Racism is the belief that a particular race is superior or inferior to another, that a person’s social and moral characteristics are predetermined by his innate biological characteristics. Racial separatism is the belief, generally based on racism, that the different races must remain separated and keep each other at a distance.
Racism is the belief that the genetic factors that make up race are a determining factor of human characteristics and capacities and, that racial differences produce an inherent superiority to a given race.
“Racial discrimination” is the name given to the effect of racism. In the case of institutional racism, certain racial groups can be deprived of their rights or privileges, or benefit from preferential treatment.
Racial discrimination generally promotes the taxonomic differences between different groups of persons, although everyone can be the victim of discrimination for ethnic or cultural reasons, independent of individual physical differences. According to the United Nations conventions, there is no distinction between racial discrimination and discrimination based on ethnicity.
Racism is also as old as the human race. It can be defined as the hatred of one person for another – or the fact of considering a person to be subhuman – due to the color of his skin, his language, his customs, his place of birth or every other supposed factor reveal the inner nature of this person. It has caused wars, slavery, the creation of nations and law codes.
Racism is the lowest and grossly primitive form of collectivism. It is attributing moral, social or political meaning to the genetic lineage of a man, the idea that a man’s intellectual and character characteristics are produced and transmitted by the internal chemistry of his body. Which means, in practice, that a man must be judged, no on his own character and actions, but by the behaviors and actions of a group of ancestors.
Racism maintains that the content of a man’s spirit (not his cognitive apparatus, but its content) is inherited, that the convictions, values and character of a man are determined before his birth, by physical forces that do not depend on his will. This is the caveman version of the doctrine of innate ideas — or inherited knowledge, which has been completely refuted by philosophy and science.
Racism is a doctrine of brutes, invented by and for brutes. It is a low and base offshoot of collectivism, specific to a mentality that makes the difference between the different species of animals, but not between animals and human being. Like all forms of determinism, racism is a denial of the specific attribute that sets man apart from all living species: his rational faculty. Racism denies certain aspects of human life: reason and choice, or spirit and morality, replacing them with chemical predestination.
The respectable family that provides for its unsavory members or covers their crimes in order to “protect the family name” (as if the moral stature of a man could be harmed by the actions of another, the good for nothing who boasts that his grandfather was an empire builder, or the old village woman who boasts that his material great uncle was a state senator and that his cousin thrice times removed played a concert in Carnegie Hall (as if one man’s accomplishments could rub off on the mediocrity of another), the relatives who research family trees in order to assess their potential son-in- law, or also the celebrity who begins his autobiography with a detailed account of his family history, are also examples of racism, the atavistic manifestations of a doctrine whose full expression is the tribal war of prehistoric savages, the massive holocaust of Nazi Germany, the atrocities of the so-called “emerging nations” of our days.
In practice, the theory that considers “good blood” and “bad blood” to be moral and intellectual criteria can only lead to bloodbaths. Brute force is the only conceivable approach for men who consider themselves to be simple collections of chemical compounds. Modern racists seek to prove the superiority or inferiority of a given race by the historical achievements of some of its members. The frequent historical spectacle of a grand innovator who while alive is ridiculed, denounced, obstructed, persecuted by his compatriots, then, a few years after his death, is admitted to the national hall of fame and praised as proof of the greatness of the German (or French, Italian or Cambodian) race is a revolting spectacle of collectivist expropriation, perpetrated by racists, just as the expropriation of material wealth perpetrated by the communists. Even if there is no collective or racial spirit, there is no collective or racial achievement.
There are only individual spirits and individual achievements and a culture is not the anonymous product of homogeneous masses, but the sum of the individual achievements of each man. Even if it had been proved, which is not the case, that the incidence of persons gifted with a potentially superior intellectual force is higher with peoples of certain races than the peoples of other races, it would still teach us nothing about a given person and it would be irrelevant about one’s opinion about this person. A genius remains a genius, despite the number of idiots who belong to the same race and an idiot remains an idiot, regardless of geniuses who share his racial origin. It is hard to say which one of these two injustices is more offensive: the affirmation by Southern racists that a black genius must be treated as inferior because his race “spawned” brutes or that of a German brute who claims to be superior because his race “spawned” Goethe, Schiller and Brahms.
Evidently, these aren’t two different claims, but two applications of the same basis principle. The question of knowing if one claims the superiority or the inferiority of a given race is irrelevant; racism has a single psychological source: the sense of his own inferiority.
Like all other forms of collectivism, racism is a search for the undeserved. It is a search for the automatic belief of an automatic evaluation of a man’s character which goes beyond the responsibility to make a rational or moral judgment and, above all, a search for automatic self-esteem (or pseudo self-esteem).
To attribute one’s virtues to one’s racial origin would mean to acknowledge that one does not know that process by which virtues are acquired and, more often, that one has been unable to acquire them. The overwhelming majority of racists are men who have not earned any sense of personal identity, who cannot claim any individual achievement or distinction, and who seek the illusion of a “tribal self-esteem” by claiming the inferiority of another tribe. Watch the hysterical intensity of Southern racists; also not that racism is far more widespread among poor white trash than their intellectual superiors.
In the course of 500 of the last 1000 years, racism perpetrated by the Western powers on non-Westerners has had a far greater impact on history that every other form of racism (such as racism between Western groups or between Easterners, especially Asians, Africans, and others). The most notorious example of racism by the West was slavery, in particular the enslavement of Africans in the New World (slavery itself goes back thousands of years). This slavery occurred due to the racist belief that black Africans were not as fully human as European whites and their descendants.
This belief was not automatic: because originally [in the beginning] Africans were not considered as to be interior beings. When the Portuguese sailors explored Africa for the first time in the 15th and 16th century, they encountered empires and cities as advanced as theirs, and they considered Africans as key rivals. Over time, although the technological progress of African civilizations did not correspond to that of Europe, and the great European powers began to plunder the continent and forcefully remove its inhabitants to have them work as slaves in the new colonies across the Atlantic, Africans are seen as a deficient “species,” as “savages.” To a large extent, this point of view was necessary to justify the slave trade in an age in which the West had begun to promote individual rights and human equality. The desire of some Africans to sell others to European slave merchants also led to allegations of savagery, based on the false belief that “black peoples” were all related to each other, all belonging to a society – in contrast to the many different ones, nations were intermittently at war with each other.
An important characteristic of racism, in particular to Blacks and immigrant groups, is clear in the attitudes toward slaves and slavery. Jews are generally considered by anti-Semites to be subhuman, but also supermen: diabolically cunning, skillful and powerful. Blacks and others are considered by racists simply as subhuman, more beasts than men. If the goal of anti-Semitism is evil, the focus of racism is inferiority aimed at those who have sometimes been considered as not being able to be evil (although in the 20th century, in particular, the victims of racism are often considered to be morally degraded).
In the second half of the 19th century, Darwinism, the decline of Christianity, and growing immigration were all perceived by many white Westerners as a threat to their cultural control. European and, to a lesser extent, American scientists and philosophers developed a false racial “science” to “prove” the supremacy of non-Jewish whites. While the Nazis’ annihilation of the Jews discredited most of these ostensibly scientific efforts to elevate one race over another, a small number of scientists and social sciences researchers continued throughout the 20th century to debate the innate faults of certain races, especially Blacks. At the same time, some public personalities in the American black community have defended the supremacy of their race and the inferiority of whites using almost the same language as white racists.
All of these arguments are based on a false understanding of race; in fact, contemporary scientists do not agree on the fact that race is a valid means to classify persons. What can seem to constitute significant “racial” differences for some persons – skin color, hair, face shape – are not of great scientific importance.
In fact, genetic differences within a purported race can be more important than those between the races. A philosopher wrote:
“There are some genetic characteristics which are found in the population of England that are not found in similar proportions in Zaire or China … these differences which affect us most profoundly in our relations with one and other are not to a significant degree biologically determined.”
Evidence exists that the meaning of the term has changed over time, and that the earlier definitions of racism involved the simple belief that human populations were divided into distinct races. Many biologists, anthropologists and sociologists reject this taxonomy in favor of more specific and/or empirically verifiable criteria, such as geography, ethnic origin, or a history of endogamy.
DEFINITION
Although the term racism generally refers to prejudices based on race, violence, aversion, discrimination or oppression, it can also have different and challenged definitions. Racism is a connected term, at times aimed at avoiding these negative meanings. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, racism is a belief or an ideology that all of the members of each racial group possess characteristics or abilities specific to this race, in particular to distinguish it as being superior or inferior to another racial group or groups.
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines racism as a belief that race is the main determinant of characteristics and human abilities and that racial differences produce a superiority or an inferiority inherent to a given racial group, and that it is also the prejudice based on such a belief. The Dictionnaire Macquarie defines racism as: “the belief that human races have characteristics that determine their respective cultures, generally involving the idea that one’s own race is superior and has the right to rule or to dominate the others.” According to Charles V. Hamilton and Kwame Ture (alias Stokely Carmichael), (racism) is the predication of decisions and policies on considerations of race with the but subordinating one racial group (ethnicity) and to retain the control over this group.
LEGAL: The U.N. does not define “racism,” but it defines “racial discrimination”: according to the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination, the term “racial discrimination” designates any “distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, color, descent or national or ethnic origin, which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural fields or any other field of public life.” This definition makes no distinction between discrimination based on ethnic origin and race, in part because the distinction between these two remains the subject of debate among anthropologists. Likewise, in British law, the term “racial group” means “any group of persons defined by reference to race, color, nationality (including citizenship) or ethnic or national origin.”
SOCIOLOGICAL: Some sociologist have defined racism as a system of group privilege. In “Portraits of White Racism,” David Wellman defined racism as “culturally accepted beliefs, which, independently of the intentions associated with them, defend the advantages that benefit whites due to the subordinated position of racial minorities.”
The sociologists Noël A. Cazenave and Darlene Alvarez Maddern define racism as “… a highly organized system of group privilege based on the “race” that functions at all levels of society and is maintained by a sophisticated ideology of color/race supremacy.”
In 2003, Sellers and Shelton discovered that the relationship between racial discrimination and emotional distress was animated by racial ideology and beliefs of public consideration. In other words, racial centrality appears to promote the degree of discrimination that young African American adults feel while racial ideology can lessen the negative emotional effects of this discrimination. Racist systems include, but cannot be reduced to racial bigotry.”
The sociologist and former president of the American Sociological Association, Joe Feagin argues that the United States can be characterized as a “majority racist society.” “Police harassment and brutality aimed at black men, women and children are as old as American society, which goes back to the period of slavery and Jim Crow segregation. Today, such police actions carried out throughout the country reveal the current discriminatory practices coming from whites and institutions dominated by whites that favor or encourage such practices…” TYPES
RACIAL DISCRIMINATION: Racial discrimination treats people differently through a process of social division into categories not necessarily linked to race. Racial segregation policies can formalize it, but it is also often done without being legalized. Researchers, including Dean Karlan and Marianne Bertrand, at MIT and the University of Chicago discovered in a 2003 study that there was widespread discrimination in the workplace against applicants whose names were simply thought to “sound black.” These candidates were 50% less likely to be called for an interview than the candidates who were thought to have “black sounding names.” On the other hand, institutions and courts have confirmed discrimination against whites when it is done to promote a diverse work or educational environment, even when it has been proven that it discriminates against qualified candidates. Researchers consider these result as solid proof of unconscious prejudices rooted in the long history of discrimination in the United States (that is, Jim Crow laws, etc.)
INSTITUTIONAL: For more information: institutional racism, state racism, positive action, racial profiling and racism by country Institutional racism: (Also known as structural racism, state racism or systemic racism) is actual discrimination by governments, societies, religions, educational institutions or other large organizations that have the power to influence the life of many persons. Stokely Carmichael is credited with having invented the term “institutional racism” at the end of the 1960’s. He defined the term as being “the collective failure of an organization to provide an adequate and professional service to persons due to their color, culture or ethnic origin.” Maulana Karenga argued that racism represented the destruction of culture, language, religion and human possibility and that the effects of racism were “The monstrous moral destruction of the human possibility involved in the redefinition of African humanity in the world, thus poisoning past, current and future relations with the others who we know solely by these stereotypes and thus harm the real human relations between peoples.
ECONOMIC: The unequal progression of the economy and society is presumed to constitute a form of discrimination caused by racism and passed historical reasons, impacting the current generation by deficits in formal education and the types of learning in the generation of the parents and, through racist attitudes and acts largely unconscious on the members of the general public. (For example a member of race Y, Mary, sees her possibilities of success compromised (directly and/or indirectly) by the poor treatment of her ancestors of race Y.) A hypothesis adopted by classical economists is that competition in a capitalist economy reduces the impact of discrimination. The idea behind the hypothesis is that discrimination imposes a cost on the employer, and so an employer motivated by profit will avoid racist employment policies.
Although this hypothesis can be correct in some parts of the world, inter alia, it is the opposite. [Quote needed] Although capitalist economy makes it possible to avoid discrimination, in order to counter the additional costs, that can be evaded by other means. A capitalist society can, for example, use racist employment strategies to turn toward the “cultural norm.” These “norms” although unchallenged are evident in society. In a predominantly white society when a person of color is hired for a management position, it can cause conflicts and negatively impact communication between the other employers. Thus, society will suffer an economic loss due to the discrimination of other companies, when they embrace discrimination and isolate this society. Although that can be a radical point of view, flatly exaggerated, it depicts the omnipresence of racism and how society [which?] often turns toward racist employment policies in order not be isolated from then on, thus prevent the business from turning toward an economic deficit.
DECLARATIONS AGAINST RACIAL DISCRIMINATION
In 1950, UNESCO suggested in the race question: a declaration signed by 21 scholars such as Ashley Montagu, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Gunnar Myrdal, Julian Huxley, etc. to “completely drop the term race to speak instead of ethnic groups.” The declaration condemned the theories of scientific racism which played a role in the Holocaust. It targeted the demystification of the theories of scientific racism, popularizing modern knowledge concerning “the racial question,” and morally condemned racism as contrary to the philosophy of the Enlightenment and its hypothesis of equal rights for all. Parallel to the book An American Dilemma by Myrdal: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy (1944), the racial question influenced the desegregation decision of the United States Supreme Court in 1954 in “Brown v. Topeka Board of Education.” The United Nations uses the definition of racial discrimination contained in the international Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, adopted in 1966:
“any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, color, descent or national or ethnic origin, which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural fields or any other field of public life.” (Part 1 Article 1 of the international Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination).
In 2001, the European Union explicitly banned racism as well as many other forms of social discrimination in the Charter of the Fundamental Rights of the European Union, the legal effect of this, where applicable, would necessarily limited to the institutions of the European Union: Article 21 of the Charter prohibits:
“Any discrimination based on any ground such as sex, race, color, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age or sexual orientation.”
IDEOLOGY
As an ideology, racism existed during the 19th century as “scientific racism,” which sought to provide a racial classification of humanity. Although these racist ideologies were widely discredited after the Second World War and the Holocaust, racism and racial discrimination are still current throughout the world. Some examples in our time are statistics, including, but not limited to, the ratio of black men in prison to free black men compared to the other races, the physical and statistical capacities of mental capacity, and other data collected by scientific groups. Although these statistics are accurate, and can show trends, it is wrong in the majority of countries to assume that because a particular race has a high crime rate or a low literacy rate, all of these persons are automatically criminals or unintelligent. It has already been noted by DuBois who, in differentiating the races, we do not think about race but about culture:
“A common history, common laws and religions, the same habits of thought and conscious collective effort for certain life ideals.”
Nationalists at the end of the 19th century were the first to adopt the contemporary discussions on “race,” ethnic origin and “survival of the fittest” to shape new nationalist doctrines. In the end, race has come to represent not only the most important characteristics of the human body, but it was also considered to be a decisive element to mold the character and personality of the nation.
According to this point of view, culture is the physical manifestation created by ethnic groups, as fully determined by racial characteristics; culture and race are considered as interrelated and dependant on each other, at times even to the extent where nationality or language are included in the whole of the definition.
Racial purity has the tendency to be associated with highly superficial characteristics that were easily processed and announced, such as being blond. Racial qualities had a tendency to be linked to nationality and language rather than the real geographical distribution of racial characteristics. In the case of Nordicism, the name “Germanic” has almost become synonymous with racial superiority.
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