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Racism: A Short History

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George Fredrickson is a Stanford history professor who has studied racism (particularly of the white supremacist variety) for many years. In this "Short History," he attempts a synthesis and comparison of much of what he has learned from his own work and that of others. An initial problem in tracing the history of "racism" is in deciding what exactly counts as "racism" -- for example, is the ancient prejudice against foreigners (barbarians) a kind of racism or simply xenophobia or ethnocentrism? Fredrickson excludes ancient examples on the ground that members of disfavored groups could (more or less) overcome these prejudices by adopting (assimilating) the dominant culture. One's status as Other was neither immutable nor (necessarily) heritable. An essential element of racism, in Fredrickson's view, is the belief that certain differences are tied to race, that those differences cannot be overcome by human action, *and* (most critically) that those differences have implications for how society ought to be structured (ranging from informal prejudice and discrimination against the disfavored group through legal segregation to exclusion/extermination).

Definition in hand, Fredrickson provides a fascinating overview of how religious prejudice (against Jews and heathens) gradually transformed (through different paths) into racial prejudice, and how racial prejudice became official policy in the American South of the Jim Crow era, Nazi Germany and apartheid South Africa. (European attitudes toward Native Americans are briefly explored, but then dropped without much development, and the eventual subjugation of Native Americans by the federal government is ignored completely, for reasons which are not apparent to me.) While pointing out significant differences between these three instances of racism, Fredrickson also draws some interesting parallels and contrasts. The role of international events and economic developments in first creating and then destroying these overtly racist regimes is explored in enough detail to make me want to read more.

Fredrickson provides the reader with a lot to think about, including the role of racism today, and whether "biological" racism is now being transformed into a kind of "culturism" that makes certain aspects of culture stand in for race. This is a book of "big thoughts" (as one might expect from a short history), and fulfills an important role in setting out a grand theory that others can respond to. The writing is clear, concise and readily intelligible to non-scholars. Fredrickson does not purport to provide any cures or even suggestions for eliminating current strains of this old disease, but like all good historians he identifies the symptoms and the conditions in which the disease flourishes. Highly recommended.

This book is certainly short only some 160 pages(the rest of the 200 is made up of foot notes) but it is written with a clarity that makes it a delight to read. The thesis of the book is that racism is something, which developed due to Western Europe?s relation with the Jews and Africans. In medieval times the failure of the Jews to convert to Christianity became to be seen as reflecting something malicious or evil rather than being a purely intellectual failing. It was something to do with the character or nature of the Jews themselves.

However racism took off in a big way in the 19th Century. The Enlightenment had made it possible to see mankind as a type of animal. In that animals had certain characteristics it became fashionable to attribute cultural differences in people to a biological cause. It became fashionable to characterise people who lives in Britain or Germany as members of the British or German race rather than as Britons or Germans. The poverty of other groups such as Africans was seen as a product of their racial breeding rather than being the result of their history and sociology. European universities developed departments that investigated the pseudo science of Eugenics or the study of the biological character of races.

Racism became something that was supported by the actions of states. Places such as Australia developed immigration policies to preserve the racial character of their state. In South Africa and America political systems, were developed aimed at subjugating blacks.

Germany brought about the end of racism as an accepted part of main stream policy by its crimes. One of the interesting facts raised in the book is that the Holocaust was Germany?s second tray at Genocide. In South West Africa it had been German policy to exterminate two of the main tribes. One tribe consisting of 60,000 people had 44,000 killed and the remaining 16,000 only survived by fleeing.

The end of the book suggests that while the Holocaust has sent racism into a decline as a state supported policy racism is not dead. In addition the world faces a new challenge with obnoxious doctrines similar to racism being framed in the language of religious fundamentalism.

The guts of the book is a parallel analysis of two of the most virulent forms of racism: Nazi anti-semitism and US white supremacy. In such a short book, this specialization reduces the scope for the kind of synthetic overview for which I'd hoped. However there are two particular insights which made it worthwhile.

The first is attempt to get to grips with the word 'racism' itself which, as Fredrickson points out, is an increasingly debased epithet, used by each side against another in debates on ethnicity, nationality and religion. His definition requires not just perceived differences from another group, but also the power to exploit them.

The second is an understanding of what the author calls the double-edged sword of enlightenment thought on race. As I scientist, I've sometimes been exasperated by post-modern disdain for the enlightenment as the supposed progenitor of Nazism. But the book convinced me that there is a case for this, at least as one side of a contrapuntal understanding: "Egalitarian norms required special reasons for exclusion." On this reading, a kind of polarizing dialectic takes hold: higher ideals require stronger justifications for retaining privilege. Enlightenment ideals imply democracy, but racist pseudoscience appeals to the same source in order to restrict it.

The catharsis of World War II supposedly halted this process. There's a whiff of Whig history here, but it's dispelled by the trenchant close: "Grasping for one's identity in a world that threatens to reduce everyone who is not part of the elite to a low-paid worker or a consumer of cheap, mass-produced commodities creates a hunger for meaning and a sense of self-worth that can most easily be satisfied by consciousness of race or religion."

George Frederickson stated in Racism: A Short History, that racism reached its peak in the twentieth century with the rise of three "over, racist regimes". Frederickson's three overt racist regimes were the U.S. South during the "Jim Crow era", Nazi Germany, and the apartheid government of South Africa (Frederickson, p. 99). He chose these states because they effectively enforced racism through the mechanisms of the state rather than through custom. Frederickson's criteria included regimes that bureaucratized a racial ideology, codified racism by law, excluded "other" groups from power, and forced those excluded groups into poverty (Frederickson, p. 100). While Frederickson acknowledged the racist ideologies of European colonial regimes during the "scramble" for Africa, he did not refer to those states as "overtly racist" because they allowed native elites to have some access to power. Frederickson viewed World War Two and the Cold War as key components in the dismantling of overt racism worldwide, the decolonization of Africa (and Asia), and the dismantling of the apartheid regime of South Africa. While Frederickson acknowledged that subtle racism continues, he argued that overtly racist regimes have become extinct in the twenty-first century.

Throughout Racism: A Short History, Frederickson used simplistic arguments and showed a misunderstanding of the complexities of ethnic strife to write a short book which packaged the "greatest hits" of racism. Too often, Frederickson failed to differentiate between institutional racism; racism enforced by the state, and basic racism; in which individuals commit acts of hatred against those that are different. Frederickson also viewed racism as simply a white western phenomenon and failed to consider that racist regimes have been ruled by European, African, and Asian peoples. While the most famous racist regimes have been in the context of white domination over darker skinned peoples, Frederickson failed to account for racist acts committed by other ethnicities. A cursory study of twentieth and twenty-first century Africa will show that Frederickson's list of overt racist regimes should be expanded, and that racism is far more complex than the author's analysis.

South Africa was not the only overt white minority regime in twentieth century Africa. In 1965, Ian Smith and other white nationalists declared unilateral independence from Great Britain as the southern half of Rhodesia seceded to become the Republic of Rhodesia. Rhodesia, like South Africa, was a white led regime which excluded blacks from power, land, and high sector jobs, which caused native Africans to suffer. This regime, lasted until 1979 when pressure from Britain and the United States, UN economic sanctions, and an African insurgency caused the white nationalist republic to fall. Robert Mugabe took control of a new Zimbabwe nation and reached an agreement that allowed white Rhodesians, the business and agricultural elite of the nation, to stay. While some white Rhodesians, known as "Rhodies", fled the country, many whites, called "Zimbos", stayed and became Zimbabweans. Since 1980, Mugabe's policies of land seizures have forced many white farmers from their land. British and African newspapers have documented Mugabe's policies as "racist". Many whites who chose to remain African and farm have been welcomed by states such as Zambia, Mozambique, Malawi, and Nigeria.

The case of Zimbabwe as a black racist state is not an argument to deny the overt racism of white Africans in Rhodesia, but to caution the optimism of Frederickson's analysis of South Africa. Many of the elite Rhodesians who ran the farms that exploited black workers fled the nation decades ago. The remaining white Zimbabweans are often those who have tried to integrate into a black led society or who were too poor to emigrate. Those whites most guilty of constructing the white racist regime of the past have escaped retribution, while those whites with less means have witnessed acts of violence and economic oppression against them. Likewise, in South Africa, Frederickson placed more blame on white Afrikaners , white South Africans whose largely Dutch ancestors immigrated to South Africa in the 17th century, than on British white South Africans. Frederickson correctly analyzed the racist motivations of many Afrikaners as they established apartheid in 1910 and 1948 (Frederickson, p. 117, 132). Afrikaners operated under a "never again" mindset as they blamed the British and their African tribal allies (such as the Zulus) for their defeat in the Boer War in 1902. Frederickson however, failed to document the atrocities committed against the Afrikaners by the British government. While he made a connection between the Nazis and the South African state, he failed to mention the British concentration camp policies which killed thousands of Afrikaners as an example of ethnic cleansing and an influence on Nazi Germany. While Nelson Mandela provided over a peaceful multi-racial transition to power as apartheid fell in South Africa, Fredrickson failed to note that Mandela's successors have been less successful integrating the country. Anti-white farmer violence committed by radical ANC elements and the rise of white neo-Nazi style Afrikaner militia groups spell Zimbabwe like problems for South Africa if racial reconciliation continues to regress.

Frederickson also failed to account for numerous acts of racism committed against Africans and Asians by those of African descent. He briefly mentioned the ouster of Asians by Idi Amin in Uganda in 1979 but discounted that act as overtly racist. Frederickson also failed to account for the ethnic violence and murders of African religious and ethnic minorities in nations such as Nigeria, Rwanda, and Sudan. These acts have also echoed the regime of Nazi Germany and showed that genocide and overt state led racial hatred did not end with the victory over fascism in World War II. This ethnic violence is both black led and a legacy of European states which drew boundaries across ethnic lines in order to divide and conquer native African peoples.

Another missed opportunity for Frederickson was an analysis of the history of Liberia. Liberia was founded as a series of six colonies by white American colonization societies as a homeland for emancipated slaves. Liberia declared its independence in 1849 and established an American style constitutional government. Americo-Liberians, the descendents of the freed slaves, made up, and continue to make up, less than 5% of the nation's population. Yet Americo-Liberians ran the nation as an elite class, holding power until 1980. Native Africans were excluded from power and prevented from organizing rival parties by a regime led by American descended blacks. These Americo-Liberians were often lighter-skinned than their neighbors and adopted white Southern American customs. The Americo-Liberians churches, plantation style homes, agricultural practices, missionary zeal, attire and attitudes reflected the culture of the white plantation owners of Dixie. Liberia is a strange case of black institutional racism against other blacks.

Frederickson should be commended for attempting to write a short history of such a difficult topic. But perhaps racism is one topic than cannot be touched on so lightly. Racism like a cancer has eaten at the world for centuries. But like a cancer in remission, it has the potential always to return. Racism and even overt racism, is more complex than the history of South Africa, the US South, and Nazi Germany. It is more complicated than the traditional narrative of a white elite's domination of black peoples. It has destroyed Africa and continues to divide its peoples (of all colors) today. Were racism as short and simple as Frederickson made it out to be, it truly can be said to be a problem that has been largely solved. Sadly today's television, newspaper, and internet news coverage, tells a much different story.

Georg M. Fredrickson is, among other things, a scholar at the Research Institute for the Comparative Study of Race and Ethnicity as well as author of several books about the history of race and race ideology. In other words, it's safe to assume that he knows what he's talking about, and with Racism he's put together a short, yet informative and thorough, study of the history of Western racism; from its origins at the end of the Middle Ages up until the present.

However, it's not only Western racism from the late Middle Ages and onwards that Fredrickson deals with. Several different types of racism from different eras and aimed towards different groups of people are brought to light. And that's a good thing (this way of displaying different beliefs from different eras, I mean), because racism is a phenomenon that's a whole lot stranger and definitely more complicated than most people know or assume. It's not just a case a some group hating some other group. The fear/hatred/contempt aimed towards certain groups of people come in numerous different shapes and forms and are based on more factors than one could even imagine, and religious teachings and doctrines have been directly or indirectly responsible for way too many horrible clashes throughout history, not only in the West.

Still, the real focus is on the comparison of two different kinds of racism; white supremacy with its ideas about the white "race" (whatever that is) and its supreme qualities, and anti-Semitism with the continuous hatred of the Jews. These two manifestations of racism are dealt with quite extensively, and the comparison made between the two is tremendously interesting, original, and more than anything well presented.

And also of importance in today's world. After all, the Jews probably have the not-so pleasant title of being the most persecuted people in the history of the world, and the American slave trade with its extremely cynical and brutal view of humans with African descent is still a burning issue. This latter example could sometimes be of such a bizarre nature that it almost bordered on the comical: "Some racial environmentalists in the early American republic fully expected imported Africans to turn white in the more temperate climate to which they were now exposed, but the process seemed to be taking a very long time." (pg.58).

But only almost. Because obviously there's nothing funny about such a stupid worldview. It's a nuisance, that's what it is. And Fredrickson is the man to expose it. Regarding the never-ending conflict between "white" and "black" people (I've never felt very comfortable talking about people as colors), he compares and reveals disturbing parallels between Nazi Germany and America, and these breath-taking sections are sure to make a great deal of Americans quite upset. How about this sentence: "When the Supreme Court declared in the Dred Scott decision of 1857 that free blacks could not be citizens of the United States, because the framers of the Constitution had assumed that they had 'no rights which the white man was bound to respect,' the racist foundation of the American polity was laid bare." (pg.80-81)

Again and again, Fredrickson is able to demonstrate mankind's creepy, and profound, tendencies to condemn fellow humans on reasons that are, well, simply stupid. At a time when ethnic conflicts, racism, and violent xenophobia rages in countries all over the world, a book like Racism is tremendously important. From time to time though, it does feel somewhat thin. For example, no mention is made of the fact that some of the German soldiers in World War I were actually German Jews, and even though the infamous Jim Crow laws are mentioned repeatedly throughout the book, the reader is never treated with an explanation to what the "Jim Crow laws" actually were and how they came into existence. A lot of non-Americans could really need explanations to that.

But Racism is, on the other hand, meant to be a short description (which doesn't mean it never digs quite deep into certain topics). If you're a racist, this won't be your favorite book of the year, but anyone with an interest in, or hatred of, racism should definitely purchase a copy immediately. Because, as Fredrickson reminds his readers: ""A culture of racism, once established, can be adapted to more than one agenda and is difficult to eradicate." (pg.93)

Beware of the negative reviewer who thinks that one should write about racism and anti-semitism in a 'clinically disinterested manner." Fredrickson is one of the best historians of race and racism. Don't let silly people divert you from reading this text.

The other Amazon reviews are generally excellent. Two-star through five-star reviews were helpful.

The book focuses narrowly on prejudice by whites against Jews and blacks. There is some logic, in that Western societies have been dominant, and hence most subject to scrutiny over the past few centuries. Still, don't overlook Japanese prejudice against their Korean minority, Chinese when they occupied it prior to the war, or in the atrocities they committed against British and other whites they captured on their march south. Especially, do not overlook Asian prejudice against blacks. It is virulent, and they did not learn it from white colonialists.

What is racism? I consulted many dictionaries in several languages, and this is the distillate It is some combination of beliefs, emotions and individual and group actions. We could all be racists or almost none of us.

A racist society implements discriminatory policies that result in segregation, discrimination and persecution. Those would be Fredrickson's Nazi Germany, South Africa and southern US. This is a thing of the past.

The Germans tell it like it is as far as emotion goes. They define racism as Rassenhaß, literally "racial hatred". Several dictionary definitions bring up the notion of racial purity, which strikes me as an emotional issue. I'd say that prejudice remains in the category of emotion until it is acted upon.

In the belief category, all the definitions agree that it is racism when one believes that there is a natural hierarchy of races, especially if you suppose your own race is better than the rest. A broader definition says you are a racist if you believe that people of different races are different in ability. What ability they don't say. The only way such a claim can have meaning is if it applies to averages, which makes it racism when I notice that great gymnasts are often Oriental, chess players Russian, basketball players black and hockey players white.

Fredrickson's failure is in taking the repudiation of the first definition, racist societies, to mean there is no substance to the third. Xenophobia is natural to the human animal, and we of course feel compelled to look for some logical justification when we practice it. Sometimes, Frederickson should admit, there is some substance.

Germans feared Jewish success in business. Were they wrong? In every society in which they are free to compete fairly, Jews are more successful financially, academically and professionally than any other groups. Amy Chu writes in "Earth on Fire" that six of the seven billionaires who emerged in post-Soviet Russia Jewish. Coincidence? She doesn't think so, and neither do I. Crime, educational attainment and financial success statistics would also indicate that there was some substance to the fears racists cited about blacks.

The fact is that there is usually some validity to a stereotype. Washington D.C., the source of so much anti-segregation legislature, is one of the most segregated cities in the world. No legislator from anywhere in the country would want his kids to attend the DC schools. You could call it racism, but it is no more than common sense. Statistics and our own eyes tell us that predominantly black school systems don't often provide a good education. Instead, Obama's kids, and black legislators' kids attend private schools with white kids, their social and intellectual equals.

Fredrickson's history is good, but his thesis that racism is groundless is false. We have a more difficult problem to overcome. There is some substance to the belief that averages of different races are different, but for the health of our societies we must be tolerant and overcome it. Above all, we must be open to the fact that there are outstanding people as well as scoundrels of every race, and not allow racial prejudices to color our thinking.

Unfortunately I was disappointed with "Racism: A Short History" because its title is misleading compared to its actual content. This book primarily only discusses Jewish peoples in relation to so-called race and racism. While this is a very good, important, and interesting topic it is not what I expected.

As a black man I can truthfully say that every word is b.s. I didn't finish reading it, but I didn't have to either. This book is rascist.

Beware of academics praising each other's work. This is a dull summary of "white supremacy" and "antisemitism." The author, while posing as a clinically disinterested party, lets us know how awful he thinks both of these things are.

He DOES say that "racism exists when one ethnic group or historical collectivity dominates, excludes, or seeks to eliminate another on the basis of differences that it believes are hereditary and unalterable."

This should comfort those who, for example, deplore the conditions in American inner cities, and attribute those conditions to the moral and cultural state of the residents of those cities. While some would call these people "racists," the definition shows that they are not -- unless, of course, those moral and cultural states are believed to be hereditary and unalterable.