Transcript Human beings are inherently racist

Human beings are inherently
racist
The story so far..
Definitions
• Racism (n.) a belief or doctrine that
inherent differences among the various
human races determine cultural or
individual achievement, usually involving
the idea that one’s own race is superior
and has the right to govern others.
Origins
• Racism is first attested 1936 (from the
French racisme 1935), originally in the
context of Nazi theories.
• Racism and Racist replaced earlier words
racialism (1907) and racialist (1917) both
often used in a British or South African
context
What is race is this context?
Suggested were…
• Each of the major subdivisions of
humankind, each having distinctive
physical characteristics
• A tribe or nation
• A genus, species, breed or variety of
animal, plants or micro-organisms
Biological categorisation
The hierarchy of biological classification's
eight major taxonomic ranks, which is an
example of definition by genus and
differentia. A kingdom contains one or more
phyla. Intermediate minor rankings are not
shown.
What are the origins of racism?
The anthropological argument
• Banding together and communicating effectively gives human
beings superiority over other predators
• Banding together requires social cohesion within a group
• Social cohesion may be created by fear of exclusion
• Fear of exclusion is created by: understanding the benefits of
membership of the group; fear of loss of these benefits; fear of ‘the
other’.
• Physical characteristics are the simplest way of identifying ‘the
other’
• We are all descended from the successful early humans who
worked this idea most successfully, therefore we have this capacity
for the ‘fear of the other’ built into our social structures.
• True? ~ or a load of old dingo’s kidneys?
Human beings are inherently
racist
New readers start here..
Back to the notion of race for a
moment
• If we accept that ‘correctly’ race is about
differences in physical characteristics, then what
‘race’ is really is the issue of different ‘breeds’
within the Human Race or Species.
• Proof of this? ~ humans can inter-breed
successfully because they are part of the same
species, in the same way that a Siamese cat can
inter-breed successfully with a ‘moggie’ of
indeterminate breed.
So…?
• ‘Race’ as a type of classification is very
imprecise, even though most people think that it
isn’t.
• A classification system into 5 general groups is
often believed to be generally accepted when it
isn’t
• 1) Mongoloid (Asian and American Indian)
2) Caucasoid (European)
3) Australoid (Australian and oceanic)
4) Negroid (east African black)
5) Capoid (south African black)
Where is the logic?
• Racism, as generally used as a term and a
belief today, suggests that one group of
humans, living in a particular place, are
inherently superior to any other group of
humans living elsewhere because of their
physical characteristics?
• Physical characteristics are a long-term
evolutionary response to the physical
circumstances in which one finds oneself
So if we are not talking about
physical differences confer
superiority what are we talking
about?
• When we use the term ‘race’ are we
really closer to the ‘tribe’ meaning, than
the biological ‘breed’ meaning?
• If so, what do we mean by ‘tribe’?
So, is it all about the family (in the
very widest meaning of the word)?
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Do families have characteristics?
What are those characteristics?
How do those characteristics persist?
How do those characteristics change?
So when we talk about ‘race’ in the
common sense of ‘racism’ should
we really be talking about ethnicity?
• If that is the case then what on Earth does
ethnicity mean?
• Where does your ethnical group come
from?
• What relevance does it have?
Ethnicity ~ a definition of sorts
• (n ) Ethnic group (or ethnicity) is a group of people whose members
identify with each other, through a common heritage, often
consisting of a common language, a common culture (often
including a shared religion) and an ideology that stresses common
ancestry or endogamy (marrying exclusively within a given ethnic
group).
• Members of an ethnic group are conscious of belonging to an ethnic
group
• Ethnic identity is further marked by the recognition from others of a
group's distinctiveness. Processes that result in the emergence of
such identification are called ethnogenesis. (By self-invention, ethnic
groups are "present at their own creation", in the phrase of E. P.
Thompson).