THE ROOTS OF RACISM

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THE ROOTS OF RACISM

• CONTEMPORARY RACISM A LEGACY OF SLAVERY AND
  COLONIALISM?The central concern of this course
  is to identify exclusionary forces and then to
  identify ways in which they may be negated. This
  essentially means that we need to understand the
  roots and sources of racism(s). Clearly, racism
  and race thinking are closely intertwined. No
  one, (as far as we know), used the term race to
  describe the differences between peoples.
• This only emerged during the eighteenth century

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CONTEMPORARY RACISM A LEGACY OF SLAVERY AND
COLONIALISM?

• European images of the Other have for centuries
  reflected a black-white dualism imbued with
  connotations of evil, barbarism and savagery as
  opposed to purity and civilisation.
• Aime Cesaire in his Discourse on Colonialism,
  talks of the European disease of colonialism.
  Integral to this was the way in which booty
  adventurers, clerics / missionaries and others
  had, prior to the colonial epoch, created a
  Black/White dualism counter-posed with
  barbarism/purity. They returned to Europe with
  tales of savagery and wickedness and a variety of
  theories which purported to explain why these
  peoples were so different from white Europeans.

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RACE THINKING RACISM(S) 1

• Race and the Enlightenment birth of a concept.
• The Enlightenment was a period when the
  scientific approach to making sense of the world
  assumed a hegemonic position. There was a desire
  to seek an understanding of the world (and
  therefore a better means of controlling it) by
  rational thought and the application of
  scientific method. Part of this process of
  ordering the world was the taxonomic quest
  (classify plants and the animal kingdom in a
  global schema).

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RACE THINKING RACISM(S) 2

• Cuvier, in 1805, posited the existence of three
  races, white, yellow and black. What is
  important here, is that he also ranked them. So,
  difference was imbued with an evaluative
  dimension.
• Charles Darwins seminal work, The Origin of
  Species (1859), was to have a fundamental impact
  on the ways in which relations between people
  were viewed.
• The rise of EUGENICS

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RACE THINKING RACISM(S) 3

• Errol Lawrence (1982) sees the history of
  slavery, indenture and colonialism as providing
  if not the roots of racism then certainly much of
  our common sense thinking about race. Here,
  he is not using common sense in the standard,
  lay form.
• In addition to underlining the powerful sexual
  imagery noted by Fryer (1984), the framework he
  provides suggests a way of understanding why
  certain ideas have become grounded into
  contemporary common sense.

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RACE THINKING RACISM(S) 4

• In relation to plantation slavery Fryer,
  cont. 
• Resistance to enslavement in the form of revolt
  or insurrection - seen as evidence of a violent
  nature.
• Other forms of resistance to slavery - as slowing
  down the work rate (i.e. reducing productivity /
  profits), was turned into stereotypes about
  laziness and a laid-back, casual approach to
  life.
• Music and dancing, used as a way of expressing
  dissent as well as releasing frustration and
  anger, were taken as evidence of a
  happy-go-lucky, almost childish nature.

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RACE THINKING RACISM(S) 5

• Applying the scientific method to race
  therefore, came about in four stages
•  
• Races assumed to exist
• They are recognised
• They are described
• Finally, they are systematically classified

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Lawrences commonsense approach

• The most important element of Lawrences essay,
  though, is his analysis of the way in which
  ideologies are formed, take hold and are then
  reproduced over time. He borrows from the work of
  Gramsci in arguing for a dialectical approach.
  Ideas of the other are formed in a particular
  social, economic and historical context,
  crucially borrowing sedimented knowledges from
  earlier periods. They become part of contemporary
  common sense and impact on material reality,
  i.e. they affect the ways (say) slaves are
  characterised, viewed and treated.

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Lawrence (cont.)The social milieu changes both
through the presence of these ideas and the ways
the slaves respond to them, along with other
material shifts in economic and cultural arenas.
This in turn may modify or concretise the
prevailing ideology.A contemporary e.g
Islamaphobia
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Colonialism and racism

• Mauniers says that there are two central
  defining features
• Occupation the fact of, and
• Legislation legal back up for occupation
• He adds that occupation without legislation is
  not colonialism
• Occupation requires the emigration of both
  persons and capital.

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Colonialism and racism

• Without a legislative framework we simply have
  colonies without a flag. Maunier argues that
  the keyword is domination. Where his analysis is
  flawed is when he argues that colonists also
  submit to the will of the metropolis without
  pointing out the essential unity of interest
  between the two
• Domination takes two forms de facto and de
  iure.

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Colonialism and racism

• De facto domination
• The form of domination does not necessary lead to
  colonialism, but may be a precursor to full legal
  domination (cf. India later). Egs US foreign
  policy in Central and Southern America, , Far
  East. The key factors are 
•         Financial Power
•         Industrial Power
•         Religion and Intellectual Influence a
  sort of colonisation of the mind or cultural
  imperialism

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Colonialism and racism

• De iure domination
• This may be absolute or tempered (e.g. the
  French Protectorates). Maunier does acknowledge
  that every form of colonisation is imperialist
  with all that implies.
• Case Studies  1. Often settlement a precursor of
  de iure colonialism, as we have seen. Britains
  role in India. Initially there was a trading
  relationship, via the East India Company. It was
  the ambitions of English politicians such as
  Edmund Burke to use military might in order to
  exploit Indias wealth that led to the sea change
  in attitudes and policies.

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Colonialism and racism

• 2. A highly illuminating account of colonial
  racism is given in Albert Memmis book, The
  Colonizer and the Colonized. Memmi was a Tunisian
  Jew in a society where fellow Jews, he says, were
  natives yet aspired to be French (adopting the
  French language, Italian clothes, European
  manners, etc). He characterises his position as
  in a central, intermediate position in the
  colonial hierarchy between the French colonists
  and the Muslim majority. His overriding
  conclusion is that if colonisation destroys the
  colonised it also rots the coloniser.