racism
1439 Views

GG: n

S: UNICEF – https://bit.ly/2Si2bmI (last access: 8 February 2019); UN – https://bit.ly/2xJOhOs (8 February 2019).

N: 1. racism (n.): 1936; see racist.
racist: 1932 as a noun, 1938 as an adjective, from race (n.2); racism is first attested 1936 (from French racisme, 1935), originally in the context of Nazi theories. But they replaced earlier words, racialism (1871) and racialist (1917), both often used early 20c. in a British or South African context. In the U.S., race hatred, race prejudice had been used, and, especially in 19c. political contexts, negrophobia.
2. racism, also called racialism, any action, practice, or belief that reflects the racial worldview—the ideology that humans are divided into separate and exclusive biological entities called “races,” that there is a causal link between inherited physical traits and traits of personality, intellect, morality, and other cultural behavioral features, and that some races are innately superior to others.
3. In North America and apartheid South Africa, racism dictated that different “races” should be segregated from one another, that they should have their own distinct communities and develop their own institutions such as churches, schools, and hospitals, and that it was unnatural for members of two “separate races” to intermarry.
4. Those who practice racism also hold that only low-status jobs should go to low-status races (African Americans and Indians in North America, blacks and Coloureds in South Africa) and that members of the economically and culturally dominant race alone should have access to privileges, political power, economic resources, high-status jobs, and unrestricted civil rights. The lived experience of racism for members of low-status races can include daily insults and frequent acts and verbal expressions of contempt and disrespect, all of which have profound effects on social relationships.
5. The difference between racism and ethnocentrism: Although they are easily and often confused, race and racism must be distinguished from ethnicity and ethnocentrism. While extreme ethnocentrism may take the same offensive form and may have the same dire consequences as extreme racism, there are significant differences between the two concepts. Ethnicity, which relates to culturally contingent features, characterizes all human groups. It refers to a sense of identity and membership in a group that shares common language, cultural traits (values, beliefs, religion, food habits, customs, etc.), and a sense of a common history. All humans are members of some cultural (ethnic) group, sometimes more than one. Most such groups feel—to varying degrees of intensity—that their way of life, their foods, dress, habits, beliefs, values, and so forth, are superior to those of other groups.
6. Collocations:

  • Adj.: blatant, overt | rampant | institutional, institutionalized.
  • Verb + racism: be a victim of, experience Many immigrants have experienced racism. | combat, fight (against), stamp out.
  • Prep.: against ~ the fight against racism.
  • Phrases: a form of racism.

7. Cultural Interrelation: We can mention, among many others, the book Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) written by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896), the speech I have a dream (1963) by Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), the movies In the Heat of the Night (1967) directed by Norman Jewison, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967) directed by Stanley Kramer, and the Conference on Beyond Racism: Embracing an Interdependent Future (2000) by Nelson Mandela (1918-2013).

S: 1. OED – https://bit.ly/2HYGRO4 (last access: 8 February 2019). 2 to 5. EncBrit – https://bit.ly/2Si41Ul (last access: 8 February 2019). 6. OD – https://bit.ly/2E0VSv4 (last access: 8 February 2019). 7. HBS – https://bit.ly/2I1Dq9o (last access: 29 January 2016); NatArch – https://bit.ly/2fmjJXA (last access: 29 January 2016); RT – https://bit.ly/2HZpSex (last access: 31 January 2016); Filmsite – https://bit.ly/2HYrjKw (last access: 31 January 2016); SouthEdu – https://bit.ly/2BsTE5I (last access: 8 February 2019).

SYN: racialism

S: EncBrit – https://bit.ly/2Si41Ul (last access: 5 September 2014)

CR: aporophobia, race, racial discrimination, racial segregation, slave, slavery, xenophobia.