Part 1
What is racism? Is it inherent only in American history and present? Surprisingly enough, when we hear the word racism the first associations to come to our mind will, in all probability, be the following: the USA, the blacks, the Ku Klux Klan and maybe some variations. Well, in fact, they are true but are only a part of the history of development of this very unpleasant and truly undemocratic notion in America.
First off, what exactly is racism? According to the International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination, it is the process of distinction, exclusion, restriction, or preference based on race, color, descent or national or ethnic origin. Applying it to the USA historical background, it is also called the white privilege. According to a US source, white privilege signifies:
1. a. A right, advantage, or immunity granted to or enjoyed by white persons beyond the common advantage of all others; an exemption in many particular cases from certain burdens or liabilities.
b. A special advantage or benefit of white persons; with reference to divine dispensations, natural advantages, gifts of fortune, genetic endowments, social relations, etc.
2. A privileged position; the possession of an advantage white persons enjoy over non-white persons.
3. a. The special right or immunity attaching to white persons as a social relation; prerogative.
b. display of white privilege, a social expression of a white person or persons demanding to be treated as a member or members of the socially privileged class.
4. a. To invest white persons with a privilege or privileges; to grant to white persons a particular right or immunity; to benefit or favor specially white persons; to invest white persons with special honorable distinctions.
b. To avail oneself of a privilege owing to one as a white person.
5. To authorize or license white person or persons of what is forbidden or wrong for non-whites; to justify, excuse.
6. To give to white persons special freedom or immunity from some liability or burden to which non-white persons are subject; to exempt.
Considering all the measures taken by the US government and numerous advocacy groups, reflecting the drive in the American society to by all means overcome its flaw, being a problem of enormous importance, the question is begging to be asked whether racism can ever be eliminated from the society, from any society. The thing is that every heterogeneous society faces this problem, including Russian Federation, and in the end this state of affairs seems predictable, for it stems from the human psychology. Human mind is created in such a way that we are most likely to avoid the ones who differ from us. We organize ourselves in small groups or sizeable communities and do our best to stick together lest that the alien, the other, could pose any threat to us. And this is, after all, quite natural, and if we compare this behavioral pattern with those of animals, it would be just the same among the latter.
According to a very interesting and rather topical research, there were conflicts against people with dark-skin, but they were no different than conflicts between "white" against "white". Ancient civilizations, though they encountered and included people from many different parts of the world, did not make social distinctions based on physical appearance. They distinguished people according to customs and religion; not race. This absence of color-consciousness persisted in the Greco-Roman tradition, for example, where, according to the view of most scholars who have examined the evidence, there was nothing comparable to the virulent color prejudice of modern times in the ancient world. Black skin color was not a sign of inferiority; Greeks and Romans did not establish color as an obstacle to integration in society, as the researchers state. More than that, the study claims racism to be the heritage of mainly the Spanish and the English, due to, for the most part, historical development of their countries .
My opinion is that, first off, racism is an unquestionable defect of our society, talking about the mankind in general, on the global scale. It causes a great many problems and leaves a multitude of complexities to be disentangled. Nevertheless, it is something to be tackled at a deep, psychological level, through practice and communication, which is a lot harder than just declaring the tolerance and equality principle words dont play when it comes to real actions and attitudes.
And yet, there should be some reason to the fact that hearing this word racism we most often associate it with the United States. Why so? Obviously, first of all, following a rather good and useful American tradition, if not taken in its extremes, of acknowledging the existence of a problem rather than trying to hide it and pretend that nothing is going on, the Americans are straightforward here too if the problem exists, efforts to eliminate it somehow should be made. Secondly, in my opinion, the US belong to those countries the mere development and settlement conditions of which have brought about these tensions and conflicts. And this fact becomes even more obvious if we consider the way this country is often called a nation of immigrants.
To begin with, immigration in its usual sense comes later. First comes the settlement, and it already brings in a certain controversy. America since its European discovery was explored by the Spanish, who were, obviously, the first (after Vikings, certainly, who left no settlements or any influence though) and who dealt predominantly with southern territories. Since the XVII century Spains influence grows considerably weaker and the main explorers part passes on to France and Great Britain. Also starring in this feast are Holland, which founded the New York City-to-be (its Dutch variant being New Amsterdam, ceded to the British around 1630 as a result of a war), Germany and Russia, whose influence in this region was, undoubtedly, far weaker than needed for retaining the lands gained. Thus, the very settlement of the USA could be considered somewhat a primary source of tension. And yet, taking it into account, in my view, this was not a source of racism itself, for, all the cultural differences between the settlers notwithstanding, they were all Europeans, and Europe has been considered somewhat a single whole. The real factors which brought about the problem seem to be:
bringing the blacks as slaves onto the continent;
attitude towards the native population;
immigration.
Somehow, judging by the way the racism problem is sometimes discussed, it is stated that until approximately the second half of the XIX century, when the mass immigration into the USA started, the only people discriminated against were the blacks. Well, in my opinion, this is true but with a serious reservation: not only blacks had their rights infringed upon. Since the definition of racism itself, to which Ive alluded at the very beginning, claims it is a preference based on coloror ethnic origin, I would put the Indians at the beginning of the list, for they faced discrimination a lot earlier than the blacks did, whose first appearance on the continent occurred only in 1619.
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