3. The demise of scientific racism

In the aftermath of the Holocaust and the ending of World War II in 1945, the role of eugenics and scientific racism in underpinning the ideology of Nazism was impossible to ignore. It was clear that the question of racism and its scientific basis had to be confronted at an international level as part of the attempt to build a successful post-fascist world order. ‘The demise of scientific racism’ describes the post-1950 period of work by biologists and social scientists to undermine the scientific claims of the category of race. It outlines the role of genetics, DNA sequencing, and genomics in showing that there is more genetic variety within different population groups than between them.

1. ‘Race’ and racism: some conundrums

Trying to define the term racism throws up a number of perplexing questions and various cognate terms—ethnicity and ethnocentrism, nation, nationalism, and xenophobia, hostility to ‘outsiders’ and ‘strangers’—which require clarification. ‘“Race” and racism: some conundrums’ explains that the idea of ‘race’ contains both biological and cultural elements, for example skin colour, religion, and behaviour. The biological and cultural combine in variable proportions in any definition of a racial group, depending upon the group and the historical period in question. Inevitably, the term racism has also become subject to social forces and political conflict. The complex role that racism plays in the variety of disparities in policing and education is also discussed.

6. Intersectionality and ‘implicit’ or ‘unconscious’ bias

Race, class, and gender were often referred to as the ‘holy trinity’ of sociological analysis in the 1980s, because it was becoming clear that racial inequalities needed to be considered in relation to both class and gender. This mantra has led to a whole new field of research—‘intersectionality’ studies—which now includes within its research framework an understanding that age, disability, and citizenship also have differential impacts on majority and minority communities and individuals. ‘Intersectionality and “implicit” or “unconscious” bias’ provides examples of everyday racism and racial harassment and explains how research evidence shows that diversity training is highly ineffective as a tool for combating racial prejudice.

5. Structural racism and colourblind whiteness

From a sociological perspective, current racialized inequalities in white-dominated societies in the USA and Europe need to be explored in systemic, structural terms. Systemic or structural racism characterizes a set of interrelated relationships that include institutions and individuals, which reproduce the subordinate and superior positions occupied by racialized populations. ‘Structural racism and colourblind whiteness’ explains how structural or systemic racism cannot be treated completely separately from institutional racism, and how that differs from institutional racialization. It also considers racial discrimination and ethnic inequalities in Britain and the USA, as well as the culture of ‘whiteness’ and the concept of colourblind racism.

2. Imperialism, genocide, and the ‘science’ of race

The term ‘race’ entered English early in the 16th century, referring to family, lineage, and breed. In the 18th-century Enlightenment, the idea of race became incorporated into more systematic meditations on the nature of the world. ‘Imperialism, genocide, and the “science” of race’ explains how doctrines of race gained considerable strength with the growing slave trade, and how, in the 19th century, a range of theories emerged that explained all human variation on the basis of innate racial characteristics. The idea of nation also played a crucial role in the origins and development of racial thinking. The impact of imperialism, the rise of eugenics, social Darwinism, and the racial genocide of the Nazis are also outlined.

7. The rise of right-wing national populism and the future of racism

The rising numbers of refugees reaching European shores and America’s southern border to escape civil war and poverty has created fertile soil for ‘nativist’ backlashes. This trend, along with increasing ‘Islamophobia’, has led to a mushrooming of support for right-wing radical parties and the creation of new ones. ‘The rise of right-wing national populism and the future of racism’ considers the concept of populism and surveys current right-wing populism in Europe. It concludes that there is every possibility that the present normalization of xenophobia, ‘nativism’, populist nationalism, and racism in white-dominated societies will combine with authoritarianism to form a ‘new normal’, which will entrench and extend the reach of racism even further.

4. Racialization, cultural racism, and religion

Few people today, outside the ranks of hardcore members of neo-Nazi and other ultra-right-wing groups, admit to being racist. However, even self-confessed racists appear to have little agreement about how many races exist and how exactly they are to be differentiated from each other. The idea of ‘race’ has a strong afterlife, especially in white-dominated societies. ‘Racialization, cultural racism, and religion’ considers the racialization of language; the close affinity of the notions of ‘nation’ and ‘race’; the definitions of ‘ethnicity’ and ‘race’ in official discourses; the role of power and prejudice in racism; cultural racism; Islamophobia; and the new antisemitism.