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The first thing that needs to be explained in any discourse on racism is what all the various terms mean, or at least, how they will be used in the discourse. ... This table may help: Prejudices and Discrimination Unintentional Discrimination Intentional Discrimination
Unconscious Prejudice Unwittingly thinking women are physically weak turns into not allowing any women to lift heavy objects Unwittingly thinking Malcolm X was violent turns into refusing to watch the movie
Conscious Prejudice Believing all people who ‘dress down’ are less competant turns into waiting for them to fail, rather than allowing them to succeed Believing all wealthy African-Americans are drug dealers turns into traffic stops for African-Americans in nice cars
Racism is a particular kind of discrimination based on skin tone and country/region of origin. ...
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History
Racism, in spite of the views of some individuals (of various ancestries), is not a natural condition. ... If racism were a natural response, the peaceful tribes of Native Americans would not have welcomed the European colonists as openly as they did when they first arrived. ...
Ancient History
Racism against Africans appears to have its roots in two places among those who would today be considered ‘white’. ... This was not originally intended as racism per-se, but rather as a means of distinguishing the `good Romans from the ‘bad’ Carthaginians. Racism appears to be something Rome stumbled onto during this war, and generally left behind when the war was over and Carthage defeated.
The second appearance of racism was the Hindu caste system. ...
This second appearance of racism is particularly useful to an understanding of modern racism. Due to the fact that the Holy Vedas—where this caste system was codified into law—were written in Sanskrit, the language of the original Aryans, reference to the ‘Aryan race’ in modern racist literature is a desire to return to the origins of racism. ... It is during this period that racism was refined into a system of subjugation against non-whites/non-Europeans, and also that it reached the worst recorded depths.
In this ‘modern’ period, there are two major socio-economic and political developments which bear directly on racism's origins: the European ‘discovery’ of the American continents, and the formation of the Protestant Church. The ‘discovery’ of the Americas is a necessary ingredient in the evolution of racism in the New World, and the reasons are purely economic. ... This is the start of the next step in the evolution of racism.
Approximate Word count = 2849
Approximate Pages = 11.4
(250 words per page double spaced)
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