Symbolic Racism: A Look At The Science - 10

Time for symbolic racism to go away

During this series we have seen the science come to life.

I am talking about the social studies by social scientists who have ways of looking at society and culture with a microscope, as it were.

While it is easy to find scholarly papers on the subject (Symbolic Racism: A Look At The Science - 3, as that link / post shows), it is not so easy for journalists and laypersons to detect symbolic racism still flowing throughout our culture.

As I wrote in the previous post:

I began this series, on April 28, 2014.

Like you of course, at that time I had no idea that the Ferguson phenomenon would begin some months later on August 9, 2014.

In fact, by the time of the Ferguson phenomenon, I had already posted about half of the posts now contained in this series (Symbolic Racism: A Look At The Science, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8).

(Symbolic Racism: A Look At The Science - 9). The many police killings of unarmed black men brought out one type of criticism of symbolic racism, and now the mass-murder in South Carolina has brought out another type of criticism.

In the case of the police killings, it was difficult for many citizens to see the dynamism at work (because of underlying symbolic racism, and a cultural belief that the police are always doing the right thing).

The killing of black Christians in their church while they practised their religion, and prayed, was much easier for most people to diagnose.

There was an American Awakening.

Now, even better, we see a traditional American response with the energy directed toward removing a symbolic racism icon in South Carolina (S. Carolina Flag Change, NY Times;).

And in Mississippi (Mississippi Flag Change: Guardian).

Other public figures, from the President to the state's two U.S. Senators and Mitt Romney, have also called for removing the Confederate Battle Flag from state official locations.

They see the proper place for it as a museum of history (Take Down the Confederate Flag—Now, Top Republicans Call For Removal Of Confederate Flag At South Carolina Capitol).

I am glad that Dredd Blog was out in front on this issue, posting about it well in advance of these developments.

I am also glad to see official improvement from denial of one aspect of the problem into correction of that problem.

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.