race representation

Racism in Literature

Racism is characterized as racism and bigotry aimed against a person because he or she is of a different race, with the presumption that the person is of a lower race. Racism has been a concern for many years, and it is one of the primary subjects of many literary works. Racism and race have been portrayed in a variety of ways over the years, some with assumptions that have been shown to be false. This paper explores how race is represented in six separate outlets. It examines the claims made, the degree to which they recognize race as a symbol of dominance or inferiority, and, ultimately, the positions taken by the sources on race.

Representation of Race in Bride of Frankenstein

Bride of Frankenstein is a film directed by James Whale as a continuation of the film, Frankenstein released in 1931. Whale’s film was released by Universal Studios and is hailed as one of the best since it introduced humor to the horror. The film took up contemporary racism by virtue of it. The film reminds one of the historical realities of racism in the United States.

Racial Themes in the Film

In the film, the monster comes as a marker of the existing racial differences. The advances it makes to the women reminds one of the discourse that America had during the 1930’s on among other things rape and masculinity. The focus on race brings back the previous gender readings. It stands as an example of the link gender and race. The theme race in the film came at a time when almost all the movies that existed at the time shied from racism. The way the monster is portrayed in the film in relation to the society shows how much racial issues are perceived and accepted in the society. It makes the racial theme the most apparent in the film.

The Mind of a Primitive Man by Franz Boas

The Mind of a Primitive Man by Franz Boas is a book published in 1911 and analyzes the idea of primitive culture. The book challenges some of the claims that were largely held at the time on race and intelligence, specifically the widely held claim of white supremacy. It analyzes the discussion on nature and nurture and concludes that heritability of the intelligence quotient and the proportion of intellectual gifts among people are possible. However, they are not an essential aspect in limiting the level of advancement of any given race (Boas, 89). The book gives the readers a good understanding of the role that environment and intelligence plays including the role of racial admixture in societies.

No Correlation Between Race and Cultural Development

The author concludes that there is no correlation between race and cultural development. It shows that cultural development is something that depends on the historical causes without any regards to race. The varied conclusions that are reached by both the primitive and the civilized men are just due to the nature of knowledge that one gathers over time. The main contrast between primitive and civilized society is not race but the shift form irrationality to rationality. The shift is brought about by the advancement of the traditional matter that gets into one’s habitual mental operations. The book closes with a look at the state of racism in U.S. and he hopes through anthropology people can learn to be more tolerant and sympathetic to various civilizations. According to Boas, every race has played a role in the past to the cultural advancement in way.

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is a book by Thomas Kuhn. It is a landmark publication that focuses on the history of science. In the book, he challenges the advancement of the normal science at that time. At the time of the publication, the normal scientific progress was perceived as the development through accumulation of the embraced facts and theories (Kuhn, 113). According to Kuhn, it is the realization of the different anomalies during the scientific revolutions that resulted in the new paradigms.

Sharp’s Savage Perils and the History of Racism

Chapter One of Sharp’s Savage Perils starts by highlighting some of the earlier publications such as Types of Mankind advanced the argument that different races of humans made up the distinct species. Such text maintained that the “Caucasian races” was superior to other races. The success of the narratives that argued the white supremacy in the United States was not a surprise since at the time the U.S. was at the climax of the expansion that was driven by the racist ideologies (Sharp, 12). The chapter highlights the history of the slaves in the U.S. and how the Europeans and their descendants saw themselves as the superior race. The European Americans believed that they needed to prove what they termed as their exceptional status and as such they saw themselves as progressing towards a new type of civilization.

Rejecting White Supremacy

The chapter tries to highlight some of the beliefs that the Europeans held with regards to race, believing that their race was superior to the other races. The Chapter assumes that there is nothing like White supremacy, it is just what he whites advanced so as to make the other races look inferior. The nonwhite who suffered the savage of the writes include the native Americans and the African Americans. The stigma was fueled by the white authors, scientists and the intellectuals who provided explanations to their beliefs of the black “inferiority” that they deemed as inherent. They wanted to use it to dominate over the other races. The chapter greatly rejects the marker of white supremacy.

Racism and Public Health

In Black Lives Matter: A Commentary on Racism and Public Health the article emphasizes on racism as one of the major fundamental causes of health that is critical in the practice of all public health professional (Garcia & Sharif). It assumes that racism is serious when the victims of the racial treatment are blacks. Like many other journals, the articles tend to suggest that it is only racism because white police officers killed black men. It gives the impression that they were killed for being blacks, like if they were whites then they would probably have not been killed. However, the authors offer a more comprehensive definition of what amounts to be referred to as racism.

Impact on Healthcare

The source admits that race and racism is a thorny issue that requires training before it can be offered in curriculum for health professionals (Acosta & Ackerman) The source assumes that in a patient and healthcare professional situation, race is one of the key factors that may limit the quality of care that the patient receives. It takes neutral position on accepting or rejecting race as a marker of superiority or inferiority. Instead, it calls on all people regardless of their races to come together to have a discussion on race and racism as it affects all of us and not just a specific race.

Conclusion

In brief. racism remains one of the issues that the global community continues to grapple with. Since time immemorial, different authors have represented race in diverse ways. While some sources unproven assumptions and arguments regarding race, some try to debunk some of these long-held beliefs on race and racism. Some of the sources point accept race as a marker of superiority or inferiority while others reject it. Colonization marked the height of what some may refer to as the height of racism in history. To date different sources assume different position on the relationship between race and colonization.

Works Cited

Bride of Frankenstein. Dir. James Whale. 1935

Acosta, D., & Ackerman, B. (2017). Breaking the Silence: Time to Talk About Race and Racism. Academic Medicine, 285 - 288.

Boas, F. (1921). The Mind of a Primitive Man. Macmillan.

Garcia, J., & Sharif, M. (2015). Black Lives Matter: A Commentary on Racism and Public Health. PubMed.

Kuhn, T. (1970). No eBook available. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Sharp, P. (n.d.). Savage Perils. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.