Political culture of race and racism

Race

Both Ward Churchill and Jean-Paul Sartre analyze the phenomenon of colonialism. Focusing on different specific instances, Churchill and Sartre offer harsh critiques of the dominant culture. Churchill comments on the American holocaust: the massacre of 90% of the indigenous population and the subsequent segregation of the remainder. Sartre describes the colonization of Northern Africa by France and the tensions between the Muslim majority and their minority French oppressors. In both cases, race and ethnicity were used as potent political weapons. By painting the subjugated peoples as biologically inferior, the ruling classes could firmly plant its political agenda within the media and education systems. Denial enables the perpetual inequality that is necessary to uphold the status quo. Racism becomes a primary ideology of social oppression: a political tool deeply entrenched in the social, economic, and political institutions of the ruling classes.

As Churchill points out, "all citizens of the United States...are subjected to indoctrination...through the elementary and secondary school systems," (p. 3). That principle indoctrination is continued through the mass media, which perpetuates the myth of Manifest Destiny. Manifest Destiny has been the prevailing ideology that has enabled -- encouraged -- the outright denial of any "criminally reprehensible" aspect of the slaughter of Native Americans (Churchill p. 3). The educational institutions and the media portray the killing of indigenous peoples as being "unfortunate," as if accidental or at worst a sad story (Churchill p. 3). Churchill argues that the slaughtering of 90% of the indigenous population of the United States constitutes a holocaust along the same lines as that perpetrated by the Nazis during World War Two. The difference between what Churchill calls the American holocaust and the Nazi holocaust is not qualitative or quantitative; they are the same phenomenon. Churchill posits that the difference lies only in the public consciousness. The Nazi holocaust has been framed as unique so much so that the very term "holocaust" exclusively applies to the Jews, according to Churchill. Churchill argues that the term holocaust must apply equally to the genocide of the Native American people, but cites insufficient scholarly discourse. To frame the American holocaust as such would now require a whole restructuring of the education, political, and media systems that prevail in the United States. Moreover, the Nazi holocaust can be discussed at a distance because it took place on another continent. Americans can more readily cast judgment on the wrongdoings of others than on our own, hints Churchill. The American genocide is still being rabidly denied because admitting a holocaust would be severely upset the belief in American cultural superiority.

Sartre does not swell on the issue of genocide and holocaust as much as Churchill does but the French philosopher does address systematic social oppression. Just as the Native Americans were rounded up into reservations, the Algerian subjects of France were systematically kept in "poverty and ignorance by force," (Sartre p. 50). A belief in French superiority fueled the underlying ideology of colonization. Muslims were depicted as being inferior heathens, in the same way that Native Americans were in the New World. By introducing race as a symbol of class status, the dominant culture can perpetuate its sovereignty easily. Race and ethnicity are tangible, visible elements of a group of people. Indoctrinating children in school is easier when those children can see the differences between Muslim and French or Native and European.

Oppression is, as Sartre points out, primarily an economic problem (p. 30). The systematic social oppression of the Algerians under France and the Native Americans under the United States depends on economic subjugation. The French colonial government actively sought means to control land and land use in Algeria, notes Sartre. Control over land and natural resources equals ownership of the means of production. Economic oppression also creates class conflict: the subjugated peoples become a clear and identifiable underclass. Even within the underclass, class conflict prevents political cohesion. The French and the Americans would have been far less successful in their colonial campaigns had the Algerians and the Native Americans been able to organize en masse in rebellion. Poverty pits neighbor against neighbor in the competition for limited resources.

Furthermore, race and social class become linked together and offered up as false proof that the oppressed groups are inherently inferior. Economic oppression also serves another key goal that helps perpetuate colonial rule: ignorance. Stripping the underclass of access to capital or to the means of production, the ruling class ensures lack of access to information or political power. Similarly, the underclass is economically impoverished to the point where subsistence needs trump education. Keeping the underclass economically and intellectually oppressed are systematic means of retaining sharp social inequalities. The colonial powers use economic oppression to enslave the underclass for generations.

Sartre also points out that colonialism is also a social and psychological problem (p. 30). The subjugated develop an "inferiority complex" that is reinforced by education and the media (Sartre p. 30). Described as "vermin," the Native Americans are similarly taught that theirs is an inferior culture. In fact, the Native American population is visibly cordoned off onto reservations to prove their innate differences from the powerful ruling classes. The indigenous peoples are not considered to be on equal footing as those who are members of the same ethnic, social, or economic class as the oppressors.

Social and psychological problems with colonialism also include the portrayal of the oppressed group as being dangerous. This is one of the main ways that colonial governments carry out their campaigns: by creating and maintaining a myth. As Churchill notes, "we hear only of 'Indian wars', never of 'settlers' wars'. It is as if the natives, always 'warlike' and 'aggressive', had invaded London or Castile," (p. 3). Sartre also argues that the French depict the Algerian Muslims as being dangerous rebels even though they were "right to attack," out of self-preservation (p. 32). Claiming that the Native Americans were warlike makes the American genocidal campaigns seem justified, too. The ideology of oppression is steeped heavily in myth and the illusion of cultural and moral superiority.