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Race relations is asociological concept that emerged inChicago in connection with the work of sociologistRobert E. Park and theChicago race riot of 1919.[1] Race relations designates aparadigm or field in sociology[2] and a legal concept in theUnited Kingdom. As a sociological field, race relations attempts to explain howracial groups relate to each other. These relations vary depending on historical, social, and cultural context. The term is used in a generic way to designate race related interactions, dynamics, and issues.
In the 1960s, the prevailing understanding of race relations was underdeveloped and was acknowledged by sociologists for its failure to predict theanti-racist struggles. It was critiqued for being explicitly used to give an explanation of violence connected to race. The use of paradigm was criticized for overlooking the power differential between races, implying that the source of violence is disharmony rather thanracist power structures. Race relations are divided into positive and negative. Positive or good race relations promote equality, empathy, and inclusivity, while negative race relations generatetension, conflict, and social divisions.
Detractors of the term "race relations" have called it as aeuphemism for white supremacy or racism. Opinion polls, such asGallup polls, use the term "race relations" to group together various responses connected to race.[3][4] University level sociology courses are often named "Race and Ethnic Relations".[2]
Robert E. Park of theUniversity of Chicago formulated a theory known as "race relations cycle," which is currently discredited. He believed race relations have a universal pattern: when races come into contact, at first they are hostile, but thaw over time.[5] However, Park only conducted minimal studies related to it and did not examine its validity across ethnic groups to ensure its accuracy in representing reality.
The cycle was postulated to be driven by subjective attitudes that members of races feel toward other races.[6] The steps in Park's cycle were contact, competition, accommodation, andassimilation. Park's students tested his ideas by studying communities of Chinese and Japanese origin living in the United States and found that, contrary to Park's theory, adopting white culture did not lead to acceptance bywhite Americans. However, Park did not discard his theory in spite of the failures to verify it.[7]
In 1919, white residents of Chicago instigated the mass murder of black residents, an event known as theChicago race riot of 1919. After this violent event, city authorities established theChicago Commission on Race Relations. This was composed entirely of men, sixAfrican Americans and sixEuropean Americans[8][9]
SociologistEverett Hughes published a collection of Park's articles in 1950, seven years after Park's death. The beginnings of thecivil rights movement in the 1950s caused interest in the study of race, and Park's work became a founding text in the emerging field named "race relations."[2]
Because race relations model imagined steady progress of whites, it failed to predict the radical upheavals of the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Everett Hughes delivered an address at theAmerican Sociological Association (of which he was president) titledRace Relations and the Sociological Imagination in which Hughes confessed the failure of prediction: "Why did social scientists — and sociologists in particular — not foresee the explosion ofcollective action of Negro Americans demanding immediate full integration into American society?"[2] African American scholars had little more than token representation in this field. Race relations model was considered by them as a failure of white social science.
TheKerner Report, commissioned by the US government in 1967 to study the causes of 1960s race riots, said that theWatts riots of 1965 "shocked all who had been confident that race relations were improving in the North."[10] The report clarified that the major cause of the riots was white racism, and recommended job creation measures andpolice reform. PresidentLyndon B. Johnson discarded the report's recommendations.[11]
In the 1970s, some sociologists in America sought to replace the term race relations with racial oppression, because that was the better notion of what race meant in that period. For example, the 1972 bookRacial Oppression in America byBob Blauner challenged the race relations paradigm on negative effects, he explained that the source of the problem between races is not because of some naturally inherent racial animosity but is deeply rooted in the way societal systems are or the society is organized and structured.[2]
In 2020, the world witnessed the murder ofGeorge Floyd, an African American man, by Derek Chauvin, a white police officer, in a live-streamed video. This event triggered a significant shift in the US and around the world, leading to a new awareness and consciousness about race relations.[12] The dominant culture started engaging in discussions about racial justice and anti-racist practices, as well as seeking ways to understand and address racial issues.[13] The need to reduce negative race relations practices and promote racial justice became more apparent after the George Floyd incident. Efforts were reinforced to ensure equality, dismantle systemic racism, and address historical and present-day discrimination that affects marginalized racial and ethnic groups.[13] To rectify the impacts of past and ongoing racial disparities, specific policies and practices likeaffirmative action gained importance.[14] Affirmative action is not considered as a solution to negative race relations, but it is seen as one of the steps to counteract the effects of past discrimination and create a more level playing field where dominant racist social structures are present. This allows underrepresented groups to have access to the same opportunities, presence, and benefits as others. The goal is to correct the imbalances caused by historical discrimination, to interrupt the cycle ofculturally reproduced discrimination, and foster greater inclusion and diversity in society.[14]
The concept of race relations became institutionally significant in theUnited Kingdom through the establishment of the Department of Social Anthropology under the leadership ofKenneth Little at theUniversity of Edinburgh.[1]
TheInstitute of Race Relations was established in 1958. Its remit was to research, publish and collect resources on race relations across the world. However, in 1972, the membership of the institute supported the staff in the radical transformation of the organization: rather than being a policy-oriented academic institution it became an anti-racistthink tank.[15]
TheRace Relations Board was created following the passing of the Race Relations Act 1965 as a body "to assess and resolve individual cases of discrimination."[16] Its remit was originally restricted to places of public resort and regarding disposal of tenancies, but this was expanded with the passage of the Race Relations Act 1968.[16]
Race Relations Acts have been adopted in theUnited Kingdom to outlawracial discrimination and to tackleinstitutional racism:
TheEquality Act 2010 superseded and consolidated previous discrimination law in the UK.
The concept of race relations has been criticized for implying a matched relationship between races.Stephen Steinberg ofCUNY contends that the term "racial oppression" should be used in unevenly matched instances instead of negative race relation or simply "race relations":
While the term "race relations" is meant to convey value neutrality, on closer examination it is riddled with value. Indeed, its rhetorical function is to obfuscate the true nature of "race relations", which is a system of racial domination and exploitation based on violence, resulting in the suppression and dehumanization of an entire people over centuries of American history.[2]
The term "race relations" describes more the relationship between two groups of people rather than the discrimination against them. JournalistCharles M. Blow observes that Americans who were polled on their "satisfaction with race relations" reported lower satisfaction after the rise ofBlack Lives Matter, an anti-racism movement. The term "race relations", according to Blow, "suggests a relationship that swings from harmony to disharmony". Objecting to racism creates awareness of disharmony, whereas silently submitting to racial oppression creates a false impression of harmonious race relations. Because of this counterintuitive result, Blow argues that the terms "race relations," "racial tension", and "racial division" are unhelpfuleuphemisms for what should properly be calledwhite supremacy.[4]
Reconciliation is a term used intruth and reconciliation commissions around the world, and used in various countries when referring to improving relations between theirFirst Nations peoples and the rest of the population.[17]Reconciliation in Australia has been part ofAustralian Government policy since 1991,[18] and the term is also used in New Zealand,[19][20] Canada,[21] the United States[22] (as in theMaine Wabanaki-State Truth and Reconciliation Commission), and in Europe.[17][23]
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