Racism, Cultural

The term cultural racism is widely used to draw attention to the fact that prejudice and discrimination often have more to do with the culture of the victims than with their physical appearance and skin color. In other words, cultural racism focuses on intolerance relating to socially constructed characteristics such as social customs, manners and behavior, religious and moral beliefs and practices, language, aesthetic values, and leisure activities. In its most extreme forms, cultural racism may be the motivation for ethnic cleansing and sectarian murder, but it also manifests itself in a wide range of less extreme forms of threatening and intimidating behavior, including the exclusion of people from minority cultures and the avoidance of social contact with them; the strengthening of boundaries between one's own group and others; the stereotyping, dehumanizing, or demonizing of others; and the justification of continued domination and oppression. Cultural racism may also lie behind demands for cultural conformity when this is neither necessary nor perhaps even desirable. A society may expect its minorities to turn their back on their own culture and penalize them if they fail to assimilate or at least to conform to the cultural norms of the majority. This entry discusses the various forms of cultural racism and its effects.

Like other forms of racism, cultural racism may have deep psychological roots in two widespread human tendencies: (1) feelings of insecurity and suspicion in the presence of anyone perceived as strange or unfamiliar; and (2) the need to dominate, to snub, to belittle, or to feel superior to, others. From such roots, cultural prejudice can easily grow and be rationalized into the belief that the culture of others is flawed in some way and thus standing in the way of their progress. Assumptions about the cultural superiority of Europeans (or Westerners in general) provide the most common justification for cultural racism. Some may consider non-European cultures less rational, more tied to tradition, less culturally evolved, less open to new ideas, and less motivated to succeed than are the Europeans and their heirs. Such people may claim that the non-Europeans need a program of modernization (meaning taking on Western values) if they are to thrive and achieve their full potential. Particularly in schools, the children of immigrants may be encouraged to accept Western cultural values and expectations and are rewarded if they do so with higher examination scores and enhanced career prospects, but those who insist on retaining their cultural differences are treated with corresponding hostility.

Insisting on cultural conformity where such an insistence is not justified is a form of cultural domination and oppression. However, because cultural racism denies the relevance of “race” and claims that all races have an equal potential for achievement, the question arises whether it is appropriate to call it racism at all. Indeed, some have preferred to use the [Page 1118]term culturalism, and others have argued that race equality legislation should be expanded to refer to both racial and cultural groups. However, the situation is complex: It is not easy in practice to distinguish between unjustified hostility toward Arabs (which is racism) and unjustified hostility toward Muslims (which is cultural racism or Islamophobia). Perhaps the word racism in the phrase cultural racism is best understood as a metaphor, implying that the experience of racism and the experience of cultural hostility are similar.

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