THE REALITY OF RACISM: FROM DUALISM TO DIALECTICAL MONISM

Telos, 1990

The American Eugenics Movement of the early 20th century was the inspiration that led to the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps. In bringing this history to light, I gesture at a rupture in the discourse of race that occurred at the same time. Eugenics inaugurates a fundamental shift from epistemological racism to metaphysical racism. Insofar as our current paradigm can be characterized as none other than "eugenic," I conclude by searching for ways of responding to contemporary techniques of racial oppression.

In the backdrop of the abolition of slave trade and the end of colonialism, one will think that racism and all its prejudices have been laid to rest. The spate of happenings on the planet, particularly in Europe and America, will go far to demonstrate that supremacist belief systems are a long way from been stifled. Racism often induce feeling of superiority amongst people and also among nations such that some nations view others with a disdainful and obligatory attitude to help, thereby placing unnecessary injunctions and policies to retain their hold on such countries as is discernible in neo-colonialism. Furthermore, there is a feeling of discrimination against anything Islam and black such that black is regarded as ugly and both should be treated with suspicion. This work intends to look at the difference faces of racism throughout history and the rationale behind it. This work is critical in light of the fact that it looks at the raising racist belief systems and tries to highlight the requirement for social change and advance as it influences human improvement.

This article contests the contention that sociology lacks a sound theoretical approach to the study of race and racism, instead arguing that a comprehensive and critical sociological theory of race and racism exists. This article outlines this theory of race and racism, drawing from the work of key scholars in and around the field. This consideration of the state of race theory in sociology leads to four contentions regarding what a critical and comprehensive theory of race and racism should do: 1) bring race and racism together into the same analytical framework; 2) articulate the connections between racist ideologies and racist structures; 3) lead us towards the elimination of racial oppression; and 4) include an intersectional analysis.

Social Sciences and Education Research Review, 2023

Far from being a past or obsolete phenomenon, racism is branching out and spreading in many forms today. The scope of the concept of racism remains, however, difficult to demarcate. So is the differentiation of this term from other notions that designate similar attitudes, behaviors and practices. This paper discusses some issues of current interest in relation to racism, starting with the link between the terms "racism" and »race«, and debating the current distancing and even separation of the two concepts, despite the linguistic link. The paper also analyzes various definitions and perspectives on racism. Some content issues are approached, such as the fact that racism is, as contrary to some shared attitudes such as xenophobia, both an ideology or theory and a set of exclusionary and marginalizing practices. Furthermore, different forms of racism are addressed, from 'classical', biological racism, which resorted to biological differentiations, to the forms of racism that characterize the contemporary world, which emphasize cultural differences and/or include racist views and practices embedded in social values, norms and even in the functioning of society. These present-day forms of racism have been referred to by various expressions, such as cultural racism, differential racism, symbolic racism, racism without races, neo-racism, and institutional racism. Some conclusions are drawn from these delimitations, discussions and reflections, such as that maybe it might be more accurate to speak of racisms in the plural, given that the hypothesis of multiple racisms is increasingly confirmed by practice, as well as the fact that not only multiple racisms but also multiple dogmata should be considered in order to have a comprehensive overview of exclusion, marginalization, oppression, exploitation or discrimination.

This concluding chapter has the subtitle ›introduction‹ because it takes up the results of the previous reflections, connects them with recourse to rudimental ideas of Marx’s sociology, and relates both to a blueprint of the basic structure of a historical materialist theory of racism. At first, I will argue that racism analysis did not make ample use of elementary categories of the ›Critique of Political Economy‹ up to now – including ›economic character masks‹ and ›commodity fetishism‹. Subsequently, I will widen the focus from modern race-based racism developed in the course of European colonialism and the formation of capitalism to a perspective comprising the history of class societies at large. This extension will elucidate that the invention of races was not the origin of racism but only one (relatively late) manifestation of its diverse historical stages of development. Different class societies have found expression in various types of racism. My listing of barbarization, monsterization, contamination, diabolization, savagization, and racialization is the proposal for a typology of racisms. Its complex character is emphasized by references to the intersections of its elements and by an excursus on casteism. Finally, I will present a model of the basic structure of racism as negative societalization. It connects the formation of class societies with the racist exclusion of alienated others and understands racism as a social relation. As it is right and proper for an ›introduction‹, pertinent analyses will have to follow.

In this document I present a two-dimensional conceptual model of racism (Structural & Ideological), for use by educators, graduate students, & scholars writing on race and racism. I ask that you indicate my authorship on all unpublished documents, including study notes.

In this paper, I introduce the term people of whiteness (POW), which I use instead of white people or whites, as it lends some level of equality around language and race vernacular. For most academics, myself included, the term black people connotes some form of color caste hierarchy (hooks, 1995) a term which is an adaptation of bell hooks’ explanation of the social stratification that exists as a result of skin color variation among people of African descent. Since the term black people has evolved, and they are sometimes collectively referred to as people of color, I find the term people of whiteness more symbolic of a group of people, and its use adds a level of balance and equity to race vernacular. The term people of whiteness provides an awareness of the systemic race hierarchy, but for transformative purposes allows the group to be viewed from horizontal dimensions which lends to some idea of leveling and equality.

2006

entry. 1 It is motivated in part by a perceptible distance between these two bodies of thought, sometimes overt, sometimes more ambiguous. For example, Cedric J. Robinson, in his influential work, Black Marxism, stresses the inherent incompatibility of the two paradigms, though the title of his classic work suggests a contribution to a new synthesis. While emphasizing the historic divide, Robinson devotes considerable attention to the ground for commonality, including the formative role of Marxism in the anti-racist theories of authors and activists such as C.L.R. James and W. E. B. Dubois. 2 In recent debates, anti-racist theorists such as Edward Said has rejected the general framework of Marxism, but are drawn to some Marxists such as Gramsci and Lukacs. 3 There is also, however, a rich body of material that presumes a seamless integration between Marxism and anti-racism, including those such as Angela Davis, Eugene Genovese and Robin Blackburn. 4 Identifying points of similarity and discordance between Marxism and anti-racism suggests the need for dialogue in order to achieve either some greater and more coherent synthesis, or, alternatively, to more clearly define the boundaries of distinct lines of inquiry. Another motivation for pursuing such a dialogue is posed by events, framed by the post-9/11 climate of contemporary imperialism and globalization. The "war on terror", including the US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, have been justified by US President George W. Bush's administration in terms that provide increasing legitimacy to overt racial profiling. 5 The recent climate of domestic targeted repression, a climate that threatens in particular people of Arabic origin or Muslim faith, is all too reminiscent of the period of Japanese internment during World War Two. 6 It is well known that racism is not new to the United States. The history of slavery and civil war testify to this. The recent experiences of life threatening negligence and inhumane treatment of black Americans in New Orleans during and after Hurricane Katrina confirm the legacy in the present day. 7 Britain, the second major power after the US involved militarily in the war on Iraq, has displayed no break in its racist history under the social democratic leadership of New Labour's Tony Blair from the period of Tory governments of John Major and Margaret Thatcher. 8 There is also a particular need to pursue the dialogue between Marxism and antiracism in the Canadian context. Regarding the post-9/11 policy implications, the increasing and more transparent involvement of the Canadian military as an occupying force in Afghanistan has been justified on the grounds of a contribution to the US-led war on terror. 9 Racial profiling has been legitimized as part of Canada's new security regime, witnessed in part by the deportation to torture of Canadian and Syrian citizen, Mahar Arar. 10 Sections of the Canadian media have recently cited favourably the overtly racist prose of Rudyard Kipling to explain the military's mission in Afghanistan. 11 Canada is also currently part of the occupation forces in Haiti, a country with a long history of antiracist resistance, including the first successful revolutionary challenge to Atlantic slavery. 12 This brings us to another motivation for extending the dialogue between Marxism and anti-racism: the potential that what could be accomplished through such a process could advance the level of clarity and strategic effectiveness of both paradigms. Both Marxism and anti-racism, as methods of enquiry and as frameworks to guide progressive practice and social change, have suffered, particularly in the Canadian context, from an emergence in relative isolation from each other over recent decades. The need for a dialogue between Marxism and anti-racism is revealed in stark relief by events in a post-9/11 era; it is not, however, these events that have caused such a need. It is in fact long overdue. What follows is an attempt to contribute to this dialogue between Marxism and anti-racism from a viewpoint that minds the gap. As an author committed to both paradigms, this takes the form, in a sense, of a double dialogue, with a view to addressing Marxists about the pivotal contribution of anti-racist theory, and a view to critical race theorists about the potential for a non-reductionist reading of Marxism. The hope is to provide a modest step in advancing and rendering relevant an application of Marxism to the reality of racism as an integral element of how really existing capitalist society produces and reproduces social relations. These social relations are commonly understood to be solely about one form of human suffering, exploitation, that is considered to define the writings of Marx, and is in turn emphasized among those who identify as his adherents. The argument here, however, is that in fact the social relations under scrutiny are rooted in not one, but three forms of human suffering, or socially constructed human "difference": exploitation, oppression and alienation. 13 The divide between Marxism and anti-racism has resulted, at least to a considerable extent, I maintain, from this wrongheaded reading of Marx, and a similarly wrong-headed application of Marxism. Marxist theory has been reduced, and social relations have been distorted so as to be reducible to, exploitation only. This reduction has tended create a theoretical polarization between a Marxist emphasis on class, and a post-modernist/post-colonial/critical race theory emphasis on oppression and alienation, though not necessarily under these rubrics or "signifiers", with apparently minimal room for constructive synthesis. An alternative starting point considers the original framework developed by Marx and Engels in the context of its applicability to conditions of contemporary capitalism. Such a framework is grounded in an explanation of three distinct, but related, processes of human suffering: alienation, oppression, and exploitation. 14 "Difference", as well as the potential for solidarity and collective action towards liberation, are elements in each of these processes; but each process operates with its own dynamic, and is manifest in relation to the other processes variably, in historically specific social formations. 15 The dialectic of race and class in capitalist society, and the potential for anti-racist, anticapitalist collective resistance, can be understood, and brought into focus, from such a perspective. Alienation, oppression and exploitation are processes that interact, but they are not the same and they do not operate in the same way. Each form of human suffering offers the vision, the potential, for its opposite, for a conscious movement against alienation, against oppression and against exploitation. But only if there is a challenge, a mass challenge from below, to all of three of these processes can an alternative to the capitalist system be created. In this sense, a Marxist theory of "difference" can be understood to be one that explains three distinct forms through which capitalism organizes socially differentiated experiences. However, none of these processes is linear, nor is any one completely de-linked from the other two. In this discussion, racism is taken as a manifestation of how capitalism is maintained and perpetuated, integrated into

Historical Materialism: Research in Critical Marxist Theory, 2023

The question of capitalism's relationship to issues of race, racism and processes of racialisation has become increasingly prominent in contemporary debates. This special issue of Historical Materialism on 'Race and Capital' seeks to intervene in these debates. In this Introduction, we situate the special issue within this wider political, historical and theoretical context. We begin by reconstructing some of the key tensions and fault lines within contemporary discussions of race and racism, particularly in relation to the Marxist tradition. Against those who claim a primarily oppositional relationship between the Marxist tradition and anti-racist thinking, we chart a historical account of key moments in which Marxist movements and thinkers have attempted to articulate distinctively historical-materialist accounts of race and racism. We then situate the key themes of the special issue-and the various articles that compose the issue-against this background.