Racism Essay: Example and Tips

Our world would be much better if we didn’t know what racism is. Unfortunately, even in the most developed countries and civilized societies, this problem can hardly be considered overcome. Writing essay on racism is complicated and required not only knowledge and skills of writing, but also tact, respect and understanding. Any separate point of the essay plan may be used as a separate short essay on a narrower topic about racism.

Possible topic of racism essays

  1. Racism as a global problem of the modern world
  2. Features of racism in the United States and worldwide
  3. History of racism as a social phenomena
  4. How can we overcome racism?
  5. My heroes among fighters against racism (Nelson Mandela, M.L. King)
  6. Racism: from history to present day – we have chosen this topic to cover as an example of essay about racism problem.

Template of essay Racism: from history to present day

Outline

  1. Introduction
  2. Main body
  3. History of racism
  4. Racism of the 19th century and attempts at its scientific substantiation
  5. Modern history of racism
  6. Theorists of racism
  7. Biological causes of racism
  8. Social causes of racism
  9. Psychological causes of racism
  10. Racism in the USA
  11. Most famous fighters against racism
  12. How Martin Luther King influenced racial politics in the US
  13. Black racism
  • Conclusion

Introduction

We live in the 21st century, when people loudly talk about world peace, and at the same time in a world where a new, “modern racism” is thriving, which emphasizes not only blood but also culture. Racism is a discrimination based on race, it includes ideas about the initial division of races into higher and lower levels, where the first dominate the second. One of the beliefs of racism is that the race influences the character, thinking and mental abilities of a single person. It is not right. The existence of racism in general is not correct. Does a person choose how to be born? You can not get rid of the race if you are included in it. Every person who lives in a free country, regardless of race, skin color, and religion, has rights and freedoms, the same as all. It is worth noting that racism is not only an opinion, or prejudice, racism implies under itself, constant mockery, insults, humiliation, beatings, and even murder. The cause of racism is not the color of the skin, but human thinking, and therefore to begin to fight it, follows from the eradication of incorrect prejudices. Racism is like an infection that has spread all over the world.

Despite the fact that the open manifestation of racism is punishable in most countries, it is difficult to recognize that this provides sufficiently reliable protection against its manifestations. In this essay, we will make an attempt to look at the problem of racism from various points of view, because it clearly shows that, despite the full confirmation of the unscientific nature of racist theories, the ideas of racism and nationalism continue to actively live in modern society.

Thus, it is proposed to look at the problems of racism from several points of view, separately highlighting the scope and manifestations of racism:

  • Racism as a manifestation of the political interests of countries or individuals.
  • Racism as a way to justify intervention on the territory of other states.
  • Social racism, which manifests itself more broadly in the color problem and is expressed in the dominance of one group of people over others.
  • Psychological racism. In this case, we are talking about an attempt to identify the causes of the manifestation of racism on the basis of considering the situation with an individual, starting from the psychoanalytic theory.

In the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, racism is designated as any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, color, descent, national or ethnic origin, having the purpose or effect of destroying or impairing the recognition, use or exercise on an equal footing of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other areas of public life.

The international community, the UN condemn racism as a gross violation of universal and fundamental human rights, demand from all countries active struggle for the eradication of racism. The weighty decolonization of human rights in 1948, the UN Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination of 1963, the Declaration on Race and Racial Prejudice of 1978 and others.

Racism is an ideology that uses external differences as the main reason for refusing equal treatment of members of another group on the basis of scientific, biological or moral characteristics, consider them different from their own group and initially downstream. Previously, racism was considered only a manifestation of the negative attitude of white to black people, but international documents of the second half of the twentieth century called racial discrimination not only by skin color, but also by descent, national or ethnic origin.

Races, in turn, are understood as historically formed territorial groups of people connected by the unity of origin, which is expressed in general hereditary, morphological and physiological attributes that vary within certain limits.

Thus, it is no longer possible to understand racism as a problem of different skin colors. Racism must be considered more widely as a social and psychological problem. Within a single country, within one ethnic group, there may exist specific forms of racism, so-called social racism. This is when the poor and under-educated population, for example, peasants, experience infringement of their dignity and rights, inadequate wages at a quite official level. This is especially true for third world countries, and this represents one of the forms of modern slavery.

History of racism

In the Middle Ages, statements about the “blood” differences between “nobility” and “rabble” were designed to justify class inequality. In the era of the initial accumulation of capital (16-18 centuries), when the European states first seized the colonies, racism served the purposes of inhuman exploitation, and often the justification for the extermination of the Indians of America, Africans, many peoples of South Asia, Australia and Oceania.

In the era of slavery, racism served the interests of slaveholders, who argued that the equation of people in rights would contradict the very nature in which inequality prevails. Under the conditions of the feudal system, racism took the form of the dogma of blue blood from the ruling elite, allegedly created by nature itself for undivided power over the fate of the farmer.

The epoch of capitalism was marked by the new flourishing of racist theories, which were intended to serve as the theoretical basis for the forcible seizure of lands among the indigenous peoples of America, Africa, Asia, Australia and Oceania. The immediate goal of racism has always been to morally disarm the victim of oppression, to destroy his faith in himself, to place him contempt for himself, to inspire him with the awareness of the legitimacy of his lack of rights and thereby paralyze his will to fight his oppressors.

In America, in the 18th and 19th centuries, there was active hunting for Indian scalps, and according to such racial policies, a number of racial theories appeared during that period, which seemed to be very useful for the colonial policies of England and other European countries, theories that extolled the white race on the facts of its intellectual superiority, on the strength of these theories, the oppression of black slaves in America flourished.

Politicians of many countries resorted to racism when they felt the need to justify the “right” to rule or capture. A striking example of this is Japanese racism. As soon as Japan began colonial expansion into other countries (for example, China), a theory of the superiority of the “Japanese race” over all other races and peoples of the world (General Araki, Tainzaki Junichiro, Akiyama Kanzoo and other “Japanese”) was created. The “original” racist theories were created in due time by some zealous panturkers, ideologists of the nobility of Poland, Finnish reactionaries who dreamed of creating a “great Finland” from Scandinavia to the Urals, something similar put forward by Jewish chauvinists, praising the greatness of the “chosen” God-people.

In the 18th century, within the framework of the emerging biological science, there arose the theory of polygenesis – the origin of mankind from different ancestors. Although this theory was soon disproved (Darwin, in particular), attempts to scientifically substantiate racism were made until the end of the XIX century.

What arguments were used to justify the need for racist theories?

  • Higher cultural level of the state. The presence of greater socialization and complexity of the social order.
  • Technically more advanced objects and tools. Instruments of labor and weapons, vehicles.
  • As a consequence of the second point, as evidence, the possibility of civilized peoples to influence nature and the environment.

In 1923, Dr. J. Dunston, a British psychiatrist and member of the Commission for Mental Hygiene in South America, said: “There is reason to believe that Aboriginal people, even from the best tribes, most likely refer to a race that is lower in mental development compared with ours… Aborigines define time in inaccurate ways, and as a rule, they do not know what their age is. And in their dances, which they love so much, there are no graceful movements – an important psychological aspect that should be carefully studied…”

Senator John Calhoun reasoned: “We can prove the necessity of slavery. Africans are not able to take care of themselves and completely lose their minds when the burden of freedom hits them. Merciful towards them is to show concern and protect them from insanity.”

Racism of the 19th century and attempts at its scientific substantiation

The first attempts at scientific substantiation of racism and the first racial theories appeared in the 18th century, this was due to the colonization of the lands of Africa, America, and also parts of Asia. The idea of ​​all the first racial theories: the white race is the most complete. Later, yellow and black racism appeared. The first racists to promote white supremacy were: Morton, Pett, Gleddon.

The theory of “natural slavery” of Aristotle turned out to be a serious source, to which many anthropologists-racists have referred for centuries. But it should be noted that when writing about slaves “from nature”, Aristotle did not mean a slave as a representative of another race. Slaves in ancient times were people who belonged to the same race as their masters. For centuries, slaves were poor and unprotected people who were unable to withstand the onslaught of the conquerors.

A “scientific” explanation was used to justify slavery in the United States. As early as in 1797, psychiatrist Benjamin Rush, the “father of American psychiatry,” said that black skin is the result of a rare, inherited disease called “Negro”, which arose from leprosy. Rush claimed that the only sign of healing is that the skin turns white again. This label of “disease” served as the basis for the segregation of black (so that white could not “get infected”).

In November 17, 1863, the London Anthropological Society – the first anthropological organization in England opened the first meeting. The president of the society, James Ghent, made a presentation on the place of the black people in nature, which provided numerous proofs of the inequality of whites and Negroes, and negroes attributed the most negative properties of human nature. The president sympathetically quoted the most pointless opinions, if only they could serve him as material against the Negro race.

In the first volume of the memoirs of this society, there appeared essays on the history of anthropology, also aimed at substantiating racism, written by Bendish, a determined supporter of polygenism. Tracing the development of ideas about the origin of human races since the early Middle Ages, he states that monogenism has always been the dogma of the church, and that critical minds (Julian the Apostate, Paracelsus, Giordano Bruno), on the contrary, always defended the idea of ​​a multitude of independent centers the origin of various human races.

An attempt to substantiate the proximity of a Negro to a monkey was made by Lawrence back in 1819, and the energetic defense of polygenism in England was already conducted in the 1940s by Hamilton Smith and in the fifties by Robert Knox. The idea of ​​the inequality of human races with extraordinary strength broke out in America at a time when the issue of the slave trade was exacerbating. When, in 1844, England, supported by France, appealed to the US Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Calhoun with a proposal to liberate the Negroes and stop trafficking, Calhoun was at a loss and did not know how to formulate an answer to the two European powers. On the advice of the well-known anthropologist, Moreton Calhoun wrote a note addressed to England, in which he rejected any change in the legal status of the Negroes, since the Negroes are supposedly a special breed of people.

A great help to the ideologists of slavery was the error of the Dutch anatomist Camper, who, back in the 18th century, suggested to consider people and animals in the profile and measure the value of the angle, which makes the profile line with the horizontal. With this comparison it turned out that the angle of Apollo Belvedersky’s angle is close to the straight, the European has a few degrees less, the Negro is even smaller, the orang-utans are slightly smaller than the Negro, while in other animals the angle is very small.

Very much support of racial theory was provided by Louis Agassiz, who developed the theory of the origin of various human races in eight regions of the globe, corresponding to the so-called zoogeographical provinces. According to the concepts of the time, this meant that there was no relationship between human races, that they were created independently of each other and very different in their natural properties, both physical and spiritual.

Modern history of racism

In the first half of the 19th century, the mainstay of racist theories became the United States, and subsequently the aggravation of the struggle between the slaveholders and the abolitionists – adherents of the liberation of the black people. Seeking to strengthen their economic and political positions, slave-owners from the southern states adopted reactionary racial theories. In the most expressive form they were formulated by the anthropologist Morton and his followers N. Norton and D. Glidden. So in the year 1844, the latter published the book Types of Humanity, where the idea of ​​the Blacks belonging to a special biological species close to humanoid monkeys was conducted.

Already in 1907, the first law was adopted, which made forcible sterilization legal. Soon similar laws were adopted in most states of America, and then in many countries of Europe. The very operations to sterilize the mentally retarded, sick with severe hereditary diseases and just hereditary poor and non-white began even earlier. According to the estimates of prominent eugenics experts, every tenth was subject to sterilization in the United States. According to their plans, openly published in the eugenic press, about 14 million people were to be deprived of the ability and the right to have children.

In other countries, according to their plans, this percentage was much higher. In fact, all nations recognized as “inferior” were subject to sterilization: Negroes, Indians, Jews, Arabs and many, many others. All those who did not fit the standard invented in the early part of the century by American experts (and not by German Nazis!) “Nordic” German race. To prevent such “geeks” the United States adopted the appropriate immigration laws, as well as laws that prohibit mixed marriages of whites with “inferior”.

So, the authoritative figure in the field of public education Charles Bobbit complained in his article “Practical eugenics”: “In past glorious times, the blood of the race was pure as a mountain source… Now public schools and charity supply crutches of all mentally and morally backward, violating the purity of heredity.”

It is worth noting that the doctrines of the racial purity and superiority of the white race were not simply the ideas of ignorant, unconscious masses. Those were carefully thought out ideas of many of their most respectable and highly educated people in America, each of whom was an expert in his field and each had enormous authority.

Anthropology was used to prove that all those phenomena that in reality inevitably flow from a certain system of production relations at the present historical stage (the concentration of wealth in the hands of a small number of owners, the struggle for colonies, unemployment, the superprofits of an insignificant minority and poverty, etc.), are supposedly manifestations of the immutable laws of nature and the hereditary inequality of people.

Theorists of racism

Joseph Arthur de Gobineau (1816-1882), a theorist of racism in Europe of the nineteenth century, in his work On the Inequality of the Races, speaks not only of the superiority of the white race over all the others, but also of the fact that only a certain circle of people of the higher race is its true representative. He tries to justify the right of domination of biologically and genetically “predetermined” Aryan (white) race. In 1853, Count Gobineau published the book The Experience of Inequality of Human Races. He was supported by the biologists Haeckel, Galton. They tried to scientifically substantiate the idea of ​​the inequality of races, but through the years of their research, they could not stand any criticism and were universally recognized as groundless, unprovable and pseudoscientific.

Vazhe de Lyapuzh (1854-1936), a prominent French racist, tried to prove that the head index of representatives of the upper classes of society is less than that of people from the lower classes with a more round, brachycephalic skull. Lyapuzh even claimed that “a brachycephalic skull is a sign of individuals who can not rise above barbarism.” Contrary to this misconception, statistics show that mentally gifted people often have a large round head and that brunettes predominate among representatives of the so-called upper class.

Le Bon, a French sociologist. He wrote a book entitled “The psychology of peoples and masses” in which he believed that equality is contrary to nature, and inequality of races is an objective mode of existence. Le Bon writes: “The white race genetically and physiologically surpasses other races according to their intellectual abilities, the subtleties of the theoretical-cognitive and value attitude toward the world, logical thinking. The yellow race is inferior to white one order, brown to 2, Americanoid to 3, black is not capable without white control at all of anything.”

Houston Stewart Chamberlain, an Englishman who emigrated to Germany after marrying the daughter of the German composer Wagner and developing the racist ideas of the teachings of Gobineau and Lyapuzh, also substantiates the superiority of the German race over other peoples, but he has already given these ideas substantial development, as he presented the racial theory in more frank and aggressive form. He acted as a staunch supporter of the struggle to maintain the “purity” of the race and preserve it from all sorts of alien influences and impurities. Chamberlain was the first in Germany who laid the “foundations” of the theory of races and “eugenics” – the “science” of racial purity and peculiar methods of “selection” of people, as later described by a kind scientist Darre: “How did we revive the Hanoverian horse by selecting thoroughbred stallions and mares, so we will revive the pure type of the northern Germanic by compulsory crossing for a number of generations.”

Malthus (1766-1834), an English economist, one of the founders of social Darwinism, eugenic racism, author of The Treatise on the Law of Population (1798), which develops the view of the need to destroy state aid to the poor and that the famine and poverty of the masses depend not ostensibly on the social system, but on the excessively rapid reproduction of the poor. This “theory”, which justifies the death of millions of people of oppressed classes and peoples, was deservedly evaluated by the classics of Marxism, who described it as a manifestation of the deepest despiciness of thought. The connection of Malthus with social Darwinism is most clear where it states that poverty and vice themselves automatically prevent the excessive reproduction of the population (elimination of the “unadapted”). The connection of Malthus with eugenics is manifested in the preventive measures recommended by him, which should limit the reproduction of the poor strata of the people.

Joseph Deniker (1852 – 1918), Russian racial theorist. References to his main work of 1900 “Human races” can be easily found in many Soviet academic works on anthropology. One of the leading racial theoreticians of Weimar Germany and then the Third Reich, Hans FK Günther, in his fundamental work “Nordic Worldview” openly acknowledged that the name of the basic part of the German racial doctrine “was first introduced by the Russian racial theorist Deniker”.

Karl Ryoze, a racist, released in 1905-06 the book “European Racology”. His conclusion: “The Nordic racial component of the German people is the main bearer of his spiritual strength.”

Frances Galton, (1822 – 1911), an English psychologist and anthropologist. Analyzing the factors of heredity, came to the conclusion about the need to create eugenics. Limitation of psychological views was manifested in his ideas about the predetermination of intellectual achievements of man by his genetic resources, and political reactionary – in an attempt to present the masses with biologically inferior.

Alfred Ploetz, published in 1895 the book “The Basics of Racial Hygiene”, revised the ideas of the “father of eugenics” Francis Galton (1822-1911). Ploetz founded in 1904 the “Archive of Racial and Social Biology”, and in 1905 – the German and the International Society of Racial Hygiene. He wrote then: “We must feel like the knights of life, a beautiful and powerful life, from which all earthly happiness arises and the victorious aspiration of which only upsets us and gives us hope for the future, for the golden age that people put in the past.”

Biological causes of racism

A number of ethologists pointed to the biological determinism of xenophobia in humans. Animals have a phenomenon of ethological isolation, which is aggression and hostility shown by them in relation to close species and subspecies. The biological expediency of such behavior is the ban on the formation of mixed pairs. Thus, accepting the idea of ​​the evolution of man from the animal world, it is possible to admit the existence of xenophobia of the modern man remaining in the psyche and manifesting itself in the form of racism.

Certain moods of sympathy and antipathy towards representatives of another population are reflected in a number of examples. These include, for example, the effects of sympathy “to distant and to someone else’s”, while strangers in this population appear in units and do not yet form separate groups. If the number increases, then there is already national hatred, growing out of inter-group competition. Let us recall the warm feelings for the black students during the Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow, Russia in 1957, from which many “colored” children appeared. Similar phenomena, the so-called “phenomena of rare males” are inherent in most species of animals.

Thus, we can talk about a number of phenomena that a person may have inherited from animals, although this, of course, can not serve as an explanation for racism as a social phenomenon. These biological phenomena can be considered as additional reasons for raising the level of racism and xenophobia, acting along with stronger factors – social and psychological.

Social causes of racism

The main social cause of racism is, of course, the Weimar Syndrome. This is an economic recession that discards those who, in another situation, would be the middle class key. These people are just the source and at the same time a breeding ground for racist, fascist, xenophobic and nationalist sentiments.

The economic crisis in countries is often combined with a political catastrophe or with a military defeat, as in Germany. But in principle, to provoke nationalism and racism, this is not necessary: ​​in Costa Rica, without any war, the influx of guest workers from Nicaragua in the years of liberal reforms caused a sharp increase in xenophobia towards them.

In Germany and Japan, after 1945, with the long-lasting popularity of fascist and racist ideas, the adult population managed to prevent the organization of the Nazis, as the economic crisis quickly turned into growth. Whereas, according to the German Constitutional Protection Agency, the number of ultra-right extremists in the FRG in 2009 increased by one-third, from about 20,000 to 30,000. Experts attribute this to the deterioration in the economic situation and the fall in living standards due to the global financial crisis.

Those serious efforts made by American society to keep even the current level of political correctness, which exists mainly in words, show the organic nature of nationalism and racism in any society built on property, competition and the market. The fact is that all feelings associated with the relevant values ​​are psychologically identical with those feelings that nourish nationalism, racism and xenophobia, and differ only in the absence of fetishism, rigid attachment to the specific appearance of the “stranger”. “Alien” – the potential object of application of hostility and discrimination in a capitalist society – is your current competitor, not necessarily “black” or “color.”

Thus, a good environment for the development of racism in society is the economic problems and the influx of additional emigrants to the country that make up under capitalist society additional competition for the main category of citizens in the country. This contributes to the emergence of a racist / xenophobic myth – that all troubles, problems and turmoil come from “strangers”, and that others are “certainly worse”, and this “worse” justifies their humiliation, even prescribes it (“we” “better”).

The appearance of “Alien” focuses on feelings of hatred, fear and superiority, directs them towards the goal – people of a different nationality. To survive and succeed in a hostile environment, these Strangers inevitably become the source of the very problems in which they were suspected (crime, corruption, exploitation, etc.).

But these are not the only possible reasons. A number of sociologists note the presence of the so-called ethnocide in most people, which manifests itself in the rejection of reconciliation with differences in culture that do not coincide with the rhythms of their own culture. This phenomenon of ethnocentricity is especially characteristic for countries with an ethnocratic regime of government, where the ruling ethnos retains all the main posts and “high places” in the country.

Also, sociologists note the great importance of intergroup competition. In a number of experiments set by Muzaffar Sherif, it was clearly demonstrated that any situation of inter-group competition immediately causes a strong and stable inter-group enmity. For example, in experiments conducted with adolescent boys, even when the boys were selected at random, and there were no biological or racial differences between them, there was still strong inter-group competition.

“The simple distribution of boys across the two premises was enough to excite the feeling “we are against them,” and assigning names to groups (“Eagles” and “Rattlesnakes”) increased the sense of rivalry. The boys began to belittle the achievements of another group and ridicule its members. However, the real passion flared up when the experimenters introduced elements of competitive activity into boys’ interaction. Hunting for treasures, playing hut against the hut, tug-of-war, athletic contests led to the appearance of offensive nicknames and confrontations between members of different groups. They were called “cowards” and “stinkers” … threatening inscriptions were hanging out, the usual phenomenon was fights in the dining room.

Once, due to competition, intergroup feud was immediately associated with any details of the external appearance of the members of both teams, even the most random signs teenagers constantly tried to rethink as group symbols “suitable” for focusing enmity, until they stop at the most suitable one. As soon as the corresponding signification has taken place, the individual personality with that completely disappears behind the corresponding symbol.

After the above experiments, Muzaffar Sherif (1961) modeled a series of situations where intergroup cooperation is an indispensable condition for overall good, and intergroup competition will bring only harm. So, during an all-day excursion, it was “discovered” that a single truck was stuck in the ditch, where it is possible to bring food, and everyone should push it. On another occasion, a break was organized in supplying the camp with water coming from a remote reservoir, and all together it was necessary to restore the pipeline, etc. Sheriff notes that the imposition of common goals on groups played a decisive role in stopping hostility.

Psychological causes of racism

The existence of objective sociological reasons for the emergence of hatred, enmity towards other ethnic groups, still does not explain the fact that within one society different people are differently exposed to racist attitudes. Thus, we can talk about the presence in the psyche of one or another individual of a number of reasons explaining his propensity for racism and causing xenophobic sentiments.

The psyche is designed in such a way that in order to respect oneself, to feel calm and dignified, most people are forced to ignore some of their properties that they actually possess. All that a person does not accept in himself, in the Jungian tradition of analytical psychology, is usually called a “shadow.”

Not noticing their own unacceptable qualities, people often transfer their external objects around themselves: to “people in general”, saying, for example, that “people are evil,” or on certain specific people, being, for example, confident that “he hates me.”

The psychic mechanism here is as follows: the psyche, as a rule, spreads itself and its properties beyond its limits. And feeling, for example, greedy, a person “naturally”, assumes that such are all the others. The evaluation mechanism that is put into operation further allows a person to believe that “I am not like that” if the mind is not ready to accept this phenomenon. This is followed by repression – in relation to yourself. But assuming that “I’m not like that,” a person continues to see others as “such.” The shadow seems to fall on people around.

“Primitive personality (and in every nation, as it is known, a mass personality reacts like a primitive person) is not able to realize evil as “its own personal evil”, since its consciousness is so weakly developed that it is not capable of resolving the conflicts that have arisen. Therefore, the mass personality invariably perceives evil as something alien and, as a result of this perception, everywhere and always strangers become victims of a shadow projection.

In the country, the objects of the shadow projection are national minorities. Obviously, due to racial and ethnic characteristics, and even more so if there is a different skin color, national minorities are most suitable for shadow projection. There are various variants of the psychological problem of national minorities: religious, national, racial and social. However, all variants have one common feature-the split in the structure of the collective psyche.

The role of strangers, which was formerly performed by prisoners of war and shipwrecked, is now performed by the Chinese, Negroes and Jews. The same principle determines the attitude towards religious minorities in all religions (Erich Neumann).

“A stranger as an object of shadow projection plays an extremely important role in psychic energy. The shadow is an alien ego of our personality, our conscious, opposing point of view, which has a disastrous effect on our conscious attitude and sense of security – can be exteriorized and then destroyed. The struggle against heretics, political opponents and enemies of the people is essentially a struggle with our religious doubts, the vulnerability of our political position and the one-sidedness of our national outlook” (Neumann).

The actions of such a person are unconscious. Until now, the Shadow problem has manifested itself and affects the objectivity of judgments, incorrect, distorted assessments that are affected by a racial feature. In the report of the American institute Goldwater, entitled “Race and disability. Racial bias in Arizona special education institutions” for 2003 it was noted that “60% of the fourth-graders from low-income and African-American families showed a result “below the required level” in the last state exam to assess progress in training.” Black schoolchildren are 3 times more likely than white to receive a label “mentally retarded.” Although black pupils make up only 16% of the total number of schoolchildren in the United States, 32% of children who are trained by the mentally retarded program are children.

From the point of view of analytical psychology, the collective will strives for its liberation with the help of a “scapegoat” as long as there is a sense of guilt arising during the formation of the shadow as a factor of splitting in the mind.

For example, as pre-election arguments, Hitler announced that Germany would finally be able to restore the former greatness that was lost as a result of the loss in the First World War. Recall that in January 18, 1919 in Paris, there opened a peace conference of 27 allied and affiliated states, who believed that the end of the First World War should be formalized. The future fate of Germany the winners decided without its participation. In general, Germany lost 13.5% of the territory (73.5 thousand square kilometers) with a population of 7.3 million people, of which 3.5 million were Germans. These losses deprived Germany of 10% of its production capacity, 20% of its hard coal output, 75% of iron ore reserves and 26% of iron production. Germany was obliged to transfer to the winners almost the entire military and merchant marine fleet, 800 locomotives and 232 thousand railway wagons. The total amount of reparations was to be determined later by a special commission, and while Germany pledged to pay the Entente countries an indemnity amounting to 20 billion gold marks.

But despite the seriousness of the economic consequences of the Treaty of Versailles, they did not affect the future fate of the Weimar Republic, but the fact that a sense of humiliation prevailed in Germany, which contributed to the emergence of moods of nationalism and revanchism. At Versailles, British Prime Minister D. Lloyd George prophetically stated that the main danger of the concluded treaty is that “we push the masses into the arms of extremists”.

Neumann stated that any war can take place only if the enemy becomes a shadow projection carrier. Therefore, the passion and joy of participating in a military conflict, without which it is impossible to force a single person to participate in the war, stems from satisfying the needs of the unconscious shadow side. Wars are a correlate of the old ethics, because in them the activation of the unconscious, shadow side of the collective is visibly manifested (Neumann).

Racism in the USA

Racism in the United States existed from the very beginning of the state. A society founded by white people, differing in their national and religious characteristics, was very different in its relation to other groups. The victims of racism were non-white indigenous people – Indians – and Negro slaves.

Before slavery in colonial America became completely based on skin color, thousands of African slaves served European colonists together with white and Indian slaves. Sometimes black slaves after working off the term of slavery received freedom and land allotment, that is, they became landowners.

In 1676, there began an uprising against the Governor of Virginia and the system of exploitation of the poor colonists by wealthy landowners who was led by Nathaniel Bacon. After his death, the revolution lost its leader, but Bacon gained widespread support among slaves, and as a result they still achieved the fact that now only Negroes could be used as slaves, and white was promised various benefits.

These decisions marked the beginning of a long period of “black slavery”, when Negroes were used for agricultural work, especially in the production of cotton and tobacco. In the North, slavery was much less common – usually in the form of domestic servants.

Although the US Congress banned the importation of new slaves from Africa in 1808, this practice has existed for at least another half-century. Slavery was nominally abolished in 1863 by Abraham Lincoln, and in fact the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution, which was adopted in 1865. But even after the abolition of slavery, racism has long existed in the form of separate learning, places “only for whites,” the laws of Jim Crow, etc.

Significant progress in overcoming racism in the United States began in the 1960s when, as a result of the success of the civil rights movement, significant political and socio-economic measures were taken to ensure equality and overcoming the age-old abyss that separated African Americans, American Indians and other minorities from mainstream American life. At the same time, racism still remains one of the hottest topics of American public life.

Most famous fighters against racism

World knows many fighter for the rights and freedoms. We will shortly name only five of the most famous fighters against such an evil phenomena as racism.

  • Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela is one of the most famous fighters for human rights. He was the enemy of apartheid, who spent 27 years in prison for his convictions. Mandela began his fight by participating in demonstrations against raising the price for travel in public African transport. Later, he was accused of treason and preparation for a coup. “In my country, you first go to jail, and then become president,” said the human rights activist. According to unconfirmed official data, Mandela was a communist. In the early 1990s, Mandela was released from prison and awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1994, after the election, he became a president of South Africa – the first black leader of this republic. “I firmly learned that courage is not a lack of fear, but a victory over it.” A courageous person is not one who does not fear, but one who fights with it,” Mandela thought. He died on December 5, 2013 at the age of 96 years.

  • Mahatma Gandhi

In his homeland in India, Mahatma Gandhi achieved almost the status of a saint, and throughout the world he is known as a legendary peacemaker who gave his life for the independence of the people from the British colonists. In his struggle, he used the principles of non-resistance to evil by violence. His life principle was the phrase: “If you encounter the enemy, defeat him with love.” The philosopher urged the Hindus and Muslims to reconcile, and also considered wealth a vice. This was not liked by local millionaires, who began to organize murder attempts on the spiritual leader. Gandhi was already 80 years old at the time, and he philosophically attacked his life: “If I’m destined to die from a madman’s bullet, I will do it with a smile.” He was shot by a hired killer. Before his death, Gandhi made it clear that he forgives the attacker. Even in the last moments of his life, he followed his principles.

  • Martin Luther King

Baptist preacher Martin Luther King fought for the rights of the black population of the US, opposing segregation. His famous speech “I have a dream” has become a model of the oratory of all times and peoples. The preacher’s talent unfolded in full force. The speech on the struggle against racism was heard in August 1963 by 300,000 Americans gathered at the Lincoln Memorial. I have a dream that the day will come when our nation will rise and live to the true meaning of its motto. We believe it is self-evident that all people are created equal, King said. He was shot by a sniper, who, according to the official version, was a single killer. However, many associate the death of Martin Luther King with interest to him from the FBI.

  • Aung San Suu Kyi

Burmese politician Aung San Suu Kyi was recently recognized as the “hero of our time”, and the famous director Luc Besson took a film about her. The daughter of the general and the people’s leader, who was killed during the next redistribution of power, Su Zhi from childhood was far from home. Later, as a married lady and the mother of two children, she decided to return to Burma and promote democratic values. She advocated the freedom of people and was against the power of the local junta. Suu Kyi was actively involved in politics, achieving popular recognition and house arrest, which lasted 15 years. Being in this imprisonment, she in absentia received the Nobel Peace Prize. She did not see not only fellow party members, but also her family – her husband and children. “There is only one real prison – this is a prison of fear, and there is only one real freedom – freedom from fear,” Suu Kyi said. In 2010, she was released from house arrest, and she continued to actively participate in the political life of the country, which was now called Myanmar.

  • Eleanor Roosevelt

The wife of US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt was one of the founders of the United Nations. Under her leadership, the United Nations developed the famous Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In addition, Eleanor Roosevelt was a famous feminist. “A woman is like a tea bag, you never know how strong she can be until she is trapped in boiling water,” urged First Lady of the World, as she was called by Harry Truman. Eleanor Roosevelt defended the rights of all – from black people to sexual minorities. And she did it very convincingly. For example, after arriving in a tutored school and noticing the dirty floors, the president’s wife took a broom and started revenge. In 1961, John F. Kennedy included her in the US delegation to the UN, appointing a member of the Peace Corps and entrusting her with the chairmanship of the Commission on Women’s Rights. Eleanor Roosevelt died of leukemia at the age of 78 years. Now the prize bearing her name is awarded annually for outstanding activities in the field of human rights protection.

How Martin Luther King influenced racial politics in the US

On April 4, 1968 in Memphis, the most famous defender of the rights of black Americans, Martin Luther King, was killed. The mission of the legendary preacher did not end with his death. The Civil Rights Movement, which he headed, was able to make significant progress in the fight against racial segregation. King’s name became a symbol of equality, not only in America, but throughout the world.

The civil rights movement originated in the US in the middle of the last century. Despite the fact that the Civil War (1861-1865) ended 90 years before, racial equality in America was never established. At the root of the formation of society in the United States, there were white immigrants from Europe, and all the opportunities in this society were open to them.

Formally, equality was declared everywhere, but even people from the non-Anglo-Saxon environment for a long time were subjected to certain restrictions in the US. So, numerous immigrants from Italy and Ireland did not have real opportunities to climb the career ladder. But in the most disenfranchised position there was a black minority.

After the Civil War and the Reconstruction of the South, within the framework of the policy of national reconciliation and the struggle for the votes of the citizens, the southern states of the USA gradually gained the opportunity to legislatively restrict the rights of the Negroes. Thus, a policy of racial segregation appeared: the white majority distanced themselves from the black people in all aspects of everyday life. As a result, natives from the Black Continent had their own schools, shops, cafes, railroad cars and even places in public transport.

Even the possibility of voting was limited: the right to elect and be elected was closely linked with the educational and property qualification. But here there was a difficulty with the voting of the white poor, and then a decision was made that the descendant of the voters could not lose their voting rights. At the same time, every black American was immediately pointed to his place in society. Of course, such social pressure could not but provoke protests, which grew as the level of life and education of black people increased.

It can not be said that prior to the Civil Rights Movement, public opinion was indifferent to the problems of the minority. As early as 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded. This organization conducted active propaganda against segregation and lobbied for the interests of racial minorities. Martin Luther King – the most famous fighter for the rights of black people in US history – joined its ranks in his youth.

By the 1950s, Americans were gradually beginning to understand that the former policy of racial segregation should be a thing of the past. But for this opinion to become universal, a bright personality, like Martin Luther King, was needed.

Career start

King was born in 1929 in a family that by American standards of that time reached almost the maximum possible for blacks success in society. His father served as a pastor of a Baptist church, the parishioners of which were the best-off black residents of Atlanta.

Martin Luther King received a good education, graduating from college in 1948. While still a student, he was ordained a priest, although he repeatedly denied the church’s dogmas and considered himself a religious skeptic. However, the church career was the most suitable for the son of the priest, so King continued his education in the theological seminary, after which he became a bachelor of theology. Later he was awarded a doctorate.

In 1954, King moved to south – to the city of Montgomery. It was here that the Civil Rights Movement was born, and King became his ideological inspirer.

Minority Leader

In Montgomery, Pastor King led a civilian “bus protest”, which was the result of the incident with the dark-skinned seamstress Rosa Parks. She refused to give way to the white man’s bus, for which she was arrested and fined. As a result, black Montgomery residents began a large-scale boycott of urban public transport. The resistance rally lasted more than a year and was crowned with sensational success: the federal authorities recognized Alabama’s segregation measures as illegal. From that moment it became clear that the liquidation of the system of separation of the white and colored population of the South is a matter of the near future.

Participation in the protest made King popular. He became the universally recognized informal leader of the Civil Rights Movement and engaged in politics. King went around the country and made speeches before the color minority, substantiated their right to fight for equality, participated in protest marches and numerous rallies. The pastor from Montgomery became so famous that his speeches gathered hundreds of thousands of people.

Despite the fact that in the early 1960s the movement for equal rights gradually began to acquire a radical bias supported by leaders such as the Muslim preacher Malcolm X and the head of the organization of black self-defense Robert Williams, King denied violence. He insisted that only non-violent methods of struggle would lead to equality. King listened to the ideas of Gandhi and to the slogans of civil resistance to the power of the British in India. Many of the political practices of Gandhism King successfully implemented in the United States.

Death of the Preacher

By 1968, Martin Luther King was one of the most influential politicians in the United States. He became an unconditional charismatic leader for the large black population of the United States. By that time, the influence of the conservatives in the South had already come to naught, and the liberal administration of President Johnson was completely dismantling the segregation system.

Despite the fact that King had many enemies, the most influential people of the United States sought to establish friendly relations with him. Partly, therefore, the murder of King was one of the most resonant in American history.

On April 4, 1968 King was in Memphis, where he supported the strike of black workers. He stopped in an inexpensive motel “Lorain”, which belonged to his friend, also dark-skinned. Going out to the balcony of his room in the evening, King was killed by a single shot from a rifle. Three months after the assassination, the London police detained the American James Earl Ray with false documents. After the arrest, he confessed to the crime and was deported to the United States. Examination of fingerprints showed that Rei was the killer of King.

Versions of crime

The murder of King caused a wide public response: the country was swept by excitement that affected 110 cities. And after the sentence was passed to James Earl Ray, many versions and motives of the crime appeared, in many of them King’s murderer figured exclusively as a performer.

The prosecution believed that Ray had arrived at the Loraine motel, rented a room in someone else’s name, found out which room King had stayed in, and locked himself in his room, waiting for the victim. Noticing that King went out on the balcony, Rei took aim and shot. After that, he immediately threw the gun and left the motel. Then Ray somehow got a Canadian passport and went to London, where he flew to Portugal, but soon for unknown reasons he returned to London, where he was detained.

However, a number of experts consider this story questionable. After all, after Rey signed a frank confession, he refused his words and denied that he had killed King all his life. Skepticism is reinforced by the fact that the perpetrator threw a gun with fingerprints of his fingers at the crime scene. Historians point out that ballistic examination of weapons was carried out with great delay, and its results are still recognized as doubtful. In addition, James Earl Ray was from a poor family, he was tried several times for theft, and at the time of the attempt on Martin Luther King, he might not have enough resources to organize the crime himself.

All this gave rise to the version of FBI involvement. Supporters of this theory believe that Martin Luther King interfered with American politicians, his influence was excessive, and he could seriously affect the outcome of the election. In addition, conservatives from the American special services believed that the death of the leader of black Americans would lead to the downfall of the Civil Rights Movement, and this will allow the supporters of segregation to take revenge.

The King’s Effect

Despite the death of the spiritual leader, the Movement for Civil Rights has not lost its positions. The fight against racial segregation has continued, and in the last thirty years, national minorities have even received a number of social preferences as compensation for centuries of oppression.

Martin Luther King received state recognition. In the United States, since 1986, King’s Day is celebrated at the highest level. A lot of streets, squares, educational institutions, libraries and hospitals all over the country are named after the legendary preacher. King’s speeches have become a model of American oratory, they are studied in colleges and universities.

Experts acknowledge that King’s activities really created a new reality, but they note that modern America has not become less controversial than it was 50 years ago, the nature of the contradictions has simply changed.

Black racism

We have become accustomed to hearing about “white” racism, that is, about the racism of the “white” people in relation to the people of color. But there is also “racism” in racism, it is also called reverse racism. I consider it necessary to explain this kind of racism.

To begin with, we will explain the very concept of “black” racism. Black racism (also reverse racism, reversible racism, blackism) is an ideology that is prevalent in the USA and South Africa among the people of the Negroid race and carries the idea of ​​the superiority of the black people (Africans, African Americans) over the Caucasoids. It originated as a response to white racism.

At the same time, one should not allow a huge error, and not to confuse the reverse (“black”) racism with anti-racism.

In the 1920s, in the US, the activist of the black movement for equality and emancipation from oppression, Marcus Garvey, founded the World Association for the Advancement of the black people. In his speeches and convictions, Garvey attached great importance to the racial purity of the blacks and suggested that all American citizens of African descent be moved to Africa in order not to mingle with the “white devils”. Garvey called his followers “new blacks” and called to be proud of the fact that they are black. On the basis of racism, Garvey, as it is not surprising, even approached the organization of the Ku Klux Klan.

In the 1960s, the movement for resistance to racism in the United States was divided into followers of Martin Luther King, an advocate of non-violent resistance to discrimination against blacks and followers of Malcolm X, the ideologist of the religious movement “Nation of Islam.” Under the influence of his sermons, the movements of the “Black Panthers” and the organization “Republic of New Africa” ​​developed. It was to this time, with the realization of the fact of oppression and the growth of protest moods, that the minds of the black population of North America are captured by the idea of ​​reverse racism, because in their opinion it is a proportional response to the manifestation of white racism.

The “Nation of Islam” in its promotion of the struggle for black rights, most often did not go beyond preaching and extremist as well as racist statements against whites. These were only words that were not confirmed by any deeds. However, the words fell in fertile soil and, after the murder of Malcolm X, which happened during a public speech in Harlem, the “Black Panthers” moved from words to deeds.

The Black Panther party, founded by Huey Newton, arose as a response to the Ku Klux Klan. However, in the early days of existence, the “Black Panthers” expressed their discontent exclusively on legal grounds. They walked through the streets with cartridges inserted into the shotguns, not sending them to the chamber (according to the American law, such weapons were considered uncharged), armed to the teeth went behind police cars, without violating the rules of the road.

However, the Black Panthers went on to illegal violent actions. By the end of 1970, a total of 48 skirmishes killed 10 blacks and 12 policemen. The police arrested 469 “panthers”. The head of the FBI said that the “Black Panthers” represent “the most serious threat to the internal security of the country.”

Equally important for the emergence of the ideas of black racism was the emergence of an organization advocating separation from the United States and the creation of the Republic of New Africa on the territory of the southern states. Also, I would like to demonstrate the most famous stories of the manifestation of “black” racism:

  • A white woman, Sarah Taylor, was fired from her job at the Bishop State Community College in 2002, so that she could make room for a new black employee.
  • The Federal Court of Appeals of the State of Michigan on May 16, 2002, decided that during admission to colleges, it is possible to take into account the race of entrants. This decision was made after examining the cases of two white Americans accusing the Michigan law college in Detroit of racial discrimination. Despite higher exam results, white college applicants were not enrolled because too many places were reserved for African Americans.

Conclusion

As can be seen from these materials, the problem of racism is more complex than the biological and anthropological problem, and goes beyond political or economic factors. Despite the fact that the scientific attempt to substantiate racism has shown its complete failure, racism has not ceased to exist. The reason for this is in the social and psychological properties of both the individual and the groups to which the mechanisms that foster competition operate, and then the enmity between the different groups.

The appearance of racism in society is based on a number of reasons, one of which is the mentality of this ethnos, others – economic factors and the standard of living in the state. Also of great importance are social factors of low level of culture and awareness of citizens of the country, which are additional catalysts of racism.

Nevertheless, this makes it possible to assert that the problem of racism can be compensated and successfully solved with the integrated approach of state structures and management tools that take into account all influencing factors.