Targets of racism, ethnocentrism, and cultural disdain, other than or equal to that experienced by POC
draft 03.02.23
I find the problem with the term POC, when we use it internationally to speak of all/any people affected by racism is, that racism functions differently in different national settings. In Germany Völkischness is the kind of racist matrix that constitutes much of the tragic past of this nation. Völkischness makes up Nazi thinking, and it did not simply dissolve. The völkisch idea differentiates between an arrays of additional other “racial” criterions than does the concept of imperialist shaped racism and that of racist human oppression that brought forth and harbored human slavery, while nevertheless all those forms of biologistically arguing human hatred do interlap. Whiteness stands at that interlapping intersection.
What is also a story to be seen in a more carefully differentiated way, yet also an aspect of the racist map is ethnical hatred, usually between majority minority fractions in nation states. Most countries made up by various ethnic minorities which have been robbed of territory – in the more recent history often after the creation of nation states – will know the problematics evolving from such constellations to some extent.
Another layer of course is the religious layer, that is used by people to separate amongst each other.
Being affected by a hatred and disdain, on the grounds of belonging or emerging from a different cultural background, is in my point of view the thread where the potentials of conflict basically come together.
In Germany the term, I think it was coined by Cohn-Bendit of the Green Party: “Multikulti” standing for multiculturalism, is used as a negative term by many people. On the one hand multiculturalism is being exploited in some ways, yet it seems to contain the quite universal lack of mutual understanding that create a source of conflict, globally (conflicts anywhere that involve cultural belonging are intricate and mostly not solved and often boiling), and, multiculturalism is seen as a threat that people don’t seem to wish to overcome, for example by rethinking “identity” and by mutual critical social exchange of ideas for instance.
I think we can’t just stick all problems under one hat. Being a POC in the US is a different story, or in the UK, different again, or being affected by disdain for Slavic people in Germany, or being mixed race is – in different countries a different story. Just sticking a bunch of problems, that emerge from cultural hatred and still reflect an ongoing cultural hatred, all together, seems to be missing the point, even if it helps to highlight many of our “elephants” in the room.
By the way: the aspect of culture – depending how defined – can reflect a fluidity, that racism seeks to deny or/and interrupt.