Introduction: Who's at the bottom? Examining claims about racial hierarchy

Abstract

Why do claims about racial hierarchy matter? The question whether some groups are worse off than others is highly pertinent at a time when there is growing recognition of multiple forms of racisms and racial oppression. It is widely accepted that racial hierarchies are still with us today, and this concept is peppered throughout writings on “race” and racisms, but, what, exactly, are racial hierarchies, how do racial hierarchies continue to matter, and in what ways do they operate? This special issue, which focuses on the USA and Britain, also addresses the following questions: Does the concept of racial hierarchy aid us in illuminating racial inequalities and the differential experiences of groups in Western multi-ethnic societies such as the USA and Britain? What sorts of criteria are used in arguments about the place of groups along racial hierarchies? What are the political implications of claims made about racial hierarchies?

Keywords:

• Racial hierarchy
• race
• racism
• USA
• Britain
• ethnic minorities

Notes

Special Issue

RACIAL HIERARCHY

Guest Editor: Miri Song

MIRI SONG is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Kent.

ADDRESS: School of Social Policy, Sociology, and Social Research, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NF, UK.

Email: <[email protected]>

However, not all analysts adopt a top-down hierarchy framework (see Michael Omi and Howard Winant (1994), who put forward the historically variable processes of racialization in relation to different minority groups.

For a historical example of how the Chinese in Mississippi actively worked at occupying an intermediate position between white and black Americans, see Loewen (1971).

This is now changing, with the growth of Asian and Latino scholars, who are documenting the many and diverse experiences of subgroups contained within the categories of Asian and Latino (see Nieman 1999).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Miri Song

Special Issue RACIAL HIERARCHY Guest Editor: Miri Song MIRI SONG is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Kent. ADDRESS: School of Social Policy, Sociology, and Social Research, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NF, UK. Email: <[email protected]>