Racism

Racism or racist is a term usually only used by critics of others. Official definitions often state that the term should only be applied to the belief that some races are superior and to negative actions due to this. In practice, the term is often applied as a form of ad hominem against anyone who believes in the existence of races and even on persons only advocating restricting immigration, persons only criticizing another culture or multiculturalism, persons only supporting their own country/ethnicity, and so on. The British Bember of Parliament and sometime Cabinet Minister, Enoch Powell stated:

"Racist is a modern term of abuse".

Etymology

The Oxford English Dictionary states that the first English use of the word racism occurred in 1902. The word at this early time did not necessarily have the same meaning or frequent usage as today. Starting the in the 1920s, it was used as a derogatory and misleading translation of the "untranslatable" German term völkische. The German language, especially at this time, makes a distinction between Völk ("People") and Rasse ("Race"). The word was later applied to claimed National Socialist racial ideology and policies. The 1938 English translation of the book Racism, by the Jewish sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld (who was also an early proponent of the sexual revolution), used the word in a sense similar to the modern one and may have contributed to this usage of the word becoming widespread.

The term racism "replaced earlier words, racialism (1871) and racialist (1917), both often used in the early 20th century in a British or South African context. In the U.S.A, race hatred, race prejudice had been used, and, especially in 19th century political contexts, negrophobia." Today, the term racialism instead has a meaning similar to race realism.

Terms used by individuals/organizations in order to describe themselves

Individuals/organizations supporting the existence of races may use terms such as race realism or racialism.

Individuals/organizations supporting their own group may use terms such as patriotism, nationalism (and derivatives such as national socialism), identitarianism, pro-[name of own group], etc. This does not necessarily mean considering this group to be a race. On the contrary, officially sanctioned patriotism in multiracial countries typically explicitly rejects links to race. Neither does it necessarily mean considering this group to be superior to other groups, anymore than an individual supporting the individual's own family necessarily considers this family to be superior to other families.

Segregation

It is possible to advocate for racial segregation despite not seeing any group as superior and instead argue that racial segregation would be beneficial for all groups, due to factors such as problems caused ethnic heterogeneity and mixed race groups having problems due to genetic outbreeding depression and psychological issues caused by identity issues.

Racial segregation was regarded as normal in many states in the United States until the 1960s Left-wing social revolutions, and also in South Africa where the government felt it beneficial. In the colonies of the British Empire racial segregation was widespread, notably in India where the British lived in segregated districts. Until March 1966 Australia enforced a national 'White Australia' policy, which excluded non-Europeans from the country. Also, until relatively recently, Australian Aborigines lived in special reservations and in many country towns were forbidden to enter hotels and public toilets.

Regardless of this, segregation is today often viewed as a form of racism.

Two sides

Descriptions of argued racism tend to be completely one-sided where the argued racist offender is depicted as acting out of innate evilness and unexplained spite and the argued victim is depicted as completely blameless with no responsibility for the events. In reality, the circumstances, interactions, and/or motives of the two sides may be more complex. For example, some cases of anti-Semitism have been argued to have developed as responses to intense resource competition between Jews and non-Jews (see the Jewish group evolutionary strategy).

Double standard

Pro-White or pro-European organizations are often more or less automatically accused of racism and they have little influence. They are often given labels such as "White supremacist and/or "hate group".

In contrast, applying a double standard, accusations of racism are much rarer against, for example, pro-Black or pro-Jewish organizations, which openly and extensively lobby for the self-interests of their own group.

Affirmative action, hate crime, hate speech laws

Laws regarding affirmative action, hate crime, and hate speech give special legal privileges to certain groups, but not to other groups, creating legal inequalities, and with which groups are given these special legal privileges varying greatly between different countries. Such laws may be considered to apply a double standard, be discriminatory, and/or be racist.

Colorism

There are several kinds of empirical evidence against "colorism" (skin color differences as the cause of group differences due to factors such as racism). For example, darker skin color not being associated with more negative outcomes after controlling for IQ differences.

Racist countries and groups

The World Value Survey has asked people in more than 80 different countries to identify the kinds of people they would not want as neighbors. Some respondents, picking from a list, chose "people of a different race." The frequency of picking this has been argued to be an indicator of the degree of racism in a country. White countries were generally among the least racist according to this measurement.

White countries had the most positive views on homosexuality in a 2013 survey.

A 2013 US survey found that both Blacks and Whites thought that Blacks were the most racist group.

A 2011 study found that both White and Blacks in the US agreed that anti-Black racism had decreased over the last 60 years. However, Whites believed that anti-White racism had increased and had become a bigger problem than anti-Black racism. Also Blacks believed that anti-White racism had increased.

A 2012 survey in France found 56% thought that anti-White racism was increasing in areas in the large cities.

A 2012 study found that almost one in three (29%) of Whites in Britain said they now expected to be treated worse than other races by key public services, including the police, prisons, courts, Crown Prosecution service, probation service, local housing organizations, schools or GPs. Council housing departments or housing associations were identified as the most likely to discriminate against Whites. Increasing numbers of Whites also stated they had failed to win promotion because of their race and been turned down for a job for the same reason. Whites were also more likely than those from ethnic minorities to believe that racial prejudice and discrimination was getting worse and such views were increasing in prevalence. Whites also felt less able than other ethnic groups to influence decisions affecting their local area and the country as a whole.

A 2017 survey found that 55 percent of Whites stated that there is discrimination against Whites in America today. Lower- and moderate-income White Americans were more likely to state that Whites are discriminated against — and to state that they have felt it, either when applying for a job, raise or promotion or in the college-admissions process.

A 2018 study stated that "This study reports results from a new analysis of 17 survey experiment studies that permitted assessment of racial discrimination, drawn from the archives of the Time-sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences. For White participants (n=10 435), pooled results did not detect a net discrimination for or against White targets, but, for Black participants (n=2781), pooled results indicated the presence of a small-to-moderate net discrimination in favor of Black targets [...] given that some of the studies have never been fully reported on in a journal or academic book, the results also suggest the need for preregistration to reduce or eliminate publication bias in racial discrimination studies."

Persecutions of albinos

In some African countries, albinos are extensively persecuted due to their white skin color.

Hate crime

See the Hate crime article regarding statistics showing Whites having a disproportionate risk of being the victims of hate and interracial crimes.

Also, as noted there, some hate crimes are fabricated. This likely also applies to accusations of racism in general.

South Africa and Zimbabwe

See Kill the Boer, South African farm attacks, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

Slavery, colonialism, eugenics, social Darwinism, subhumans, and master race

Racism has been argued to be an important aspect of topics such as slavery, colonialism, eugenics, social Darwinism, subhumans, and master race. There are various less politically correct views on these topics and their argued associations with racism. See the articles on these topics.

IQ and "prejudice"

Prejudice has sometimes been claimed to be associated with low IQ, such as in an often cited 2012 study. The study has been criticized for a variety of different reasons and has been described as "a textbook example of confused data, unrecognized bias, and ignorance of statistics" and "competition for the worst use of statistics in an original paper."

A 2016 study argued that smart people are not less racist, but simply better at concealing this.

A 2006 study found that the greater the education of White parents, the more likely they will remove their children from public schools as the percentage of Black students increases. More-educated Whites also lived in more White neighborhoods than less-educated Whites.

See also Political correctness: IQ and political correctness.

"Scientific racism"

"Scientific racism" is supposed to be "the use of scientific techniques and hypotheses to support or justify the belief in racism, racial inferiority, or racial superiority, or alternatively the practice of classifying individuals of different phenotypes into discrete races".

The term can be seen as a form of ad hominem against politically incorrect group statistics or politically incorrect race research results that are often simply branded as "racism" rather than being answered with factual arguments.

Race research and the origin of racism

It has sometimes been argued that race and racism did not exist before scientists started studying race. Thus, they would be recent social constructs. Regarding the early history of the concept of race, see the race article. Regarding racism, this has been argued to have existed in numerous early cultures and long before scientists started studying race. Some early examples of views and actions that today would be considered racism can be found in the Jewish Bible and in the Indian Vedas (which according the Aryan invasion theory describe the conquest of Northern India by a race with a lighter skin color and that caused the development of the partially racially based Indian caste system).

The religiously based "curse of Ham", used as a justification for slavery of and/or racism against Blacks, existed in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim sources long before any scientific study of race.

One argument against racism existing in Ancient Greece/Ancient Rome is the absence of Greek/Latin words corresponding to negative English words such as "racism" and "prejudice". This has however been explained as there simply being no opposition in antiquity to well-documented "racist" views, such that different races have different physical and mental characteristics or that one important explanation for the argued positive characteristics and historical successes of the Greeks, the Romans, and the Germans was that these groups had previously avoided race mixing.

As discussed in the Race article, the predominant stated view of early scientific race taxonomists was that the observed race differences were completely due to environmental differences. This makes it more difficult to claim that such race classification in itself would have caused the creation of racism.

The introduction of the scientific study of race, race differences being viewed as partially caused by hereditary differences, and the discovery of natural selection and evolution were not accompanied by an increase in slavery. On the contrary, they occurred at the same time as Whites abolished slavery throughout the whole world.

Also regarding racial theories and justification of slavery, European authorities rejected both "pre-Adamite" Amerindian theories and polygenism racial theories, instead supporting common creation and descent, the worst alternative if trying to find a justification for slavery.

Regarding why racism exists and existed long before any race research, theories related to racial genetic interests provide possible genetic explanations for racism or at least for why individuals typically consider their own ethnicity/race to be more important than other ethnicities/races. An implication of the related genetic similarity theory is that humans will feel closer and have more altruism towards genetically similar persons, regardless of if races exist or not.

See also Racial genetic interests: Race and perception on various kinds of research on differences regarding perception, empathy, and preference for other individuals, depending on if they are of the same race or not, even in infants.

Race research is in itself a describing science and not a political ideology advocating a particular kind of desirable society. This also applies to explanations for race differences using arguments from evolutionary psychology and sociobiology. If researchers argue that certain evolutionary processes have caused race differences, then this does not imply that such processes are necessarily desirable or necessarily advocated by race researchers as models for how human society should be. For example, that certain infectious diseases have been argued to have caused certain race differences does not imply that these infectious diseases are seen as desirable or advocated.

Race research results can be politically interpreted in various ways. Thus, research stating average IQ differences does not imply that the higher IQ groups have a moral right to exploit the lower IQ groups, but may be interpreted, for example, as the higher IQ groups having a moral obligation to help the lower IQ groups or be interpreted as not implying anything morally. Taking a non-race example, being very wealthy gives power and influence, but is usually not seen as implying a moral right to use this in order to exploit poor individuals.

It has furthermore been disputed that a lower achieving group gains from denying or concealing real biological differences. An increasingly complex society built on the assumption that everyone can do equally well means that they who do not have this ability have increasing trouble functioning in most areas of life. They need various forms of special assistance that is not possible as long as the need is denied to exist.

Instead of lessening groups conflicts, it has been argued that denying real biological differences may cause people to seek something to blame, causing hostility between groups. In the US, examples being the views that Whites are racist or Blacks are lazy. Very large groups conflicts and group killings occurred in the Communist states that denied genetic explanations for group differences and instead blamed class exploitation.

Other possible negative effects for individuals and societies from censoring/ignoring race research due to fear of racism include being unaware of research on, for example, ethnic heterogeneity and outbreeding depression.

Several IQ researchers have expressed very pessimistic views regarding the future of Western civilization, in part due to political correctness regarding race differences. See Dysgenics: Pessimism regarding the future of Western civilization.

Regarding race and intelligence specifically, there are also many other arguments against equating a partially genetic explanation with racism, see the linked article.

See also

• Cultural racism
• Environmental racism
• Hate group
• Human biodiversity
• Reverse racism
• White guilt
• White privilege
• Racial awareness

Supremacism

• Supremacism
  • Black supremacism
  • Islamist supremacism
  • Jewish supremacism
  • Leftist supremacism
  • White supremacism

External links

• The Fallacy of Equating the Hereditarian Hypothesis with Racism
• Neo-Racism vs. Palaeoracism