Racism Explained to Our Children

March 21 is the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. On this day in 1960, police opened fire and killed 69 people during a demonstration against racist laws in Sharpeville, South Africa. In 1966, the UN General Assembly established this day as a call on the international community to increase its efforts to eliminate all forms of racial discrimination.
 
In recent years, racism has been an increasing phenomenon in Israeli society – according to a report published by the Coalition against Racism in Israel, the number of racist incidents documented in 2011 was almost twice as much as the incidents documented in 2010: 552 in 2011, compared with 287 incidents in 2010. Furthermore, we believe that these numbers reflect only a miniscule part of the harsh daily reality of racism in Israel.
 
One of the most important components in the struggle to eliminate racism – is educating children to think differently. Ahead of this day, ACRI’s Education Department prepared an “anti-racism educational kit” (in Hebrew), intended for teachers in the formal and informal education systems. The kit includes texts, classroom activities, and ideas for local activism. Throughout the year, ACRI also offers workshops and seminars, on the issue of racism, intended for teachers and educators, intended to enhance their capacities for dealing with racism within their educational institutions.
 
Below is an article written by Prof. Yehouda Shenhav, a sociology professor at Tel Aviv University, which was written especially for ACRI’s kit and offers an expanded definition of racism – as “the attribution of inferiority or superiority, to a person or group, based on stereotypical characteristics formulated in biological, social, and/or cultural terms. Racist thought perceives these characteristics as inherent, unchangeable, and definitive for each group.” This broad definition aims to enable teachers and students to identify instances of racism even when they are camouflaged by rational language and by cultural and social (rather than biological) characterizations.
 
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What is Racism? | Yehouda Shenhav [1]

 
Most of us would prefer not to think of ourselves as racists, nor would we be quick to admit that racism plays an integral part in our lives. But the sad truth is that racism is a pervasive social phenomenon that is common to all human societies.  So, by way of this very short introduction, I would like to redirect the question of “Who is a racist?” to the more sociologically oriented question “What is racism?”  A satisfactory definition of racism should allow us, for example, to judge whether the laughter elicited from an impersonation of an Arabic or Sephardic accent should be considered racist or not.  Should the disposal of blood donations made by Ethiopians be considered racist?  Are the calls of “Death to Arabs” racist?  Is an expression like “All Russian girls are whores” a racist one?
 
In every society there exist physical differences between people, differences that are evident in the color of their skin color, facial features, and/or body type. However, these differences alone cannot account for social inferiority or low cultural standing. Racism enters the picture whenever we begin to group people according to their biological characteristics and to attribute to them particular qualities and abilities, whether these connote inferiority or superiority. In general, racism is defined as:

“a belief that ascribes inferiority or superiority to a person or group based on stereotypical characteristics, and which defines the differences between groups in biological terms which determine the inherent and unchangeable nature of each group.”

This, however, is only a partial definition. Historically, biological racism was one of the justifications used for Europe’s imperialist control over its remote, overseas colonies.  African or Asian natives were called “subject races” and were portrayed as being unable to think independently or to understand European law and government. Race was characterized primarily by skin color, with several other “biologically determined characteristics” tacked on, such as: primitive nature, childish speech, lack of organization, and excessive sexuality. Such racism was limited not only to the political sphere, but also permeated European society, its literature and culture.  European literature, from Gustav Flaubert to Jane Austin, is replete with racial depictions, whether they are explicit or implied. Biological racism was also evident in the attitude toward European Jews and, ironically, certain of these stereotypes were internalized by Jews themselves and directed at other Jews. This is true even in Israel today where,  for example, we see racism directed at the Haredi population. This is evident in socially descriptive terms (such as “primitive”, “uneducated”, “diaspora-minded”, and “parasitic”,) but also in physical racial stereotypes that include descriptions of the beard, side-curls (peyos), and body odor of Haredi men.
 
This definition of racism is nevertheless problematic because the concept of “race” itself is an invented and imaginary one, and as such, the meaning of “racism” becomes extremely slippery and elusive.  I would like to examine more closely three of the problems with the way we defined racism above.

(1) Race is an imaginary construct. Race is an invented and imagined construct – no such thing exists in nature – that was introduced into the biological sciences in the mid-18^th century.  Following biologists, others such as doctors, anthropologists, linguists, sociologists, ethnologists, novelists, theologians and politicians seized upon the concept to explain the superiority or inferiority of certain population groups through a pseudo-scientific discourse on race. The discourse on race enabled people to enunciate the differences between social and cultural groups and explain them as having a biological basis.  For example, the question of “Who is a Jew” in Nazi Germany was formulated in biological terms, which rested on a proof of the existence of “Jewish blood.”  Of course this was fictitious. Jewish identity cannot be determined through a blood test.  The Nazi proof of the existence of “Jewish blood” was based on certain anthropological characteristics, such as lifestyle and certain “Jewish habits” (such as going to synagogue), or through tracing a person’s family tree.  But when the distinction between cultural groups is formulated in biological terms, it is easy to reach the conclusion that culture is a derivative of nature.  Just as in nature and in biology, the essential cultural characteristics of a population are considered predetermined and unchangeable.

This raises an apparent problem for our definition: though “race” cannot be considered a real category in nature, it nevertheless gains reality through the imaginings of human culture.  The French feminist Collette Guillaumin has pointed out this contradiction, writing: “Race does not exist.  But it does kill people.”   Racial discourse was developed and refined in Europe, and was implemented as policy, both in overseas colonies (in the case of imperialism) and on the continent itself, for example, in the antisemitic policies directed against Jews and against Muslims.  That this discourse was led by scientists and anthropologists gave it tremendous power – power that facilitated murder in its name.  Racial theory provided the necessary social infrastructure for the mass murder of European Jewry in the Holocaust.  And so, while we are morally obligated to reject “race” as a real entity, it is impossible to deny its existence in the sociological sense.
 
(2) “Racism” is often equated with the extreme racial policies of Nazi Germany. The fact that the word “racism” immediately invites comparison with the fanatical racial policies of the Nazis makes it difficult to define in other contexts. Nazi racism represents such an extreme doctrine that all other forms of racism, as terrible as they may be, seem to pale in comparison with it.  Is it really possible to use the same term in describing the racist Nazi regime and the racist apartheid regime in South Africa?  Is it possible to compare Nazi racism with the racist Jim Crow policies against blacks in the southern states of the USA?  This apparent difficulty has, until recently, been reflected in the dictionary as well.  For example, the Even Shoshan Hebrew dictionary defines racism as a belief in “racial theory… the discredited belief system that Aryans are the most superior and perfect race.”  This definition, which ties racism to the Nazi state and to the language of biology, precludes our ability to talk about racism in other contexts.  It is also related to the next difficulty.
 
(3) Recoiling from the concept of “race” after the Holocaust. After 1945, we see a decided drop-off in the use of the term “race” and in its place we find alternative expressions referring to a person’s national origin.  Étienne Balibar, a French scholar, refers to this as “neo-racism”, which facilitates “racism without race.” This neo-racism has replaced the biological characterization of certain population groups with social and cultural characterizations. For example, in Israel it is commonly acceptable to use the term “ethnic group”.  An ethnic group is described as a population whose members enjoy a common history and shared social and cultural norms.  Although this definition is a cultural rather than a biological one, “ethnicity” is just as much an imaginary construct as is “race”.  It should be noted that not all descriptions of “ethnic practices” are necessarily racist.  One could say, without a trace of racist intent, that Jews of Yemenite origin attend synagogue at a much higher rate than their counterparts who hail from the former Soviet Union. And yet, when ethnic characterizations become normative statements explaining the superiority or inferiority of a group, these indeed have crossed over into racism.  The high synagogue attendance of Yemenite Jews should be considered racist if, for example, it were combined with statements about the group’s “primitive nature.”  Similar de facto racist characterizations include: the large number of children in Arab or Haredi families, the lower education rates among Sepharadim, the claim that Haredim are parasitic for not joining the labor force, etc.
 
The selective security procedures employed at Ben Gurion Airport for screening Israeli-Palestinian passengers provide an instructive example.  The rationale for the separate screening of Jews and Palestinians lies in a real consideration – that there is a much higher probability of a Palestinian passenger carrying out a terror attack than a Jewish one.  But even if this claim is empirically correct, one could make the counterargument that the resulting injury to human rights is far greater than the near-negligible risk incurred if selective screening were to be canceled.  To this, we should add that the procedure necessarily entails the unavoidable humiliation of Arab citizens undergoing screening.  Even if we accept the rationale behind the procedure, the result is still a state-sponsored racist act.  Moreover, the procedure strengthens the perception of the Arab citizen as a security threat, not only at the airport but everywhere in Israel: at the mall, university, the workplace, restaurants, and when Arab citizens look to rent apartments in the Jewish areas in Safed or Tel Aviv.
 
Because of these three complicating factors, I advocate abandoning the term “race” (which is limited to the language of biology) and utilizing instead the alternative sociological term “racialization.” The study of racialization allows us to examine the types of racist speech mentioned above without being limited to the anachronistic category of race.  Thus we can define racism beyond the confines of biology and within the broader arena of culture.
 
Racialization is the drawing of distinctions between population groups on the basis of race or based on racial substitutes, such as gender, country of origin, place of residence, or family name.  By replacing the noun “race” with the activity of “racialization”, we no longer recognize the fictitious category of the former.  Racialization is not a static entity but rather a sociological activity. Therefore, we can say with accuracy that:
 
Racialization is an act of the human imagination that makes use of biological characteristics (e.g. skin color, nose length, breast size), social characteristics, (e.g. income level, country of origin, social status) and/or cultural characteristics (e.g. religiosity, family size) – characteristics which are perceived as inherent and unchangeable – in order to legitimize hierarchies between groups and individuals.
 
An awareness of such allows us to identify racist speech even when it is not couched in the language of biology.  For example, on the day of the Labor party primaries in November 2005, one of Ehud Barak’s supporters was interviewed on the radio and remarked that the struggle between the two candidates, Ehud Barak and Amir Peretz, reminded her of a fight between an F-16 fighter pilot and a truck driver.  It is difficult to precisely locate the racist or ethnic component of this statement.  One could make the charitable argument that the supporter was comparing between two professions (pilot vs. truck driver) and not between two ethnic or racial groups (Ashkenazim vs. Sephardim).  But in the context of the conversation, it is clear that there was a strain of racism in her words. Shortly before this statement, she described the supporters of Amir Peretz in the Labor party as “North African Phalangists.”  This is a telling example and shows us why it is important to identify racism that is couched in the language of culture (in this case, comparing professions) as opposed to explicit racial language.
 
Another such example is evident in the Acceptance Committees Law, which allows communal villages to weed out prospective residents who are not “culturally suited” to the norms of communal life.  The criteria of “cultural suitability” is so broad as to facilitate racism on the basis of nationality, social status, gender, and more. By claiming an applicant is not cultural suitable, communities can reject prospective residents who are Arab, Sephardic, single-parent mothers, members of lower socio-economic status, etc.
 
“Masouda from Sderot”, an expression that was coined in the 1990’s as part of Channel 2 TV’s move toward a more egalitarian policy, also enables racism without mentioning race.  The expression connotes the expansion of television programming to include people of lower socioeconomic status from Israel’s periphery. “Masouda from Sderot”, a simple Sephardic woman, represents the benchmark for the lowest common denominator in television consumption. The expression “Buzaglo Test”, coined by Supreme Court Justice Aharon Barak, refers to full equality of all Israeli citizens under the law.  In it, the Sephardi name “Buzaglo” is used to connote the low socioeconomic status of a person lacking access to the corridors of power.  Both expressions are racist without any mention of biology.  In the former, there is no mention of race though the name “Masouda” and her place of residence in Sderot are sufficient to establish her ethnicity.  In the latter, the name “Buzaglo” is a clear enough marker. Both expressions were invented with the intent of repairing existing inequalities, but they are nevertheless racist.  They also point to the existing “racial” gaps between Sephardim and Ashkenazim in Israel.  The difference between these expressions that utilize family names and place of residence and between explicit statements of race and biology is solely semantic – they represent two different ways of expressing racist ideas about populations. 
 
All the examples mentioned above demonstrate how racism is promulgated not through the explicit mention of race but through racial equivalents and substitutes.  This phenomenon is apparent in many different arenas in Israel, such as in literature, movies, and politics, and at the workplace, at airports, and at border crossings.
 
So far we’ve shown how over the past seventy years the language of racism has moved from that of biological characterizations to societal and cultural stereotypes. However, it should also be noted that we have seen a reverse historical trend over the last decade.  Classic, biological racist discourse has returned to take center stage alongside social and cultural characterizations. There is new momentum, reminiscent of that of the end of the 19^th century, pushing biology and eugenics back onto the public agenda, and that discourse is being promoted by scientists and doctors. The rush to do genetic testing both before and during pregnancy is one example of how racialization is being constructed out of scientific tests and procedures.  While it is possible to explain Israel’s approving attitude toward genetic testing with rational explanations, this attitude nonetheless facilitates racialization via the concept of race.  In light of the current manifestations of racism expressed in several different contexts (not only biological), I would advocate for a broader definition of racism as:
 

 
According to this definition, racism can be directed at any group – even towards dominant and powerful groups. For example, the statement that Europeans are emotionally cold and distant is just as racist as the statement that Arabs are emotionally warm and outgoing. However, when relations between population groups are unequal, the racism directed at minorities and disadvantaged groups serves to exacerbate existing societal inequalities and grants them justification.
 
Our expanded definition of racism is important in that it enables us to identify instances of racism even when they are camouflaged by rational language and by cultural and social (rather than biological) characterizations, which blur their racist underpinnings.