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Racism is defined here as discrimination and inequality that arise from ethnicized and racialized forms of power, supremacism, and essentialism. ‘Supremacism’ is the ideology and practice of asserting that one particular group is inherently superior to others. ‘Essentialism’ reinforces this process by naturalizing difference. Naturalization, as Hall writes, works to produce a ‘representational strategy designed to fix “difference” and thus secure it for ever’, usually by attributing inherent and inherited characteristics to a group of people.⁴⁵ This also helps explain why one of the characteristic features of racism is its concern with childbirth, population numbers and, more generally, the bodies of women.

A world of multiracism is a world of multiple inequalities and multiple essentializations. The act of turning imputed and/or observed difference, whether cultural or physical, into naturalized hierarchy will be at the centre of my enquiries. However, it is necessary to place another layer of complexity on this landscape, for the language of racism varies geographically. Offering a single, universal, definition of racism is a useful first step but not a destination, especially if it slams the door on understanding the diverse, fluid, and contested nature of the term. Discriminating against an ethno-racial community because of its imputed inherent and inherited characteristics is called racism in some places but not in others. And whilst I define all such discrimination as racism this does not mean that this is the only legitimate, or useful, word to use, still less that other labels should be displaced. In India, for example, ‘communalism’ and ‘casteism’ are often used to depict practices and ideologies that can overlap with what I am calling racism. In Peru ‘cholism’ is sometimes used to similar effect. The world is full of vocabularies of difference and discrimination. Rather than offering a template in which the word ‘racism’, verified by a Western canon of anti-racist scholarship, is stamped on diverse situations, it is necessary to listen and learn from different contexts.

What Law calls the ‘polycentric’ study of racism is a new field and it often exhibits the kind of definitional dilemmas that one might expect from an endeavour that is not only complex but nascent and politically charged.⁴⁶ Berg and Wendt’s edited collection Racism in the Modern World can be taken as an example. The editors’ claim for the novelty and importance of the book is that it engages with multiple racializations around the world, and more specifically brings to bear ‘new global history’ approaches that challenge ‘Eurocentric interpretations of world history’.⁴⁷ It is an impressive volume, yet a comparison of some of its chapters suggests the presence of definitional conflict. For example, Braude’s essay, ‘How Racism Arose in Europe and Why It Did Not in the Near East’, wraps itself in knots in order to argue that acts of ethnic violence in the ‘Near East’ have nothing to do with racism. Thus Braude notes that the treatment of Armenians in the ‘Near East’ in the first decades of the last century, during what he calls the Armenian ‘conflict’, ‘cannot be blamed on racism’. He arrives at this conclusion by defining racism in terms of biological ‘hereditarian determinism’ and finding this ideology to be unique to ‘modern Euro-American racism’.⁴⁸ Yet in the next two chapters this definition and its geographical implications are overturned. First Geulen explains that racism and cultural prejudice can no longer be conceived as discrete traditions: ‘as early as the beginning of the twentieth century’ the idea of race had been ‘transformed and widened’, he tells us, ‘into something much broader than just physiology and bodily appearance’.⁴⁹ In the following essay, ‘Racism and Genocide’, Barth uses what he calls the Armenian ‘genocide’ as a textbook example of how racist and cultural ideologies can combine to create the conditions for extermination.⁵⁰ It is instructive that whilst Braude writes of an Armenian ‘conflict’, Barth writes of an Armenian ‘genocide’. It is a difference that reflects each scholar’s framing of racism.

There are still those who seek to root racism firmly and solely in the soil of biological determinism and race ideology. Thus for Banton, racism is ‘the doctrine that a man’s behaviour is determined by stable inherited characteristics deriving from separate racial stocks having distinctive attributes and usually considered to stand to one another in relations of superiority and inferiority’.⁵¹ Although this quote is from 1970, and its definition of racism has become rare, the inference that race ideology is the foundation stone, or ultimate type, of racism remains prevalent. Hence, it is necessary to be clear why Banton’s definition is not sustainable. Conceptually it relies on two things: first, the idea that race and ethnicity are clearly distinct and, second, the idea that ‘race ideology’ is a coherent and relatively static body of knowledge. Neither is plausible: the borders between race and ethnicity are inherently hazy and ‘race ideology’ has long been in doubt. Ideologies of race hierarchy, and/or White supremacy, have always been surrounded by critics and contradictions. When Jean Finot, in Le Préjugé des races, published in 1905 (translated into English in 1906), lambasted the ‘falsely conceived science of races’ and described races as ‘outside all reality’ and ‘fictions in our brains’, he was building on a rich tradition of race-scepticism.⁵² The transition from the narrative of ‘White civilization’ to that of ‘Western civilization’, which occurred in Europe and North America in the early to mid twentieth century, was propelled by the failure and incoherence of the race concept.⁵³ Even intellectuals associated with Nazi ideology were not convinced. Spengler was condescending about racial science: as soon ‘as light is let through it, “race” vanishes suddenly and completely’.⁵⁴ After the Second World War, the notion that ‘the word race should be banished’ – popularized in We Europeans, first published in 1935 – was given impetus by the association of the idea of race with Nazism and genocide.⁵⁵ In a series of UNESCO statements and reports ‘the race concept’ was branded a dangerous fallacy.⁵⁶

Any definition of racism that ties it to a belief in ‘the race concept’ is likely to conclude that racism is a doctrine from a discredited past and, by extension, a residual rather than a living force. It is worthwhile recalling that the term ‘racism’ was a creation of anti-racists. From its first use it has been a tool employed by those seeking to oppose it.⁵⁷ The nature and meaning of that ‘it’ has changed as anti-racists have come to recognize the changing ways in which people are ‘othered’ and excluded. This helps explain why ‘racism’ is a vital part of today’s critical vocabulary. It no longer reflects a narrow belief in ‘race ideology’ but is routinely associated with racial and ethnic inequality and stereotyping. This conceptual expansion is widespread and appears unstoppable, but its international implications have not been given sufficient attention. For example, the ‘racism is prejudice plus power’ equation, sometimes credited to the American pastor Joseph Barndt, and which became widespread in the USA in the 1970s, is still assumed to convey the message that racism is a White problem because it is they who have power.⁵⁸ Yet once prejudice and power are found elsewhere, ‘racism is prejudice plus power’ smuggles through a conceptually and geographically expanded notion of racism. Something similar can be said of other innovative categories, such as ‘new racism’, ‘cultural racism’, ‘coded racism’, and ‘racism without racists’. Noting that it is ‘a myth about the past that racism has generally been of the superiority/inferiority kind’, Barker’s ‘new racism’ framed racism as a pattern of exclusionary cultural preferences and nativist sentiment.⁵⁹ Balibar also wrote about a ‘racism without races’, ‘whose dominant theme is not biologic heredity but the insurmountability of cultural differences’ and ‘the harmfulness of abolishing frontiers, the incompatibility of life-styles and traditions’.⁶⁰ Cohen argued that understanding how racism both works against and connects Irish, Jewish, and Black people in Britain meant understanding Britain as ‘multi-racist’.⁶¹

None of these authors give consideration to an important consequence of expanding and pluralizing racism: namely that its global geography changes. Another consequence is that the borderline between ethnic discrimination and racism becomes even more unclear. As Anthias notes, when ‘practices of exclusion, that are the hallmark of all ethnic phenomena, are accompanied by discourses and practices of inferiorisation against any ethnically constituted difference, then we can talk about racism’. She expands this point by concluding that ‘Racist discourse involves the use of ethnic categorisations (which might be constructed around cultural, linguistic or territorial boundaries as well as supposed biological ones) as signifiers of an immutable and deterministic difference.’⁶² So why does ethnicity continue to be relegated to an ‘also ran’ in debates on racism? There are many reasons but one is the continued influence of the traditional sociological distinction between race and ethnicity, which casts the latter as about culture and the former as about blood descent. Hence, ethnicity is said to be chosen whilst race is not. ‘Membership of an ethnic group’, Banton tells us, ‘is usually voluntary; membership in a racial group is not.’⁶³ Morning provides a useful summary of this thesis: ‘individuals can choose the ethnic group(s) with which they most identify, and signal their affiliation with the group(s) by means of superficial behavior (e.g. choice of clothing or food)’, but race is ‘involuntary – it is imposed by others – and immutable’.⁶⁴ There are three main problems with this distinction. First, casting race as ‘immutable’ and, hence, beyond the realm and reach of human agency, ignores its social construction. Second, it fails to acknowledge the blurred and tangled nature of the relationship between race and ethnicity and the geographical variation in the usage of both terms. Third, defining ethnicity as ‘voluntary’ and as ‘superficial’ is not consonant with lived experience. To refer to two of the examples introduced in the boxes earlier: Yazidis and the Uighurs are both routinely identified as ethnic groups but the idea that being Yazidi or being Uighur is a free ‘choice’ or ‘superficial’ is absurd. The weight of tradition, the bonds of descent and language, and the prejudices of the wider society in which these minorities exist – which often turn on naturalizations insisting that Yazidis and the Uighurs are inherently different – make ‘opting out’ not just difficult but almost impossible.

There is another, more practical, matter to consider. For how racism is defined is not simply a question of academic debate. It reflects wider social and political shifts. The widespread adoption of definitions of racism that incorporate ethnic discrimination provides compelling evidence that the meaning of racism has been expanded. For example, a European Union statement from 2008 states that ‘Offences concerning racism and xenophobia’ include the following: ‘publicly inciting to violence or hatred directed against a group of persons or a member of such a group defined by reference to race, colour, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin’.⁶⁵ Today the inclusion of ethnicity in official definitions of racism is so common as to go unremarked, even when it appears to sit uneasily with other designations. Thus, for example, in the UN’s International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, ‘racial discrimination’ (a term which it often treats as synonymous with racism), is defined as

any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.⁶⁶

Despite the problematic implication that ‘national or ethnic origins’ are subcategories of the ‘racial’, here is further evidence of the entanglement of ethnicity and racism in public policy discourse. Elsewhere the same Committee has been even more explicit on the need to ‘expand the definition of racism to include incitement on account of ethnic origin, country of origin, and religious affiliation’.⁶⁷

A lack of conceptual interrogation may be the reason why, without explanation, ‘race’ and, sometimes, ‘colour’ are nearly always listed before ‘ethnic’ or ‘ethnic origin’ in many official statements. The demographic designations commonly used in the UK – ‘BME’ (Black and Minority Ethnic) and ‘BAME’ (Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic) – provide another example of this practice. The suspicion that ethnicity has been tagged on is also raised in UNESCO’s definition of racism: ‘Racism is a theory of races hierarchy which argues that the superior race should be preserved and should dominate the others. Racism can also be an unfair attitude towards another ethnic group.’⁶⁸ Relegating ethnicity to an ‘also’ category sidesteps a major challenge. For the implications of acknowledging ethnicity in this debate are substantial. One way of showing this is by looking at how governments deploy ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity’ in population censuses. A survey by Morning – sampling census forms from 141 countries between 1995 and 2004 – concluded that the United States ‘is one of a small number of nations to enumerate by “race”’ and is ‘virtually alone in treating “race” and “ethnicity” as different types of identity’.⁶⁹ Only 15 per cent of the censuses Morning looked at asked for respondents’ race. She also discovered that ‘usage of race is found almost entirely in the former slaveholding societies of the Western Hemisphere and their territories’. By contrast ethnicity was made use of in ‘every world region’, often combined with terms that reflect regional forms of identification.⁷⁰

If we limit the study of racism to places where the language of race is to the fore or dominant, we will be studying a small part of the world. Yet expanding racism to engage ethnicity is not unproblematic. Ethnicity is a complex category and includes a range of identities and attributes that may fall outside of the processes of naturalization, hierarchy, and discrimination that indicate the presence of racism. Thus, for example, although language is an ethnic marker, differentiation between, or even conflict between, language groups does not necessarily indicate the presence of racism. The most linguistically diverse and, hence, most culturally diverse countries in the world are in Africa, South Asia, and South East Asia. By this measure, Western nations are relatively monocultural. Yet, although language use can and has been subject to processes of naturalization, hierarchy, and discrimination, the fact that social division is experienced and enacted in and through language division does not necessarily lend itself to the creation of the kind of behaviours and ideas typical of racism. What this tells us is that extending racism to include essentializing and exclusionary forms of ethnic discrimination is not the same as giving the term ‘racism’ unlimited range to include any and all forms of ethnic demarcation or enmity.

Finally, it is necessary to acknowledge that the identification of what is and what is not racist, and of how many people have been the victims of racism,⁷¹ are sites of political struggle. The stakes are high: to identify any practice, ideology, or institution, or, indeed, any individual, as racist is to delegitimize it (or them) and identify it (or them) as worthy of opprobrium and intervention. Throughout this book we will be encountering the efforts of different marginalized groups to have ‘their oppression’ recognized as a form of racism. One of these struggles has been waged by some of the leaders of the Indian Dalit movement. The Indian government and some leading Indian scholars dispute that this ‘untouchable’ sub-caste are the victims of racism, but many Dalit activists have tried to convince the international community otherwise (see Chapter 3). Another prominent example is the debate about the relationship between Zionism and racism. In 1975, United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379 declared ‘that Zionism is a form of racism’. This Resolution was interpreted by many Israeli politicians as a severe challenge to the legitimacy of Israel. Identifying Zionism as racism was a political win for the Resolution’s main backers (Palestine, many Arab states, and the USSR) and a loss for Israel and its principal ally, the USA. The Cold War context helps, in part, explain why the US government was adamant that this definition of racism would not stand. The US Ambassador to the United Nations, Daniel Moynihan, responded: ‘The lie is that Zionism is a form of racism. The overwhelmingly clear truth is that it is not.’⁷² This position later won out and in 1991 the Resolution was revoked by the UN General Assembly. The story of whether Zionism is ‘officially’ to be called racist or not is far from over and has its own, unique, history. Like the Dalit campaign, it is illustrative of a more general point: that the word ‘racism’ is a site of political conflict that is often intense and bitter.