Racialization

Racialization or ethnicization is a sociological concept used to describe a political process of ascribing ethnic or racial identities to a relationship, social practice, or group that did not identify itself as such,^[1] or the infusion of race in a society's understanding of human behavior.^[2] It models racial dominance as a process by which a dominant group "racializes" a dominated group.

Racialized incorporation

The process of racialization can affect newly arriving immigrants as well as their second-generation children in the United States. The concept of racialized incorporation bridges the idea of assimilation with critical race studies in general and the concept of racialization in particular.^{[3][attribution needed]} While immigrants may possess specific ethnic and cultural identities associated with their countries of origin, once they arrive in the U.S., they are incorporated into a society that is largely organized along the lines of race.^{[attribution needed]} The racial hierarchy in the United States is pervasive in many aspects of life including housing, education, and employment.^{[attribution needed]} The racialized incorporation perspective argues that regardless of the ethnic and cultural differences across immigrant groups, racial identification is the ultimate and primary principle of social organization in the United States. Because the lived experiences of Whites and Blacks in U.S. society diverge in most areas of social life,^{[attribution needed]} the racialized category that immigrants and their children are incorporated into will largely determine their experiences and opportunities in the United States. The concept of racialized incorporation was recently applied in a study of self-employment in the United States.^[3]

Racialization of religion

An ongoing scholarly debate^{[citation needed]} covers the racialization of religious communities. Adherents of Judaism, Islam, and Sikhism can be racialized^{[by whom?]} when they are portrayed^{[by whom?]} as possessing certain physical characteristics, despite the fact that many individual adherents of those religions do not possess any of those physical characteristics.^[a][4][5]

Racialization of labor

Marta Maria Maldonado has identified the racialization of labor to involve the segregation and appointment of workers based on perceived ethnic differences.^[6] This racialization of labor is said to produce a hierarchical arrangement which limits employee agency and mobility based on their race. The process of racialization is reinforced through presupposed, stereotypical qualities which are imposed upon the racialized person by the racializer.^[7]

Members of the dominant race (e.g., whites) benefit from the privileges of whiteness,^{[clarification needed]} whether these are material or psychological, and are maintained and reproduced within social systems.^[8][9]

Furthermore, research by Edna Bonacich, Sabrina Alimahomed Jake B. Wilson, 2008 regarding the effects of race and criminal background on employment concluded that "dominant racialized labor groups (mainly White/European workers) are in general afforded more privileges than subordinate racialized labor groups (workers of color)"^[10] Additionally, According to Chetty, Hendren, Kline, and Saez, the effect of race segregation impacts the labor market, saying “upward income mobility is significantly lower in areas with larger African American Populations”.^[10]

Lastly, the decline of labor unions has negatively affected racialization of labor.^{[clarification needed]} Those who would have benefited from union membership no longer will as labor unions continue to diminish. In Jake Rosenfeld’s article, Little Labor: How Union Decline Is Changing the American Landscape, he describes people who can no longer benefit from labor unions: “an immigrant employee who once would have been organized, a female African-American worker no longer able to rely on a union wage to reduce pay gaps with her white counterpart, or a less-educated worker lacking the training, resources, and knowledge to participate in politics”.^[11]

Racialization and gender

Racialization and gender can often intersect.^[12] Racialized gender-specific categories can emerge in the process of racialization.^[13] For example, an African woman who immigrates to the United States may be viewed through stereotypes pertaining to African-American women.^[14]

See also

• Critical race theory
• Postcolonialism
• Racialized society
• Scientific racism

Notes

1. Although they accept converts, Jews are an ethnoreligious group, because they constitute an ethnicity as well as a religion. See racial antisemitism and religious antisemitism.

References

1. Omi, Michael; Winant, Howard (1986). Racial Formation in the United States / From the 1960s to the 1980s. Routledge & Kegan Paul. p. 64. ISBN 978-0-7102-0970-2. We employ the term racialization to signify the extension of racial meaning to a previously racially unclassified relationship, social practice, or group.
2. Hoyt, Carlos (2016-01-19). The Arc of a Bad Idea: Understanding and Transcending Race. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-938627-7 – via Google Books.
3. Chaudhary, Ali R. (2015-06-01). "Racialized Incorporation: The Effects of Race and Generational Status on Self-Employment and Industry-Sector Prestige in the United States". International Migration Review. 49 (2): 318–354. doi:10.1111/imre.12087. ISSN 1747-7379. S2CID 145352741.
4. Meer, Nasar (2013-03-01). "Racialization and religion: race, culture and difference in the study of antisemitism and Islamophobia". Ethnic and Racial Studies. 36 (3): 385–398. doi:10.1080/01419870.2013.734392. ISSN 0141-9870. S2CID 144942470.
5. Joshi, Khyati Y. (2006-09-01). "The Racialization of Hinduism, Islam, and Sikhism in the United States". Equity & Excellence in Education. 39 (3): 211–226. doi:10.1080/10665680600790327. ISSN 1066-5684. S2CID 145652861.
6. Maldonado, Marta Maria (July 2009). "'It is their nature to do menial labour': The racialization of 'Latino/A workers' by agricultural employers". Ethnic and Racial Studies. 32 (6): 1026. doi:10.1080/01419870902802254. S2CID 143635150. 'It is their nature to do menial labour': the racialization of 'Latino/a workers' by agricultural employers
7. Maldonado, Marta Maria (Winter 2006). "Racial Triangulation of Latino/a Workers by Agricultural Employers". Human Organization. 65 (4): 360. doi:10.17730/humo.65.4.a84b5xykr0dvp91l.
8. Murga, Aurelia Lorena (2011). The Racialization of Day Labor Work in the U.S. Labor Market: Examining the Exploitation of Immigrant Labor (PhD). Texas A&M University. hdl:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-2011-08-10032.
9. Hong, Gihoon (2015). "Examining the U.S. Labor Market Performance of Immigrant Workers in the Presence of Network Effects". Journal of Labor Research. 36: 9–26. doi:10.1007/s12122-014-9191-7. S2CID 153986808.
10. Bonacich, E.; Alimahomed, S.; Wilson, J. B. (2008). "The Racialization of Global Labor". American Behavioral Scientist. 52 (3): 342–355. doi:10.1177/0002764208323510. S2CID 144845816.
11. Rosenfeld, J. (2014). What Unions No Longer do. doi:10.4159/harvard.9780674726215. ISBN 9780674726215.
12. Elabor-Idemudia, P. (1999). "The racialization of gender in the social construction of immigrant women in Canada: A case study of African women in a prairie province". Canadian Woman Studies. 19 (3): 38–44.
13. Winter, N. J. G. (2001). "Mental images and political stories: Tracing the implicit effects of race and gender rhetoric on public opinion (Order No. 3029457)". {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)
14. Changnon-Greyeyes, C. (2018). . Archived from the original on 2018-03-25. Retrieved 2018-04-06.