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From: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Apartheid on the West Bank (defining racism)
Message-ID: <260@gargoyle.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 29-Nov-85 19:21:15 EST
Article-I.D.: gargoyle.260
Posted: Fri Nov 29 19:21:15 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 30-Nov-85 13:46:33 EST
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Reply-To: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Organization: U. of Chicago, Computer Science Dept.
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>You tie too much to the racist being a member of a
>powerful group. For instance, if a white refuses to do business with blacks
>because "they'll cheat you every time," then your definition would make that
>white racist. On the other hand, if a black refused to do business with
>blacks for the same reason, then this black isn't racist; at least not by
>your definitions.

I think we spoil a useful term if we blur the distinction between
racism and prejudice or bigotry.  Some time ago I posted a number of
definitions of racism from dictionaries and encyclopedias, and the
general idea seemed to be that racism is an ideology or belief-system
which holds that an ethnic group is innately inferior, intellectually
and/or morally, to one's own, and which has the function of
justifying keeping this group in a subordinate position in society.
Thus if an American black says, "All honkies are alike.  You can't
trust them -- they'll get you every time," his statement is
prejudiced and bigoted, but not racist, properly speaking, because
his views are not part of an ideology which justifies "keeping whites
in their [subordinate] place."  

Prejudice is perhaps a universal phenomenon in human history, but
racism is perhaps a phenomenon of modern history.  It arose as a
result of the domination of black peoples through enslavement and
colonialism.  We tend to forget that racist views were considered
respectable (among whites) in the 19th century and before.  How else
could such an enlightened man as Jefferson have been a slaveowner?
Racism, then, is not just a disposition to prejudge people by their
color or ethnicity -- it also includes an ideological component (the
supposed innate inferiority of the group, their having smaller
brains, a "backward" culture, etc.) to lend intellectual and moral
respectability to domination.  Suggested reading:  the article on
"Racism" in the *Encylopedia of Philosophy*.

About anti-Semitism:  Blacks are looked down on because they are
supposedly inferior, but they are tolerated or even liked as long as
they "stay in their place."  Jews are hated because they are
*different*.  Jews have a strong group identity and resist
assimilation into the prevailing culture, and this strong and opposed
identity is perceived as a threat by a person whose own sense of
identity and integration is weak and who derives security from having
everyone else think like himself (a certain individual, no longer
posting to net.politics, is a good example).  The extreme response to
this is to try to get rid of the Jews, and I think this psychological
dynamic may be the root of the persecution of Jews, at least in
modern Europe.  The Arab-Israeli conflict, however, seems to have
different origins.
-- 
Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes