Racism

Introdution

Racism dates back to the beginning of human existence, when small, isolated communities feared those who looked different or practiced different customs. Among the first civilizations, economic success and technological prowess incited a sense of superiority and the characterization of other population groups as "savage" or in some way inferior (Senker, pp. 5). The Roman Empire's active expansion over the rest of Europe, for example, involved subjugation of fierce, war-ready Germanic tribes that it deemed “barbarians” (ibid). The ancient Greeks also harbored negative stereotypes of foreign peoples, such as the Persians. This paper discusses racism and its current situation.

Discussion

In social, and scientific literature racism can be distinguished more or less restricted conceptions of racism, based on two fundamental elements. First, its location in the field of ideologies (such as speech, thinking, belief or myth), in social practices (such as behaviors and policies of discrimination and segregation) and two interrelated dimensions, on the other side depending on characteristics or attributes that are personal and group related ideas or racist actions: racial (physical race, race, social), cultural (ethnic, linguistic, religious, nationality) or both sets of related (Rattansi, pp. 94).

While definitions characterized solely or principally racism as an ideology, others do as legitimating ideology of a particular practice. Some put the emphasis on character set of discriminatory practices, supported or not on ideas or cognitions are definitions that apply only to racial, understanding the category of race in various forms, while others include both the racial (as a cultural construction), such as ethnicity or culture. For some authors, the essence of racism is the belief that there is a relationship between the social category membership and possession of specific characteristics.

Racism operates meanings attributed to genetic and phenotypic or creating in this way, a system of categorization and ranking among the groups. It is a doctrine that advocates the existence of biological differences between groups stable relations of superiority and inferiority, and includes the assumption that race determines intelligence (Memmi, pp. 152), the cultural and moral attributes. Other authors take into account both the ideological dimension as the practice, while still restricting the scope of racism by racial group. The analysis of the causes of racism have pointed Psychological mechanisms (fear of strange formation of prejudices and stereotypes, "scapegoat") and cultural (ethnocentric, identity crisis), economic labor competition, functionality of racism as a brake on the approaches class) and political (such as the linchpin of political programs, mainly in the far right).

Racism is inseparable from the relations of domination, and enrolled in the social structure, reflecting one of its major divisions. If on one hand appears to be linked to social action, and other historical action, specific characteristics: it has its own logic and constitutes an autonomous set of meanings, which in extreme cases are likely to lead to political projects (Fredrickson, pp. 33). Racism seems always ready to sprout within community movements, and often is present mainly in nationalist and religious movements, as if not a denial but constitute a potentiality of all ...