Cultural racism

Cultural racism

Cultural racism is a way of thinking that treats people unfairly because they come from different backgrounds. It is the belief that some cultures are better than others, or that some cultures cannot live together peacefully.

The idea of cultural racism started being talked about in the 1980s and 1990s by scholars in Western Europe like Martin Barker, Étienne Balibar, and Pierre-André Taguieff. They noticed that while old ideas about racial differences based on biology were becoming less popular, new ideas focusing on cultural differences were taking their place. These new ideas were often spread by far-right groups, such as the French Nouvelle Droite.

People argue that believing in unchangeable cultural differences can lead to the same harmful actions as believing in biological differences, like exploitation or oppression. They also say that cultural and biological racism often go together. In many places, groups such as immigrants and Muslims have been seen as separate from the rest of society just because of their cultural practices. To fight cultural racism, many suggest teaching about different cultures in schools through multicultural education and anti-racism.

However, not everyone agrees that cultural racism should be called racism. Some scholars think that cultural prejudices are different enough from biological racism. There is also debate about whether things like Islamophobia should be considered a type of cultural racism.

Concept

The idea of "cultural racism" has been called different names by scholars who studied it in the 1980s and 1990s. Some called it the "new racism," while others used terms like "neo-racism" or "cultural-differential racism." These names all point to the same basic idea: that some people believe different cultures are so different that they cannot live together peacefully.

The word "racism" can be confusing because it is used in many ways. It originally described beliefs about biological differences between groups of people. Over time, scientists began to understand that humans do not actually divide into biologically distinct races. This led some people to argue that racism should only refer to beliefs based on biology. However, others began to use the term "racism" to describe prejudices based on cultural differences instead, arguing that these can be just as harmful as beliefs about biological differences.

Scholars have debated whether calling prejudices based on culture "racism" is helpful or accurate. Some argue that it stretches the meaning of the word too much, while others believe it highlights how harmful such prejudices can be, even when they are not based on ideas about biological differences. This debate continues today as societies grapple with issues of cultural difference and belonging.

Cultural racism in Western countries

In the early 1990s, a writer named James Morris Blaut said that in Western countries, people began to think of themselves as better not because of their race, but because of their culture. He said this idea started after World War II.

Another writer named Wren said that this idea showed up in many European countries, but in different ways depending on each country’s history. She said that in Denmark during the 1980s, when there were fewer jobs and money was tight, people started to say that immigrants didn’t fit in with Danish culture. This made it harder for them to live there.

Some leaders in Britain also worried that their country would change too much because of people from other cultures. In Germany, a leader said it would be hard for Turkey to join a big group of European countries.

In South Africa, some leaders said that different groups should stay separate because of their cultures. In the United States, some people thought that people from Mexico weren’t really American because they spoke Spanish.

In the early 1990s, a teacher named Henry Giroux said that some leaders in the United States were using ideas about culture to say that different groups didn’t belong together.

Some people in Israel also had trouble accepting Jewish families from Ethiopia because they thought their culture was different. Even though these families were Jewish, some people said they weren’t “real” Jews because of how they lived.

In 1992, Blaut said that while many teachers and writers had stopped believing in ideas about race, they still believed in ideas about culture.

Opposing cultural racism

In the 1980s and 1990s, some thinkers thought that the usual ways to fight unfair treatment based on a person's natural features did not work well against unfair treatment based on cultural differences. They thought these ways sometimes made the problem worse.

One idea to fight this unfairness is to help different groups talk and agree on rules together. Some people think schools can help by teaching students to think about how media and history are shown, and by showing the value of many different cultures and languages. This can help make a society that accepts and respects everyone.