The Dominant-Subordinate Group Model - Research Paper Example

 Three issues I want to discuss include 1) comparing the different frames of reference (and choosing one); the American cultural media of the movie industry helps us deal with racism in positive ways; and black racism is persistent. The Frames Before deciding on which one of the four frames explaining racism I would like to use in my treatment of Far From Heaven, a general review should be taken to present certain similarities in the four positions and then to clarify what is different. The Pluralist, Melting Pot, Race Relations Cycle Model, based on views of Robert Park's and Talcott Parson, are hopeful (Washington). No special position is placed on the status of African Americans. By going through several stages, African Americans can obtain equal footing with others and establish a new equilibrium. This is, then, a positive model. Were not certain facts about black existence in America so true and persistent, this model should help all resolve all consciousness of the responsibility of African Americans as citizens of the United States. But African Americans still remain at the bottom poll receiving American resources. Under the current economic crisis, black employment remains among the highest, and black education scores are still the lowest in the nation. Such evidence demonstrates that either something is not working or things are being done. One other solution, that nothing can be done, will be developed in the conclusion. The other three frames are not so hopeful. To an extent at least they are realistic, accepting the reality if there has been any advance in racial relations in the United States, it has indeed been very slow. They accept the view that elementary sticklers of racism remain. There is no advance for the black poor and there is continual racism for those who have obtained middle-class. The Colonial Model reflects the views of such as Frantz Fanon by seeing African Americans as forming an internal colony inside America that is ruled by 'colonialist' Americans (Hansen).This view is plausible since it reflects the ideal that the basic position of African Americans has not changed. It has only changed to the extent that Fanon's solution, that of revolution, is no longer tenable (Quellel). Blacks have integrated too much in the American social and economic system to support any kind of revolution. However this brings up another factor that is not acknowledged in any of the frames and which should be there. This is that the black cultural experience in American has become necessary for the heart of the country. And it stands and continues to be one of the major percolators of that heart, just as the cultural styles of black Americans have always been replicated in some form or other worldwide. The Pluralist Melting Pot frame offers the best positive thrust of this factor, and oddly the other frames may allow it but only in a negative way. The Dominant-Subordinate Group Model stands on the principle that black inferiority has been capsulated to always exist and never be removed (Doane Jr.). Hence African Americans will always be in power struggle with the dominant position of whites. This frame helps bring realism to the fact that we have never solved the problem of black poverty nor of low black education results. The model accepts the position that there will always be conflict. But what contradicts this model, or what it stands forth to look at is the immediate future. The fact is that the United States is becoming more diversified and that other ethnic groups will also obtain positions of power. Individuals may become experts in certain fields and secondarily they are members of ethnic groups. The belief to hold is that the experts will, instead of being appreciated as members of 'ethnic groups', will become appreciated as expert members of a diversified America. The Colonial and Dominant-Subordinate Group Models then are based on conflict and upholding racial differences. Harris's Alternative Formulation also has this kind of racial or ethnic conflict tied in. To the extent that something is gained by blacks, it is lost by whites and vice-versa. The conflict was made part of the system of American economic development, its inherent capitalist and 'free market' systems. It was made part in an ethnical way, of a built-in formula of blacks versus whites. Far From Heaven Choosing one frame for analysis of Far From Heaven, I choose to pick the one that is less controversial or conflicting and that thrives on diversity, on the fact, or hope, that all the ethnic groups will merge into one America. Yet the other frames importantly provide me with discussion points as well and I will continue to refer to them . Julianne Moore plays Cathy Whittaker, the protagonist of the film Far From Heaven. She is a suburban housewife with children and married to a business executive who is in advertising and is played by Dennis Quaid. Two major actors! They are pretty well to do, not rich, they are affluent and can manage to have a maid and hire an independent gardener. All this takes places in the America of the late 1950s, when African Americans were beginning to emerge and insert their presence, again in a big way, in American civil life. Kathy is meek, but she leads a privilege life. At once the movie eases into our consciousness the privileged American white world and we all easily accept it without argument, but for the sake of entertainment. The point is that from this start it heralds what has been terribly wrong about American society and what is perhaps best described in the Colonial Model above. How easily we can accept that whites where able to give menial jobs to the blacks, Dennis Haysbert as the gardener Raymond and yes, the maid Sybil played by Viola Davis. Where it not for whites, their colonialists, blacks would not be working. This argument explains why the movie from its initial point of view doesn’t really doesn't sustain the Pluralist, Melting Pot model. The situation at the start of the movie, the power relationship that whites have over blacks, thus dismissing them to menial jobs is accepted only because black racism is accepted. The other models of reference thrive on this power relationship. Every single American movie, if it were to portray a reflection of American society will always have blacks working for whites, trying to get the monetary means to survive by going through and accepting the power relationship implied by whites. Yet because this is a movie, we can remove the factor of economics and view the situation from another platform, perhaps. The platform of the heart and emotions. What has happened is that as Cathy fines herself isolated more from her husband, he who is finding out he is surprisingly, but seriously, homosexual, she begins communicating with the gardener Deagan, who in 1950s visually racist America, is black. Such activity, interracial dating and love affairs were a strong anathema to the America at that time. In fact, in the south it led to the response of lynching and violence. But this tendency was reflected throughout America and was expressed as gossiping and ostracism in Cathy’s Hartford Connecticut suburban community in the eastern United States. However the movie doesn't let the relationship get to full blossoming toward the lynching stage. In some way it does help substantiate the view for the Pluralist Melting pot Frame. This is because Cathy, existing in the apparently racist community where she lives, supported contributing to the NAACP, who one day come knocking on her door. She was a person of the heart firstly, and not one of racism. Economics is brought back into the movie as Deagan is seen proudly promoting his own business of a garden shop. It would appear that this would be one of the solutions that could be understood operating from the Pluralist Melting Pot frame. If Raymond could be successful, then he would have used economics to integrate himself into the American social world as a black businessman. The director and writer Todd Haynes makes it work for a while, until the love affair becomes known. Black businessmen probably faced all kinds of difficulties from the racist point of view, so well explained by the other frames. Hence any success in business would also have to reflect to an extent, a defeat of racism. Dugan's story does allow this. He does allow one to believe that Raymond, following in the shoes of his gardener father, was able to open his own store. Whether this were true or not, it has been placed in a movie for all to see and to influence the consciousness of everyone. In Harris's Alternative Formulation, a model of ongoing conflict, Deagan’s accomplishment would indicate that something which Deagan has gained with his new business, whites have lost. In the real world perhaps this view would be accepted more than a position allowing Cathy’s view from the heart. Or would it? It is hard not to read a review that does not laud the movie (Proyect). The less taken reviewers were able to note how the efforts of stylization at times seem to overtake the movie and its plot (Rodgers). This was true when Dugan played with the movies colors and would not let the activity speak for itself. Dugan showed how racism disallowed the affair, how it produced a little scene of violence and how it left everything unresolved. Yet it was the sympathy of the heartfelt sincerity that Cathy felt that was withstanding. The Plurality Melting Pot Frame allows that people as individuals, no matter their position, may not only not be racists, but they may be pure and sincere human beings at once. This is where Dugan's movie helps to explain or root the Pluralist Melting pot frame. There are people who are sincerely friendly across the line of racism, in our diverse society, are not racist. It is only the other frames that allow us to see how such sincerity will always be 'colored' or poised powerless against the gripping economics of race and power competition. Black Racism will Never End One reviewer wrote of how the director Dugan renders the scene at the black restaurant in a different manner (Rodgers). He practically does nothing and almost allows it to flow with its own color, hearts and rhythms. Is something more being said in such a comment? I think so. Those frames supplied humanity to all the artificiality of style, if one could call it that, that Dugan developed in his handling of colors in the rest of the movie. If people were allowed to develop without frames, without over-riding economic power struggles, perhaps the sincerity of heart may come out. I quite believe this will happen in our new American platform that, after all, elected President Obama. However, the values of the other frames stand true. Is it possible that in an American diverse society, there could still be black racism? How would one know? This is the value of the other frames, the Colonialist, the Dominant-Subordinate, and Harris's Alternative Formulation. Today I can easily walk into anyone of several neighborhoods and experience black racism. There is no problem on that score. This becomes useful knowledge and not the kind I would want in a more human oriented world. But the less human world has built in black inferiority. While allowing no change, as under the other frames, it allows me to accept black racism and housing and neighborhood segregation. Because of this, the impoverished black neighborhoods are those most likely to be controlled by gangs and fear. I can use the other Frames to explain this phenomenon, that it serves American economics to have young black boys who are skilled with figures and leadership, to instead work on and build their inferiority and let them prey on each other. It is necessary according to Alternative Formulation to keep a large amount of unemployment occurring in the black community. It is necessary according to the colonial theory to have that community become its owe worse enemy. And this is what happens. It is short-term and for real. We young people, god help our souls, have the long-term lens, the cultural diverse lens on that we gave the world a taste of recently, in our election system. Works Cited Doane Jr., Ashley W. "Dominant Group Ethnic Identity in the United States: The Role of "Hidden" Ethnicity in Intergroup Relations." The Sociological Quarterly 38.3 (1997): 375-397. Hansen, Emmanuel. "Frantz Fanon; Portrait of a Revolutionary Intellectual." Transition 46 (1974): 25-36. Proyect, Louis. "Far From Heaven." 7 July 2003. Rotten Tomatoes. 16 March 2011 . Quellel, Charif. "Franz Fanon and Colonized Man." Africa Today 17.1 (1970): 8-11. Rodgers, Nick. "Far From Heaven." 26 June 2003. Rotten Tomatoes. 16 March 2011 . Washington, Robert. "The Civil Rights Movement after Three Decades." International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 7.2 (1993): 259-285. Read More