State racism
Encyclopedia
Concept
The word concept is used in ordinary language as well as in almost all academic disciplines. Particularly in philosophy, psychology and cognitive sciences the term is much used and much discussed. WordNet defines concept: "conception, construct ". However, the meaning of the term concept is much...
used by French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
philosopher Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas...
to designate the reappropriation of the historical and political discourse
Discourse
Discourse generally refers to "written or spoken communication". The following are three more specific definitions:...
of "race struggle", in the late seventeenth century.
It also refers to a type of institutional racism
Institutional racism
Institutional racism describes any kind of system of inequality based on race. It can occur in institutions such as public government bodies, private business corporations , and universities . The term was coined by Black Power activist Stokely Carmichael in the late 1960s...
promoted by a government
Government
Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...
. Examples include Apartheid in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
, and racial segregation
Racial segregation in the United States
Racial segregation in the United States, as a general term, included the racial segregation or hypersegregation of facilities, services, and opportunities such as housing, medical care, education, employment, and transportation along racial lines...
in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, as well as any systemic or community-based racism in local
Local police
Local police may refer to:*The Spanish Police Force, Policia Local*Police in general...
, state
State police
State police are a type of sub-national territorial police force, particularly in Australia and the United States. Some other countries have analogous police forces, such as the provincial police in some Canadian provinces, while in other places, the same responsibilities are held by national...
or federal law enforcement (see also racial profiling
Racial profiling
Racial profiling refers to the use of an individual’s race or ethnicity by law enforcement personnel as a key factor in deciding whether to engage in enforcement...
).
Affirmative action
Affirmative action
Affirmative action refers to policies that take factors including "race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation or national origin" into consideration in order to benefit an underrepresented group, usually as a means to counter the effects of a history of discrimination.-Origins:The term...
measures are sometimes accused of being a form of state racism, especially when they favour an ethnic majority.
Foucault's concept
The historico-political discourseDiscourse
Discourse generally refers to "written or spoken communication". The following are three more specific definitions:...
analyzed by Foucault
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas...
in Society Must Be Defended (1976–77) considered truth
Truth
Truth has a variety of meanings, such as the state of being in accord with fact or reality. It can also mean having fidelity to an original or to a standard or ideal. In a common usage, it also means constancy or sincerity in action or character...
as the fragile product of a historical struggle, first conceptualized under the name of "race struggle" — however, "race"'s meaning was different from today's biological notion, being closer to the sense of "nation" (distinct from nation-states; its signification is here closer to "people
People
People is a plurality of human beings or other beings possessing enough qualities constituting personhood. It has two usages:* as the plural of person or a group of people People is a plurality of human beings or other beings possessing enough qualities constituting personhood. It has two usages:*...
"). Boulainvilliers, for example, opposed the aristocracy, who formed, according to him, the foreign Franks
Franks
The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...
, while the Third Estate constituted the indigenous Gallo-Romans.
In Great Britain, this historico-political discourse was used by the bourgeoisie, the people and the aristocracy as a means of struggle against the monarchy - cf. Edward Coke
Edward Coke
Sir Edward Coke SL PC was an English barrister, judge and politician considered to be the greatest jurist of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras. Born into a middle class family, Coke was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge before leaving to study at the Inner Temple, where he was called to the...
or John Lilburne
John Lilburne
John Lilburne , also known as Freeborn John, was an English political Leveller before, during and after English Civil Wars 1642-1650. He coined the term "freeborn rights", defining them as rights with which every human being is born, as opposed to rights bestowed by government or human law...
. In France, Henri de Boulainvilliers
Henri de Boulainvilliers
Henri de Boulainvilliers was a French writer and historian. Educated at the college of Juilly, he served in the army until 1697...
, Nicolas Fréret
Nicolas Fréret
Nicolas Fréret was a French scholar.-Life:He was born at Paris on 15 February 1688. His father was procureur to the parlement of Paris, and destined him to the profession of the law. His first tutors were the historian Charles Rollin and Father Desmolets...
, and then Sieyès, Augustin Thierry and Cournot reappropriated this form of discourse.
Finally, at the end of the 19th century, this discourse was transformed following two directions: the eugenicist
Eugenics
Eugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...
line, which would lead to "state racism", Hitler starting as soon as he took power his program of selection of population — a real biopolitics
Biopolitics
The term "biopolitics" or "biopolitical" can refer to several different yet often compatible concepts.-Definitions:# In the work of Michel Foucault, the style of government that regulates populations through "biopower" .# In the works of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, anti-capitalist insurrection...
— with the July 1933 "Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring
Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring
Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring or "Sterilization Law" was a statute in Nazi Germany enacted on July 14, 1933, which allowed the compulsory sterilization of any citizen who in the opinion of a "Genetic Health Court" Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring...
" and the T-4 Euthanasia Program which would terminate in the Holocaust; and the Marxist line, which transformed the essentialist notion of "race" into the historical concept of class struggle
Class struggle
Class struggle is the active expression of a class conflict looked at from any kind of socialist perspective. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote "The [written] history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle"....
.
The eugenic line tied itself with the nation-state
Nation-state
The nation state is a state that self-identifies as deriving its political legitimacy from serving as a sovereign entity for a nation as a sovereign territorial unit. The state is a political and geopolitical entity; the nation is a cultural and/or ethnic entity...
, transforming the discourse of "race struggle", which was an emancipatory tool used against the concept of sovereignty
Sovereignty
Sovereignty is the quality of having supreme, independent authority over a geographic area, such as a territory. It can be found in a power to rule and make law that rests on a political fact for which no purely legal explanation can be provided...
and the person of the king
Monarch
A monarch is the person who heads a monarchy. This is a form of government in which a state or polity is ruled or controlled by an individual who typically inherits the throne by birth and occasionally rules for life or until abdication...
during the Glorious Revolution
Glorious Revolution
The Glorious Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1688, is the overthrow of King James II of England by a union of English Parliamentarians with the Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange-Nassau...
, into an instrument of extermination
Genocide
Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...
at the hands of the state.
On the other hand, the Marxist discourse of class struggle renewed the popular "history from below
History From Below
History From Below is the follow-up album to 2008's critically acclaimed Ode to Sunshine by San Diego's Delta Spirit. The album was released on June 8, 2010.The band began streaming "White Table" on its website, http://www.deltaspirit.net, on May 6....
" style of the medieval discourse of "race struggle", which opposed itself to sovereignty. Along with Freud
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
's psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
, it criticizes the biological and essentialist notion of "race" used by state racism.
See also
- Jim Crow LawsJim Crow lawsThe Jim Crow laws were state and local laws in the United States enacted between 1876 and 1965. They mandated de jure racial segregation in all public facilities, with a supposedly "separate but equal" status for black Americans...
- BiopowerBiopowerBiopower was a term coined by French Social theorist and philosopher Michel Foucault it refers to the practice of modern states and their regulation of their subjects through "an explosion of numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugations of bodies and the control of populations." ...
- BiopoliticsBiopoliticsThe term "biopolitics" or "biopolitical" can refer to several different yet often compatible concepts.-Definitions:# In the work of Michel Foucault, the style of government that regulates populations through "biopower" .# In the works of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, anti-capitalist insurrection...
- Women's rights in Saudi ArabiaWomen's rights in Saudi ArabiaWomen's rights in Saudi Arabia are defined by Islam and tribal customs. The Arabian peninsula is the ancestral home of patriarchal, nomadic tribes, in which purdah and namus are considered central....
- Crime of apartheidCrime of apartheidThe crime of apartheid is defined by the 2002 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as inhumane acts of a character similar to other crimes against humanity "committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other...
- EugenicsEugenicsEugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...
- Institutional racismInstitutional racismInstitutional racism describes any kind of system of inequality based on race. It can occur in institutions such as public government bodies, private business corporations , and universities . The term was coined by Black Power activist Stokely Carmichael in the late 1960s...
- Ketuanan MelayuKetuanan MelayuKetuanan Melayu is a political concept emphasizing Malay preeminence in present day Malaysia. The Malays of peninsular Malaysia claimed a special position and special rights owing to their long domicile and the role of the Malay rulers of the nine Malay states...
- Olivier LeCour GrandmaisonOlivier LeCour GrandmaisonOlivier LeCour Grandmaison is a French historian. He is a professor of political science at the Evry-Val d'Essonne University and also teach at the Collège International de Philosophie, and mainly works on colonialism issues...
, a French historian who has used the expression to refer to the Third RepublicFrench Third RepublicThe French Third Republic was the republican government of France from 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed due to the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, to 1940, when France was overrun by Nazi Germany during World War II, resulting in the German and Italian occupations of France...
and its colonial empireFrench colonial empiresThe French colonial empire was the set of territories outside Europe that were under French rule primarily from the 17th century to the late 1960s. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the colonial empire of France was the second-largest in the world behind the British Empire. The French colonial empire... - Nazism and raceNazism and raceNazism developed several theories concerning races. The Nazis claimed to scientifically measure a strict hierarchy of human race; at the top was the master race, the "Aryan race", narrowly defined by the Nazis as being identical with the Nordic race, followed by lesser races.At the bottom of this...
- Michel Foucault's analysis of the historical and political discourse of "race struggle"
- South Africa under apartheid
- Idi AminIdi AminIdi Amin Dada was a military leader and President of Uganda from 1971 to 1979. Amin joined the British colonial regiment, the King's African Rifles in 1946. Eventually he held the rank of Major General in the post-colonial Ugandan Army and became its Commander before seizing power in the military...
- Papa Doc
- Robert MugabeRobert MugabeRobert Gabriel Mugabe is the President of Zimbabwe. As one of the leaders of the liberation movement against white-minority rule, he was elected into power in 1980...
- Racial profilingRacial profilingRacial profiling refers to the use of an individual’s race or ethnicity by law enforcement personnel as a key factor in deciding whether to engage in enforcement...
- DNA databaseDNA databaseA DNA database or DNA databank is a database of DNA data. A DNA database can be used in the analysis of genetic diseases, genetic fingerprinting for criminology, or genetic genealogy. DNA databases may be public or private. These databases do not normally hold DNA except for a short time...