Racism - A Short History - George M Fredrickson.pdf - WNLibrary

APPENDIX
The Concept of Racism
in Historical Discourse
Although commonly used, “racism” has become a
loaded and ambiguous term. Both sides in the current
debate over affirmative action in the United
States, for example, have used it to describe their opponents.
It can mean either a lamentable absence of “color
blindness” in an allegedly postracist age or insensitivity to
past and present discrimination against groups that to be
helped must be racially categorized. Once considered primarily
a matter of belief or ideology, “racism” may now
express itself in institutional patterns or social practices that
have adverse effects on members of groups thought of as
“races,” even if a conscious belief that they are inferior or
unworthy is absent. The term is clearly in danger of losing
the precision needed to make it an analytical tool for historians
and social scientists examining the relations among
human groups or collectivities. But few would deny that
we need, as a bare minimum, a strong expression to de-