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Wednesday in Rudder Tower Joe Feagin speaks to students about his studies about racism in America. The lecture was hosted by the Liberal Arts Student Council.

Racism still prevalent in background

By: Madiha Rizvi

Posted: 9/18/08

"We have been grounded in it, founded in it [racism] for nearly 90 percent of its history. A lot of racism has gone underground, backstage. It is covert, it is hidden. It is no longer of the right in public to do racist joking, racist commentary although it happens frequently, not as frequently than it was 20 years ago," said Joe Feagin, an Ella McFadden professor of sociology, to students who walked through the doors of Rudder 701 Wednesday night.

Feagin said there are two frames of mind: one of the white racist frame and the other of fairness, liberty and justice. When someone undertakes a racist action, Feagin said there are three rules to counter it. First, when people have conflicting emotions, to try and activate the better of the two frames. Second, remind people of their better angels, including their faith. Third, remind people that we are all humans.

During the discussion, a student asked if the future generations were dealing with the racism situation in a better manner because there is an open system to accept people as equal today.

"There is hope for future, possibly because of people like you and me. Start acting against these racist actions. It is time for change...the change is much slower than is advertised in the media. Backstage incidents exist. It is better, but we have a long way to go. It is your future," Feagin said.

In some of the research projects Feagin conducted, he and a fellow colleague collected journals from 626 white students in 28 universities and asked the students to record observations of everyday events where racial issues, images and understanding were used. They found 7,500 blatantly racist accounts undertaken by white friends, acquaintances, relatives and strangers.

"In the white racist frame of mind, to rationalize discriminating against a group of people, you make them into a they or them. They are not like us. We are the good folk and they are the inferior folks. Now we have defined them as inferior, we can discriminate against them," Feagin said.

"Over history, we rationalized with the white racial frame. It is a big set of racial stereotypes, racist prejudices. Racial emotions, racial images, it is a complete array of things that attempts to explain slavery, legal segregation and contemporary discrimination as okay for good people to do," Feagin said.

"Racism is very much with us. Most of us here committed to making a better America [believe it] is to begin dealing with the racism barely beneath the surface of this polite smiling kind of cover we have for the racism in this society."

Studies conducted on campus have shown that A&M students are not as diversity-oriented and not as globally focused as they should be, Feagin said.

"Employers who interview here give good reports on the quality of our students, but say they are not as open to diversity and global perspectives as they should be. So there is an employment reason to change as well a moral reason to change," Feagin said.

"I'm looking for something to shock me. I need a better understanding and I hope to benefit from this study because of its awareness and hope to repair damage," said Jesse Pham, a junior political science major.

"I witnessed reverse discrimination," she said. "I had a sociology professor who had a Chinese wife, and they received threatening notes."

"I researched the professor speaking, to see what he had to say on how sexism plays a role [in racism] and the solutions for everyday life," said Morganna Franklin, a sophomore history major.

"In small numbers, it [racism] does exist, but it's not an obvious problem," Franklin said.