The Emergent Idea of Race: A Civilization-Analytic Approach to Race and Racism in the United States
Author(s)
Nye, William P.
Abstract
The everyday social definition of race in United States society is analyzed as an idea which connects to & ’emerges’ from more fundamental & largely taken-for-granted beliefs residing in the same culturally shared stock of knowledge. Americans typically adhere to a substantialized conception of self & a metaphysical view as to the nature of human skin color. The common-sense notion of race combines these two beliefs in a manner which imputes cultural validity to the cognitive process of racial typification; a process which ascriptively assigns virtually all members of the society into one of an available few, mutually exclusive, social structurally & social psychologically significant, color-coded categories called ‘races.’ The United States racial caste system & the phenomenon of ‘racism’ are then examined from this perspective.
