Race and Culture Albert Camus,

Race and Culture

Albert Camus, in an interview, once noted "If one lives in a country where racism is held valid and practiced in all ways of life, eventually, no matter whether one is a racist or a victim, one comes to feel the absurdity of life."

Beyond historical facts lies the way humans tend to interact towards one another, in particular, their overall justification for racism. Practices in psychology, for instance, reflected the curious fascination Europeans and European-Americans had with race and skin color. The institutional oppression that existed within the field of psychology was perpetuated by applications of pseudoscience, politics, and propaganda. All this presupposition trapped society in the very grip of Camus' view of institutional racism -- supporting the notion that one race or another was "mentally inferior," most typically to the White races. This idea was formed based on speculative (and racist) theories about racial differences and was tested using culturally-biased measurements (See: Guthrie, 2003; Hawkins, 1999).

Institutional racism generally refers to the way that the institutional arrangements and the distribution of resources in our society serve to reinforce the advantages of the white majority. Institutional racism also involves the way many white people abuse the political structure and policies within the public schools. Students of color, along with other ethnic groups are often seen as flawed in some way, which continue to stand in the way of their progress. Therefore, institutional racism within the public school system has been and still is being portrayed through Caucasians privileges and power. This is a reflection of discrimination through prejudice, and power with disadvantages towards the marginal people of color. Institutional racism consists of collective failures of organizations to provide equal and professional service to people mainly because of the color of their skin, culture or ethnic origin. Certainly this is a key theme in books by diverse authors (Malamud, Tan, etc.). It is the very institutionalization of race that causes it to continue and perpetuate when, quite easily we see that figures such as James Baldwin and others, working in the 1920s and 1930s in Harlem, could begin the long road to overcoming White supremacy.

What does the "impact of modernity" mean to traditional cultures of the Afro-Asian-Indian world? What was the general reaction of the native populations? Why was the West so successful imposing its will on these areas of the world? Do we see examples of this in contemporary times? Construct a 250-300-word post answering these questions.