Minor cultural references in white societies trigger automatic claims of European superiority

Evidence

Mosse’s observation that racial myths depend upon the language of culture (our culture is more developed than theirs) is an important reminder of why it is dangerous to consider culture apart from racism. The close connection between assertions of cultural difference and racism has meant that in white societies the smallest reference to cultural differences between the European majority and Third World peoples (Muslims in particular) triggers an instant chain of associations (the veil, female genital mutilation, arranged marriages) that ends with the declared superiority of European culture, imagined as a homogeneous composite of values including a unique commitment to democracy and human rights, and to the human rights of women in particular. Culture clash, where the West has values and modernity and the non-West has culture, consolidates membership in the dominant group; it provides belonging through enabling dominant groups to imagine that they share something in common, something that marks them as superior. — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 207

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the same book’s earlier chapters on race and the civilizing narrative; also parallels Said’s Orientalism on how the West constructs the non-West.
• DEFINE: Defines the ‘culture clash’ concept as a means of consolidating dominant-group belonging.
• SEED: Could seed an essay on how the supposedly neutral term ‘culture clash’ functions as a racial dog-whistle and identity-building mechanism in liberal democracies.