Abstract
This chapter aims to provide discursive insights into the persistence of an age-old scourge that continues to afflict many pluralistic societies across the world, namely racism (and/or its many variants, ranging from ethnocentrism to xenophobia). While the chapter does not aim to generate new theory (or even test hypotheses), methodologically it is informed by (not based on) perspectives and insights from a research methodology that is broadly qualitative (in contrast to quantitative). The fundamental premise of the chapter is that the persistence of racism, despite the ostensible efforts to eradicate it in the name of human rights and democracy, is that it performs specific socio-political and economic functions, thereby assuring its longevity into the present (and into the future).
Regarding this chapter’s division of labor: the first author provided the initial idea and framework, the second author filled the spaces within the framework.
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Notes
- 1.
See, the U.N.’s 1948 “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” (and its associated proclamations, such as UNESCO’s 1978 “Declaration on Race and Racial Prejudice,” and the 2002 “Durban Declaration and Program of Action”), available via the U.N. website.
- 2.
Cambodia is among those relatively unique examples of unimaginable horrors where large-scale mass murder was based on Otherness created out of nothing more than political ideology (neither race nor culture was involved, with the exception of one target group, the Cham Muslims). The Khmer Rouge leftist-fascist “communist” government that perpetrated this atrocity shared the same race and culture as their victims (For more on this atrocity, explore the website at eccc.gov.kh).
- 3.
For a comprehensive work on empires, see Bang et al. (2021).
- 4.
- 5.
- 6.
For sources on race/racism (and its variants), from the perspective of the specific intent of this chapter, see: Cashmore (2008), Goldberg (2002), Goldberg and Solomos (2002), Goulbourne (2001), Haney-López (2006), Leiman (1993), Murji and Solomos (2015), Nederveen (1995), Omi and Winant (2015), Roberts (2011), Smedley and Smedley (2012), Song (2004), and Winant (2001).
- 7.
See Roberts (2011).
- 8.
For an explication of this useful concept as originally conceived, see Omi and Winant (2015).
- 9.
- 10.
- 11.
- 12.
See Rawley (2001) on the fact that, at heart, Lincoln was an American nationalist more than anything else.
- 13.
- 14.
- 15.
- 16.
The estimate used to be that around six million European Jews were murdered during a period of roughly no more than ten years,1933–1945! This is not counting probably an equal number of others; that is, Italians, Poles, Russians, the Roma people, people with disabilities, homosexuals, Germans who opposed the Nazis, and so on. New research, however, suggests that the numbers of Jews murdered were most likely much, much higher—possibly, ten million or more! (Lichtblau, 2013)
- 17.
The term “thug” is used throughout this chapter to signify persons who combine the attributes of (a) calculated evilness in the massive violations of the human rights of other human beings—ranging from imprisonment without trial to torture and murder on a large scale—together with (b) gangsters pursuing self-aggrandizement, which in terms of this chapter, is the kleptocratic pursuit (involving violence if necessary) of political and economic self-aggrandizement for themselves and the ruling elites they represent. In other words, these are people who would be found guilty in a heartbeat if it was possible to haul them before the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Incidentally, this word originates from the Hindi word thag (a rogue and a cheat) and it referred to, supposedly, gangs of professional murderers and robbers in the nineteenth century in India.
- 18.
- 19.
About 80% of the Indian population are Hindus, while approximately 14% are Muslims, and 2% are Christians.
- 20.
See, Jaffrelot (2021), New York Times (2020), and Sud (2022). For sources on the permanent regime of massive human rights violations that has developed under Modi’s Sangh Parivar government, see the annual reports of human rights of organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Minority Rights Group International available, via their websites. The annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices produced by the U.S. State Department are also relevant.
- 21.
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- 23.
- 24.
Exactly how does race-as-class interact with the overall process of accumulation that in the last instance is the driving force of all capitalist societies? Very briefly: to take the example of the USA, it has to do with the notion of “whiteness” (see below) within the working classes of European ancestry that serves as an ideological vehicle for the subjectification of their objective interests and the objectification of their subjective interests in the domain of class relations, which serves to benefit the interests of capital. However, it must be emphasized that whiteness performs a contradictory role in a capitalist society such as the U.S. It is, at once, a source of privilege, and a source of oppression for the working classes of European ancestry; similarly, for capital, whiteness serves to undermine accumulation at the level of individual capitalist firms, as well as enhance it at the level of the system as a whole.
- 25.
- 26.
See sources mentioned earlier in the section on Materialist Beginnings above.
- 27.
- 28.
While there are many sources on whiteness, especially in relation to the USA, this seminal work will suffice: Delgado and Stefancic (1997).
- 29.
See Mayer and Abramson (1994), and Robin (2020). While the latter persuasively provides insights into Thomas’s judicial thinking and argues that it has been consistent and possesses its own internal logic, it does not take away one iota from the fact that it is not only bizarre and dangerous extremist thinking from the perspective of democracy, but Thomas’s role on the Court, especially in the Court’s 5–4 conservative majority decisions where he has been the swing vote, has done great long-term damage to the cause of civil rights, human rights, and democracy in the USA, given the immense constitutional power of the Court. Moreover, against the backdrop of the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court has over time evolved to become what is today, primarily a political institution more so than a judicial institution pursuing justice, Thomas’s support of Donald Trump’s policies and his marriage to an extreme right-wing conservative activist who is regularly in cahoots with neo-fascists speaks volumes for his judicial politics (see, Mayer, 2022, and Hakim & Becker, 2022).
- 30.
Critical Race Theory, as the name suggests, is the application of the well-known sociological concept of “critical theory” (the idea that the fundamental basis of all critiques of social injustice must be rooted, above all else, in the critique of ideologies of oppression) to the study of race in the USA. (For more on this theory see the seminal work by Delgado & Stefancic, 2013.)
- 31.
The theory behind intersectionality was first articulated by the African American legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989).
- 32.
Classism refers to discrimination that is akin to racism but instead of skin color, the avenue of discrimination is class as determined by economically-rooted power relations characteristic of capitalist societies.
- 33.
- 34.
- 35.
See, Williamson (2022).
- 36.
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Akande, A., Lulat, Y.GM. (2022). Introduction. In: Akande, A. (eds) Handbook of Racism, Xenophobia, and Populism. Springer Handbooks of Political Science and International Relations. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13559-0_1
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