Racism

Racism refers to the prejudice and discrimination towards people of certain ethnic groups, as well as the belief that these ethnic groups can be meaningfully separated into different races, independent of cultural-historical context.

Types of racism

Because racial prejudice can exist in many forms and gradations, the term racism has come to refer to many different things, some much more immediately harmful than others.

Overt racism

Overt racism refers to the explicit belief that some ethnic groups are superior to others.

Institutional racism

Institutional, or systemic racism, is racism understood as a phenomenon proper to a social system, rather than to atomic individuals within it. Theories of systemic racism indicate that simply shaming allegedly racist individuals is ineffective. A popular example of this is the American War on Drugs, which is known to disproportionately affect racial minorities. Whether or not this is the intention of the policy is irrelevant, what matters is that the institutional patterns lead to racist outcomes and breed racist attitudes. It may be entirely ineffective to try to convince cops to be less racist as long as these institutions are in place.

People who hear the term systemic racism often imagine that it means systematic racism, which is not the case. Usually when people refer to systemic racism, they do not mean that racist actions are being conducted according to a coordinated plan. Usually systemic racism is an uncoordinated phenomenon or side-effect of some other process.

Even in the present, people in developed countries are discriminated against in the professional world on the basis of whether their name sounds non-white. Indeed, minority job applicants in the United States for instance find that their odds in the job market are better when they "whiten" their resumes, with companies being more than twice as likely to call back — this holding true just as much for companies that claim to value diversity as for those that do not. A landmark study in 2003 demonstrating that "black-sounding" names were less likely to hear back from employers marked a boom in unconscious bias training and diversity initiatives, but two decades later, new research has shown that prejudice against "black names" has gone largely unchanged.

Quotes

Still others think that war should be organised by a "superior race," say, the German "race," against an "inferior race," primarily against the Slavs; that only such a war can provide a way out of the situation, for it is the mission of the "superior race" to render the "inferior race" fruitful and to rule over it. Let us assume that this queer theory, which is as far removed from science as the sky from the earth, let us assume that this queer theory is put into practice. What may be the result of that? It is well known that ancient Rome looked upon the ancestors of the present-day Germans and French in the same way as the representatives of the "superior race" now look upon the Slav races. It is well known that ancient Rome treated them as an "inferior race," as "barbarians," destined to live in eternal subordination to the "superior race," to "great Rome", and, between ourselves be it said, ancient Rome had some grounds for this, which cannot be said of the representatives of the "superior race" of today. (Thunderous applause.) But what was the upshot of this? The upshot was that the non-Romans, i.e., all the "barbarians," united against the common enemy and brought Rome down with a crash. The question arises: What guarantee is there that the claims of the representatives of the "superior race" of today will not lead to the same lamentable results? What guarantee is there that the fascist literary politicians in Berlin will be more fortunate than the old and experienced conquerors in Rome? Would it not be more correct to assume that the opposite will be the case?

— Joseph Stalin, Report to the Seventeenth Party Congress on the Work of the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U. (B.) (January 26, 1934)

Race! It is a feeling, not a reality: ninety-five percent, at least, is a feeling. Nothing will ever make me believe that biologically pure races can be shown to exist today.

— Benito Mussolini, talk with Jewish German journalist Emil Ludwig (1932)

Thirty centuries of history allow us to look with supreme pity on certain doctrines which are preached beyond the Alps by the descendants of those who were illiterate when Rome had Caesar, Virgil and Augustus.

— Benito Mussolini, speech at the 5th Levantine Fair (6 September 1934)

We do not assert that the Koreans’ biological constitution is more developed than those of other races. Defining the superiority of a nation according to biological or ethnic characteristics is the practice of reactionary, bourgeois ethnology. Arguing that national characteristics are defined by racial characteristics, bourgeois ethnologists classify people according to skin colours, namely white people as a “higher race” and coloured people as a “lower race”. They say that only a “higher race” can create advanced civilization. The reactionary ethnological doctrine has been used by imperialists as an ideological instrument for their policy of racial discrimination and obliteration of nations. Imperialists still use the bourgeois ethnological doctrine as an instrument to justify their domination over other nations, to spread national nihilism, the idea of subservience to great powers and the idea of dependence on foreign forces among the people of colonial, dependent countries and the people of the third world, and to obstruct their national independence and independent development. Fundamentally speaking, there can be no “higher race” or “lower race”. All the races are endowed with creative intelligence and ability. The low level of civilization of nations under colonial subjugation in the past is not due to any inborn inability, but is the consequence of the imperialists’ predatory policy and their policy of keeping colonial people in ignorance. The people of the third world, who were despised by the imperialists as a “lower race”, have now become the masters of their destiny, are making brilliant successes in the creation of a new life and are steadily raising the level of their civilization. By contrast, in the United States, where the white people who claimed to be the most developed race make up the overwhelming majority of her population, illiterate people are daily growing in number and their intellectual level is gradually dropping. The fact patently proves the fallacy of the bourgeois ethnological doctrine.

Our country has neither a large population nor a large territory, nor is it an economic power. There is no reason for us to look down upon other nations or reject them. National chauvinism is a reactionary idea of the exploiting class and the imperialists.

Reactionary racism and national chauvinism, which were used by imperialists as their ideological instrument for aggression and domination, have been categorically rejected by progressive humanity. The Japanese imperialists, who clamoured for the “mission” of “leadership” over other nations by claiming the “superiority” of the “Yamato race”, and the German fascists, who attempted world domination by advertising the “superiority” of the “Aryan race”, received the judgement of history. In spite of this, the US and other imperialists are still using racism and national chauvinism in justifying their domination and plunder of other nations.

Today the US imperialists have combined the bourgeois ethnological doctrine and national chauvinism with aggressive cosmopolitanism and are using these as an ideological instrument for realizing their ambition for world domination. Cosmopolitanism, which denies the nation-state, the independent national economy and national culture and preaches a “world state”, a “world economy” and a “culture without national identity”, serves to justify the imperialists’ aggression and domination and the exploitation by multinational enterprises. The US imperialists are working viciously to dominate the world and enslave many nations by preaching racism, national chauvinism and cosmopolitanism and cooking up the “supremacy” of the white race and the “leading role” of the United States in the world.

— Kim Jong-il, Let Us Highly Display The Korean-Nation-First Spirit (December 28, 1989)

See also

• Dog-whistling
• Ironic racism
• Rightism
• Identity politics