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There are two hate crimes in very different parts of the world, one in the UK the second in Russia, that have me wondering about how much of American-style racism gets exported overseas ( photo credit: sylvar ).

In Britain recently Nathan Worrell, a neo-Nazi who waged a racist campaign against a mixed-race couple and was stashing loads of bomb-making materials in his flat, was arrested, tried and convicted on charges related to the case.   He was sentenced to seven years in prison on two charges: “possession of material for terrorist purposes,” and “racially aggravated harassment.”   Among the materials found in Worrell’s flat were a video showing how to make a bomb from household items, and what police described as “a significant amount of far-right propaganda, as well as membership cards for groups such as the Ku Klux Klan….”

In Russia, last week Stanley Robinson, an 18-year-old African American exchange student from Providence, Rhode Island, was stabbed by unknown assailants in Volgograd.   Russian n an attack officials say may have been racially motivated.  Robinson remains in grave but stable condition.  According to published accounts, the student’s mother, Tina Robinson said:  “I believe it happened because he is a person of color. It was completely unprovoked.”

Some may chalk up such horrific stories as just another example that “the whole world is full of inequality, injustice… “ [as Robert Berger suggested in his comment on this blog awhile back]; and, others may erroneously suggest that racism is overblown and that efforts to call attention to racism are part of a “racism industry.” I, however, have a different perspective on these incidents.   To me, these suggest that American-style racism may be exported from the U.S. to other countries with deadly consequences.   The fact that Worrell in the UK had propaganda from the KKK, a U.S.-based racist organization, certainly suggests this.   Of course, Worrell also had material from British far-right groups as well and the UK is no Johnny-come-lately to racism.    And yet, the fact that there are materials from the U.S. that are tied to the racist actions of a neo-Nazi in the UK suggest that there are global flows of racism.   Add to that the fact of America’s cultural and political hegemony in the world today (although quickly fading if recent shoe-tossing incidents are any indication of the nation’s standing in the eyes of the world), and it suggests that American-style racism may be seen as the “standard bearer” for racists around the globe.

The second example, of the African American exchange student attacked in Russia, also suggests that the American-style of racist hate crime has been exported to regions far beyond the borders of the U.S.   If, as this young man’s mother suggests, he was in fact a target of a racially-motivated assault this raises some puzzling questions about how this is possible.   Russia is a country with a completely different history than the U.S. when it comes to race and racism.   So, the question becomse, how is it that this young African American teenager is even “seen” as a target of a hate crime?   That he was even fathomable as a target of such an assault suggests that this young man had to first be recognizable as a racial subject.    To put it plainly, he had to be viewed by his attackers as a young black man.   And, his racial subjectivity, his “blackness,” if you will, had to be interpreted through the lens of the white racial frame.   Within this frame, a young black man gets read simultaneously as a dangerous thug and as a racial target.    Without this interpretive lens,  Stanley Robinson would just be another exchange student exploring another culture.   Within the white racial frame, Robinson became a target.

It would be bad enough if America were simply exporting racism if we, as a country, were also doing something in the international community to combat racism.  But, alas, this is not the case.   In forum after forum in the world arena, the U.S. is the notably absent guest not seated at the table to discuss how to resolve racism globally.  Sometimes this is couched as a concern about free speech rights, sometimes in terms of defending the right of the state of Israel to exist, both worthy concerns.  Even so, the point remains that the U.S. is not in involved in these discussions at the same time that the country is exporting American-style racism.    It’s analogous to the U.S. environmental policy in many ways.  As a country, we’re about 4% of the world’s population, yet we’re responsible for something like 25% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, yet the U.S. government under Bush refused to sign the Kyoto treaty which would have held accountable for reducing those emissions.    Now, I realize that reducing carbon emissions is not going to do anything to eliminate racism,  but it seems to me that part of the change we need to see in the U.S. is to try to rejoin the international community as responsible global citizens.   A big step forward would be to stop exporting American-style racism and sit down at the international table to discuss how to address global racism.

In the International Herald Tribune, Jonathan Zimmerman, professor of education & history at New York University, offers an opinion piece from Accra, Ghana, on how Senator Obama’s campaign is playing out globally. Some popular-culture data indicate much (credit: nova3web) excitement throughout much of the African diaspora about a son of Africa being a possible president of the powerful United States:

There’s a new hit song in Ghana this spring. You hear it everywhere: in bars, restaurants, shops and taxicabs. It has a catchy rhythm, a melodic chorus, and a loud note of praise for an American presidential candidate. The song is entitled simply “Barack Obama.” Recorded by the Ghanaian reggae-rapper Blakk Rasta, it celebrates Obama’s ascendance as a “great sign” for black people everywhere.

Beyond Africa popular culture and other data indicate similar excitement:

It joins a host of other pan-African musical tributes to Obama, from Jamaica and Trinidad to Cameroon and Kenya.

He adds a comment on the fears of many people of African descent about Senator Obama’s welfare in a country where, as we noted in a previous post, white supremacists are organizing dramatically as a result of Senator Obama’s nomination:

But the Ghanaian song adds two starkly negative chords. Over the rat-a-tat-tat of simulated gunfire, it cautions Obama about white racists who could harm him.

Given the growth in supremacist organizations, this is a realistic concern, yet it gets much more attention overseas than in the United States. Why is that? In addition, Zimmerman points out yet more complications down the line for support for Senator Obama, as certain political views become much more visible in the African diaspora. The Ghanan song next

warns that [Obama’] entire nation faces doom on Judgment Day, because of “legalizing abortion in America.”

Zimmerman asks a rhetorical question about whether this song’s writers, and much of Africa, is yet aware of Senator Obama’s strong support of abortion, as well as of gay rights. Zimmerman notes that in most of Africa abortions are banned by law. In addition,

in most African countries, all homosexual activity is illegal. In Kenya, the birthplace of Obama’s father, gay sex is punishable by five to 14 years in jail.

Zimmerman ends by wondering if a majority of Africans will continue to be excited about Senator Obama’s nomination once his political campaign gets more attention there.


These are complicated issues indeed. It is interesting how much this presidential election in our hyper-accentuated cyber and media age has shown the very close connections of peoples across the globe, with much more international concern over this election and the U.S. presidency than ever before.


The U.S. invasion of Iraq certainly has contributed in major ways to increased global interconnectedness, as has the declining economic power of the United States and its increasing dependence on Asian economic powers and on other non-European (for example, oil) countries. Now, too, the serious nomination of the first person of color ever for the top political office in the United States, indeed in any Western country, has made this country yet more an un-detachable and dependent part of the international world political-economic system. Stay tuned.

Friday, May 23, 2008 marks the 12th day of xenophobic attacks in the greater Johannesburg area in South Africa. As it stands, over 40 people are dead, hundreds, if not thousands, are injured, over 15,000 have been (photo credit) displaced from their homes, and at least 400 have been arrested (see the Mail and Guardian and The Sowetan newspapers for more). The victims are primarily Zimbabweans, Mozambicans and Malawians, although many of the assaults have involved native South Africans as well. Much of the targeting has been based on rumors about the citizenship of victims; the use of random identifiers such as accents or skin shade are frequently, and inaccurately employed (see here). To an outsider such as myself, it is unfathomable to see such obscene black-on-black violence in a country that has prided itself on a relatively peaceful government transition. South Africa to me represents hope. These attacks, however, have been in the making for years. Although the Apartheid government placed black Africans on the lowest rung of the populace and subjected them to tremendous violence and hardships, it also sent a very clear message that South African blacks were better than those from other countries. When the government transitioned, despite changes in immigration laws, police and immigration officials’ misconduct reified the prior government’s xenophobic sentiment . As the years have gone on, the press has also become a significant contributor to xenophobia. Past research suggests that media reports can have significant impact on subsequent activities as we are seeing here. A series of studies by the Southern African Migration Project reveals that the majority of newspaper articles which mention immigrants do so in a flagrantly negative way. Foreign nationals are frequently referred to, among other things, as “aliens”, “job-stealers”, and “criminals.” These public displays of xenophobia have served to reinforce anti-immigrant sentiments among those whose lives have seen little improvement over the years.


Although it is unclear at this point who specifically instigated these attacks in terms of organization and leadership, the source of strain, coupled with the type of outside support from police and news agencies referred to above, has led to a distinct profile of perpetrator: young males living in the poorest of poor situations within impoverished towns. There are several sociological theories and empirical studies that explain why this particular demographic is responsible such as competition theory and relative deprivation, but the level of organization involved here has led many, including myself, to suspect a third-party sponsor. These attacks are organized; the perpetrators are armed (frequently with guns), have distinct, although often incorrect targets and the spatial diffusion of this is unlike what we generally see in a riot. That is, outbreaks of violence and destruction are occurring in physically discrete areas, yet most of what we have seen in academic analyses suggest that the spread of this sort of collective action is generally contiguous.


At this point, the national government’s response has come far too late. Mbeki has finally ordered military reinforcement for the police who quite clearly, have little control over the situation. (photo: sea turtle) I only hope that these attacks are stamped out soon. As many here have pointed out, those responsible have turned their backs on the countries that hosted and aided South African exiles who furthered the anti-apartheid movement. What is left for social scientists such as myself to do, is unfurl the long-term and immediate stimuli of this violence. Although strain theories can help explain the long-term impetus, it cannot account for the timing or location of the attacks.


~ Maya Beasley, PhD
University of Connecticut

Recent intercommunal conflicts in Chad, Cote d’Ivoire, DR Congo, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan and Zimbabwe bring to mind the role of a certain ethnocentrism or tribalism in conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa. In Rwanda, the genocide that took place because of enmity between Hutus and Tutsis has become our contemporary example of tribalism gone wild and uncontrolled. Similar conflicts in Kenya between the Luos and Kikuyus, in Liberia between the Americo-Liberians and the native Africans, in Nigeria between Northern Hausa/Fulani and the Southern Ibos and/or Yorubas have been equally violent and tragic (map image from here).


What we are yet to uncover is a mapping of how ethnic differences become prominent; in the narrative reports from the recent conflicts in Kenya, there were incidents of long-time neighbors turning against each other; we find the same narratives from Rwanda and Liberia where neighbors and friends become enemies overnight. How do ethnic differences turn into tragic violence between groups? Are some African countries better able to prevent ethnic differences from turning into violent communal conflicts? When and how do ethnic differences trump peaceful and fruitful social interactions over time between two groups? How remarkable is it that the 11 countries listed above constitute a third of all the countries in that region? These are questions that speak to the extent of social distance among ethnic groups.


Most importantly, does this tribalism or ethnocentrism in sub-Saharan Africa bear any resemblance to white racism in America and Europe? I think so, when we consider the outcomes of it – ethnic or racial patronage, economic rewards that accrue to citizens based on tribal or ethnic and racial affiliations, and the violence that one race/ethnic group/tribe visits on the other.


In Africa, after independence, the emergent nation-states shunned tribal-based or ethnic-based political parties – the so-called ‘tribal unions’ were not consonant with the ideals of the new nationalism based on a progressive ideal of a community of diverse ethnic groups. Even there, some of the political parties evolved along tribal or ethnic lines. The strain between the traditional structures (chiefs, kings and their privileged groups) and the nationalists was palpable and, I argue, has not completely subsided.


Another important factor is the sinister role Europeans played in heightening inter-ethnic tensions and conflicts, as noted by historical accounts (compare, for instance volumes 7 & 8 of the General History of Africa, published by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO). To what extent can we ascribe the current post-independence ethnic or tribal torment to the distal insidious machinations of colonizers who clearly favored one ethnic over others? For instance, we need to map the historical distal role the British played in instigating the Biafra War in Nigeria; and the historical distal role the Belgians played in the genocide in Rwanda and the current political and economic morass in the Democratic Republic of Congo.


In Liberia, we would need to map the historical distal role of racism in fomenting and justifying the domination of the Americo-Liberians over the ethnic groups of the interior including the Kru and the Mano. We know that the tension between these groups eventually led to a brutal civil war in the country.


We need to study these two phenomena – racism and tribalism – together more closely. Africans from south of the Sahara who cry ‘woe’ when they encounter racism in America, must search themselves for ideas of ethnic or tribal superiority as well and how these tribal ideas configure social relations in their countries of birth.


In reality, ethnic or tribal stereotypes persist in Africa. Recently (May 2008), I received from a friend an email spewing stereotypes (some negative) about four ethnic groups in Ghana [compare a similar posting here]; at first, I laughed at the rambling message; but the subtext was troubling; the email was spreading stereotypes I had heard growing up some 40 years ago in Ghana. I wondered: how can the repetition of these stereotypes help social interaction among groups? Such an email regurgitating stereotypes about racial groups in America would be racist and crass and it is no less when it is about groups in Africa. The consequences of lingering racial, ethnic and tribal stereotypes can be tragic – in the US and sub Saharan Africa. Ultimately, these stereotypes suggest a certain level of social distance – spatially and metaphorically.


I think we must instigate a global analysis of tribal, ethnic, racist thinking to see where they overlap and how we can combat them. We should survey African immigrants about their attitudes on ethnicity, and to what effect their perceptions of tribal or ethnic superiority interact with their experiences of racism.


But I think there is a broader research agenda here as well; how does white racism abet ideas or perceptions of ethnic group superiority in other continents and countries?


~ Yoku Shaw-Taylor PhD
National Opinion Research Center
University of Chicago

Renowned sociologist Anthony Giddens has compared Manuel Castells’ trilogy, The Information Age: Economy, Society, and Culture, to Max Weber’s classic Economy and Society. One of the problems with writing a 1,500 page, three volume tome is that people are often daunted by the task of actually reading the work. Originally published beginning in 1996, Castell’s volumes were prescient in their anticipation of the enormous impact of the Internet and globalization on everyday life. However, as I was re-reading Volume II: The Power of Identity recently for reference in my own work, I was struck by what Castells misses in his analysis of what he refers to as ‘the Patriot movement’ in the network society. He starts out this volume with the premise that:

“Our world, and our lives, are being shaped by the conflicting trends of globalization and identity” (p.1).

And, in this, his point is similar to Benjamin Barber’s Jihad vs. McWorld. In these two possible political futures— “both bleak, neither democratic” — Barber sees “McWorld” as a commercialized, homogenized, depoliticized, and bureaucratized future while “Jihad” is parochial, tribal, and fractitious. In both Castells and Barber, globalization is allied with tolerance while identity is implicated in racism. In his Power of Identity, Castells explicitly takes up the issue of white supremacists, globalization and the Internet in a section called, “Up in Arms against the New World Order: the American Militia and the Patriot Movement in the 1990s” (pp. 84-97, Indexed ref’s to “white supremacists” p.86, p.92). The primary source for this section according to footnote #18 (p.84) is the 1996 Southern Poverty Law Center’s “Klanwatch/Militia Task Force,” cited extensively throughout the chapter as KMTF, now published online (and in print) as The Intelligence Report. There are a number of other sources that Castells draws on for this section, most notably Ken Stern’s A Force Upon the Plain (1996). Castells uses these sources to make four points about the ‘Patriot movement,’ including: 1) it is an extreme libertarian movement and the federal government is their primary enemy; 2) more than the federal government, the ‘new world order’ (i.e., globalization) is seen as an ominous threat; 3) the movement features a backlash against feminism, gays, and racial/ethnic minorities; and 4) it promotes an ‘intolerant affirmation of the superiority of Christian values’ (pp.92-94). Castells’ larger point here is that this movement (along with the Japanese Aum Sinrikyo, the religious cult responsible for the sarin gas attack on the Toyko subway in 1995) is a reactive movement, reacting against globalization. In this way, he casts ‘the Patriot movement’ as resistant to the more cosmopolitan strains of globalization; similar, again, to the Jihad side of Barber’s equation, set against McWorld.


There are several problems with Castells analysis for understanding white supremacy online in global perspective. Continue Reading »

Today, I attended an anti-racism rally in Amsterdam along with about 1,300 other people, most of them Dutch (all photos by Jessie Daniels).   The purpose of the rally was to draw attention to what German magazine Speigel calls the “risky stunt” of Dutch right-wing politician Geert Wilders and what protesters call “racism.”   Wilders “stunt” is that he has made a 15-minute film that is not yet released which reportedly juxtaposes excerpts from the Koran with beheadings and stonings on a split screen.  Wilders’ message is clear; he wants the West to resist “the threat of the growing Islamization of Western society.”   It’s this sort of rhetoric that has people in Holland gathering at the Dam, in central Amsterdam, protesting. 


To put this in context, it’s important to understand what happened the last time a Dutch filmmaker made a film critical of Islam.   This piece from the Spiegel magazine article summarizes it well:

“On Nov. 2, 2004, an Islamic fundamentalist murdered Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, a descendant of the painter Vincent van Gogh, in broad daylight on a street in Amsterdam.


The killer, a 26-year-old Dutch citizen, the son of Moroccan immigrants, shot the filmmaker at 9 a.m. as van Gogh was riding his bicycle. He then slit his throat and, using a knife, pinned a note to his victim’s chest, claiming responsibility and explaining his motives. The killer’s true target was politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali. But she, unlike van Gogh, was under 24-hour police protection. The bloody act was also a declaration of war against Dutch society, which, as the murderer was convinced, was controlled ‘by the Jews.’   Theo van Gogh and Ayaan Hirsi Ali had collaborated to produce a short film called “Submission,” which uses four real-life examples to illustrate the poor treatment of women in Islam.” 


The rise of Somalian-born and Muslim-raised politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali is also important to understanding the context of race, gender and anti-racism politics in Holland.  Ali, a former Member of Parliament in Holland (and current U.S. resident), is also a radical opponent of Islam based on gender oppression - her own experience and on behalf of other Muslim women - and what she views as the violent and intolerant core of the religion.    In the U.S., Ali has been deployed by the right-wing to put a more respectable (and visibly black, female, Muslim, African) face on anti-Islamic sentiments.   And, yet somehow, the advocacy for gender equality gets lost in all that rhetoric within most of the mainstream reporting about her.   Still, Theo Van Gogh and Ayaan Hirsi Ali are forever linked because of the note that Mohammed Bouyeri penned then stabbed into Van Gogh naming Ali as an enemy of Islam. Continue Reading »

I’m traveling outside the U.S. right now, so more tuned into international news of racism at the moment. Along those lines, Jerome Taylor, writing at IndyBlogs, notes that the award for the “Most Racist Article of the Year” has just been handed out by Survival International, a human rights organization that campaigns on behalf of indigenous tribal peoples. The dubious distinction goes to the Parguayan newspaper La Nacion for an article about a group of indigenous Indians who had taken over a square in the city of Asuncion. Here’s Taylor’s description of the piece:

Comparing them to a “dangerous cancer, spreading bad smells, destruction and contamination” the article went on to call this particular tribe “Neo-lithic” with a “withered culture” and said they should return to the jungle to “carry on living with the animals”.

The “award” that Survival International will send the editors of the paper is a certificate inscribed with a quotation from Luther Standing Bear, of the Lakota Souix (UPDATED: with thanks to Bryce for the correction) a Native American author who died in 1939. The inscription reads: “All the years of calling the Indian a savage has never made him one.”


More about racism outside the U.S. in upcoming posts.

 The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, and just issued some of its Concluding Observations.   Not long ago, I wrote about Canada skipping the UN conference on racism due to antisemitism.


Yet, despite this  criticism the UN Committee is issuing some charges that should be addressed.   In one of their more scathing conclusions, they charge the U.S. to do more to remedy the effects of racial discrimination in housing, particularly following Hurricane Katrina.  The Committee criticized the discriminatory violations of housing rights of African Americans following Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. The UN report comes on the heels of a call from two UN experts on housing and minority rights two weeks ago for an immediate halt to the demolitions of public housing in New Orleans.  Many community members argue that these demolitions, along with other reconstruction policies, are preventing African Americans from returning to the city. The UN Committee calls for adequate, affordable housing in Katrina-affected areas, and also for the remedying of housing conditions in racially segregated areas across the country.


Maria Foscarinis, executive director of the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty (NLCHP), which coordinated a report signed by more than 60 organizations to the Committee detailing the systemic discrimination against racial minorities in equal access to adequate housing, welcomed the Observations:

“Racial discrimination, both overt and subtle, is alive and well in America today. Viewed against international standards — which consider impact, not just intent — the extent of continuing racial discrimination is staggering. The sub-prime mortgage crisis, which also disproportionately impacts minority families, is exacerbating the problem.”

You can download the UN Committee’s Concluding Observations here.

A few days ago, I wrote about the incident in Johannesburg, South Africa at the Free University involving a video of black students being humiliated by white students. The fallout from the video continues to roil the university and the country as a whole according to reports from South Africa. One blogger (affiliated with the BBC) writes that there is a “lot of soul searching in South Africa” right now and then poses this question:

In a country anxious to shed it’s divisive past, is this just another example that society can never really be totally rid of racism?

The responses (13 so far and the post just went up earlier today) suggest a resounding pessimism about the possibility of eliminating racism, and it’s one I’ve encountered in my classes when I teach about racism.  I can’t begin to count the number of undergraduate essays I’ve marked which begin with some variation on: “Racism has always existed.”     Uhm, no.  “That’s simply not correct,” I invariably write in the margins of such papers.   Racism as an ideology emerged at a specific historical period as a justification for the practices of global capitalism at the time known as colonialism and the slave trade (See for example, Snowden, Before Color Prejudice).    By asking the question in this way: “Can you ever rid society of racism?” you leave open the possibility that the answer is “no,” as most of those 13 people commenting suggest.    I think we can do better, frankly.   Instead, let’s ask:  “How can we dismantle racism given how persistent it seems?”    The answer you get depends on the question you ask.

I’ve collected a few snippets about racism beyond the U.S. through the Google news aggregator. Here’s a brief international racism roundup:

• Johannesburg.  White students at University of Free State made a  video, widely condemned as racist, of black workers made to perform degrading acts by white students. The home-made film, described as “shocking and disgusting”,  shows five laughing black workers taking part in a number of activities, including eating meat that had been urinated on.  The workers appeared to have been duped into participating in the video.  The white students involved in making the video were reportedly ‘protesting’ a new university policy that would integrate black and white students in more campus residences.  Protests against the video have followed.   More here.
• Manchester. Sangram Singh Bhacker, a Sikh man, won a racial discrimination suit against the Manchester police department.  Bhacker, who lives in Manchester, had been trying to join his local police department but was turned down over a dozen times in the span of 18 years, despite his experience serving on five other police forces in the UK.  In refusing his application, the head of personnel wrote, “I am not prepared to consider you as a potential transferee with the GMP now or in the future.”  In the decision by the governing tribual, they said “Our conclusion is the respondent discriminated against the claimant on the basis of his ethnic origin.”   More here. 
• Toronto.  Once a great multicultural city, Toronto is now being threatened by a prevailing white supremacist racist establishment, according to Joe T. Darden, Professor of Geography at Michigan State University.  Darden contends that Toronto faces a growing culture of violence, primarily manifested in Toronto black communities, because a racist white establishment seeks to prevent equal access to educational and employment opportunities.  Terrific, and notably different-than-the-U.S., write up here by a progressive news outlet in Canada.