History of Racism
A. What Is Racism?
Racism, as an idea and a practice, has evolved and continues to do so. Many of us today conceptualize racism in terms of what it was—overt bigoted and physically violent behavior—and hence, in the absence of such practice, see no racial problems. Although violence and bigotry is still very real, racism is not limited to these things.
There are three phases in the development and evolution of racism:
Phase 1. Pre-Racism: the promotion of cultural (and later, racial) superiority and the subsequent the belief in racial superiority emerging shortly thereafter (beginning around the 16th Century CE, continuing today in a more subtle form)
C. The Race Construct
After this initial stage, several mechanisms came into place to create what we today call race.
Phase 2. Race-Making: the institutionalization of racial supremacy through the creation of discriminatory laws and practices (beginning in the 17th century CE, and continuing into the 20th century, and in many respects still in existence)
D. Racism as Superstructure
As the construct was set in place, racism became an idea alive in the minds of both oppressor and oppressed—it became a superstructure that supported and perpetuated the racialized structure of society.
Phase 3. Institutionalized Racism: the perpetuation of white status and superiority through the process of institutionalizing racist ideology in practice and internalizing it in human minds (beginning immediately following 1st stage, being strengthened in the 2nd stage, and continuing on today, though under a veil and most often denied to exist)
· with the civil war came the end of legally institutionalized slavery, but shortly after this brief period of relative equality came a backlash:
o the Hayes Compromise of 1876 removed federal troops from southern states
theory hit its peak at the turn of the 19th and 20th
o reign of terror (Tulsa, OK, 1921; Rosewood, FL, 1923, etc.) (Loewen)
o racial prerequisites in immigration (until 1952) (Haney Lopez)
o racial segregation in schools and churches replaced the programs of Reconstruction
o racial segregation in housing and the making of the ghettos from the beginning in 1900 ‘til the peak in the 1970’s (Massey)
o redling, blockbusting, and steering became practices banking and real estate (Barndt)
· the backlash is a testimony to the resistance of white to create an equitable society, and this in turn testifies to the power of internalized racism
· the civil rights movement of 1950’s and 60’s challenged again white supremacy and changed much of the “re-legalized” racism, but again there was a backlash (People’s Institute):
o Nixon’s War on Drugs as a war on Blacks (Haldeman)
o Reagan’s presidency as counter-movement (consider Supreme Court vacancies and appointees)
o changing racial demographics in the prisons since the 60’s and the last clause of the 13th amendment
o scaling back of welfare, Affirmative Action, and other social programs (Barndt)
in many (but not all) ways, due to the backlash, the inequalities are worse than in the 70’s
· these inequities are reflected in stats. in infant mortality rates, life expectancy, % of black vs. white populations in college vs. prison, % of populations in poverty, black cents on white dollars earned, % of students in gifted programs in the schools, etc.
The preceding is based on our participation in the People’s Institute “Undoing Racism” Workshops and readings from the following works:
Racism: The Continuing Challenge to White
Ed. Slavery and
Ignatiev, Noel, and John Garvey. Race Traitor.
Haney Lopez, Ian F.. White By Law: The Legal Construction of Race.
Higgenbotham, A. Leon. In the Matter of Color.
Loewen, James. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your
American History Textbook Got Wrong.
Douglas. and Nancy Denton, American Apartheid.
Albert. The Colonizer and the Colonized.
Montagu, Ashley. Man’s
Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race, 6th
Richarson, Theresa, “Moral Imperatives for the Millenium: The Historical Construction of Race and Its Implications for Childhood and Schooling in the Twentieth Century,” Studies in Philosophy and Education, Vol. 19, No. 4 July 2000.
Howard. A People’s History of the United States.
 Haldeman’s diary from 1969 states, “Nixon emphasized that you have
to face the fact that the whole problem is really the blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognizes
this while not appearing to.” (quoted in The Nation,