New Racisms: What factors shape them?

 

Both articles for this week by Van Dijk and Bonilla-Silva (2015) challenge the new racisms by defining the concept, conducting discourse analysis of a printed media piece (Van Dijk), and examining the color-blind racism through the current political figures (Bonilla-Silva). I recall talking to one of the students in our course about new racisms, as this term was unfamiliar to me and I was wondering how racism can become new. We had a small talk, but only after reading these articles I came to a deeper understanding of the concept.

Before reading the articles, I had this thought in mind that racism today is subtle and is rarely acts of the physical violence and riots; the way it used to be in the history of the mankind (even though, I have to admit, these types of outbreaks still take place, unfortunately). Van Dijk calls new racisms “discursive”: “they appear mere talk, and far removed from the open violence and forceful segregation of the old racism. Yet, they may be just as effective to marginalize and exclude minorities” (p. 34). He talks about two dimensions of racism: social (everyday discriminatory practices) and cognitive; while stressing that the cognitive dimension as “beliefs or social representations many members of the dominant (white) ingroup have about immigrants and minorities are largely derived from discourse”. (p.36) The critical discourse theories were used as a main method of analysis of the new racisms by Van Dijk (deconstructing the newspaper article about immigrants in Britain as an example of what shapes our cognitive dimension).

When taking the Youth Culture course last semester, I learnt about S. Hall`s and M. Foucault`s theories of semiotics, representation, and discursive analysis. I applied the discourse analysis to female representation in advertising and hip-hop. That course taught me to use critical analysis tools when looking at the images, reading the texts, or watching pop culture videos.  New racisms are present in all types of media both printed, audio, and visual. Challenging the new racisms shall include viewing and absorbing all information with critical lenses, deconstructing the representation. In my opinion, teaching students media literacy is one of the practical ways to challenge the new racisms. The other teaching approaches we can use to allow critical thinking is by creating a democratic, inclusive, and open to discussions classroom environment, encouraging dialogues and learner-centered teaching methods.

The question that remains with me is: How do we decrease the commercialization of discourse. It seems that the current media uses discourse to earn readers and fame.

References

 Van Dijk, T.A., New(s) racism: A discourse analytical approach.

Bonilla-Silva, E. (2015). The structure of racism in color-blind, “post-racial” America. American Behavioral Scientist, 59(11), 1358-1376.