What is Meant By Racism
'...In other words, there is no scientific basis for the concept of race and, as a result, racism must disappear. A few years ago, I would have argued that by making this statement I had properly discharged my role as a scientist and a citizen. And yet, though there are no races, racism certainly exists!' (Wieviorka, 1995). Racism is a term that has been contaminated and overused over time. It has a complexity of meaning and usage. The twentieth century has witnessed the manipulation of the concept of racism into a term of political abuse; various users have continuously used and manipulated the concept to suit their political agendas (Miles 1989; Wieviorka 1995). The many concepts of racism that have been established have made it difficult to theorise the concept; 'The concept of racism has come to be used to refer not only to imagery and assertions, but also to practices, procedures and outcomes, often independent of human intentionality and a specific ideological content' (Miles 1989:3). While social scientists have restricted its meaning to retain its analytical value, political activists have extended its meaning to use the term as a political weapon in ideological warfare (Levinson & Ember 1996: 1054). As a resu
In light of the contradictory consequences of capitalism, Miles argues that the ideology of racism can successfully make sense of the world and thereby provide a strategy for political action for sections of different classes. Immigrants were considered to be part of inferior races; British, German and Scandinavian people were all considered to have higher intelligence, while Italian, Polish, Russian and Jewish people were naturally of inferior intelligence (Miles 1989: 58). Racism takes different forms at different historical conjunctures and is justified in different ways according to prevailing circumstances. However, many, if not all, ideologies are flexible and fluid and many, if not all, have a historical chronology, and so these criteria do not permit us to identify what is distinctive about racism as an ideology. Racism undoubtedly enables a justification of inequalities by naturalising them through conceptions of fixed attributes (Rattansi & Westwood 1994: 9). Rather it identifies the general characteristics that a discourse must possess in order to qualify as an instance of racism. As such the earlier definitions of racism, namely 'institutional' and 'scientific' would have limited applicability to the many forms of racism that exist today. Hence, it became imperative for social scientists and political activists to formulate a coherent rejection of the concept of race (Miles 1989: 43). In this way, the collectivity is represented as having a natural and unchanging origin and status, and therefore as being inherently different. Racism is said to have deep historical roots so that ideas and arguments derived from an imperialist history are continually being reworked and given new meanings as a result of contemporary political-economic forces, and combined new ideas and images. But is it infact correct to make the claim that racism has disappeared? Dijk (1993: 171) argues that this earlier definition constitutes 'old fashioned biological racism'. Hence, it is not accurate to claim that the term racism is now obsolete. With such a variety of approaches is it at all theoretically possible to formulate a common definition of racism? In this paper, I will adopt Mile's approach and argue that although racism is a historically specific and historically changing ideology it is possible to formulate a general theorisation of racism that identifies the certain attributes and characteristics that are present in every form of racism (Miles 1989; Miles 1993). Racism may have originated in a certain historical context but the fact is that it still very much exists in our world today. Put another way, the ideology of racism can constitute for some sections of a population a description of and explanation for the way in which the world is experienced to work.
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Acceptance Essays
