Racism Representation

¶ … Robert Miles, the construction and subsequent discourse of "race" is a complex, dynamic sociological phenomenon. Representations of the Other as distinct from the Self do serve specific psychological, political, and economic purposes. For instance, the notion of the Other creates groups of inclusion and exclusion, and influences self-perception. Moreover, construing the Other in a pejorative manner bolsters images of the Self and offers a sense of personal and cultural superiority.

Therefore, representations of the Other are often linked intimately to class, although class is not the only determining factor of racial representation. One of the key threads running through Miles' chapter on representation is that the discourse of race has been largely used to "exclude and inferiorize," (51).

Referring to early documentations of encounters with the Other, the author states on page 33: "A negative representation of the Other therefore defined and legitimated the 'positive' qualities of author and reader." However, the concept of the Other has not been limited to historical instances of colonization. The Jews in Europe are an example of an Other that is not exclusively linked to European colonization because the European Jews were not separated geographically from the Christian European world.

Fundamentally, representation formulates a "strategy for interaction and reaction," and is a "dialectic of Self and Other," (22). Creating contrasting characteristics to distinguish Self from Other is a self-serving, logical process that insures and enables political and economic domination as well as supporting moral and spiritual superiority. As the European world became increasingly geographically aware and due to increasing support for expanding world trade, it became necessary to formulate representations of the Other.

These representations were reliably skewed in favor of the Europeans, although many times representations were 'positive' in nature, as with the concept of the "noble savage." With hierarchy of class deeply rooted in the European consciousness, it was only a logical and small sociological leap to ascribe hierarchy to the peoples encountered during trade expansions. Many representations of the Other were religiously construed; others focused on physical (somatic) features, or cultural practices. Representations changed over time to serve the developing interests of the in-group.

For example, as religious ideology became subordinate to scientific ideology, representations of the Other changed. Whereas once Jews were perceived solely in terms of their theological inferiority, secular anti-Semitism replaced earlier anti-Judaism (30). Representations serve the needs of the politically and economically dominant group because they justify actions such as slavery, military aggression, oppression, and usurpation of land and power.

For Europe, "representations were hierarchically ordered around the view that Europeans were superior by virtue of their 'civilization' and achievements...the condition of the Other was represented as proof of that interpretation," (35). This was especially true in terms of the interaction between white-skinned Europeans and.