What is racism? This is a complex of a number of teachings, the main grain of which is the position on the mental, physiological and cultural inferiority of certain races. These teachings are based on the different anthropological structure of people, their genotype and biometric indicators.
Racism is the belief that people can be divided into superior and inferior races. In many countries, all manifestations of racism are criminalized, but this does not help to completely solve the problem associated with the oppression of some races and nationalities by others. The problem of racism is multifaceted. It can be viewed from several angles.
- Racism is a manifestation of the political interest of individuals or entire states.
- Racism is a justification for armed incursions into the territory of other states.
Racism can be:
- social, manifested in an attempt to establish the dominance of one group of people over others who are not similar in skin color, place of birth, anthropometric data, etc.
- psychological when based on somepsychoanalytic theories, attempts are being made to substantiate the reasons for superiority over the individual. In any case, racism is the desire to diminish or destroy the dignity of a person or group of people, to deprive them of many rights and freedoms.
History of racism
In the Middle Ages, in the era of slavery, during the accumulation of initial capital and the heyday of capitalism, when more and more colonies were captured, the teachings of the racists served as an excuse for class inequality (rich-poor, nobility-rabble). They justified the subjugation and extermination of peoples in countries subjected to colonization. Under the flag of racism, the natives of America, Australia, Oceania, Africa, and other countries were destroyed.
Racism is the desire not only to conquer and subjugate peoples, but the desire to instill in them contempt for their own history, culture, thereby depriving them of the will to resist. The moral destruction of an ethnic group or nation is one of the sides of racist theories.
The problem of racism is characteristic of many states and it manifested itself in different historical eras. The most striking examples are the extermination of the Indians, the theory of the superiority of the Japanese over the rest of the peoples of the earth, the ideology of gentry Poland, the desire of Finnish reactionaries to create a "Great Finland" on the territory from the Urals to Scandinavia, etc.
Racism today
The danger of racism lies in the fact that it creates a real threat to peace, infringes and violates human rights. Unfortunately, today racism in one form or another flourishes in many countries, despite the oppositionstate structures. In Russia, these are neo-Nazis, in the USA - "Aryan Nations", "White American Knights", the National Socialist Movement, in Japan - nationalists who consider all non-Japanese to be "despicable thieves".
The causes of racism
- Biological. Some scientists, adherents of racial theories, believe that racism is a normal biological phenomenon that arose against the backdrop of the desire of biological species to preserve their uniqueness.
- Social: The influx of foreign labor and the impoverishment of sections of society are breeding grounds for xenophobes and racists.
