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This is the first of two-parts on Racism. DEFINING RACISM Racism is any action, practice, or belief that reflects the racial worldview. (Britannica 2003 Reference Suite) The racial worldview is based on these presuppositions.
“I am not nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way, the social and political equality of the white and black races -- that I am not, nor have ever been in favor of making voters of the Negroes, or jurors, or qualifying them to hold office, or having them marry with white people.” (Racism, http://www.friesian.com/racism.htm)(It is unfair to judge a historical person with the same standards of our day. Lincoln was a good man who believed deeply that slavery was evil and a sin against God. But he was also a product of the worldview of his age.)
Racism is expressed individually through the thoughts, feelings, and actions of individuals in a society, and institutionally through organizations, programs, and governmental policy. Ridicule, abuse, property damage, harassment, propaganda, and physical assault are examples of individual racism. Apartheid and the Jim Crow laws are examples of institutional racism. A BRIEF HISTORY OF RACISM Racism is not a new phenomenon. The Greek philosopher Plato advocated a form of eugenics in the Republic. Eugenics is the study of hereditary improvement of the human race by controlled selective breeding. (American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition 1992) “It is important that the master class should feel as one superior master race. ‘The race of the guardians must be kept pure,’ says Plato (in defense of infanticide), ‘when developing the racialist argument that we breed animals with great care while neglecting our own race.’” (Karl R. Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol I The Spell of Plato, p. 51) “In Plato’s Utopia, there are legal, in fact compulsory, infanticide and abortion; there are marriage festivals with unlimited opportunities for copulation for those men who have distinguished themselves in war; and there are faked lotteries to quiet the resentment of the majority not selected for breeding. Plato, like all eugenicists from his day to ours, faced the perpetual question: What qualities shall we breed for? The ancient politics answered it by taking their cue direct from nature. In nature the strongest, the fittest, the most cunning survive.” (www.mega.nu:8080/ampp/racism.html)The Romans’ moral justification of slavery was based on their view of the inherent inferiority of certain people groups. “Aristotle contended that slavery was both natural and just, because some human beings were so shaped by nature that they lacked some of the essential qualities of fully-fledged men.” “If an essential difference, mentally and physically, between free men and slaves could be demonstrated, it was easier to claim that their difference in status was justified and reasonable. If there was no essential difference, slavery was harder to justify, for it would depend only on brute force. They were therefore fit only to serve as instruments for those who had all those qualities.” (Benjamin Isaac, Slavery and Proto-racism in Graeco-Roman Antiquity, November 7-8, 2003, Yale University)The seeds of anti-Semitism were sown early in the Church and Christian state, and the medieval Church at times enacted specific legislation to attack the Jews. Racism was one of the ideological underpinnings of the European colonial advancement of the 15th through the 19th centuries. The prevailing idea among Europeans during the Colonial Age was that whites were superior in every way to non-whites. This idea is present in Rudyard Kipling’s poem The White Man’s Burden: Take up the White Man's burden,Social Darwinism applied the theories of biological evolution to human populations. Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), an early advocate of Social Darwinism, argued that human progress resulted from the triumph of more advanced races over their inferior competitors. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, social Darwinism was used to justify racist policies. (Microsoft Encarta Reference Library 2002) Social Darwinism, the logical result of Darwin’s theories, was even implied in the title of his most famous work. The full title of The Origin of Species is The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, Or, The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. The American Eugenics movement (est. 1926) supported the proposition that human behavior resulted from genetic makeup. They supported passing antimiscegenation laws (Miscegenation is cohabitation or marriage involving persons of different ethicities), curtailing immigration from countries considered to harbor weaker genetic material, employing forced sterilization, and supporting mercy killings. In 1927, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes (Buck v. Bell) authorized the sterilization of a Virginia woman on the grounds that “three generations of imbeciles” was enough. This led to thousands of forced sterilizations across the country. Indiana passed a law in 1907 [not repealed until 1931] that required sterilization for prisoners who were “insane, idiotic, imbecilic, feebleminded or who were convicted rapists.” Twenty-three states followed suit. Isolated instances of involuntary sterilization continued into the 1970s. Their understanding of the principles of genetic inheritance led eugenicists to conclude that genetically defective members of society – including the “feeble-minded,” criminals, the sexually wanton, epileptics, the insane, and non-white races – were rapidly out-reproducing the “normal” members of society at an alarming rate, passing on their “deleterious” genes at the expense of the “normal.” The social cost of such a situation, they feared, would be devastating. (Promoting Eugenics in America, American Philosophical Society)Neo-Nazism, fascism, white supremacy, ethnic cleansing, the caste system, apartheid, and Jim Crow laws are more examples of the history (and development) of racism in the world. Part two continues next week. ROAD NOT TAKEN by Robert Frost Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I marked the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. |
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Everyone has a talent. Everyone has a super power. Everyone can do something with near-perfect consistency. Even Mr. Paul Potts.
Paul Potts was a mobile phone salesman living in South Wales. He was $60,000 in debt and down on his luck. He had been bullied and picked on most of his life and his countenance showed it. He was insecure, shy, and unassuming.
Billy Sunday was a former professional baseball player who became one of the most popular evangelists of the 20th century. He conducted over 300 revival campaigns and spoke to audiences totaling 100,000,000 – the largest number ever evangelized before the advent of broadcasting.
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Copyright © 2006 Paul Barker. All rights reserved. |