Racism need not presume permanent inferiority, only exclusion from privilege and protection

Evidence

In his useful little book, Racism: A Short History, George Fredrickson suggests that racism necessarily requires the presumption of inequality or inferiority on the part of those whose assumed difference is deemed intrinsic or unchangeable. But does it? … Consider the racial paternalism of those claiming that others who are supposedly (still) racially immature should be subject to the education and governance of those who take themselves to be racially elevated (a view I have characterized as “racial historicism” in The Racial State). The increasingly widespread adoption of racial historicism from the mid-nineteenth century on and its discursive dominance in the latter half of the twentieth century regarding racial matters should serve to qualify the claim that racism necessarily requires a belief in intrinsic or unchangeable inferiority (the view I have called, by contrast, “racial naturalism”). That black or Asian people, as a people, may be thought by racial historicists to be educated ultimately to govern themselves suggests what Ann Stoler calls the “motility” – the shifting meanings and significance – of both racial and racist conception. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 64

The mark of racist expression or belief, then, is not simply the claim of inferiority of the racially different. It is more broadly that racial difference warrants exclusion of those so characterized from elevation into the realm of protection, privilege, property, or profit. Racism, in short, is about exclusion through depreciation, intrinsic or instrumental, timeless or time-bound. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 66

Categorization

• DEFINE: Distinguishes racial historicism (paternalist, temporal inferiority) from racial naturalism (intrinsic, unchangeable inferiority), and locates racism’s core in exclusion rather than simple inferiority claims.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 64; David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 66
• XREF: connects to: Racism may not require presuming intrinsic inferiority of the other — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 64; Racism operates as class disadvantage and exclusion; Racism can operate through claims of developmental inferiority rather than fixed biological inferiority (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Racism may not require presuming intrinsic inferiority of the other #corroborates (0.92) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 64
• Racism operates as class disadvantage and exclusion #expands (0.80)
• Racism can operate through claims of developmental inferiority rather than fixed biological inferiority #exemplifies (0.78)
• Belief in racial traits need not constitute racism unless it asserts hierarchy #complicates (0.75) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 62
• Institutional racism can persist without any individual racists #qualifies (0.72) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2388