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Race, Class and Gender

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Franklin (1987) also alluded that patriarchy did not serve black men; the notion of black men being domineering over groups is questionable. Besides, Pleck (2008) claimed that the male heterosexual-homosexual dichotomy is used as the main symbolic tool defining the rankings of masculinity. Highlighting racial politics, it would be interesting to have a study focusing on the power relations between white gay men and black heterosexual men. This is premised on the stance that the racial hierarchy, regardless of its dismissal, seems to continue to characterise socio-economic relations. ???? stated that race remains a factor because it is deeply embedded within the subconscious, a discussion on this shall follow suit.

McClintock (1992: 5) …show more content…

Erasmus (2008) stated that apartheid discourse merged race, class, culture and nation together. While MacDonald (2006) argued that apartheid is rightly perceived as racism, it was also racialist. Racialists view race as a source of identity which marks difference between human beings. They regard identities as axes of political institutions and then urge states to be organized on the basis of race. Whitehead and Barret (2001) stated that in white supremacist contexts, black masculinities play symbolic roles for white gender constructions whereby whiteness and white men and women are the norm and blackness is the Other.

Seekings (2008) buttresses this viewpoint as he argued that apartheid was a system aimed at ordering society and explicitly according to racial categories and this was achieved utilizing state power and its apparatuses. “Apartheid entrenched radicalized identities and fostered racial division at the same time as exacerbating inequality in the distribution of income” (Seekings, 2008: 5). Seekings (2008) also cited that the apartheid regime had three broad objectives. The first one was ideological in effort to maintain racial purity; policies prohibiting inter-racial marriage were formulated. Residential segregation was also enacted as part of this endeavour. Another objective cited by Seekings (2008) is that apartheid was utilized to establish and maintain economic privilege for the white

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