The 8 most common types of racism

Several of the most common forms of discrimination of human beings have to do with ethnicity.

The types of racism that occur around the world are an indication of the extent to which are indicative of the extent to which attitudes based on discrimination have become deeply rooted in many cultures.

In fact, racism can take so many forms that in some cases it goes unnoticed and can be perceived as the natural order of things. That is why it is important to know the different types of racism and how to identify them on a daily basis. But first, let's start with the basics.

What is racism?

Racism is a very abstract concept that refers to the act of discriminating against people. the act of discriminating against people on the basis of their raceor the tendency to frequently engage in this kind of discrimination.

Thus, a racist person takes very much into account his prejudices about the characteristics that people have (hypothetically) because of the lineage from which they come, and defends the idea that individuals should have some rights or others depending on their race.

At the same time, the concept of race is much debated, since, although as a scientific entity it does not exist within the field of biology, it is a concept of race. does not exist within the field of biology applied to our species, in the social sciences and humanities it does exist.in the social sciences and humanities, it is used. This means that although technically there are no human races, a large part of the population does believe so, and therefore can discriminate on the basis of the alleged racial groups to which people belong.

That is why, among other things, the boundaries between the different races are so blurred; there is no clear way of indicating where one of these population groups begins and another begins.

Main types of racism

The most common types of racism are as follows. However, it should be noted that in practice many of them overlap with each other.

1. Institutional racism

The adjective "racist" is also used to refer to laws or institutions that discriminate against people on the basis of their roots.. This is the case of institutional racism, embodied in forms of organization and power-sharing that have become fixed in rules, statutes, etc.

References to institutional racism fit well with philosophical currents related to postcolonial studies or the work of Michel Foucault, which speak of forms of oppression and domination that go beyond the purely psychological and are materially embodied in social organizational structures and laws.

Cultural racism

Cultural racism emphasizes a supposed cultural superiority of one ethnic group over another.. It should be clarified that this type of racism does not consist in pointing out that one culture is better than the others, but in establishing a deterministic relationship between race and culture. For example, believing that civilizations made up mainly of black people are incapable of creating good literature is an example of this.

However, it should be noted that this concept is controversial, as it is often criticized for blurring the true meaning of racism, which would necessarily refer to Biological characteristics or at least to physical characteristics that are visible and easy to verify based on objective criteria, such as skin color.

3. Biological racism

This is one of the types of racism that most emphasizes the influence of genetics. emphasizes the influence of genetics on the abilities and psychological propensities of the and psychological propensities of people. It is believed that past inheritance through genes determines a large part of what we are, and that this implies the irremediable superiority of certain races over others.

4. Inverse racism

A concept used to refer to racist attitudes directed against parts of the population that are not usually the target of attacks. who are not usually the target of racist attacks, usually people perceived as racially superior.usually people perceived as white.

There is some controversy as to whether this phenomenon can really be considered a type of racism, since it does not involve a form of systemic oppression that goes beyond the individual attitudes of certain people. That is, while racism towards the non-white population is based on historical and material inequalities (domination of their native lands, greater military power, etc.), racism against whites is not related to a situation of structural discrimination.

However, if we are interested in focusing on a clear and concise meaning for the word racism, we may tend to accept that white people can also suffer a type of racial discrimination.

5. Racism based on skin color

This type of racism is based on appearance, and is very superficial. Basically, it consists of an irrational It basically consists of an irrational contempt or hatred of people simply because of the way they look.simply because of the way they look because their skin color is different from what one considers to be "normal". In practice, it overlaps with many other types of racism.

6. Colorism

It is a form of racism that occurs within population groups that are themselves often discriminated against. It consists of belittling or excluding certain people who possess very marked traits attributed to their race, that is to say, that come close to the appearance of the white ones.. In populations with African origins, for example, the victims are individuals with darker skin, as opposed to other blacks with lighter tones. Their existence is proof that there are also unequal power dynamics within discriminated groups.

7. Xenophobia

Xenophobia is a mixture of racism and nationalismXenophobia is a mixture of racism and nationalism, which results in discrimination on cultural grounds. In other words, discrimination is based partly on biological origins and partly on the cultural heritage that someone who is perceived as a foreigner has internalized since childhood.

8. Stereotypical racism

It consists of placing a lot of emphasis on the biological characteristics that are usually attributed to certain ethnic groups, creating many moments in which attention is drawn to them. For example, pointing out that people who come from China have a yellowish skin tone is a clear example of forcing reality to fit into schemes of differentiation between people.

Compared to the other types of racism, this one seems relatively harmless, since it is not based on hatred, but it also has adverse effects, because it pigeonholes people and makes it hard to look beyond and makes it difficult to look beyond these classifying categories.