Kushal Haran Aurash Jalalian English 10 Ritchie 4/5/12 I-Search Assignment Political Elitism: The Everlasting Racist Sentiment

I. Introduction A. Martin Luther King Jr. once had a dream that all races could live side by side in harmony, this dream has yet to come true due to the longevity of racism. B. Racism is prevalent and will continue to proliferate if it remains unchecked. C. Racism causes major political problems in many different nations. 1. Examples include: Anti-Semitism, Genocide, Apartheid, Slavery, and Segregation. D. Therefore, the political sphere is dominated by racist ideologies that sustain and perpetuate the most iniquitous crimes against humanity. II. Despite the fact that America has now elected an African American President, the nation and the world is still divided racially throughout politics, even though it is more implicit. A. Race or race-like categorizations are factors in politics throughout history and all over the world. The trend in twentieth century politics has been the development of policies designed to ameliorate this inequality. However, political elites still use race categorizations, as well as ethnicity and nation, as cleavages for elusion, domination and hierarchy (Amenta 315-316). 1. The use of binaries and hierarchies are still intertwined within the political sphere. 2. The way that people recognize these dichotomies is what proves the racism of politics. a. I.e. the thought Oh wow! We have a black president proves the categorizations in politics. 3. Just having a few major figures of another ethnicity (other than a male Caucasian) does not mean racism has been halted in America. Political elites still have exceptionalist mindsets that sustain dominating power structures. B. Even those herculean efforts against racism that we hail as successful will produce no more than temporary 'peaks of progress,' short-lived victories that slide into irrelevance as racial patterns adapt in ways that maintain white dominance. Whites provide blacks "little protection against one or another form of racial discrimination unless granting blacks a measure of relief will serve some interest of importance to whites (Bell 1993). 1. Racial equalization policies have only been short lived victories and mediocre attempts at portraying a state that is void of racism.

2. These policies have not been upheld because the top political officials do not provide the protection infrastructure to actually let these policies develop to solve the problem of racism. 3. Policies are only fully enforced when whites are served some interest of importance to whites. a. Unless there is some sort of utility or capital for the political figures from the endeavor, the policy is only a ghost policy. b. This method of enforcement helps re-entrench whiteness that is white capitalist domination over the minorities in the world. 4. Even though there are some sincere attempts at racial equity, the politics of elitism subsumes these attempts due to the very nature of it appealing to the majority of the people at a subconscious level. III. Racism upholds power structures which subjugate the other in an attempt to create a fantasy where those who are considered less are annihilated. It is this exact framework for action that justifies such human atrocities such as genocide and apartheid. A. Racism is the worst crime on humanity because it dehumanizes the victims and falsely glorifies the aggressor. The exact methodology of racism is what enables the human population to commit vile crimes against one another. 1. The limitations imposed on people of color by poverty, subservience, and powerlessness are cruel, inhumane and unjust; the effects of uncontrolled power, privilege, and greed, which are the marks of our white prison, will inevitably destroy us as well (Barndt 219). a. Racism is a dehumanizing technique since it places people under subservience and makes them powerless in an inhumane way. b. Racism causes the worst impacts to happen and can destroy *the human population+ as well. c. The effects of racism legitimize things such as greed and biopolitical, fascist, uncontrolled power. d. Racist ideologies are what started things such as the holocaust and apartheid in Africa which literally caused genocides of populations based on an ethnic background. (1). This is the most heinous crime against all of humanity. B. Racism caused and still causes a laundry list of the worst problems in the world. 1. Racism is what triggered the holocaust. a. Hitler hated the Jewish population because of anti-Semitism. b. This was racist. c. Caused the worlds most dehumanizing genocide. 2. Apartheid

a. South Africa was divided based on race. b. The lower part of the hierarchy was filled with Africans. c. Many were killed because they were thought of as disposable. 3. Slavery. a. Throughout history Africans have been enslaved. b. They were put in a predicament where they would have preferred death. IV. Racisms debut in The Bean Trees A. Virgie May Parsons, Taylor and Lou Anns neighbor, is racist towards every minority. 1. Virgie talks about Matties interview regarding harboring immigrants in need of sanctuary, All I could make out was some kind of trouble with illegal aliens and dope peddlers (Kingsolver 104). B. Lou Anns parents disapprove in her decision to marry Angel because of his Mexican descent. 1. She hadnt wanted Lou Ann to marry Angel in the first place, but for the wrong reasons. She disliked him because he was Mexican (Kingsolver 27). a. Racisms longevity breeds from societies (Kentucky in The Bean Trees) adopting racism as an ideal, similar to The South prior to the Civil War. V. The belief that some ethnic races are superior to others has existed since mankind was created. In the Political world, racism and ethnicity is used as a weapon to legitimize dehumanizing tactics against the other. A. Through fostering fear or hate to some ethnic races, politicians are able to play people of different races against each other and rise to power. The anti-racist movement in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries is only a cover. The sheer fact that our country proclaims that we have a black President is a parody to anti-racism. If there was no racism, a black person becoming president would not be an event worthy of discussion. B. Racism is most dehumanizing practice that creates the most political unrest in the world. History can prove that the most destructive events in the last 200 years have been attributed to racism, from Hitlers hatred towards Jews to South African Apartheid Movement to Slavery in America. C. Racism directly attacks those races targeted by said acts. Racism is a hate crime; furthermore crimes of this nature degrade the quality of life on earth to the utmost low.

Works Cited

Amenta, Edwin. "Race and Politics." The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Political Sociology. New York: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011. 315-21. Print. Bell, Derrick. "Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism." Harvard Law Review (1993). Print. Barndt, Joseph R. Dismantling Racism: The Continuing Challenge to White America. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1991. 219. Print. Kingsolver, Barbara. The Bean Trees. Boston, MA: G.K. Hall, 1989. Print.