Universal-psychology accounts of racism substitute an alibi for explanation

Evidence

The same point may be made, in extenso, for all those explanations which ascribe racism-in-general to some universal functioning of individual psychology—the “racial itch,” the “race instinct”—or explain its appearance in terms of a general psychology of prejudice. The question is not whether men-in-general make perceptual distinctions between groups with different racial or ethnic characteristics, but rather, what are the specific conditions which make this form of distinction socially pertinent, historically active. What gives this abstract human potentiality its effectivity, as a concrete material force? … Appeals to “human nature” are not explanations, they are an alibi. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 634

Categorization

• APHORISMS: “Appeals to ‘human nature’ are not explanations, they are an alibi” — a crisp, reusable methodological maxim.
• XREF: connects to: Psychoanalysis deflects institutional-racism critiques by pathologizing those who raise them — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1258; Racial imagery in psychic life is overdetermined and resists single-cause explanation — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1289; Psychoanalytic accounts of racism displace rather than escape reductionism — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1297 (+4 more)