Lecture, Workgroup &Literature Notes: Racism in the Western World
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Course
Racism in the Western World (GE2V16006)
Institution
Universiteit Utrecht (UU)
An in-depth compilation of all the course's lectures, workgroup & literature notes. This extensive summary will equip you with all the knowledge you need to succesfully complete the course!
Racism is defined as inherent in culture and social order. It is argued in this study that racism
is more than structure and ideology. As a process it is routinely created and reinforced
through everyday practices.
Everyday racism is racism, but not all racism is everyday racism. The concept of everyday
racism counters the view, prevalent in particular in the Netherlands, that racism is an
individual problem, a question of “to be or not to be a racist.” The crucial criterion
distinguishing racism from everyday racism is that the latter involves only systematic,
recurrent, familiar practices. The fact that it concerns repetitive practices indicates that
everyday racism consists of practices that can be generalised.
Ethnicism is an ideology that explicitly proclaims the existence of “multi ethnic” equality but
implicitly pre- supposes an ethnic or cultural hierarchical order.
Against this background there are four areas of theoretical debate in which this study of
everyday racism must be placed. The first concerns structural approaches to racism and
deals with questions of power and oppression. The second area of debate concerns (Black)
women’s studies and focuses on the impact of gender (and class) on forms and experiences
of racism. The third area is sociological and deals with the meaning of social reality and
relations between macro structures and micro processes. My main concern is not with
metatheoretical models of social practice and the nature of social reality as such but with
the applicability of some of these concepts in a theory of racism. The fourth area follows
from the former and deals with questions of experience and social cognition.
Lecture 1
What is Racism?
- Not always based on skin colour
- Power
Stereotypes get repeated so they become ‘real’.
What about biology?
- ‘Race’ does not exist… but it is a persistent belief.
- ‘Race’ and IQ
- The bell curve: intelligence is inheritable and passed on by different groups (nature);
Murray and Herrnstein
- ‘Race’ and medicine: ‘black’ diseases - people believe black people get certain
diseases, however it has nothing to do with colour.
,What is race?
- Biological races do not exist
- It is cultural.
- Race is a product of culture.
- Culture and ethnicity play a role?
- Modernity plays a role?
Definition of Racism (Fredrickson)
Difference:
An idea of the difference between ‘them’ and ‘us’ that is permanent and unbridgeable.
-Doesn’t mean that there needs to be a formalised definition of racism.
Power:
Those differences are part of racial order (practices, institutions and structures that
establish a permanent group hierarchy).
Culture can be reified and essentialized to the point where it becomes the functional
equivalent of race.
- He has a notion of racism that is focussed on culture.
Definition of racism:
The term racial discrimination shall mean any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference
based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin... United Nations
Racism: based on representation (Miles)…
A particular form of evaluative representation which is a specific instance of a wider
descriptive process of racialisation.. Robert Miles
- Racism is based on purpose.. conscience act of representing others in a certain way.
1. Mediaeval Identities: No nation states, but loyalty to
lords/regions/cities/ethnicity/religion. More fluid than nowadays.
Identities in the middle ages: people get described as barbaric. Culture on the one hand,
blook (family) on the other. Descent groups but also other rivalling categories…
“The Nation” is constituted by: descent, law, language etc..
Middle ages and identity conclusion: Descent plays a role in identity: resulting in malleable
identities, mixed with language, law, costume etc. Open to change.
- Allows biological construct of race.
,2. Mediaeval world views
- Religious maps (Mappa Mundi .. map of the world)
- Jerusalem centred.
Monsters as races - at the end of the map monsters are drawn … (Africa) - race and
geographical location.
3. Religion
- Mostly about Judaism and catholicism.
Violence against Jews.
Religious motivations for violence (crusades, Massacres)
- But also expulsion of Jews from England in 1290.
- Conversion increasingly no longer an escape route..
Increasingly Jewish difference is seen as something inherent (Fredrickson). Jews are
categorised… noses and religion.
- Racialised.
4. Global encounters (...)
In the 16th century, Spain started to colonise the Americans. People start theorising why
Americans look different, what explains these differences...
Explanations for difference with indigenous Americans:
1. Climate theory: people look different because of different climate zones. Skin colour
etc.
2. Polygenesis: different species
3. Not different at all
Bartolomé de Las Casas: considered Americans as the same race. They are not ignorant, or
inhuman. Rather, long before they had heard the word Spaniard they had properly organised
states, wisely ordered by excellent laws, religions and custom.
Standard Spanish rules:
- Conversion
- Death (slavery)
, 5. Blackness and Whiteness in the middle ages
Europe was predominantly white during the middle ages… but is it constitutive of identity?
When did Europens start to categorise themselves as white?
- Firstly, whiteness was defined by eye colour (blue) etc.
A change occurs in the depiction of whiteness halfway the 12th century.
- Increased context with the other side of the world (more black people coming to
Europe).
- Blackness as a result of the curse of ham (justifying slavery).
Early examples of stereotypes. Justifying wars and slavery.
Statues of black people: statue of Saint Maurice: black saint. Not normal at that time.. Black
people were seen as the devil.. curse of god.. etc.
Workgroup 1
No Nazi states in the Middle Ages.
Intersectionality - racism in different areas
Racism and culturalism: isn't discrimination based on culturalism also just racism? Culture is
changeable, but you can still be discriminated against based on culture.
Racism: based on history if you look at: religion, biology and culture: intersectionality.
Double consciousness: used not only her own perspective but also that of another black
woman.
Literature week 2
François Bernier and the Invention of Racial Classification by Siep Stuurman
- It is generally agreed that modern, 'scientific' racialism originated in early- modern Europe.
Aim: In this article, I will examine what was probably the first attempt at a racial
classification of the world's population, framed by the seventeenth-century French traveller,
physician and Gassendist philosopher Francois Bernier.
- According to Bernier there are, among the innumerable differences in the physical
appearance of humans, 'four or five Species or Races of men so notably differing
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