Race 7

Question 1

What is Fredrickson’s (2002) definition of racism?

Answer 1

Racism exists when one ethnic group or historical collectivity dominates, excludes, or seeks to eliminate another on the basis of differences that it believes are hereditary and unalterable.

Question 2

When and where did modern human beings originate from?

Answer 2

100,000 to 150,000 years ago in Africa. (Hirschman 2004)

Question 3

What is ethnocentrism?

Answer 3

It is the nearly universal tendency to believe in the rightness of one’s own group and the natural aversion to difference. (Hirschman 2004)

Question 4

Did racism exist in the great civilizations of antiquity, including, Egypt, Greece and Rome?

Answer 4

There was an awareness of racial features in art and literature, ethnocentric judgements, but little suggestion of modern forms of racism. Skin color was not an obstacle of integration. (Hirschman 2004)

Question 5

What were the three transformations that created sharp divides between Europeans and other peoples, which lead to racism?

Answer 5

1) the enslavement of millions of Africans in plantation economies in the New World 2) the spread of European colonial rule across the world, especially in Asian and Africa in the 19th century 3) the development of Social Darwinism–the pseudo-scientific theory of European superiority that became dominant in the 19th century. (Hirschman 2004)