Ethnicity as Racism's New Look

At the beginning of his essay, "Black Like Them," Malcolm Gladwell describes how his cousins, Rosie and Noel, despite being Jamaican, "don't consider themselves black at all" (Gladwell, 29). In his work, Gladwell explores the phenomena of West Indians' success in ; though physically similar to African-Americans, West Indians seem to be distinguished from African-Americans by American society and are generally doing much better economically than their somewhat physically identical counterparts. Gladwell dubs this anomaly in traditional racism, "new racism." Joane Nagel's essay, "Constructing Ethnicity: Creating and Recreating Ethnic Identity and Culture," elucidates how Jamaicans and other West Indians have become their own distinct ethnic group, as opposed to being lumped together with African-Americans due to their appearance. In the chapter "The Decomposition of America," from his work The Disuniting of America, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. examines the negative consequences that the creation of ethnic groups, such as West Indian, can have on society and its various members. Also, in his chapter "E Pluribus Unum?," Schlesinger's views on the ideals behind life in America offer some insight into why Jamaicans are perceived differently in Toronto as opposed to New York City. Both Nagel and Schlesinger's works suggest that the phenomena of new racism, as experienced by West Indians in Gladwell's work, is only a mutation of traditional racism: ethnic prejudice.