Psychoanalytic theories of racism reproduce the Enlightenment’s own civilized-versus-primitive distinction.

Evidence

Although the two approaches yield radically different accounts of mental life they both operate a general reduction of the structural properties of social institutions and groups, to the psychological characteristics of the individual human subjects who inhabit them. From the point of view of constructing a theory of racism, one of the key effects of psychoanalytic reductionism is that positions of powerlessness, inequality, or exclusion are devalorized as instances of the real; instead they are treated as the site of unconscious projections or compensations drawing on fantasies of omnipotence, castration, or abandonment. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1275 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Racism is most dangerous when disguised as enlightenment; Psychoanalytic theories of racism have often been reductive and themselves racist — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1297; Enlightenment race theories spanned racist, neutral, and anti-racist positions (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Psychoanalytic accounts of racism reduce structural inequality to individual unconscious dynamics #complicates (0.75) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1275