What events led to the emergence of racism? Why are whites considered superior to non-whites? Why is it important to understand racism institutionally? Read on!
Picture it, late seventeenth century: The renaissance. The elites are reveling in their new found appreciation for reasoning and rationality. And yet, Europe is in political turmoil. Kings and queens are being killed. Religious factions are warring to the death, and technology is exploding into completely uncharted territory. Industrialization is creating densely populated cities, and, transatlantic slavery and its inevitable abolition is increasingly becoming an issue. Thus, the need for racism is twofold.
Firstly, in an ideological paradigm shift, that French philosopher Michel Foucault called a transition from sovereign power to bio-power, the state moves from the idea that it must ‘kill or be killed;’ for example, protecting the nation from invaders, to the notion of ‘kill to make live.’ The threat to the state is now perceived as internal rather than external. A mechanism to control the increasingly unmanageable urban population is implemented, such that life and progression are maximized. Consequently, the people are categorized into two groups. One group that will live and one that will die, to ensure the state progresses: The healthy and the sick, normal and abnormal, white and non-white.
Race is the defining characteristic that allows the state to make these distinctions and there is rise of state institutions: hospitals, prisons, mental asylums, orphanages, etc., which are used to administer this new social policy. Those now labeled as anti-social will be imprisoned, quarantined, and killed in the name of state protection, social order, health, longevity and progress. Hence, in the scholarly literature, race, a supposedly biological attribute begins to be a determining factor for a host of social and psychological phenomena; health, criminality, psychological abnormality to name a few.
On the other side of the Atlantic a similar process is taking place, albeit the social impetus is somewhat different. Slavery has been very profitable to America. Yet with slavery abolished in Europe and a similar fate promised in America, there is an attempt to justify the violent exploitation of an entire group of people.
Moreover, as in Europe, there is a need to control the population that will emerge after emancipation. How will society function with this newly freed colored population, mixing with whites, commingling in public places, even having children together? As in Europe, science, politics, and economics come together to form a toxic marriage of means. Race is likewise, associated with all manner of social ills, proving the justification for genocide in the name of protection, safety and progress and racism as we know it is born.
Two-hundred years later the rhetoric is disturbingly similar. The profoundly disproportionate number of ethnic minorities in state institutions today is a continuation of the racist social policies started hundreds of years ago. Knowing our historical and ideological roots will allow us to make a change in the future.
