Racism
Racism is a form of chauvinism which entails the hatred and discrimination of other humans on the basis of perceived race, a pseudo-scientific construct. Racism has been used for centuries by the ruling class to provide the ideological basis for colonialism, slavery, and imperialism of other peoples.[1]
Characteristic of all varieties of racism are false, misanthropic ideas regarding the pre-historic division of people into "higher" and "lower" races. The higher races, which are often alleged to be the sole creators of civilization and destined to rule over the "inferior race". The lower races, which are said to be incapable of creating or even assimilating high culture, are doomed to be the objects of exploitation or even extermination.
Notions concerning the natural inequality of races emerged in slaveholding society, where they served as the justification for the social differences between the slaveholders and the slaves. During the Medieval period, the inequality of the social estates was supported by assertions of “blood” differences between the aristocracy and the common peasants in the feudal system. During the epoch of the primitive accumulation of capital (circa. 16th-18th centuries), when the European states first seized colonies, racism served the goals of inhuman exploitation, and it frequently provided the grounds for exterminating the Indigenous Americans, Africans, and many peoples of southern Asia and Oceania.[2]
See also
References
- ↑ Tim Wise (August 27, 2011). Race, Intelligence and the Limits of Science: Reflections on the Moral Absurdity of “Racial Realism”. www.timwise.org. Retrieved March 16, 2025. Archived from the original.
- ↑ "Racism". Great Soviet Encyclopedia.