Racism

Racism is discrimination and prejudice against people based on their race or ethnicity. Racism can be present in social actions, practices, or political systems (e.g. apartheid) that support the expression of prejudice or aversion in discriminatory practices. The ideology underlying racist practices often assumes that humans can be subdivided into distinct groups that are different in their social behavior and innate capacities and that can be ranked as inferior or superior. Racist ideology can become manifest in many aspects of social life. Associated social actions may include nativism, xenophobia, otherness, segregation, hierarchical ranking, supremacism, and related social phenomena.

While the concepts of race and ethnicity are considered to be separate in contemporary social science, the two terms have a long history of equivalence in popular usage and older social science literature. "Ethnicity" is often used in a sense close to one traditionally attributed to "race", the division of human groups based on qualities assumed to be essential or innate to the group (e.g. shared ancestry or shared behavior). Racism and racial discrimination are often used to describe discrimination on an ethnic or cultural basis, independent of whether these differences are described as racial. According to the United Nations's Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, there is no distinction between the terms "racial" and "ethnic" discrimination. It further concludes that superiority based on racial differentiation is scientifically false, morally condemnable, socially unjust, and dangerous. The convention also declared that there is no justification for racial discrimination, anywhere, in theory or in practice.[1]

Racism is frequently described as a relatively modern concept, arising in the European age of imperialism, the subsequent growth of capitalism, and especially the Atlantic slave trade,[2][3] of which it was a major driving force.[4] It was also a major force behind racial segregation in the United States in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and of apartheid in South Africa; 19th and 20th-century racism in Western culture is particularly well documented and constitutes a reference point in studies and discourses about racism.[5] Racism has played a role in genocides such as the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide, the Rwandan genocide, and the Genocide of Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia, as well as colonial projects including the European colonization of the Americas, Africa, Asia, and the population transfer in the Soviet Union including deportations of indigenous minorities.[6] Indigenous peoples have been—and are—often subject to racist attitudes.

  1. ^ "International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination". Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. December 21, 1965. Retrieved December 23, 2011.
  2. ^ Dennis, R. M. (2004). "Racism". In Kuper, A.; Kuper, J. (eds.). The Social Science Encyclopedia, Volume 2 (3rd ed.). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-35969-1. Racism [is] the idea that there is a direct correspondence between a group's values, behavior and attitudes, and its physical features ... Racism is also a relatively new idea: its birth can be traced to the European colonization of much of the world, the rise and development of European capitalism, and the development of the European and US slave trade.
  3. ^ Lieberman, Leonard (1997). ""Race" 1997 and 2001: A Race Odyssey" (PDF). American Anthropological Association. p. 2. In the period since 1492, European overseas empires and colonies were established ... The establishment of mines and plantations enriched Europe while impoverishing and decimating the conquered and enslaved peoples in Africa and the New World. The race concept helped to give all this the appearance of scientific justification.
  4. ^ Fredrickson, George M. (1988). The arrogance of race: historical perspectives on slavery, racism, and social inequality. Middletown, Conn: Wesleyan University Press.
  5. ^ Reilly, Kevin; Kaufman, Stephen; Bodino, Angela (2003). Racism: a global reader. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe. pp. 45–52. ISBN 978-0-7656-1060-7.
  6. ^ Martin, Terry (1998). "The Origins of Soviet Ethnic Cleansing" (PDF). The Journal of Modern History. 70 (4): 813–861. doi:10.1086/235168. JSTOR 10.1086/235168. S2CID 32917643.