Essay/Term paper: Community and race

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Medicine

Community and race are directly related to each
other. Since community is a large society
composed of a number of people with different
backgrounds, people are categorized into
several groups according to their ethnicity.
Moreover, each of the particular ethnic groups
is considered a subculture group. Although the
subculture groups follow the same laws and
rules of the community, they share a distinctive
set of cultural beliefs and behaviors that differ
in some significant way from the larger society.
(Kendall 1998:61) The unlike beliefs can lead
to conflicts and arguments between different
race groups. Likewise, racism is also found in a
community when a particular group
discriminates or abuses members of another
race. Therefore, local government or some
community associations are responsible for
providing anti-racism knowledge to every
member in the community and encourage them
to build up a friendly neighborhood in order to
keep the society stable. Kabeer in "The
Structure of "Revealed Preference"" describes
how racism destroys a sense of community, and
Bangladeshi group suffer a lot from this issue.
Also, Englund in "An Indian Remembers"
describes native students that are victims of
racism by the priest and the nuns at school. In
contrast, Counts and Counts in "They"re Family
Now" mention that the RVers community is full
of harmony without discriminating other
members" race, educational level, age, etc., and
they have a friendly neighborhood.



In Kabeer"s article "The Structure of "Revealed
Preference""; the Bangladeshi people immigrate
to United Kingdom and automatically become
members of the local community. The
Bangladeshis follow the same laws and rules as
other local residents, British – whites, but
carrying different culture beliefs. Therefore, the
Bangladeshi people are considered a subculture
group of the white community. For example,
the Bangladeshi culture has a very unique way
of thinking about women entering into the work
force. They believe that "women are primarily,
often solely, responsible for child care and
housework and hence the assignment of women
to home-based forms of income earning."
(Kabeer 1995: 40) Moreover, women "is
shameful to work with men." (Kabeer 1995: 35)
Therefore, one can hardly see a Bangladeshis
woman working outside of their home in the
factory.



Further, Bangladeshis men are having a hard
time finding jobs from the market; they can
never find a job without references or
introductions by other friends and relatives.
Bangladeshi people often suffer from racism
and ignorance from the local white society.
Sometimes the white people group even
violently attacks them which makes the
Bangladeshi people afraid of going out after
nine o"clock at night, because "most attacks
happen late at night." (Kabeer 1995:43)
Therefore, Bangladeshi people are concentrated
in settlements in the East End of London,
because most of the Bangladeshi people "chose
to live in council housing in "safe"
neighborhoods rather than owner-occupied
housing elsewhere, because of fear of racial
harassment in white owner-occupied areas."
The Bangladeshi people group themselves into
a specific area in order to avoid being victims
hurt by other white people. Therefore, the
white"s racism destroys the Bangladeshi
peoples" sense of community.



In addition, in the Englund"s article "An Indian
Remembers", Mary and all other native students
are forced to attend the Catholic boarding
school in order to receive education. All
students have to follow the strict rules set by
the school board, and all these regulations that
Mary has to follow contrast with the free-style
living she has used to ignite a lot of sparks. For
example, all students have to make the bed
every morning very neatly, if they "didn"t make
the bed right the nun would come along and
pull all the sheets and blankets off" (Englund
1995: 434) to make the student make it all over
again.



Moreover, Mary has experience discrimination
by those nuns in that she is punished for no
reason, and when she tries to fight back, it gets
even worse because they "weren"t allowed to
question" (Euglund 1995: 436) without any
permission from the teachers. Likewise, all
students are suffer racism by those rules that
they are not allowed to speak their own mother
language - Indian - at school, only English.
However, the principal and the nuns could talk
in French in front of all the students. Since
most of the time the native students use are
English, they talk less and less with their
mother tongue and forget their own language
which later on will also destroy their culture as
well.



Further, all students are "not allowed to discuss
what goes on in school" (Euglund 1995: 437)
when they go home, otherwise they will be
punished. As a result, all the native students are
discriminated by those strict rules that they are
not equally treated as the nuns and the priests,
and they have no rights and no freedom to do
anything they want without a permission from
the nuns or priests. On the other hand, those
native students do not have any human rights at
all.



In contrast, Counts and Counts" "The power of
Imagined Community." describes a RVers
community that is full of harmony, and
everybody is very helpful and friendly in their
neighborhood. The RVers have a strong sense
of belonging maintained by and for the local
community - RV parks. Most of the retired
people including professional, white-collars and
blue-collars prefer spending their rest of their
life in the recreational vehicle because they
enjoy the RV lifestyle, and they establish the
RV community instantly when they join to live
in the RV park. Although all RVers have
different social status, educational levels,
occupations, race, culture, beliefs, etc., they will
never discriminate against each other based on
their backgrounds or past histories.



The RV community maintains their friendly
neighborhood by welcoming new members,
exchanging their personal history, arranging
gatherings and sharing foods, values, and
culture. Therefore, "the feeling of isolation,
apathy, loneliness and the absence of a future
are not found" (Counts and Counts 1995: 62)
among the RVers. Some RVers even describe
that they are living like a family that they trust
people in their area and "everybody watches out
for everybody else." (Counts and Counts 1995:
65) Moreover, the RV community "try to make
the area look homey" and that "they want it to
look like home and smell like home." (Counts
and Counts 1995: 65) Furthermore, all "RVers
expect to be able to give and receive help from
each other in an emergency" (Counts and
Counts 1995: 65) that this reciprocity is
essential to the success of their strategy of
coping with crisis. As a result, the RVers
community is full of harmony and friendliness
just like a big family.



In conclusion, Kabeer and Euglund"s article are
examples of racism. Both characters in the
articles are suffering and having a sense of fear
in the community. The Bangladeshi people are
scared and try to live together with the white
people in the same area because they are always
discriminated against. Moreover, Mary Euglund
and all other students are suffering from
inhuman strict rules. Both the Bangladeshi
people and Mary and other students are not
happy when they are in that community; they
enjoy their own way of living and have different
culture beliefs from the community. On the
other hand, all RVers are living happily together
without any conflicts and arguments. They will
never experience racism and discriminate other
members according to people"s educational,
occupational, or social background. All RVers
will help each other in many ways within the
community, such as: looking after other"s
property. Therefore, community and race are
closely related to each other that a large society
often consist of different ethnic groups of
people, and there might be some conflicts and
arguments between them. As a result, in order
to have a stable society full of harmony,
everybody needs to eliminate racism and
conflicts.





Work Cited





Counts, Dorothy Ayers and David R. Counts.
"'They're My Family Now': The Creation of
Community among RVers." Rpt. in Academic
Reading: Reading and Writing Across the
Disciplines. Janet Giltrow. Peterborough, ON:
Broadview Press, 1995. 52-85.



Englund, Mary. "An Indian rememvers" Rpt. in
Academic Reading: Reading and Writing Across
the Disciplines. Janet Giltrow. Peterborough,
ON: Broadview Press, 1995. 430-443.



Kabeer, Naila. "'The Structure of "revealed"
Preference: Race, community and Female
Labour Supply in the London Clothing
Industry." Rpt. in Academic Reading: Reading
and Writing Across the Disciplines. Janet
Giltrow. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press,
1995. 18-51.

Kendall, Diana. Sociology in our times – The
essentials. Ontario: ITP Nelson, 1998