The concept of racism is broad and\npolysemous (with many meanings). There are many attempts to define it in the\nsocial sciences, philosophy and psychology. It encompasses beliefs, views,\nattitudes, even whole ideologies (i.e., all sorts of mental states of\nindividuals or groups), but also individual and group behaviours, social\npractices, institutional policies, etc. The common denominator of the many\nmeanings of racism is the recognition that groups of people belonging to a\n\u201crace\u201d or a similar fictitious entity are inferior compared to the group in\nwhich one belongs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nowadays, biological racism, such as\nNazism, is rare. More common is so-called cultural, social, or everyday racism that\nascribes to the member of the allegedly inferior group a different psychology or\nculture, rather than a different biology. Furthermore, as I wrote two decades\nago in my widely cited work, \u201cThe Denial of Racism\u201d (2000), in our times the\nmain manifestations of racism consist in a set of justificatory rhetorics (of\nwhich I have analysed about 15 patterns).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The reason for this is the success of\nantiracist movements after World War Two, which means that outright explicit\nracism has been condemned, made socially unacceptable, and pushed down, below\nthe surface of self-conscious beliefs. Moreover, most of us sincerely believe to\nbe free from racist prejudice, whereas white supremacist movements, at least\nfor now, remain on the periphery of social life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From the point of view of human rights\nlaw, however, \u201cracism\u201d is not a valid term at all, being such a broad, vague,\ninsufficiently defined concept, unlike the strictly defined legal term \u201cracial\ndiscrimination\u201d (defined in Article 1 of the International Convention on the\nElimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination), or the terms \u201cdirect and\nindirect discrimination on racial or ethnic grounds.\u201d Without going into\nexplanations of these complex legal terms, I will only note that they refer to\ncertain conducts (less favourable treatment on account of race\/ethnicity, in\nthe case of direct discrimination); or certain policies, rules, measures, or\npractices having a disproportionately negative effect on people from the respective\nrace\/ethnicity, in the case of indirect discrimination. Notably, the law does\nnot distinguish between \u201cracial\u201d and \u201cethnic\u201d as protected characteristics.\nThis difference may still be valid, albeit decreasingly, in the field of\nanthropology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The distinction between \u201cracism\u201d and\n\u201cdiscrimination based on race or ethnicity\u201d is important because racism,\ninsofar as it encompasses mental phenomena (views, beliefs, opinions, etc.), is\nnot punishable, thankfully. We have freedom of thought. Whereas discrimination,\nwhich is the manifestation in action of such views, is prohibited and\npunishable. In the last decades, I have often explained, for example in respect\nto police racism towards the Roma, that we, human rights defenders, are effectively\nfighting for the police to become hypocritical. It would be great if police\nofficers had a deep-seated belief that Roma are equal and that their lives matter\nas much as their own. But people\u2019s minds, including police officers\u2019 minds,\nchange rather slowly; until minds change, the Roma will be beaten and insulted.\nTherefore, we cannot have Roma rights depend upon the thoughts of police\nofficers. We outlaw and make punishable here and now certain behaviours, not\ncertain thoughts. For the time being, let police officers think whatever they\nwant about the Roma, but let them behave, hypocritically, as if they believed\nthe Roma were their equals in dignity and rights. Let them, therefore, be so\nkind as to refrain from violence or other abuse targeting Roma people, and,\nanyway, let them behave properly at all times, regardless of whether a person\nis Roma or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Needless to say, let us do our best, in\nthe meantime, to evolve our minds in the direction of the idea that all human\nbeings are born free and equal in dignity and rights, as enshrined in Article 1\nof the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Let the education system make\nits contribution, so that at least the next generations are a little less\ninfected by racist and ethno-nationalist prejudice. But for a child, the best\ntextbook on anti-racism is the lived experience in a society that does not\ntolerate racist behaviour and condemns racial or ethnic prejudice. It is for this\nreason that, although I often taught in universities or trained people in\nseminars, most of my efforts since 1989 were not about enlightenment, but about\ncreating and enforcing legal norms fighting racism and similar kinds of prejudice\n(sexism, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, ageism, religious\nintolerance, etc.) with the means of anti-discrimination law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cInstitutional racism\u201d is one of many\nconcepts attempting to reflect the set of more or less unconscious attitudes\nand corresponding policies and practices that are so deeply ingrained in the\norganizational culture of an institution that they are \u201csimply\u201d its modus\noperandi. The most influential definition is that of Sir William McPherson,\nfrom his 1999 report on the investigation into the death of Stephen Lawrence, a\nyoung black man killed by London police. Institutional racism, according to\nMcPherson, is \u201cthe collective failure of an organization to provide an\nappropriate and professional services to people because of their colour,\nculture, or ethnic origin.\u201d This type of racism manifests itself in \u201cprocesses,\nattitudes and behaviour that amount to discrimination prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness,\nand racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people.\u201d In this\nconnection, let me recall that in anti-discrimination the law, the finding that\ndiscrimination occurred does not depend on the motivation of the perpetrator;\nthis related to both direct and indirect discrimination, and regardless of whether\nthe discrimination is based on race, sex, sexual orientation, or other prohibited\nground. When a judge finds discrimination, they do not look for anything at all\nin the mind of the perpetrator (in contrast to what they would do in criminal\nlaw); they only look at the outcomes of the action \u2013 whether people with a\nprotected characteristic have been put at a disadvantage compared to people\nwithout that same characteristic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The misconception that racism is a predominantly\nAmerican phenomenon is still widespread in the post-communist world. This is an\necho of official communist propaganda, according to which racism was seen in narrowly\nbiological or, at most, anthropological terms, and the reference was exclusively\nto blacks in America and South Africa. Of course, outside the communist world,\nracism and racial discrimination were always perceived as global phenomena, as\nevidenced by the 1965 UN International Convention on the Elimination of All\nForms of Racial Discrimination. In the 1990s, when we in Eastern Europe began\nto talk about racial discrimination against the Roma, the authorities were\ngenuinely shocked and explained to us that since the Roma were also of the\nwhite Indo-European race, there could be no racism in this case. I recall this\nsimply as a historical curiosity; this view \u2013 that different human \u201craces\u201d really\nexist \u2013 is so ridiculous that it does not merit any further comment. With more\nsuccess, we can perhaps look for \u201craces\u201d in paleo-history, before the final\nvictory of Homo Sapiens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And so, racism is widespread, exists in\nall countries, and manifests itself in relation to different ethnic or tribal\ngroups specific to each society. By the way, darker skin colour is not always a\nsign of belonging to a disadvantaged group. Everything is relative. In Kenya,\nfor example, Somalis who have lighter skin are subject to racist attitudes. Not\nto mention albino people, who are extremely vulnerable in many African\ncountries, to the point of being ritually killed. In Malaysia, too, officially\ndiscriminated Chinese can have lighter skin colour than the constitutionally\nprivileged Malays. And in America, \u201cblack\u201d has long been more of political\nself-determination, because there is a vast continuum between darker and\nlighter skin tones, not boundaries. This makes possible the so-called passing.\nPhilip Roth\u2019s character in the novel The Human Spot<\/em> is a rather\nfair-skinned Negro who, however, successfully passes for a Jew and becomes a prominent\nacademic. When he is about to marry a female Jewish academic, he ends all communication\nwith his much darker mother, but still tells her that on the last Sunday of\neach quarter (or something like that, I don\u2019t remember exactly) she is allowed\nto go and sit on a certain bench at the central station, and if any children\nare born to him, he would walk them by, on condition that she never shows any\nsign of knowing him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although racism has been and still is\npresent in all societies to date, the content of racist beliefs and attitudes is\nnot enough to explain their persistence in the last few centuries, despite the very\ndeep cognitive preconditions of prejudice in the very evolutionary structure of\nthe human mind. We are conditioned by natural selection to divide into groups, us\nvs. them, to ascribe \u201cessences\u201d to these groups, and to consider ourselves and\nour group superior. Today\u2019s evolutionary psychology, along with brain science,\noffers vast amounts of experimental evidence for this. But the question, from a\nsociological point of view, is why it is that exactly blacks in America and\nRoma in Europe are the ones subjected to racism and racial discrimination, and\nnot, for example, white Europeans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Reflecting on this question would lead\nus to understand that the modern geography of stronger and weaker ethnonational\ngroups is quite closely mapped onto the history of advanced capitalism.\nHistorically, there has been a more or less distinct overlap of racial and\nethnic characteristics with economically weaker positions. For this reason, the\nracial and ethnic stereotype is usually a blend of character descriptions and specific\neconomic descriptions; blacks, respectively Roma, do not work hard, do not want\nto study, are not interested in a successful life, do not know how to save\nmoney, and the like. In Bulgaria, with regard to the Roma, even total\nabsurdities are claimed, by supposedly learned people, for example, that for\nRoma, children are not such a super-value as they are for Bulgarians, hence\nRoma parents are not interested in how their children perform in school, resulting\nin poor prospects in their work life in future. However, any serious researcher\nof Roma culture will confirm that for Roma, children are the supreme value in\ntheir lives, and that this attitude is stronger than among the surrounding majority.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is important to emphasize that the\nphenomenology of modern racism consists mainly of forms of denying one\u2019s own\nracist prejudice and accusing ideological opponents of absurd extremes.\nNowadays, people strongly prejudiced against disadvantaged ethnic groups, such\nas many Trump voters in the United States, are often impressed by attacks on so-called\n\u201cpolitical correctness\u201d. By this latter term, critics of equality usually mean\nthe real or imagined extremes of equality advocates. They present \u201cpolitical\ncorrectness\u201d as a great social evil, as self-censorship and the suffocation of\nfreedom. They are tormented for being unable to openly express offensive or contemptuous\nopinions about people from disadvantaged groups. They worry that someone may throw\nout of the teaching curricula the white men Shakespeare, Milton and Chaucer and\nreplace them with Afro-rap and hip-hop. We, who want real equality, are not concerned\nabout such phantasmagorias; we are concerned that, despite the supposedly victorious\n\u201cpolitical correctness\u201d, people of different skin colour or ethnic origin\ncontinue to be disproportionately abused, oppressed, exploited, and killed.\nUntil these real facts persist, let everyone think whatever they want, but let\nthem treat all people as equals. Long live hypocrisy!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The concept of racism is broad and polysemous (with many meanings). There are many attempts to define it in the social sciences, philosophy and psychology. It encompasses beliefs, views, attitudes, even whole ideologies <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5497,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[99],"tags":[90,91,92],"yoast_head":"\n