Racism is defined by its practice, not by intensity or rationalization
Evidence
Racism differs from both heterophobia and contestant enmity. The difference lies neither in the intensity of sentiments nor in the type of argument used to rationalize it. Racism stands apart by a practice of which it is a part and which it rationalizes: a practice that combines strategies of architecture and gardening with that of medicine – in the service of the construction of an artificial social order, through cutting out the elements of the present reality that neither fit the visualized perfect reality, nor can be changed so that they do. In a world that boasts the unprecedented ability to improve human conditions by reorganizing human affairs on a rational basis, racism manifests the conviction that a certain category of human beings cannot be incorporated into the rational order, whatever the effort. — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 189
Categorization
- DEFINE: Bauman’s core definition: racism is distinguished by the practice it rationalizes — architecture/gardening plus medicine in service of a perfect social order — not by sentiment or argument.
- XREF: Feeds into later Foucault-derived biopolitics readings and the Islamophobia field’s argument that exclusion is productive/administrative rather than merely hate-driven. — connects to: The phobia label turns racist acts into a condition, not a fault — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 690; Racism is a hegemonic practice that is articulated with, not necessary to, capitalist formations; Racism functions as practices that ascribe and legitimate social positions (+6 more)
Related
- Racism generates race through repeated practice, not difference perception. (similarity 0.85)
- Racism shows natural affinity with anti-modern emotions (similarity 0.81)
- Racism is usually wrongly folded into a general category of prejudice (similarity 0.80)
- Racism develops from elemental antipathy through theorized levels (similarity 0.80)
- Racism emerges only under design of a perfect society (similarity 0.79)
- Racism operates as a repository of techniques and logics, not just functional practices. (similarity 0.79)
- Racism is a societal system of ethnic and racial domination, not merely ideology (similarity 0.79)
- Racism creates races through practice, and the practice hides itself as its own evidence (similarity 0.79)
- Racism is a thoroughly modern weapon serving pre-modern struggles (similarity 0.79)
- Racism is real but race is only an idea manufactured by racist practice. (similarity 0.79)
- Racism is a hegemonic practice that is articulated with, not necessary to, capitalist formations (similarity 0.78)