
Cultural racism is a concept that has been applied to prejudices and discrimination based on
cultural
Culture ( ) is a concept that encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and Social norm, norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, Social norm, customs, capabilities, Attitude (psychology), attitudes ...
differences between
ethnic
An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people with shared attributes, which they collectively believe to have, and long-term endogamy. Ethnicities share attributes like language, culture, common sets of ancestry, traditions, society, re ...
or
racial
Race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. The term came into common usage during the 16th century, when it was used to refer to groups of va ...
groups. This includes the idea that some cultures are superior to others or in more extreme cases that various cultures are fundamentally incompatible and should not
co-exist in the same society or state. In this it differs from
biological or scientific racism, which refers to prejudices and discrimination rooted in perceived biological differences between ethnic or racial groups.
The concept of cultural racism was developed in the 1980s and 1990s by West European scholars such as
Martin Barker,
Étienne Balibar
Étienne Balibar (; ; born 23 April 1942) is a French philosopher. He has taught at the University of Paris X, at the University of California, Irvine and is currently an Anniversary Chair Professor at the Centre for Research in Modern European ...
, and
Pierre-André Taguieff. These theorists argued that the hostility to immigrants then evident in Western countries should be labelled ''
racism
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one Race (human categorization), race or ethnicity over another. It may also me ...
'', a term that had been used to describe discrimination on the grounds of perceived biological race since the early 20th century. They argued that while biological racism had become increasingly unpopular in Western societies during the second half of the 20th century, it had been replaced by a new, cultural racism that relied on a belief in intrinsic and insurmountable cultural differences instead. They noted that this change was being promoted by
far-right
Far-right politics, often termed right-wing extremism, encompasses a range of ideologies that are marked by ultraconservatism, authoritarianism, ultranationalism, and nativism. This political spectrum situates itself on the far end of the ...
movements such as the French
Nouvelle Droite
The ''Nouvelle Droite'' (, ), sometimes shortened to the initialism ND, is a far-right politics, far-right political movement which emerged in France during the late 1960s. The ''Nouvelle Droite'' is the origin of the wider European New Right ( ...
.
Three main arguments as to why beliefs in intrinsic and insurmountable cultural differences should be considered racist have been put forward. One is that hostility on a cultural basis can result in the same discriminatory and harmful practices as belief in intrinsic biological differences, such as
exploitation,
oppression
Oppression is malicious or unjust treatment of, or exercise of power over, a group of individuals, often in the form of governmental authority. Oppression may be overt or covert, depending on how it is practiced.
No universally accepted model ...
, or
extermination
Extermination or exterminate may refer to:
* Pest control, elimination of insects or vermin
* Extermination (crime), the killing of human on a large scale
* Genocide, at least one of five "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in par ...
. The second is that beliefs in biological and cultural difference are often interlinked and that biological racists use claims of cultural difference to promote their ideas in contexts where biological racism is considered socially unacceptable. The third argument is that the idea of cultural racism recognizes that in many societies, groups like immigrants and Muslims have undergone
racialization
Racialization or ethnicization is a sociological concept used to describe the intent and processes by which Ethnic group, ethnic or Race (human classification), racial identities are systematically constructed within a society. Constructs for ra ...
, coming to be seen as distinct social groups separate from the majority on the basis of their cultural traits. Influenced by
critical pedagogy
Critical pedagogy is a philosophy of education and social movement that developed and applied concepts from critical theory and related traditions to the field of education and the study of culture.
It insists that issues of social justice and de ...
, those calling for the eradication of cultural racism in Western countries have largely argued that this should be done by promoting
multicultural education and
anti-racism
Anti-racism encompasses a range of ideas and political actions which are meant to counter racial prejudice, systemic racism, and the oppression of specific racial groups. Anti-racism is usually structured around conscious efforts and deliberate ...
through schools and universities.
The utility of the concept has been debated. Some scholars have argued that prejudices and hostility based on culture are sufficiently different from biological racism that it is not appropriate to use the term ''racism'' for both. According to this view, incorporating cultural prejudices into the concept of racism expands the latter too much and weakens its utility. Among scholars who have used the concept of cultural racism, there have been debates as to its scope. Some scholars have argued that
Islamophobia
Islamophobia is the irrational fear of, hostility towards, or hatred against the religion of Islam or Muslims in general. Islamophobia is primarily a form of religious or cultural bigotry; and people who harbour such sentiments often stereot ...
should be considered a form of cultural racism. Others have disagreed, arguing that while cultural racism pertains to visible symbols of difference like clothing, cuisine, and language, Islamophobia primarily pertains to
hostility on the basis of someone's religious beliefs.
Concept
The concept of "cultural racism" has been given various names, particularly as it was being developed by academic theorists in the 1980s and early 1990s. The British scholar of
media studies
Media studies is a discipline and field of study that deals with the content, history, and effects of various media; in particular, the mass media. Media studies may draw on traditions from both the social sciences and the humanities, but it mos ...
and
cultural studies
Cultural studies is an academic field that explores the dynamics of contemporary culture (including the politics of popular culture) and its social and historical foundations. Cultural studies researchers investigate how cultural practices rel ...
Martin Barker termed it the "new racism", whereas the French philosopher
Étienne Balibar
Étienne Balibar (; ; born 23 April 1942) is a French philosopher. He has taught at the University of Paris X, at the University of California, Irvine and is currently an Anniversary Chair Professor at the Centre for Research in Modern European ...
favoured "neo-racism", and later "cultural-differential racism". Another French philosopher,
Pierre-André Taguieff, used the term "differentialist racism", while a similar term used in the literature has been "the racism of cultural difference". The Spanish sociologist
Ramón Flecha
Ramón Flecha is a Spanish sociologist who is a professor of sociology at the University of Barcelona, Doctor Honoris Causa from West University of Timişoara, and a researcher in social sciences
Social science (often rendered in the plural ...
instead used the term "postmodern racism".
The term "racism" is one of the most controversial and ambiguous words used within the
social sciences
Social science (often rendered in the plural as the social sciences) is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of society, societies and the Social relation, relationships among members within those societies. The term was former ...
. Balibar characterised it as a concept plagued by "extreme tension" as well as "extreme confusion". This academic usage is complicated by the fact that the word is also common in popular discourse, often as a term of "political abuse"; many of those who term themselves "
anti-racists" use the term "racism" in a highly generalised and indeterminate way.
The word "''racisme''" was used in the
French language
French ( or ) is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European family. Like all other Romance languages, it descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. French evolved from Northern Old Gallo-R ...
by the late 19th century, where
French nationalists employed it to describe themselves and their belief in the inherent superiority of the French people over other groups. The earliest recorded use of the term "racism" in the
English language
English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...
dates from 1902, and for the first half of the 20th century the word was used interchangeably with the term "
racialism
Scientific racism, sometimes termed biological racism, is the pseudoscientific belief that the human species is divided into biologically distinct taxa called " races", and that empirical evidence exists to support or justify racial discri ...
". According to Taguieff, up until the 1980s, the term "racism" was typically used to describe "essentially a ''theory of races'', the latter ''distinct'' and ''unequal'', defined in ''biological terms'' and in ''eternal conflict'' for the domination of the earth".
The popularisation of the term "racism" in Western countries came later, when "racism" was increasingly used to describe the
antisemitic policies enacted in
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
during the 1930s and 1940s. These policies were rooted in the
Nazi
Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...
government's belief that
Jews
Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
constituted a biologically distinct
race that was separate from what the Nazis believed to be the
Nordic race inhabiting Northern Europe. The term was further popularised in the 1950s and 1960s amid the
civil rights movement's campaign to end racial inequalities in the United States. Following the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, when Nazi Germany was defeated and biologists developed the science of
genetics
Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinians, Augustinian ...
, the idea that the human species sub-divided into biologically distinct races began to decline. At this, anti-racists declared that the scientific validity behind racism had been discredited.
From the 1980s onward, there was considerable debate—particularly in Britain, France, and the United States—about the relationship between biological racism and prejudices rooted in cultural difference. By this point, most scholars of
critical race theory
Critical race theory (CRT) is an academic field focused on the relationships between Social constructionism, social conceptions of Race and ethnicity in the United States census, race and ethnicity, Law in the United States, social and political ...
rejected the idea that there are biologically distinct races, arguing that "race" is a culturally constructed concept created through racist practices. These academic theorists argued that the hostility to migrants evident in Western Europe during the latter decades of the twentieth century should be regarded as "racism" but recognised that it was different from historical phenomena commonly called "racism", such as racial antisemitism or European
colonialism
Colonialism is the control of another territory, natural resources and people by a foreign group. Colonizers control the political and tribal power of the colonised territory. While frequently an Imperialism, imperialist project, colonialism c ...
. They therefore argued that while historic forms of racism were rooted in ideas of biological difference, the new "racism" was rooted in beliefs about different groups being culturally incompatible with each other.
Definitions
Not all scholars that have used the concept of "cultural racism" have done so in the same way. The scholars Carol C. Mukhopadhyay and Peter Chua defined "cultural racism" as "a form of racism (that is, a structurally unequal practice) that relies on cultural differences rather than on biological markers of racial superiority or inferiority. The cultural differences can be real, imagined, or constructed". Elsewhere, in ''The Wileyâ€Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social Theory'', Chua defined cultural racism as "the institutional domination and sense of racialâ€ethnic superiority of one social group over others, justified by and based on allusively constructed markers, instead of outdated biologically ascribed distinctions".
Balibar linked what he called "neo-racism" to the process of
decolonization
Decolonization is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby Imperialism, imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories, often overseas. The meanings and applications of the term are disputed. Some scholar ...
, arguing that while older, biological racisms were employed when European countries were engaged in colonising other parts of the world, the new racism was linked to the rise of non-European migration into Europe in the decades following the Second World War. He argued that "neo-racism" replaced "the notion of race" with "the category of ''immigration''", and in this way produced a "racism without races". Balibar described this racism as having as its dominant theme not biological heredity, "but the insurmountability of cultural differences, a racism which, at first sight, does not postulate the superiority of certain groups or peoples in relation to others but 'only' the harmfulness of abolishing frontiers, the incompatibility of lifestyles and traditions". He nevertheless thought that cultural racism's claims that different cultures are equal was "more apparent than real" and that when put into practice, cultural racist ideas reveal that they inherently rely on a belief that some cultures are superior to others.
Drawing on developments in French culture during the 1980s, Taguieff drew a distinction between "imperialist/colonialist racism", which he also called the "racism of assimilation", and "differentialist/mixophobic racism", which he also termed "the racism of exclusion". Taguieff suggested that this latter phenomenon differed from its predecessor by talking about "ethnicity/culture" rather than "race", by promoting notions of "difference" in place of "inequality", and by presenting itself as a champion of "heterophilia", the love of difference, rather than "heterophobia", the fear of difference. In this, he argued that it engaged in what he called "mixophobia", the fear of cultural mixing, and linked in closely with
nationalism
Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation, Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: Theory, I ...
.
The
geographer
A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society, including how society and nature interacts. The Greek prefix "geo" means "earth" a ...
Karen Wren defined cultural racism as "a theory of human nature where humans are considered equal, but where cultural differences make it natural for nation states to form closed communities, as relations between different cultures are essentially hostile". She added that cultural racism stereotypes ethnic groups, treats cultures as fixed entities, and rejects ideas of
cultural hybridity. Wren argued that nationalism, and the idea that there is a
nation-state
A nation state, or nation-state, is a political entity in which the state (a centralized political organization ruling over a population within a territory) and the nation (a community based on a common identity) are (broadly or ideally) con ...
to which
foreigners do not belong, is "essential" to cultural racism. She noted that "cultural racism relies on the closure of culture by territory and the idea that 'foreigners' should not share the 'national' resources, particularly if they are under threat of scarcity."
The
sociologist Ramón Grosfoguel noted that "cultural racism assumes that the metropolitan culture is different from ethnic minorities' culture" while simultaneously taking on the view that minorities fail to "understand the cultural norms" that are dominant in a given country. Grosfoguel also noted that cultural racism relies on a belief that separate cultural groups are so different that they "cannot get along". In addition, he argued that cultural racist views hold that any widespread poverty or unemployment faced by an ethnic minority arises from that minority's own "cultural values and behavior" rather than from broader systems of discrimination within the society it inhabits. In this way, Grosfoguel argued, cultural racism encompasses attempts by dominant communities to claim that marginalised communities are at fault for their own problems.
Alternative definitions of "cultural racism"
As a concept developed in Europe, "cultural racism" has had less of an impact in the United States. Referring specifically to the situation in the U.S., the psychologist
Janet Helms defined cultural racism as "societal beliefs and customs that promote the assumption that the products of White culture (e.g., language, traditions, appearance) are superior to those of non-White cultures". She identified it as one of three forms of racism, alongside personal racism and
institutional racism
Institutional racism, also known as systemic racism, is a form of institutional discrimination based on Race (human categorization), race or ethnic group and can include policies and practices that exist throughout a whole society or organizati ...
. Again using a U.S.-centric definition, the psychologist
James M. Jones noted that a belief in the "cultural inferiority" both of
Native Americans and
African Americans
African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa ...
had long persisted in U.S. culture, and that this was often connected to beliefs that said groups were biologically inferior to
European Americans
European Americans are Americans of European ancestry. This term includes both people who descend from the first European settlers in the area of the present-day United States and people who descend from more recent European arrivals. Since th ...
. In Jones' view, when individuals reject a belief in biological race, notions regarding the relative cultural inferiority and superiority of different groups can remain, and that "cultural racism remains as a residue of expunged biological racism." Offering a very different definition, the scholar of
multicultural education Robin DiAngelo
Robin Jeanne DiAngelo (née Taylor; born September 8, 1956) is an American author working in the fields of critical discourse analysis and whiteness studies. She formerly served as a tenured professor of multicultural education at Westfield St ...
used the term "cultural racism" to define "the racism deeply embedded in the culture and thus always in circulation. Cultural racism keeps our racist socialization alive and continually reinforced."
Cultural prejudices as racism
Theorists have put forward three main arguments as to why they deem the term "racism" appropriate for hostility and prejudice on the basis of cultural differences. The first is the argument that a belief in fundamental cultural differences between human groups can lead to the same harmful acts as a belief in fundamental biological differences, namely
exploitation and
oppression
Oppression is malicious or unjust treatment of, or exercise of power over, a group of individuals, often in the form of governmental authority. Oppression may be overt or covert, depending on how it is practiced.
No universally accepted model ...
or exclusion and extermination. As the academics Hans Siebers and Marjolein H. J. Dennissen noted, this claim has yet to be empirically demonstrated.
The second argument is that ideas of biological and cultural difference are intimately linked. Various scholars have argued that racist discourses often emphasise both biological and cultural difference at the same time. Others have argued that racist groups have often moved toward publicly emphasising cultural differences because of growing social disapproval of biological racism and that it represents a switch in tactics rather than a fundamental change in underlying racist belief. The third argument is the "racism-without-race" approach. This holds that categories like "migrants" and "Muslims" have—despite not representing biologically united groups—undergone a process of "
racialization
Racialization or ethnicization is a sociological concept used to describe the intent and processes by which Ethnic group, ethnic or Race (human classification), racial identities are systematically constructed within a society. Constructs for ra ...
" in that they have come to be regarded as unitary groups on the basis of shared cultural traits.
Critiques
Several academics have critiqued the use of cultural racism to describe prejudices and discrimination on the basis of cultural difference. Those who reserve the term racism for biological racism for instance do not believe that cultural racism is a useful or appropriate concept. The sociologist Ali Rattansi asked the question whether cultural racism could be seen to stretch the notion of racism "to a point where it becomes too wide to be useful as anything but a rhetorical ploy?" He suggested that beliefs which insist that group identification require the adoption of cultural traits such as specific dress, language, custom, and religion might better be termed ethnicism or ethnocentrism and that when these also incorporate hostility to foreigners they may be described as bordering on xenophobia. He does however acknowledge that "it is possible to talk of ‘cultural racism’ despite the fact that strictly speaking modern ideas of race have always had one or other biological foundation." The critique "misses the point that generalizations, stereotypes, and other forms of cultural essentialism rest and draw upon a wider reservoir of concepts that are in circulation in popular and public culture. Thus, the racist elements of any particular proposition can only be judged by understanding the general context of public and private discourses in which ethnicity, national identifications, and race coexist in blurred and overlapping forms without clear demarcations."
Similarly, Siebers and Dennissen questioned whether bringing "together the exclusion/oppression of groups as different as current migrants in Europe, Afro-Americans and Latinos in the US, Jews in the Holocaust and in the Spanish ''Reconquista'', slaves and indigenous peoples in the Spanish ''Conquista'' and so on into the concept of racism, irrespective of justifications, does the concept not run the risk of losing in historical precision and pertinence what it gains in universality?" They suggested that in attempting to develop a concept of "racism" that could be applied universally, exponents of the "cultural racism" idea risked undermining the "historicity and contextuality" of specific prejudices. In analysing the prejudices faced by
Moroccan-Dutch people in the Netherlands during the 2010s, Siebers and Dennissen argued that these individuals' experiences were very different both from those encountered by Dutch Jews in the first half of the 20th century and colonial subjects in the
Dutch East Indies
The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies (; ), was a Dutch Empire, Dutch colony with territory mostly comprising the modern state of Indonesia, which Proclamation of Indonesian Independence, declared independence on 17 Au ...
. Accordingly, they argued that concepts of "cultural essentialism" and "cultural fundamentalism" were far better ways of explaining hostility to migrants than that of "racism".
Barker's notion of the "new racism" was critiqued by the sociologists Robert Miles and Malcolm Brown. They thought it problematic because it relied on defining racism not as a system based on the belief in the superiority and inferiority of different groups, but as encompassing any ideas that saw a culturally-defined group as a biological entity. Thus, Miles and Brown argued, Barker's "new racism" relied on a definition of racism which eliminated any distinctions between that concept and others such as nationalism and sexism. The sociologist Floya Anthias critiqued early ideas of the "neo-racism" for failing to provide explanations for prejudices and discrimination towards groups like the
Black British
Black British people or Black Britons"Black Briton, N." ''Oxford English Dictionary''. Oxford UP. December 2024. https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/1136579918. are a multi-ethnic group of British people of List of ethnic groups of Africa, Sub-Saharan ...
, who shared a common culture with the dominant
White British
White British is an ethnicity classification used for the White population identifying as English, Scottish, Welsh, Cornish, Northern Irish, or British in the United Kingdom Census. In the 2011 census, the White British population was 49 ...
population. She also argued that the framework failed to take into account positive images of ethnic and cultural minorities, for instance in the way that
British Caribbean culture had often been depicted positively in British youth culture. In addition, she suggested that, despite its emphasis on culture, early work on "neo-racism" still betrayed its focus on biological differences by devoting its attention to
black people
Black is a racial classification of people, usually a political and skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid- to dark brown complexion. Not all people considered "black" have dark skin and often additional phenotypical ...
—however defined—and neglecting the experiences of lighter-skinned ethnic minorities in Britain, such as
Jews
Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
,
Romanis, the
Irish, and
Cypriots.
Cultural racism in Western countries

In a 1992 article for ''
Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography'', the geographer
James Morris Blaut argued that in Western contexts, cultural racism replaces the biological concept of the "white race" with that of the "European" as a cultural entity. This argument was subsequently supported by Wren. Blaut argued that cultural racism had encouraged many white Westerners to view themselves not as members of a superior race, but of a superior culture, referred to as "European culture", "Western culture", or "the West". He proposed that culturally racist ideas were developed in the wake of the Second World War by Western academics who were tasked with rationalising the white Western dominance both of communities of colour in Western nations and the
Third World
The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, the Southern Cone, NATO, Western European countries and oth ...
. He argued that the sociological concept of
modernization
Modernization theory or modernisation theory holds that as societies become more economically modernized, wealthier and more educated, their political institutions become increasingly liberal democratic and rationalist. The "classical" theories ...
was developed to promote the culturally racist idea that the Western powers were wealthier and more economically developed because they were more culturally advanced.
Wren argued that cultural racism had manifested in a largely similar way throughout Europe, but with specific variations in different places according to the established ideas of national identity and the form and timing of immigration. She argued that Western societies used the discourse of cultural difference as a form of
Othering
In philosophy, the Other is a fundamental concept referring to anyone or anything perceived as distinct or different from oneself. This distinction is crucial for understanding how individuals construct their own identities, as the encounter wit ...
through which they justify the exclusion of various ethnic or cultural 'others', while at the same time ignoring socio-economic inequalities between different ethnic groups. Using Denmark as an example, she argued that a "culturally racist discourse" had emerged during the 1980s, a time of heightened economic tension and unemployment. Based on fieldwork in the country during 1995, she argued that cultural racism had encouraged anti-immigration sentiment throughout Danish society and generated "various forms of racist practice", including housing quotas that restrict the number of ethnic minorities to around 10%. Furthermore, Dinesh D'Souza spoke about racism being so deeply embedded in "Western consciousness" that it cannot be eradicated, as it is now seen as a 'norm' in western behaviours due to cultural teachings being passed down through generations.
However, he mainly based his argument on ethnocentrism being mistaken for racism in Western societies which he believed we often misinterpreted as being racist, his thesis was that early European racists were misunderstood as their views was a way of them trying to "make sense of the diverse world" in other words, they did not understand the culture as it did not match their own, as a result they tried to implement their own.
Wren compared anti-immigrant sentiment in 1990s Denmark to the
Thatcherite
Thatcherism is a form of British conservative ideology named after Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party leader Margaret Thatcher that relates to not just her political platform and particular policies but also her personal character a ...
anti-immigrant sentiment expressed in 1980s Britain. The British Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013), was a British stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of th ...
for instance was considered a cultural racist for comments in which she expressed concern about Britain becoming "swamped by people with a different culture". The term has also been used in Turkey. In 2016, Germany's European Commissioner
Guenther Oettinger stated that it was unlikely that Turkey would be permitted to join the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...
while
Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan
Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan (born 26 February 1954) is a Turkish politician who is the 12th and current president of Turkey since 2014. He previously served as the 25th prime minister of Turkey, prime minister from 2003 to 2014 as part of the Jus ...
remained the Turkish President. In response, Turkey's European Union Affairs Minister Omer Celik accused Germany of "cultural racism".
The sociologist Xolela Mangcu argued that cultural racism could be seen as a contributing factor in the construction of
apartheid
Apartheid ( , especially South African English: , ; , ) was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an ...
, a system of racial segregation that privileged whites, in South Africa during the latter 1940s. He noted that the Dutch-born South African politician
Hendrik Verwoerd
Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd (; 8 September 1901 – 6 September 1966), also known as H. F. Verwoerd, was a Dutch-born South African politician, scholar in applied psychology, philosophy, and sociology, and newspaper editor who was Prime Mini ...
, a prominent figure in establishing the apartheid system, had argued in favour of separating racial groups on the grounds of cultural difference. The idea of cultural racism has also been used to explain phenomena in the United States. Grosfoguel argued that cultural racism replaced biological racism in the U.S. amid the 1960s
civil rights movement. Clare Sheridan stated that cultural racism was an applicable concept to the experiences of
Mexican Americans
Mexican Americans are Americans of full or partial Mexican descent. In 2022, Mexican Americans comprised 11.2% of the US population and 58.9% of all Hispanic and Latino Americans. In 2019, 71% of Mexican Americans were born in the United State ...
, with various European Americans taking the view that they were not truly American because they spoke Spanish rather than English. The
Clash of Civilizations
The "Clash of Civilizations" is a thesis that people's cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post–Cold War world. The American political scientist Samuel P. Huntington argued that future wars would be ...
theory, put forward in the 1990s by the American theorist
Samuel P. Huntington
Samuel Phillips Huntington (April 18, 1927December 24, 2008) was an American political scientist, adviser, and academic. He spent more than half a century at Harvard University, where he was director of Harvard's Center for International Affair ...
, has also been cited as a stimulus to cultural racism for its argument that the world is divided up into mutually exclusive cultural blocs.
In the early 1990s, the scholar of
critical pedagogy
Critical pedagogy is a philosophy of education and social movement that developed and applied concepts from critical theory and related traditions to the field of education and the study of culture.
It insists that issues of social justice and de ...
Henry Giroux
Henry Armand Giroux (born September 19, 1943) is an American and Canadian scholar and cultural critic. One of the founding theorists of critical pedagogy in the United States, he is best known for his pioneering work in public pedagogy, cultural ...
argued that cultural racism was evident across the
political right
Right-wing politics is the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position based on natural law, economics, authority, property, ...
in the United States. In his view,
conservatives
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilizati ...
were "reappropriating progressive critiques of race, ethnicity and identity and using them to promote rather than dispel a politics of cultural racism". For Giroux, the conservative administration of President
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker BushBefore the outcome of the 2000 United States presidential election, he was usually referred to simply as "George Bush" but became more commonly known as "George H. W. Bush", "Bush Senior," "Bush 41," and even "Bush th ...
acknowledged the presence of racial and ethnic diversity in the U.S., but presented it as a threat to national unity. Drawing on Giroux's work, the scholar of critical pedagogy Rebecca Powell suggested that both the conservative and liberal wings of U.S. politics reflected a culturally racist stance in that both treated European American culture as normative. She argued that while European American liberals acknowledge the existence of
institutional racism
Institutional racism, also known as systemic racism, is a form of institutional discrimination based on Race (human categorization), race or ethnic group and can include policies and practices that exist throughout a whole society or organizati ...
, their encouragement of
cultural assimilation
Cultural assimilation is the process in which a minority group or culture comes to resemble a society's Dominant culture, majority group or fully adopts the values, behaviors, and beliefs of another group. The melting pot model is based on this ...
ism betrays an underlying belief in the superiority of European American culture over that of non-white groups.
The scholar Uri Ben-Eliezer argued that the concept of cultural racism was useful for understanding the experience of
Ethiopian Jews
Beta Israel, or Ethiopian Jews, is a Jewish group originating from the territory of the Amhara and Tigray regions in northern Ethiopia, where they are spread out across more than 500 small villages over a wide territory, alongside predominant ...
living in Israel. After the Ethiopian Jews began migrating to Israel in the 1980s, various young members were sent to boarding school with the intention of assimilating them into mainstream Israeli culture and distancing them from their parental culture. The newcomers found that many Israelis, especially
Ashkenazi
Ashkenazi Jews ( ; also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim) form a distinct subgroup of the Jewish diaspora, that Ethnogenesis, emerged in the Holy Roman Empire around the end of the first millennium Common era, CE. They traditionally spe ...
s who adhered to
ultra-orthodox interpretations of Judaism, did not regard them as real Jews. When some white Israeli parents removed their children from schools with a high percentage of Ethiopian children, they denied accusations of racism, with one stating: "It's only a matter of cultural differences, we have nothing against blacks".
In 1992, Blaut argued that while most academics totally rejected biological racism, cultural racism was widespread within academia. Similarly, in 2000 Powell suggested that cultural racism underpinned many of the policies and decisions made by U.S. educational institutions, although often on an "unconscious level". She argued that the U.S. curriculum was based on the premise that "White cultural knowledge" was superior to that of other ethnic groups, hence why it was taught in
Standard English
In an English-speaking country, Standard English (SE) is the variety of English that has undergone codification to the point of being socially perceived as the standard language, associated with formal schooling, language assessment, and off ...
, the literature studied was largely Eurocentric, and history lessons focused on the doings of Europeans and people of European descent.
Among the far-right
The scholar of English Daniel Wollenberg stated that in the latter part of the 20th century and early decades of the 21st, many in the European far-right began to distance themselves from the biological racism that characterised
neo-Nazi
Neo-Nazism comprises the post–World War II militant, social, and political movements that seek to revive and reinstate Nazism, Nazi ideology. Neo-Nazis employ their ideology to promote hatred and Supremacism#Racial, racial supremacy (ofte ...
and
neo-fascist
Neo-fascism is a post-World War II far-right ideology which includes significant elements of fascism. Neo-fascism usually includes ultranationalism, ultraconservatism, racial supremacy, right-wing populism, authoritarianism, nativism, xe ...
groups and instead emphasised "culture and heritage" as the "key factors in constructing communal identity".
The previous political failures of the domestic terrorist group
Organisation Armée Secrète
The ''Organisation armée secrète'' (OAS, "Secret Army Organisation") was a far-right dissident French paramilitary and terrorist organisation during the Algerian War, founded in 1961 by Raoul Salan, Pierre Lagaillarde and Jean-Jacques S ...
during the
Algerian War
The Algerian War (also known as the Algerian Revolution or the Algerian War of Independence) ''; '' (and sometimes in Algeria as the ''War of 1 November'') was an armed conflict between France and the Algerian National Liberation Front (Algeri ...
(1954–62), along with the electoral defeat of far-right candidate
Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour
Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour (; 12 October 1907 – 29 September 1989) was a French lawyer and Far-right politics, far-right politician. Elected to the National Assembly (France), National Assembly in 1936, he initially collaborated with the Vichy ...
in the
1965 French presidential election, led to the adoption of a
meta-political strategy of '
cultural hegemony
In Marxist philosophy, cultural hegemony is the dominance of a culturally diverse society by the ruling class who shape the culture of that society—the beliefs and explanations, perceptions, values, and mores—so that the worldview of the rul ...
' within the nascent
Nouvelle Droite
The ''Nouvelle Droite'' (, ), sometimes shortened to the initialism ND, is a far-right politics, far-right political movement which emerged in France during the late 1960s. The ''Nouvelle Droite'' is the origin of the wider European New Right ( ...
(ND).
GRECE, an ethno-nationalist think-thank founded in 1968 to influence established right-wing political parties and diffuse ND ideas within the society at large, advised its members "to abandon an outdated language" by 1969. Nouvelle Droite thinkers progressively shifted from theories of biological racism toward the claim that different ethno-cultural groups should be kept separate in order to preserve their historical and cultural differences, a concept they name
ethno-pluralism. During the 1980s, this tactic was adopted by France's
National Front (FN) party, which was then growing in support under the leadership of
Jean-Marie Le Pen
Jean Louis Marie Le Pen (20 June 1928 – 7 January 2025), commonly known as Jean-Marie Le Pen (), was a French politician, lawyer and activist. He founded the far-right National Front (now National Rally) party and served as the party's presi ...
. After observing the electoral gains of Le Pen's party, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, a UK
fascist
Fascism ( ) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement. It is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural soci ...
group, the
British National Party
The British National Party (BNP) is a Far-right politics, far-right, British fascism, fascist list of political parties in the United Kingdom, political party in the United Kingdom. It is headquartered in Wigton, Cumbria, and is led by Adam ...
—which had recently come under the leadership of
Nick Griffin
Nicholas John Griffin (born 1 March 1959) is a British far-right politician who was chairman of the British National Party (BNP) from 1999 to 2014, and a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for North West England from 2009 to 2014. Follow ...
and his "moderniser" faction—also began downplaying its espousal of biological racism in favour of claims about the cultural incompatibility of different ethnic groups.
In Denmark, a far-right group called the Den Danske Forening (The Danish Society) was launched in 1986, presenting arguments about cultural incompatibility aimed largely at refugees entering the country. Its discourse presented Denmark as a culturally homogenous and Christian nation that was threatened by largely Muslim migrants. In Norway, the far-right terrorist
Anders Behring Breivik
Anders Behring Breivik (; born 13 February 1979), officially named Fjotolf Hansen from 2017 to 2025, and Far Skaldigrimmr Rauskjoldr av Northriki since March 2025, is a Norwegian neo-Nazi terrorist and mass murderer. He carried out the 2011 No ...
expressed ideas about cultural incompatibility between Muslims and other Europeans, as opposed to biologically racist ideas. In his view, Muslims represented a cultural threat to Europe, but he placed no emphasis on their perceived biological difference.
Islamophobia and cultural racism
Some scholars who have studied
Islamophobia
Islamophobia is the irrational fear of, hostility towards, or hatred against the religion of Islam or Muslims in general. Islamophobia is primarily a form of religious or cultural bigotry; and people who harbour such sentiments often stereot ...
, or prejudice and discrimination toward Muslims, have labelled it a form of cultural racism. For instance, a range of academics studying the
English Defence League
The English Defence League (EDL) was a Far-right politics, far-right, Islamophobia, Islamophobic organisation active in England from 2009 until the mid-late 2010s. A social movement and Advocacy group, pressure group that employed street demo ...
, an Islamophobic street protest organisation founded in London in 2009, have labelled it culturally racist. Anthias suggested that it was appropriate to talk of "anti-Muslim racism" because the latter involved attributing the Muslim population "with fixed, unchanging and negative characteristics" and then subjecting them "to relations of inferiorization and exclusion", traits that she associated with the term "racism".
The
media studies
Media studies is a discipline and field of study that deals with the content, history, and effects of various media; in particular, the mass media. Media studies may draw on traditions from both the social sciences and the humanities, but it mos ...
scholar Arun Kundnani suggested some difference between cultural racism and Islamophobia. He noted that while cultural racism perceived "the body as the essential location of racial identity", specifically through its "forms of dress, rituals, languages and so on", Islamophobia "seems to locate identity not so much in a racialised body but in a set of fixed religious beliefs and practices". The sociologist Ali Rattansi argued that while many forms of Islamophobia did exhibit racism, for instance by conflating Muslims with
Arabs
Arabs (, , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world.
Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of yea ...
and presenting them as being uniformly barbaric, in his view Islamophobia was "not ''necessarily'' racist", instead coming in both racist and non-racist forms.
In 2018, the UK's
all-party parliamentary group on British Muslims, chaired by politicians
Anna Soubry
Anna Mary Soubry (; born 7 December 1956) is a British barrister, journalist and former politician who was Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament (MP) for Broxtowe (UK Parliament constituency), Broxtowe from 2010 United Ki ...
and
Wes Streeting
Wesley Paul William Streeting (; born 21 January 1983) is a British politician who has served as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care since July 2024. A member of the Labour Party, he has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Ilford ...
, proposed that Islamophobia be defined in British law as being "a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness". This generated concerns that such a definition would criminalise
criticism of Islam
Criticism of Islam can take many forms, including academic critiques, political criticism, religious criticism, and personal opinions. Subjects of criticism include Islamic beliefs, practices, and doctrines.
Criticism of Islam has been present ...
. Writing in ''
The Spectator
''The Spectator'' is a weekly British political and cultural news magazine. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving magazine in the world. ''The Spectator'' is politically conservative, and its principal subject a ...
'', David Green referred to it as "a backdoor blasphemy law" that would protect conservative variants of Islam from criticism, including criticism from other Muslims. The British anti-racism campaigner
Trevor Phillips
Sir Mark Trevor Phillips (born 31 December 1953) is a British writer, broadcaster and former politician who served as Chair of the London Assembly from 2000 to 2001 and from 2002 to 2003. He presented ''Sophy Ridge on Sunday, Trevor Phillips ...
also argued that it was inappropriate for the UK government to view Islamophobia as racism. Martin Hewitt, the chair of the
National Police Chiefs' Council
The National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) is a national coordination body for law enforcement in the United Kingdom and the representative body for senior police officers in the United Kingdom. Established on 1 April 2015, it replaced the forme ...
, warned that implementing that definition could exacerbate community tensions and hamper
counter-terrorist efforts against
Salafi jihadism
Salafi jihadism, also known as Salafi-jihadism, jihadist Salafism and revolutionary Salafism, is a religiopolitical Sunni Islam, Sunni Islamist ideology that seeks to establish a global caliphate through armed struggle. In a narrower sense, ji ...
.
[
While the Labour Party and Liberal Democrats adopted the all-party parliamentary group's definition, the Conservative Party government rejected it, stating that the definition required "further careful consideration" and had "not been broadly accepted".] Various British Muslims and groups like the Muslim Council of Britain
The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) is an umbrella body of Muslim organisations in the United Kingdom, with over 500 affiliated mosques and organisations. It was formed in 1994 in response to British government's expressed wish for a single r ...
expressed disappointment at the government's decision.[
]
Opposing cultural racism
During the 1980 and 1990s, both Balibar and Taguieff expressed the view that established approaches to anti-racist activism were designed to tackle biological racism and thus were destabilized when confronted with cultural racism. In 1999, Flecha argued that the main approach to anti-racist education adopted in Europe had been a "relativistic" one that emphasised diversity and difference between ethnic groups – the same basic message promoted by cultural racism. He thus thought that such programs "exacerbate rather than eliminate racism". Flecha expressed the view that to combat cultural racism, anti-racists should instead utilise a "dialogic" approach which encourages different ethnic groups to live alongside each other according to rules that they have all agreed upon through a "free and egalitarian dialogue".
Wollenberg commented that those radical right-wing groups which emphasise cultural difference had converted "multiculturalist anti-racism into a tool of racism". According to Balibar, the cultural racist position argues that when ethnic groups co-exist in the same location it "naturally" results in conflict. Proponents of cultural racism therefore argue that attempts at integrating different ethnic and cultural groups itself leads to prejudice and discrimination. In doing this they seek to portray their own views as the "true anti-racism", as opposed to the views of those activists who call themselves "anti-racists".
Through education
Arguing from his position as a scholar of critical pedagogy, Giroux proposed using both "a representational pedagogy and a pedagogy of representation" to address cultural racism. This would include encouraging students to read accounts of race relations which challenge those written by liberal commentators, who he thought concealed their underlying ideology and the existence of racial power relations. It would also include teaching students methodologies that would alert them to how different media reinforce existing forms of authority. Specifically, he urged teachers to provide their students with the "analytic tools" through which they could learn to challenge accounts that perpetuated ethnocentric discourses and thus "racism, sexism and colonialism". More broadly, he urged leftist activists not to abandon identity politics
Identity politics is politics based on a particular identity, such as ethnicity, Race (human categorization), race, nationality, religion, Religious denomination, denomination, gender, sexual orientation, Socioeconomic status, social background ...
in the face of U.S. cultural racism, but instead called on them to "not only construct a new politics of difference but extend and deepen the possibilities of critical cultural work by reasserting the primacy of the pedagogical as a form of cultural politics".
Similarly, Powell argued that schools were the best place to counteract "cultural racism", in that it was here that teachers could expose children to the underlying ideas on which cultural assumptions are based. She added that in the U.S., schools should commit themselves to promoting multiculturalism and anti-racism. As practical proposals, she suggested teaching pupils about non-standard vernacular languages other than Standard English and explaining to them how the latter "became (and remains) the language of power". She also suggested getting pupils to discuss how images in popular media reflect prejudicial assumptions about different ethnic groups and to examine historical events and works of literature from a range of different cultural perspectives.
Notes
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Citations
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Further reading
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*Wacquant LJD (1997) For an analytic of racial domination. ''Political Power and Social Theory'' 11: 221–234.
{{Racism topics
Racism
Definition of racism controversy