The current conflict in Northern Ireland is a complexity of religious, political and emotional issues. Like conflicts in the Middle East and the Balkans, the violence on each side is fueled by bitterness over violence by the other. The root of the conflict goes back to the days of English oppression of the native Irish -- institutionalized racism.
The intolerance of Serbs toward Albanians in the Balkans made world headlines. Less dramatically publicized is long-standing racist treatment of the Roma (gypsies) in the Balkans, and elsewhere in Europe. In the Holocaust of Germany's Final Solution during the Second World War, Roma was targeted for extermination as viciously as Jews.
Throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, the descendants of the "conquering" empires -- Portugal and Spain -- rank higher socially and economically than descendants of the indigenous peoples. Latin America also has its own share of racism toward Blacks. Patterns of racism change over time. In the early days of the U.S., Irish immigrants were heavily discriminated against. Both World Wars heightened racism toward "Krauts" in the U.S.; and World War II saw internment of Japanese-American citizens by the U.S. government. Tibetan exiles fleeing the racism of the Chinese invading Tibet found racist treatment in many host countries, too.
Beyond these historical determinant factors that help us understand racism and its negative impact on human society as a whole, for racism to succeed, grow and thrive, there must four essential elements.
1. The belief in separate, definable and recognizable "races."
2. The belief that one "race" is superior to others.
3. Possession of power by the "superior race" to act against "inferior races" without effective defense or redress.
4. Action that is both arbitrary and harmful.
Let us look at all the four elements in the context of the United States of the America.
- The belief in separate, definable and recognizable "races." There is the continued boast of "US exceptionalism" that is echoed all over the 2012 US presidential campaign by Republicans of all stripes and colors. In fact, President Obama has been accused of not recognizing the so-called uniqueness and exceptionalism of the United States. And if patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels then the present "patriotic" Republican field's insensitivity towards "others" and their warped belief that Americans -- particularly white Americans -- are exceptional, definable and recognizable when compared to other "inferior, non-exceptional" races is more than thinly disguised racism.
- The belief that one "race" is superior to others. President Obama, despite his impressive academic and intellectual credentials, is still considered to be "lazy, inefficient and incapable of leading this great nation." In barely disguised racism GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich called the president "a welfare president" obliquely insinuating that welfare is "a Black thing." This "white entitlement" syndrome -- especially when it comes to occupying the White House -- is at the very core of this brand of intellectual racism. Gingrich's 21st century version of the "lazy, shiftless Negro" and an ingrained is a subconscious reflex action of white people towards Blacks no matter how accomplished or scholarly. It boils down to this: the worst white man (woman) is better than the best Black man or woman.
- Possession of power by the "superior race" to act against "inferior races" without effective defense or redress. Today in American whites control political, economic and legislative powers. Reams have been written about how there are two standards of justice -- one for whites and the other, punitive, unfair and unjust for Blacks. This "possession of power" by whites has undisputedly been used to oppress Blacks and to prevent them from bettering their lot. Today, one has only to look at the sorry state of the inner cities, the ghettoization of entire communities of Black people, and the devastating effects of the recession to understand this point.
- Action that is both arbitrary and harmful. Police brutality that is disproportionately dished out to Black people, the harassment from cops for DWB -- Driving While Black, last to be hired and first to be fired, passed over for promotion in corporate America, treated as second and third class citizens by social organizations, redlined by banks and seen as the lowest of the low by uncaring white people in power all substantiate the fact of the powerless of Black people and the arbitrary and harmful policies by whites.
So essentially we can definite racism as "prejudice or discrimination by one group toward others perceived as a different 'race', plus the power to enforce it."
Finally, let us look to American history for some irrefutable facts. Representative John L. Dawson, a member of Congress after the American Civil War, insisted that racial prejudice was "implanted by Providence for wise purposes." Senator James Doolittle of Wisconsin, a contemporary of Dawson's, claimed that an "instinct of our nature" impelled us to sort people into racial categories and to recognize the natural supremacy of whites when compared to people with darker skins. More than a century later, Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray produced The Bell Curve, an 800-page statistics-laden tome that purported to prove innate racial differences in intelligence. Today's racists might don the mantel of science to justify their prejudices, but they are no less crude or mistaken then their 19th century forebears.
The "natural" outgrowth of racism into racial segregation policies is often exerted without being legalized. Researchers, including Dean Karlan and Marianne Bertrand, at the MIT and the University of Chicago found in a 2003 study that there was widespread discrimination in the workplace against job applicants whose names were merely perceived as "sounding black". These applicants were 50% less likely than candidates perceived as having "white-sounding names" to receive callbacks for interviews.
In contrast, institutions and courts have upheld discrimination against whites when it is done to promote a diverse work or educational environment, even when it was shown to be to the detriment of qualified applicants. The researchers view these results as strong evidence of unconscious biases rooted in the United States ' long history of discrimination (i.e. Jim Crow laws , etc.).
[Next week: Why Racism Is So Pervasive In the United States]
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