What is Racism?*

Fighting racism requires knowing what it is — not an easy task. Today the word “racism” has so many contradictory meanings that it takes on the aura of a myth and is, therefore, difficult to define. The following will attempt to define racist ideology, independently of any sociological considerations. The first difficulty arises from the fact that racism is a Schimpfwort: a term with pejorative connotations, whose very use inevitably tends to be more instrumental than descriptive. Deploying the adjective “racist” involves using a powerful epithet. It can be a smear designed to disqualify those at whom the term is addressed. To call someone a racist, even if the charge is intellectually dishonest, can be a useful tactic, either in successfully paralyzing or in casting enough suspicion as to curtails credibility. Such an approach is commonplace in everyday controversies. On the international level, the term can acquire a significance and weight that does not hide its real nature and purpose.1 Because of a certain affinity, “racism” can be used as the correlate of a whole series of other terms: fascism, the extreme Right, anti-Semitism, sexism, etc. Today, the almost ritualistic recitation of these terms often implies that they are all synonyms and that any one falling into one of these categories automatically belongs to all of them. The end result is to reinforce the vagueness of the term and to discourage meaningful analysis.