Racism

INTRODUCTION

Racism is a concept that has been relentlessly explored and hypothesised on by many cultural theorists and critics. It is a wide subject area that branches out into many categories in cultural theory such as psychoanalysis, representation, and class among many others. There have been many books and papers written on the subject spanning over the entire topic and the different areas therein, all coming up with various conclusions and theories, be they similar or contradictory. This is because it is an issue that is still not completely understood, and this is partly due to the ever changing nature of racism and race relations. The word race itself has evolved in meaning over time, from being a simple denotation of origin, to a stronger more elaborate meaning after the birth of the civil rights movement, who related race, and more specifically the term racism, to mean racial prejudice and discrimination, as opposed to a simple differentiation of origin or doctrine. Racism also varies across the globe, been dealt with differently and also having varying levels of impact on the different societies it exists in. One could examine racism solely within the confines and context of the United States, and come up with differing attributes than in the United Kingdom for example. Whereas in some countries racism is not an issue that has a lot of attention placed upon it either because it is not considered as much of a problem, or there is no means by which to practice racial discrimination i.e. in a country with no minority population (everyone of the same race more or less) there is no target for racism. But that is if you look at racism in the classic sense of the word where it means discrimination between people of different racial/ethnic backgrounds.

It is these many faces that make the issue so hard to determine with any real basis or accepted theories, because mainly it is viewed in context and in relation to time and place. There is no real middle ground one can go to for the definitive racial theory.

Usually when one hears the term racism or racial and minority discrimination, it is not uncommon for them to think immediately of the Black man and woman. Because it is with them that the subject is most commonly related. Many important figures like Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and Nelson Mandela, as well as organisations like the Black Panthers, were key in creating some of the change in the climate of race relations and how it is viewed today. However it is this perspective of viewing racism that has also come to distort what racism is as a whole, by focusing on specific areas that are not wholly representative. This can be said to be one of the faces of racism.

What I am going to attempt to explore are some of the many guises that racism puts on, and how it has evolved, or not, throughout the years. To look at for example how events from 40 years ago, are still present in today's society. Has Racism really diminished over the years, or is this new face merely a less direct undertaking of the exact same actions that it has come to represent? I shall examine this issue by means of some academic research as well as case studies of actual events, famous and unknown. Of the many questions there are to be asked of Racism, I shall focus on a few and attempt to expand on them with examples and retrospective critical thought on why these questions are important, and how they can help us understand more clearly the issues at hand. Has racism actually changed?

HOW FAR HAVE WE COME?

FROM SLAVERY TO SEGREGATION AND OTHER HAPPENINGS

In the times of slavery, one can say that racism was at its peak. The level of brutality enacted upon other human beings who were of different races and considered less than human, as the 'other', was inhumane at best. The Slave trade of the peoples of India and Africa as well as other countries, sometimes even brokered between people of the same race, was something that created the basis for what racism is today. In some ways you can say that aside from the barbarity of the proceedings been reduced by means of law and new moral standards, the treatment and the climate remains the same to some degree. After the abolition of slavery, the atmosphere was one of disgust of the newly freed slaves by their former masters, who still viewed them as lower beings, and could not fathom the possibility of living with the people whom they had worked above for so long joining them in equal standing in society. There was also the feeling of the slaves, who had no real means by which to properly integrate into society. Scorned by some, and looked upon sympathetically by those who had helped fight for their freedom, it became a multi faced society where more often than not issues tended to be focused on the issue of the minority. This of course led into the era of segregation, which separated the minorities into their own little areas away from what was deemed normal society by law. This did not take place in all societies in the same way, but mainly in the United States, this separation was something that led to a controversy that was ultimately perhaps one of the seminal moments in civil rights history, something that we shall examine more closely in the next chapter. Paul Mason remarked in his book on Race relations about the nature of racial intolerance. "...a people who have marked a minority as a separate people to be despised and hated have opened the way to something which infects the whole of their national life." (Mason 1970:3) This assumption identifies quite clearly, why it is that racism remains in a relatively unchanged state. Because it becomes a part of what the society becomes. A country like America grew with the civil rights movement and discrimination at its core. It is a nation born from war and struggle with other people. From the Indians to the African Americans, psychologically it becomes ingrained in the minds of the people, and this difference is passed on, albeit in differing forms, which give the illusion of change, but simply mask the underlying problem. The evolution is not in the erasure of racism, but in the perspectives of racism as a result of the changing climates that accommodate the different masks that it wears. The United States is a migrant country, populated by foreign settlers all from different parts of the world and different backgrounds. However a country like the United Kingdom was not always as multi-cultural as it is today, and this gives the issue new meaning. The discrimination was not just physical (not just about colour) but also economic and political, which attempted to give a moral justification to the discrimination

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