Session 4

Assignment before reading

A field trip...

Fifty years ago grocery stores were quite different than they are today. Now we not only have a greater variety of foods, but we have a greater quantity of processed and prepared (i.e., ready-to-eat) foods. Visit your local supermarket and examine the way the store is organized (what foods are where). Take a close look at the items that are displayed in the "Ethnic Foods" section. As you browse the aisles, make note of all the types of food that are prepared, ready to eat after heating (or without heating). Pause in front of the prepared dinners display (probably in the frozen foods section) and pick out an item. Ask yourself how long it would take you to prepare this meal from scratch.

Ask the store’s manager to explain to you why the store is organized the way it is. If he/she answers by saying that this is the way "corporate" organizes the stores, press the question: Why does "corporate" organize the store’s display of foods that way?

Writing Assignment #1:

When you get home, jot down the explanation given to you. Then with your observations on the store’s organization, ponder this question: Do food producers prepare food items and retailers sell food items to reflect our eating-lifestyle, or is our eating-lifestyle influenced—determined—by food producers and retailers? Write down your thoughts.

Now READ Chapter 3, pages 99-114

Writing Assignment #2:

This section introduces the sociological notion of "institutions" as habitualized and regulated activity involving interaction with others. Another way to describe this is that institutions are the result of human self-expression (externalizing or objectifying the self). Make a list of all the "institutions" you are involved with from day to day. Don’t overlook some that you might not necessarily consider as "institutions" (e.g., your family, home-owners or tenants association, children’s school, and of course the internet). Select an "institution" where you spend significant time in interaction with others, and write out brief responses to these questions:

1. In what way does this institution make it possible for persons to express (or externalize) themselves?
2. How does the institution manage or limit self-expression?
3. Describe some of the "common knowledge" in the institution, something that is known by all and helps the institution to function in a coordinated way.
4. What role do you play in the institution, and how does your activity contribute to making the institution an objective reality?
5. How does the institution explain or justify itself to people in the institution and to people who come in contact with it? What is the message given, and who is responsible for giving it?
6. Describe the institution’s "symbolic universe" (i.e., its worldview that integrates the various functions with a sense of purpose).
7. How has the institution responded to challenge and conflict (either internal or external), and who are the persons entrusted with this responsibility?

Now go back over your responses and ask: What part does "race" play in the institution? Where and how are "racial" aspects present? In what ways does the institution express (or externalize) "race"? Finally, in what does it mean to refer to "race" as an institution?

Now READ Chapter 3, pages 114-25

Writing Assignment #3:

This section discusses some of the ways the one-drop rule and biological determinism have contributed to our belief that race is real. In a brief statement, describe the criteria you use to classify yourself to your racial group and the criteria you use to classify others to a racial group (i.e., in terms of race, how do you classify yourself and how do you classify others?). Then write down your responses to these questions: Where did these criteria come from? Where and how did you learn them, and why do you use them?

A trip on the Internet...

Writing Assignment #4:

Go out on the internet and read Lawrence Wright’s article, "One Drop of Blood," from the New Yorker magazine, and Ward Connerly’s editorial, "A Homecoming, With Too Much Color," at the Interracial Voice website. Jot down your thoughts on these two pieces.

Assignment before reading

Writing Assignment #5:

Write down your definition of "stereotype." Then identify three stereotypes that you hold and describe how these stereotypes work (or how you use them) to make sense of others in your day-to-day life.

Now READ Chapter 3, pages 125-31

Writing Assignment #6:

This section discusses the way the stereotypes we use in our daily lives contain value judgments on the behaviors, characteristics, conditions and qualities of others. Some of our stereotypes contain positive judgments, and others contain negative and even neutral judgments. Revisit the stereotypes you identified, add a few more that you have since discovered in yourself, and dissect them in terms of the judgments they contain. What are those judgments, and where do they come from? Take note of the way believing, localizing, and activating racial stereotypes contributes to objectifying our knowledge and sense of ourselves and others. After writing down your impressions and insights, answer this question: What do you need to think and do in order to externalize or express a disbelief in the stereotype in situations where it could easily be localized and activated?

Now READ Chapter 3, pages 131-40

Writing Assignment #7:

All social interaction is structured by typificatory schemes, consisting of seven components: sphere, types, roles, protocol, apprehension, interpretation, and power relations. Such schemes are the means we have to express ourselves and make objective a realm of social life (and its "institutionalization"). Writing assignment: (1) Identify a scheme in which you regularly participate, and then describe and analyze it in terms of the seven components. (2) Identify a scheme that you experienced as conflictive, and describe and analyze it. (3) Identify a scheme in which you participated, a scheme where race (or racism) played a role and contributed to an experience of conflict. Describe and analyze this experience along the lines of the seven components.

Suggestions for Group Discussion

1. Share your observations on your "institution," and discuss the significance of the "institutionalization of race" for externalizing racism. In what ways does "race" hold all your institutions together? How does race intersect with all of them?
2. There are connections between the "one-drop rule" and the belief that sociocultural expressiveness is rooted in biology ("biological determinism"). Discuss what those connections are, and identify areas of our society and culture that presume these connections.
3. Discuss your stereotypes, where they come from, how you learned them, and what they do for you. Share what you have thought and felt when you have believed, localized and activated a racial stereotype, or what you thought and felt when you experienced the conduct of another who acted toward you by activating a stereotype. Explore these stereotypes and these experiences in terms of categorizing, attribution(s) and judgment(s).
4. Share your descriptions and analyses of your race-conflict schemes. In what ways did these schemes contribute to make race and racism objective (out-there)?

Focused Question for Group Discussion