When is ‘racism’ racism and when is it something else?
Racism has become a word that in the West tends to cover several kinds of hostility towards people who are “other,” i.e. hostility towards individuals or groups of people that are somehow different from ourselves. This broadening of the concept ‘racism’ creates a muddled debate about immigration, racism, xenophobia, cultural and religious minorities, and what it means to be a people and a nation, because very often what is called racism has very little to do with race. Instead, it is about cultural clashes. Cultural clashes can tear a society apart, so we need to prevent them, and the best method to do that is education. But not just any education, and it cannot just be force-feeding people all the politically correct answers. So, I would like to suggest that our vocabulary becomes more precise, that we start using the word xenophobia as the overarching umbrella word for dislike of others and see racism as a sub-category, and that we have a much deeper discussion about how we co-exist as citizens with different backgrounds. Migration is here to stay, but so is the need for societal cohesion.
Man is a social animal and part of that is to belong to groups and to identify with them and take some degree of responsibility for them. As societies become bigger and more diverse and we meet strangers, we spontaneously try to figure out if this is a person or a group of people we can trust. As ugly as it may sound, we could not survive if we were not given to prejudice. We need to have some kind of pre-conception of whom to trust and whom not to trust; our safety might depend on it.
It is quite natural that we tend to feel more secure around people who look and behave like the people we grew up around and who look like us. Very likely, we share the same norms, and we feel that we can decode the intentions behind what these people say and do. It feels safe. The more people look and behave differently from us, the harder it becomes for us to decode them. It feels less safe. We should not be ashamed of spontaneously reacting like this, but we should be able to self-monitor and reflect and think “Am I showing reasonable caution regarding this stranger or am I being racist or prejudice in an unreasonable way?” In a split second. If we realize that it’s just our head that is filled with racism or prejudice, then we need to be able to compensate for the initial feeling of caution with good manners so we can get to know the stranger. This would be the rational approach. But self-preservation is a survival instinct honed in the human being over thousands of years of evolution so it is really hard to do. Upon contact with a stranger, a new environment or circumstance, the first impulse is the assessment of the threat level. Chances are, by the way, that the other person is just as prejudice against us as we are against them, so we both have to contain ourselves, initiate an interaction, and figure out who the other is.
At the individual level, the first opening towards a stranger is typically a greeting ritual. In the West, in the form of a handshake, from India to Nepal with a namaste slight bow with your palms together in front of you, further east there is just the bow. In parts of the Muslim world, you touch your heart as you greet people, among Māoris, you rub noses — and there are more traditions than that. Each of those greeting traditions has a symbolic meaning that shows the other that you can adhere to shared norms and that you come in peace: The handshake shows that you are not holding a weapon, the namaste bow that you bow to the divine in the other person, further east, the bow is to recognize somebody’s status, touching your heart means you recognize the sacrality of the other, and rubbing noses that you share breath. The problem arises, of course, when people of different traditions need to meet and greet each other: If the stranger refuses the greeting ritual of our group, our people, can he or she be trusted?
Three degrees of xenophobia
I would like to introduce three degrees of xenophobia: racism, culturalism, and educationism, so we can become better at meeting strangers and dealing with ourselves when we meet strangers. At the individual level: Are my fears reasonable or unreasonable in the personal meeting with a foreigner? At the societal level: How are we dealing with immigrants and with ourselves as a collective?
When Europe colonized the rest of the planet, racism was not prominent at first. Rather, first the Catholic church and later also the Protestants saw in the peoples around the world heathens who needed Christ and salvation. And if they refused the “gracious” offer, they were often tortured and killed in brutal ways. Or kept as slaves. As slavery became organized, particularly with the triangular transatlantic trade, racism became an explicit phenomenon, and in Europe in the 1800s, racism became a pseudoscience that tried to group people from around the globe into different races according to skin color and head shapes. Often the differences that were associated with a darker color of skin related to such traits as intelligence and sexual propensity, which was particularly the case regarding sub-Saharan Africans. This had a very clear purpose: to prove that non-Europeans were lesser humans (if humans at all) than the Europeans, and that Europeans were therefore supposed to rule over them and entitled to enslaving them. The more Europeans could convince themselves that particularly Africans were closer to animals than to humans, the more they could justify their treatment or maltreatment of them. This is the original understanding of the word racism and what the word ought to refer to: the conviction that humans belong to different biological races, and that this difference makes a difference.
Racism in this sense makes no sense, there is only one kind of humans. Skin color vary, but it is only skin deep, so to speak.
Yet, racism like this is still around. People still judge other people based on the color of their skin, and consciously or subconsciously, many people, perhaps most of us, ascribe others certain qualities or lack thereof based on their physical appearance. The progress that human civilization has made in this area is that we are qualifying racism as illegal. It is no longer politically accepted to keep people of different color apart through apartheid measures, such as different public spaces, and verbal racism and racial slurs are not culturally accepted. There are still cultural biases and racism, but most societies have done what they can at the legal level to abolish it.
Culturalism is not about physical appearance but, as the word suggests, about culture, cultural norms, and religion. Shared cultural norms such as religion, morality, views on equality between the sexes, attitudes between generations, respect for authorities, etc. allow us to avoid a lot of conflicts within society. If we all expect that girls and boys, women and men should have the same opportunities in life, we don’t get into family conflicts about whether daughters should have as much education and individual freedoms as sons, and if they should be allowed to have sex before marriage too. If we all expect the opposite, conflicts are reduced as well.
Culture matters, and when we live in a diverse society where we do not share cultural norms and/or religion, there will be cultural apprehensions and conflicts.
Educationism has mostly been addressed as a challenge within modern society, when, say, people from a working class background become the first in their family to attend university, and they realize that the other university students come from academic families and have different norms and knowledge. There is also a general tendency towards holding people in higher esteem, the more formal education they have.
I would like to suggest that a lot of xenophobia in the West today has a strong educationistic element. I would also like to suggest that this educationism is more subconscious than racism and culturalism, if for no other reason than we never bring education up as a topic. Racism is often mentioned, and cultural differences are discussed, but we hardly ever openly address the education gap between the richest and the poorest countries. We thereby shy away from addressing the average education gap that is very often there between Westerners and immigrants to the West. So, what might be the reason why the education gap is not discussed in the open, and why educationism may be more subconscious than culturalism and racism?
What to do about racism, culturalism, and educationism
The natures of the three isms, the problem they each represent, and what can be done about them are different. For all three, education is the answer, but they are different kinds of education, and who needs the education differs too. This is probably best illustrated as a matrix:
We can do something about all three isms, but the problems, the assumptions, and the solutions are different among them.
Racism and the racists
Judging people based on the color of their skin is nonsense and appalling. Yet, many people do it. Probably because it makes them feel better about themselves: there is a “them” and an “us,” and we are inherently superior to them. This is not just a white phenomenon, brown people do it too, and it tends to be assumed that a darker skin tone than one’s own entails inferiority. The Middle East is rife with this kind of racism, and it is widespread among immigrant groups in the West.
Since there is no connection between skin color and personal abilities, skin color is not the problem, and the person with more melanin and darker skin is not the problem either; the problem is the racist. For some people who are at the bottom of their society, the color of their skin may be the only thing that distinguishes them from other people at the bottom of society, and they reach for the one thing they can grab onto that will give them a sliver of self-respect and status. This does not make it right, but it may explain a lot and make it possible to understand and address. For people higher up in society, such as politicians, influencers, and religious leaders, racism may be a way of staying in power by creating that “we” that the people at the bottom are longing after so badly.
To educate racists one cannot shove non-racism, non-bias, and all “the right opinions” down their throat. It typically involves blame, nobody likes this, and racists are humans too.
For the racist people at the bottom of society who are the most vulnerable, the best approach is probably to embrace them and understand them and their situation, to let them experience that their assumptions are false, and to give them access to education and work that gives them a sense of accomplishment and identity that is focused on something else. They have made race a part of their identity, and the educational task is to replace their need for racism with an alternative that is meaningful to them and about something else, and that gives them status. In this respect, cultural capital and some culture to be proud of is probably a better way to go than just to focus on upgrading professional skills, though that may be useful too. Adherence to a soccer team and racism are in some cases intertwined in Europe, but they need not be. Being a team supporter and becoming, say, a volunteer in a club that is related to one’s favorite team, would be a fruitful alternative to defining oneself based on skin color. It would add accomplishment and being part of a team to one’s identity; there might even be people of darker skin color volunteering in the same club. Getting over racism is thus a question about bildung: Do people have rich life experiences and cultural experiences that allow them to find common ground with people who look different from themselves without feeling threatened by it? The task is to add something to people’s lives that gives them a sense of self and self-worth with a non-skin-color-based identity. It could be to start a choir or create a community project, particularly if different people collaborate and accomplish something together while they chitchat and get to know each other. It feels good and there is no blame involved.
For people in power, singing and volunteering would be equally useful, but it is less likely that they would join. With them, it might make sense to attack their racism head-on, but not by telling them facts, they would probably be immune to that, but rather by asking for their own facts and sources. Some will bring up the Bell Curve and quote the numbers that show lower average intelligence in some countries than others, and then they will connect that to skin color. Some interesting facts are 1: countries of the same predominant color of skin vary in average intelligence, 2: average intelligence by country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/average-iq-by-country rather closely matches access to quality education https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/education-index-by-country; the major exception is China. Finding out if the racist can explain the connection would probably be very educational.
Culturalism and the culturalists
Judging people based on culture and cultural norms seems to be a basic human trait that has evolved over thousands of years, and it allows us to judge whether we can trust strangers or not. Historically, tribes and larger groups of people have created myths, habits, and religions that have managed to keep them together while distancing them from neighboring tribes and cultures, and this has strengthened internal cohesion and social peace. In sociological terms, growing this increasing cultural difference between groups is called schismogenesis: schism means cleft in Greek and genesis means creation. The more different we find other groups, whether it is clothing, beliefs, eating habits, or greeting rituals, the more we can keep our own group together, and so we keep our guards up and hesitate before we allow ourselves to trust strangers. There is nothing wrong with this, it is actually a good thing, because through history, it has kept increasingly large societies together and kept internal peace. Where it becomes a bad thing is in a world of international collaboration, trade, and migration if keeping one’s guards up becomes an obstacle to peaceful interaction. If initial caution becomes racism or cultural chauvinism and prejudice that lead to conflicts and oppression.
In pluralistic societies with a great diversity of subcultures, we therefore either need to agree upon one shared culture or get to know more about the other subcultures and about culture and cultural norms in general, or all of the above. That is how we can keep social peace in a pluralistic society.
Agreeing on one shared culture does not mean that all members of minority cultures need to give up their own culture or religion; a person can subscribe to more than one culture. As an individual, one can be bicultural, tricultural, or more, and one can practice a different religion than the majority and still participate in most secular aspects of the culture of others and of society as a whole.
The 21st century provides all of us with more interaction with people from different cultures than ever before, and for the most part, that gives many benefits. But it also creates a lot of friction and conflicts when we cannot distinguish between which cultural differences that deeply matter, such as equality or inequality between the sexes, and which differences that allow us to get new experiences that enrich our life, such as tasing new foods, experiencing religious holiday celebrations from a different religion, or questioning our own moral values and cultural assumptions.
The keyword regarding culturalism is tolerance: We do not have to agree with other people’s culture or practice it, but we need to be able to tolerate that other people live in ways that are different from ours, as long as it does not affect other people’s lives or become a source of fundamental conflict in society. Tolerance needs to be mutual, and cultural exploration and education in pluralistic societies therefore cannot just be “us” educating “them.” It needs to be all of us exploring what our own culture and others’ culture are about so that on the one hand, we do not feel threatened by the little things that don’t really make that much of a difference, and on the other hand, we can speak clearly about the things that do matter and stay focused on that.
Do handshakes and namastes matter? On the surface of it, no. It does not matter how people greet each other, what matters is that people greet each other in the same way. If one does not use the common form of greeting in a particular place, one tells one’s surroundings there that one does not play by the same cultural norms as them. If this happened by mistake because one did not know better and one starts using the customary greeting ritual, no problem. If one insists that one does not want to use the customary greeting ritual, it either requires a good explanation (shaking hands while suffering from scabies is a really bad idea, and anybody would accept that explanation; an immunodeficiency would be a fully acceptable explanation for not rubbing noses with Māoris), or one positions oneself as somebody who does not want to be trusted. Which one should absolutely be entitled to do.
Educationism and the educationists
Judging people based on formal education may or may not be relevant. If we judge people morally, there is no relevance; longer formal education does not equal higher moral standards. If we judge people professionally or with regards to immigration, formal education is generally relevant; formal education plays a big role in how one is going to handle any given job and one’s ability support oneself in a new country.
What’s interesting is if we subconsciously judge people when formal education is not relevant. Do we subconsciously value complexity of knowledge in a way we are not used to addressing explicitly? Do we have intuitions about longer formal education that makes us trust people more, the better educated they are? And if so: Why? Do we think more formal education equals better understanding of the world in general and therefore better decision making? Do people make better decisions in general with more formal education? Or does formal education signify higher intelligence, and we think more intelligent people are better to be around?
With regards to immigration, it makes sense if educationism is triggered and one is an educationist. In economically and technologically complex societies such as the West where complex skills are generally required if you are going to make a decent living in a legal way, it is reasonable that undereducated immigrants raise concerns. The first concern is: How are they going to make a living if they speak and read the language poorly, are illiterate or close to illiterate, and if they have false expectations about the country, the culture, and its norms where they just arrived? And if they have false expectations and are undereducated, how are they going to acquire the knowledge of various kinds that will allow them to support themselves? Whether the country is a welfare state or a society without a social safety net, large groups of people who cannot understand the society they are in, who cannot communicate well, and who cannot make a living will create problems one way or the other.
The solution to a lack of formal education is simple: educate people. The question is what kind of education is needed, how much, and who is going to pay for it? And what about the non-formal education, life experience, cultural capital, open-mindedness, tolerance, the ability to pick up social norms and find new friends, contribute to one’s local community, and blend in?
Separating racism, culturalism, and educationism
If we could separate racism, culturalism, and educationalism as we deal with immigration and globalization, we could have a more meaningful and productive debate about what to do when people migrate and how to respect, tolerate, and understand each other. We would be able to discuss what is the real problem, who needs more education, what to do about culture and bildung, how we are going to organize it, and who is going to pay for it?
Racism, culturalism, and educationism may, of course, very often be blended into the same situation: The Syrian medical doctor arriving in Europe may be assumed to be without any useful education and thus end up being a cabdriver. If he does get a job at a hospital, he and his colleagues may misunderstand each other due to cultural differences and different social norms, and patients may be racist and won’t let him touch them.
For us to solve this kind of complex prejudice and xenophobia it would probably be very helpful if we could separate educationism, culturalism, and the actual racism in our minds and in our language when we encounter people from other parts of the world and need to make migration work. At least we need to understand that they are different, and that if we call all of it racism, reasonable apprehension towards strangers and foreigners cannot be discussed in a meaningful way.
Few people are proud of being racists, most people do not see themselves as racist and do not want to be blamed for being racist. Yet, all of us hold prejudice once it has been planted in us, and some of it is prejudice against skin color. We can move or grow beyond this prejudice, but it will still whisper in our ears from time to time. It’s like bicycling: once you know it, it stays with you. And just like you can refrain from bicycling and not use the skill for years and then, the moment you get on a bike, the skill is still there, the same goes for racism. Once the prejudice has been planted, it is impossible to root it out. Even if you realize how awful and stupid racism is and you get beyond it and never refer to it, the prejudice can be triggered, and you suddenly have a thought you do not want to have. But exactly because you do not want to have that thought, you are not a racist. You are a conscious and conscientious human being who does not want to be a racist, but your past is still stuck in your brain, and you will just have to live with that.
So, calling all kinds of xenophobia racism is not a good idea. We need be able to discuss culture, religion, and education and differences in culture, religion, and education, and we cannot have that conversation if having cultural disagreements, including religious disagreements, and pointing out lack of education labels people as racists. People are different in so many respects, and we need to be able to acknowledge and talk about that in civilized ways.
Namaste.
