Jwst/HIST 276: Racial States: Nazism and the Jim Crow South

Who claims to be a racial state?

• There is no consensus or agreement of what a racial state is and no one will claim or bare the title of a racial state because that label is associated with institutionalized racism

• also no country wants to be condemned on the world stage

What makes a racial state?

• nation MUST have more than one race

• one race MUST exert power over another that is Unjust, Systematic and Structural

  • power domination

  • for racists they are proud of racial state

Unintentional discrimination

• some policy requires for discrimination (special treatment) but no intended to be unjust

  • ex) handicap bathroom only for use of those who are handicap, while meant to be space for those who are disabled to utilize restroom it discriminates against those who are able-bodied from using the space

What are the 3 racial state according to Frederickson?

• Jim Crow South

• Nazi Germany

• Apartheid South Africa

What makes a racial state according to Frederickson?

• ideology that is explicitly racist

  • those in power put straightforward notion of race

    • ex) like Jews are the “devil“ or African Americans are “inferior“

• focus on “racial purity“

  • ex) laws that forbade interracial or interfaith marriage

• legal social segregation - MANDATED by law

• disenfranchisement

  • ex) excluded from holding office or having the right to vote

• structural income inequality

  • access to resources and economic opportunity are so limited that they are forced to stay impoverished

    • ex) GI bill not allowed for blacks or New Deal keep the oppressed oppressed

Why colonial times not considered racial state?

• race was seen has bridgeable with intermarriage to encouraging whitening of the population

• and long time for ban of inter-marriage and pass of Jim Crow Laws

• ***SEEN as racial but NOT racial State

Race (key ideas)

• skin color

• ethnic background

• culture

racism (key ideas)

• prejudice

• stereotypes

• hatred

• fear

• discrimination

The biology of race

• through natural selection we have varying skin colors

  • ex) due to environment

• we all came out of Africa and only some ppl moved out so only part of their genetic makeup variation moved with them —> so all populations are related to each other

• race is fluid and NOT a fixed identification

• ***Race is a social construct, biologically we have a lot in common

Phenotype vs Race

• Phenotype

  • observable physical characters of organism (ex. skin color)

• Race

  • social construct utilized to categorize people into groups based on shared phenotypes

Religious intolerance

• unwillingness to accept or respect different religious beliefs and practices

Xenophobia

• fear of the other (from other countries)

What is Racism?

• Differences considered permanent and unbridgeable

Key Factors of Racism

• Difference

  • catalyst to treat ethno-racial other, with impossibility of equal coexistence

  • rejection of assimilation to equality

• Power

  • only way for groups to exist is through subordination and power imbalance

Why does Racism stand out in Wester society?

• b/c western society was developed with a sense of equality always existing

Why was the Holocaust considered genocidal and the Jim Crow South was not?

• Holocaust was considered genocidal because Nazi Germany was a totalitarian state and no countervailing force or civil society existed

• While in the Jim Crow South countervailing forces did exist

Declaration of Independence vs Common Interest Before Self Interest

• Volksgemein schaft

  • national community —> implies a homogenous national body

• in both documents emphasize equality

• the rationality of society in declaration of independence then “men” do not need clarification of white men because POC men are not even considered a man or a person (think 3/5 compromise)

• same with Common Interest Before Self Interest - if they do not fit the definition of German

  • German: “provided his blood, his customs, his culture are German and he speaks the German tongue“

Background Joachim Prinz March on Washington speech

• spoke prior to MLK “I have a Dream“ speech

• German-American rabbi & outspoken activist against Nazi Germany in 1930s and United States civil rights movement leader in 1960s

Joachim Prinz March on Washington Speech key ideas

• most tragic problem is Silence - not hatred of bigotry

• America must not become a nation of silent onlookers

  • b/c cannot be a nation of bystanders that allows injustice to occur

Modernity and the Holocaust - Bauman key ideas

• Bauman’s piece - a weed is a social construct, there is nothing innate that defines it - people who do not fit into the ideal vision of society

• genocide is seen as a creative acitivity

  • b/c the extermination of the “weeds“ is viewed not as an act of destruction but step to create a better world → rationalization of the violence

• modernity ambition - modernity in its most extreme form to bring about order, control and rationality within society

• modernity unchecked though leads to genocide

  • ex) Holocaust

Modernity and the Holocaust

• Holocaust was modern

  • a drive to create a utopia

  • Holocaust used bureaucracy and technology to kill in a mechanical (systematic and structural) fashion

Why are Holocaust analogies dangerous?

• the term Nazis in modern society has been turned to be utilized to mean political opponent

  • Problem

    • demeans the horror of the Holocaust and the genocide of it

    • the simplification prevents understanding of the pain, suffer, and horror caused to human beings

• Importance: we lose sight of the ordinary human choices that made genocide possible, when we focus on the grand abstract evil of genocide, we do not recognize the countless small, mundane decisions made by ordinary people that cumulatively enabled it and we miss the choices, justifications, and decisions which fueled it