Racialism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Racialism is an emphasis on race or racial considerations.^[1]

Sometimes the term racialism refers to the belief in the existence and significance of racial categories. In racial separatist ideologies, the term is used to emphasise perceived social and cultural differences among races. Although the term is sometimes used in contrast to racism, it can also be used synonymously with racism. Racialists often cite controversial academic works such as Race, Evolution and Behavior by J. Philippe Rushton, IQ and the Wealth of Nations by Richard Lynn, and The Bell Curve by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray.^[2]

Contents 1 Distinguishing from racism 2 Advocates of racialism 3 Racialist perspective today 4 See also 5 External links 6 References 7 Further reading

[edit] Distinguishing from racism

While the term racism often refers to individual attitudes and institutional discrimination, racialism usually implies the existence of a social or political movement that promotes a theory of racism. Supporters of racialism claim that racism implies racial supremacism and a harmful intent, whereas racialism indicates a strong interest in matters of race without these connotations. They say their focus is on racial pride, identity politics, or racial segregation. Organisations such as the NAAWP insist on these distinctions, and claim that they vehemently oppose state sponsored racism.

The relationship between the two concepts is expressed at length by Kwame Anthony Appiah in his book In My Father's House (1992):

...the view – which I shall call racialism – that there are heritable characteristics, possessed by members of our species, which allow us to divide them into a small set of races, in such a way that all the members of these races share certain traits and tendencies with each other that they do not share with members of any other race.

Pierre-André Taguieff (1987) has used the word racialism as a perfect synonym of scientific racism, to distinguish it from popular racism. He argues that racialism is racism which claims to be scientifically founded. Arthur Gobineau's An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races (1853-55) is an example of such racialism. Human zoos have been an important component of both popular racism and racialism. It popularized colonialism to the masses and was a subject of curiosity for anthropology and anthropometric studies, until at least the 1930s.

W.E.B. DuBois argues that racialism is the philosophical belief that differences between the races exist, be they biological, social, psychological, or in the realm of the soul. He argues that racism is using this belief to push forward the argument that one's particular race is superior to the others. Kwame Anthony Appiah summarises Dubois' position in his book In My Father's House, chapter 3. Molefi Kete Asante criticises DuBois for this racialism in "The Afrocentric Idea".

The field of whiteness studies examines the idea that race is a category that only applies to groups that are perceived to be different in some way. This area of scholarship scrutinizes the ways in which white people have become the standard against which all races are marked.

[edit] Advocates of racialism

Nazi Germany had a racalist policy with its concept of "Großdeutschland" (Greater Germany), alongside anti-Semitism and anti-Communism. Malaysia promoted racialism with its policy of "Ketuanan Melayu" (Malay Supremacy), alongside its concept of Bumiputra (Sons of the Soil). In the United States in the 2000s, the term racialism has been appropriated by white separatist and white supremacist groups such as Christian Identity, Aryan Nations, the American Nazi Party, and White Aryan Resistance.^{[3] [4] [5] [6]} Some consider the United States-based group Nation of Islam to be racialist.

[edit] Racialist perspective today

Main articles: Craniofacial anthropometry and Genetic views on race

In the mid-20th century, support for racialism declined among anthropologists. However, after Darwin hypothesized evolution, some anthropologists applied the concept to humans, considering some people to be more evolved than others.^[7] Scientific support for the Caucasoid, Negroid, Mongoloid terminology has fallen steadily over the past century. Whereas 78 percent of the articles in the 1931 volume of Journal of Physical Anthropology employed these or similar terms, only 36 percent did so in 1965, and just 28 percent did in 1996.^[8] In February 2001, the editors of the medical journal Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine asked authors to no longer use "race" as explanatory variable, nor to use obsolescent terms. Other peer-reviewed journals, such as the New England Journal of Medicine and the American Journal of Public Health, have done the same.^[9] The National Institutes of Health issued a program announcement for grant applications through February 1, 2006, specifically seeking researchers to investigate and publicize the detrimental effects of using racial classifications within the healthcare field. The program announcement quoted the editors of one journal as saying that, "analysis by race and ethnicity has become an analytical knee-jerk reflex.^[10]

Racialist vocabulary with inconsistent definitions is still used in medicine to a small extent, even when it has vanished from some census agencies and everyday speech.^{[11] [12] [11] [13]} Genetics has renewed racialist perspectives, combining with the racialist perspectives of craniofacial anthrometry^[14] Racialism in genetics is criticized as being subjective and otherwise inappropriate.^{[15] [16]}

[edit] See also

• Black power
• Black pride
• Coolitude
• Racial hygiene
• Tribalism
• Multiculturalism
• Scientific racism
• Societalism
• Xenophobia
• White power
• White pride

[edit] External links

• John Henrik Clarke - Race: An Evolving Issue in Western Social Thought

[edit] References

1. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed., s.v. "Racialism."
2. ^ The Impact of National IQ on Income and Growth: A Critique of Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen's Recent Book by Thomas Volken
3. ^ Militias march on, retrieved August 18, 2005.
4. ^ Approving uses of the term were found on Aryan Nations website, retrieved August 18, 2005.
5. ^ Approving uses of the term were found on American Nazi party website, retrieved August 18, 2005.
6. ^ Approving uses of the term were found on White Aryan Resistance website, retrieved August 18, 2005.
7. ^ [1]
8. ^ Leonard Lieberman, Rodney C. Kirk, and Alice Littlefield, "Perishing Paradigm: Race—1931-99," American Anthropologist 105, no. 1 (2003): 110-13. A following article in the same issue, by Mat Cartmill and Kaye Brown, questions the precise rate of decline, but agrees that the Negroid/Caucasoid/Mongoloid paradigm has fallen into near-total disfavor.
9. ^ Frederick P. Rivara and Laurence Finberg, "Use of the Terms Race and Ethnicity," Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine 155, no. 2 (2001): 119. For similar author's guidelines, see Robert S. Schwartz, "Racial Profiling in Medical Research," The New England Journal of Medicine, 344 (no, 18, May 3, 2001); M.T. Fullilove, "Abandoning 'Race' as a Variable in Public Health Research: An Idea Whose Time has Come," American Journal of Public Health 88 (1998): 1297-1298; and R. Bhopal and L. Donaldson, "White, European, Western, Caucasian, or What? Inappropriate Labeling in Research on Race, Ethnicity, and Health." American Journal of Public Health 88 (1998): 1303-1307.
10. ^ See program announcement and requests for grant applications at http://grants1.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-03-057.html.
11. ^ ^{a b} P.J. Aspinall, "Collective Terminology to Describe the Minority Ethnic Population: The Persistence of Confusion and Ambiguity in Usage," Sociology 36, no. 4: 804.
12. ^ M.A. Winker, "Measuring Race and Ethnicity: Why and How?," The Journal of the American Medical Association 292, no. 13 (2004): 1612-14.
13. ^ John Relethford, The Human Species: An introduction to Biological Anthropology, 5th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003), 126.
14. ^ R.S. Cooper, "Race and IQ: Molecular Genetics as Deus ex Machina," American Psychologist 60, no. 1 (2005): 71-76.
15. ^ James F. Wilson et al., "Population genetic structure of variable drug response," Nature Genetics 29 (2001): 265-269.
16. ^ R. Bhopal et al., "Editors' practice and views on terminology in ethnicity and health research," Ethnicity & Health 2, no. 3 (1997): 223-27.

[edit] Further reading

• The African National Congress and the policy of non-Racialism: A study of the membership issues (South African Journal of Political Studies, 2002).

• Appiah, Kwame Anthony. In My Father's House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture. 1993. ISBN 0-19-506852-1.

• Arter, David. "Black Faces in the Blond Crowd: Populist Racialism in Scandinavia", Parliamentary Affairs 45, no. 3 (1992): 357-372.

• Asante, Molefi Kete. The Afrocentric Idea. 1998. ISBN 1-56639-595-X.

• Dobratz, Betty A. "White Power, White Pride!": The White Separatist Movement in the United States. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1997.

• Kane, John. "Racialism and Democracy: The Legacy of White Australia." In The Politics of Identity in Australia, ed. Geoffrey Stokes, 117-131. Cambridge, UK: Cambrdige University Press, 1997. ISBN 052158356X.

• Kennedy, Paul and Nicholls Anthony, eds. Nationalist and racialist movements in Britain and Germany before 1914. Saint Antony's College Press, 1981.

• Lee, Woojin and Roemer, John. Electoral Consequences of Racialism for Redistribution in the United States: 1972-1992 (California Institute of Technology, Division of the Humanities and social Sciences, 2002).

• Melvern, Linda. Conspiracy to Murder: The Rwanda Genocide. London: Verso, 2004.

• Odocha, O. Race and racialism in scientific research and publication in the Journal of the National Medical Association. (National Library of Medicine, 2000).

• Racial Identity, the Apartheid State, and the Limits of Political Mobilization and Democratic Reform in South Africa: The Case of the University of the Western (Teachers College, Columbia University, 2003).

• Sanneh, Kelefa "After the Beginning Again: The Afrocentric Ordeal." Transition 10, no. 3 (2001): 66-89.

• Snyder, Louis L. The Idea of Racialism: Meaning and History. Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1962.

• Taylor, Paul C. "Appiah's Uncompleted Argument: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Reality of Race." Social Theory and Practice 26, no. 1 (2000): 103-128.

• Thompson, Walter Thomas. James Anthony Froude on Nation and Empire: A Study in Victorian Racialism. London: Taylor & Francis, 1998.

• UNESCO General Conference. Declaration of Fundamental Principles concerning the Contribution of the Mass Media to Strengthening Peace and International Understanding, to the Promotion of Human Rights and to Countering Racialism, Apartheid and Incitement to War (University of Hawaii, 1978).

• Reggie White's Speech before the Wisconsin State Assembly (click 778)

• Zubaida, Sami, ed. Race and Racialism. London: Tavistock, 1970.