Racism, the idea that there is a direct correspondence between a group’s values, behaviour and attitudes, and its physical features, is one of the major social problems confronting contemporary societies. 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 American slave trade. These events made it possible for colour and race to become pivotal links in the relations between Europeans, Americans and the people of Africa, Asia, Latin America and Australia. Though belief in the idea of the link between race and behaviour has never been proven, the tenaciousness of ideas supporting this connection has been elevated to a status of folk truth among the general population in many, if not most, countries (Williams 1990). Indeed, if the assertion of such a relationship were the only defining aspect of racism, its impact might be less damaging, though no less unacceptable. Instead, a more pernicious feature of racism entails the belief that some groups, those of a certain hue, with less power and low status, are inferior; others, of another hue, with greater power and high status, are deemed superior.
Racism is a highly complex and multifaceted concept and can be delineated into several areas, but it might be important to differentiate racism from ethnocentrism, a concept with which it is often confused and used, unfortunately, interchangeably. For example, Jones (1981) begins his critique of racism by distinguishing the two terms. Ethnocentrism entails the acceptance of the belief that individuals and groups seek to interpret events and situations, and to evaluate the actions, behaviour and values of other individuals and groups from their particular cultural perspectives. This view simply assumes that all insider values are ‘acceptable’, ‘right’ and ‘good’; conversely, all outsider values are ‘unacceptable’, ‘wrong’ and ‘bad’. What distinguishes ethnocentrism from racism is that in the former, there is no attempt to base insider/outsider differences along racial or colour lines. Oliver C.Cox (1948) makes a similar point in his study of class, caste and colour; studies of early civilizations and empires demonstrated that ethnocentrism was clearly evident; the ethnocentrism focused solely on language and culture. That is, one was civilized if one understood the language and culture of the insider, but a barbarian if one did not. The early Greek idea of dividing the world into these two spheres, the civilized or the barbarian, was typical.
The Social Darwinism of the nineteenth century (Hofstadter 1955; Ryan 1981) laid the foundation for what is called ‘ideological racism’. The logic is as follows: nature rewards groups which win the struggle for existence; strong groups, the winners, have won the right to control and, hence, decide the fate of the losers, the weaker groups. Those groups which lose in the struggle against other groups, by dint of this loss, confirm their weakness and inferiority. Since this ideology emerged simultaneously with the rise of European imperialism and the colonization of the continents, and gave credence to these events, and because the people and races being colonized and conquered were Africans, Asians and Native Americans, the close relationship between race, colour and ideas of superiority or inferiority was viewed by Europeans and Americans as having been confirmed.
As the European and American political, economic and cultural powers became more deeply entrenched in what DuBois called the ‘coloured world’, other attempts were made to justify the ever-increasing racial inequality. One new doctrine may be called ‘scientific racism’. This racism entailed the use of ‘scientific techniques’, to sanction the belief in European and American racial superiority. The first technique was the use of ‘objective’ IQ tests, and their results, to confirm the high position of Europeans and the low positions of all other races in what its proponents called a racial hierarchy. Almost simultaneously with the use of ‘scientific tests’ was the use of brain size to prove inferiority or superiority. Those who believed in racial inequality were, thus, eager to use the lofty name of science to support their efforts to dominate and control other races and continents. In one of his studies, Pierre Van Den Berghe (1964) cut to the heart of the racist logic when he stated that despite all talk of inferiority or superiority, groups dominate other groups because only by doing so can they ensure and enforce inequality. But it can be said that this enforced inequality has yet a more ulterior motive which is even more central to the idea of racism: to isolate, penalize, ostracize and push the pariah group outside of the normal and ongoing social, political, economic and cultural discourse so that the pariah group will, in fact, be ‘made’ inferior.
During the 1960s when race and racism were crucial themes, Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton (1967) coined the term ‘institutional racism’, using it in conjunction with ‘individual racism’ to differentiate the overwhelming importance of the former over the latter. An individual may be a racist and choose to discriminate against another individual or a group. This individual act is in contrast to institutional racism in which organizational networks linked to rules, procedures and guidelines make it difficult for members of one group to affiliate institutionally. In this case, it is not so much the individual who discriminates though individuals may do so as supervisors and managers for the company. In institutional racism, institutional rules and procedures which have been established on the basis of the qualifications and standards of the group in power serve to keep all other groups out, though this may not have been the intent of the original rules, procedures and guidelines. In fact, individuals employed in racist institutions may attest to their own lack of racism while proclaiming that they too are trapped and imprisioned by the laws, rules and procedures. There are other instances, however, when institutions willingly and knowingly discriminate. Since the mid-1980s, for example, the United States government has uncovered extensive patterns of institutional racism in housing, employment, education and banking, generally directed against racial minorities. Turner et al. (1984) presented a concise history of the interlocking networks which provide power and force to the racism which permeate institutions. One of the glaring consequences of the intensity of the traditional patterns of institutional racism has been the extent to which White Americans, and Whites in South Africa and Britain, have been the recipients of massive affirmative action programmes in which they, Whites, had a monopoly on jobs, incomes and bureaucratic positions, while those not White were removed from the competitive field. We have just recently begun to understand the extent to which centuries of affirmative action for Whites have consigned minorities to a secondary role in economics, politics, education and other areas of social life.
In the USA, some attention has focused on the idea of ‘reverse racism’. Racism in any form, practised by any group, should be challenged and contested, but the idea that minorities in the USA now have sufficient power to injure the interests of the majority group is not consistent with the facts. In all areas of living (political, economic, educational, etc.) Whites continue to have a huge monopoly. When one looks closely at the data provided by those who claim that reverse racism is alive and real, one generally sees anecdotal evidence in which much of the information used is obtained third or fourth hand, that is, a friend of a friend said his friend did not get a job or lost a job to a Black. When these anecdotal sketches are used, the minority who gets the job or the promotion is invariably less qualified, very incompetent, etc. In the USA, a member of a minority group who is a racist may insult a member of the majority, but in no area of American life are minorities, who may be racists, in a position to control institutionally or determine the opportunity structure for the majority. When majorities are racists, and when they control the major institutions, as described by Turner et al. (1984), they can and do control the opportunity structure for minority people.
Since the 1960s when racial analysis became a major issue in social relations, ample data have been collected verifying the negative consequences of racism for minority groups. Generally, these negative consequences resonate around the theme of powerlessness in all areas. In the 1980s some sociologists began to focus on the impact of racism on Whites (Dennis 1981). This new twist on the consequences of racism shifts the focus somewhat, for it suggests that racism is not merely something which happens to the oppressed; rather there are social, emotional and ethical issues for the majority culture which controls the institutions which constitute the continuing source of racism. Attention has also been devoted to the idea that racism may be a more consciously directed act and idea than previously assumed. In the 1981 study (Dennis 1981), it was revealed that many parents did, in fact, socialize their children to be racists; racial training did not occur by chance. Children are guided in their racial training by adults, mainly parents (Dennis 1981; 1994). However, during their teen years, even the children from the most racist families tend to move away from the positions of parents and to assert their own views of other groups based on their relationship with these groups at school, work or in various social circles.
In the mid-1990s, the abolition of apartheid in South Africa will certainly alter the racial history in that country. But we now know, based on history in the USA and Britain, that the abolition of racially restrictive laws will not end all semblance of racism. Though much of the myth of race resides in institutional arrangements, another large part resides in patterns of racial thinking and the ideological orientation of individuals and groups in the society. Laws restricting discrimination may be effective to some degree, and groups may be frightened enough by the price they might pay for discriminating, yet ideological racism, enshrined in the deeply held racial myths in a society, may survive among the population in many forms. This then is the test for nations which contain diverse racial groups and which have had a history of racial domination and conflict: how to ensure individual and group equity; how to ensure that group cultural and racial differences be viewed as objective social and biological realities without the accompanying invidious distinctions.
Rutledge M.Dennis
George Mason University
References
Carmichael, S. and Hamilton, C. (1967) Black Power, New York.
Cox, O.C. (1959) Caste, Class and Race, New York.
Dennis, R. (1981) ‘Socialization and racism: the white experience’, in B.Bowser and R.Hunt (eds) Impacts of Racism on White Americans, Newbury Park, CA.
——(1994) ‘The racial socialization of white youth’, in B. Bowser and R.Hunt (eds) Impacts of Racism on White Americans, 2nd edn, Newbury Park, CA.
Hofstadter, R. (1955) Social Darwinism in American Thought, 1860–1915, Boston, MA.
Jones, J. (1981) ‘The concept of racism and its changing reality’ in B.Bowser and R.Hunt (eds) Impacts of Racism on White Americans, Newbury Park, CA.
Ryan, W. (1981) Equality, New York.
Turner, J., Singleton, R. and Musick, D. (1984) Oppression, Chicago.
Van Den Berghe, P. (1964) Caneville, Middletown, CT.
Williams, R. (1990) Hierarchial Structures and Social Values: The Creation of Black and Irish Identities in the United States, Cambridge, UK.
