Conversation.
New York, NY: ABC. Retrieved September 28, 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sEv-HrLQFo
Scoville, H. (2017, March 17). Carl Linnaeus [Digital image]. Retrieved October 1, 2018, from
https://www.thoughtco.com/about-carolus-linnaeus-1224834
Steve, P. (2016, January 23). Fighting the Anti-Gay Jim Crow Laws. Retrieved from
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/1/23/1474086/-Fighting-the-Anti-Gay-Jim-Crow-Laws
Takeo Ozawa [Digital image]. (2010). Retrieved October 2, 2018, from https://forum.valka.cz/topic/view/176650/Ozawa-
Takeo
Tate, E. (2017). Graduation Rates and Race. Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved September 28, 2018, from
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/04/26/college-completion-rates-vary-race-and-ethnicity-report-
finds
Thompson, B. (2018, February 18). The Racial Wealth Gap: Addressing America's Most Pressing Epidemic. Forbes. Retrieved
October 3, 2018, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianthompson1/2018/02/18/the-racial-wealth-gap-
addressing-americas-most-pressing-epidemic/#5e6803a77a48
View of segregated public restrooms labeled 'ladies,' 'men' and 'colored'[Photograph found in Hulton Archive, Getty
Images]. (n.d.). Retrieved September 25, 2018, from https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/view-of-
segregated-public-restrooms-labeled-ladies-men-and-news-photo/2603433 (Originally photographed 1960)