Racialism

Racialism (pronounced rey-shuh-liz-uhm)

(1) The belief that humans can be categorized as belonging to distinct races, each race being characterized by fixed and heritable traits (obsolete).

(2) In technical use, any system of categorization which uses race (however defined); in technical use, what used to be called scientific racialism (and later race realism) is still practiced but the term is no longer applied except as a critique.

1882: The construct was racial + -ism (the adjective racial dating from 1862).  Race (in this context) was from the French racisme, dating from 1902, from the mid sixteenth century Middle French race from the early fourteenth century Italian razza of uncertain origin.  The word gained the various senses of (1) a group of sentient beings, particularly people, distinguished by common ancestry, heritage or physical characteristics (most notably skin color or tone), (2) an identifiably distinct group of people distinguished from others on some basis (which could be cultural or religious).  Noted first in 1928, use of the word racism became common by the mid-1930s and was widely applied to the legal and social systems in some countries by at least 1940.  The –ial suffix from the Middle English, from the Old French, from the Latin -ālis (the third-declension two-termination suffix (neuter -āle) used to form adjectives of relationship from nouns or numerals) and was used to form adjectives from nouns.  The –ism suffix was from the Ancient Greek ισμός (ismós) & -isma noun suffixes, often directly, sometimes through the Latin –ismus & isma (from where English picked up ize) and sometimes through the French –isme or the German –ismus, all ultimately from the Ancient Greek (where it tended more specifically to express a finished act or thing done).  It appeared in loanwords from Greek, where it was used to form abstract nouns of action, state, condition or doctrine from verbs and on this model, was used as a productive suffix in the formation of nouns denoting action or practice, state or condition, principles, doctrines, a usage or characteristic, devotion or adherence (criticism; barbarism; Darwinism; despotism; plagiarism; realism; witticism etc).  Racialism & racialist are nouns & adjectives and racialistic is an adjective; the noun plural is racialisms.  Racism & racist are nouns and adjectives; the noun plural is racisms.

The word "racialism" was coined in 1882, based on the existing use of "race" as a synonym of "nation, tribe, ethnic group"; the later senses emerged from circa 1890 from the use of "race" for racial categories.  The use in 1882 was essentially neutral and descriptive and referred to “tribalism” but in less than a decade it assumed the meaning “political system advocating superiority and exclusive rights based on race” but that would come later to be replaced by the more overt “racism” & “racist”.  The later attempt to repurpose the word for (allegedly) scientific purpose with a meaning closer to the 1882 original (including as race-realism) was unsuccessful.  In the West, expressions of racism became first unfashionable in polite society and later unacceptable.  This change in attitude unfolded over decades in the twentieth century and progress was socially and geographically varied, the clustering of populations by class, education and ethnic diversity (the formalization as DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) came early in the 2000s) probably the most significant factors accounting for the difference.  Racism does seem to be endemic in the human condition and while it can be suppressed by collective social disapprobation or rendered unlawful, apparently just about everywhere when people with recognizably different features or characteristics (in appearance, linguistically, culturally etc) co-exist, some degree of conflict is likely to ensue.  This can be something so low-level it’s usually imperceptible such as the interactions between the Italian, French, German & Romansh speakers in Switzerland or more violent, as recent events in Sudan and Tunisia demonstrate.  It’s not going to go away and the management of it varies from place to place between the multi-cultural policies in the West and the “ethnic cleansing” (something of a euphemism in that it included mass-murder) associated with the wars in the Balkans in the early 1990s.  The most obvious modern manifestation of racialism is “racial profiling” which ranges from filtering processes which exclude certain applicants from the employment selection process to police selecting for “stop & search” only those perceived to be of a certain ethnicity to persons of Middle-Eastern appearance receiving heightened levels of attention from airport security staff.

Winsor Newton Black Indian Ink.

Racialism and racism are not unrelated concepts, but have different meanings and implications.  Racialism is practiced as a spectrum and explores the existence of differences between racial groups (as defined) and this can be in genetics, specific capabilities, traits, or characteristics.  It can be merely descriptive (even down to the cellular level) bit inevitably comes often to be used to suggest there might be races which are superior or inferior to others based on these differences.  Racism however, takes a belief system (usually of racial superiority) and imposes systemic oppression, discrimination, prejudice, and unequal treatment of individuals or groups based on their race, ethnicity, or nationality.  The most obvious examples involve the exercise of power and privilege by one racial group over others, leading to social, economic, and political disparities.  So seriously corrosive has race come to be seen in the West that some guides now recommend race never be mentioned by white people although there is a convention words & phrases using proscribed terms can be used the those in the group referenced, hence the ongoing popularity of the infamous N-words among sections of the African American community.  That doesn’t however mean it’s now permissible for white people to use the phrase “white trash”, even as a self-descriptor because of its origins which essentially equated whites of the lowest socio-economic status with that of blacks although it does continue to be used both as a term of disparagement and one of group identity.  Helpfully, the guides suggest “Chinese whispers” should become “telephone whispers” and “Indian Ink” is best called “carbon-based ink” although under the original name it remains widely available.  In cricket, the “chinaman” delivery is no longer mention and if one is sent down, it’s correct to call it “left-arm unorthodox spin” or “left-arm wrist spin”, both of which are by comparison a bit of a mouthful but the sport seems to cope with the fielding position known as “deep backward square leg” so most should adapt.  The “French cut” seems to have survived.

Like the once linguistically innocuous but now controversial “niggardly”, “racialism” can still be used but caution is advised and it might be a word best left to experts in instances when the technical context is obvious.  Geneticists for example have determined the only “pure” human beings left are certain black Africans (resident mostly in sub-Saharan Africa) while the rest of the planet’s population carries between 1–2% Neanderthal DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid, the so-called “building blocks” of life) with East Asians tending to slightly higher numbers) as the eventual consequence of Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) interbreeding with early, anatomically modern, Homo sapiens after sapiens migrated out of Africa.  All this is believed to have happened some 50,000–60,000 years ago, mostly in the Near East and Eurasia and those sapien populations were fully modern humans, not transitional forms.  Deliciously, this means all the white supremacists are a Human-Neanderthal mix so, using the term a few of them seem still to like, they can (though the biology is dubious) be thought: “sub-human”.

Sub-Saharan African populations generally have little to no Neanderthal ancestry although there are traces due to later back-migration and in discussing the phenomenon, use of “racialism” can be appropriate although perhaps not on social media.  Also racialist is another discovery from the DNA labs: a genetic mutation found in Africans, possession of which offers some degree of protection from malaria and that would have been a product of natural selection among those who lived in places where the disease was endemic.  Using the available data, it’s believed the interbreeding process is best understood as introgression (movement of a gene from one species to another) resulting from limited, episodic interbreeding, the relatively small genetic contribution retained through selection although many Neanderthal genes would over generations have been purged because they proved maladaptive.  The byword though remains “caution” because of heightened sensitivities in the age of identity politics and terms like “race realism” and “scientific racism” (once seen in the literature of a number of disciplines) have long been proscribed because they became tainted by pseudo-sciences which (unsurprisingly) all supported notions of white superiority.

Article on news.com.au reporting Sydney Sweeney’s (b 1997) photo-shoot for Cosmopolitan magazine’s “Love Issue”.  Remarkably, it was three days before the page was taken down.

In what may be one of the “unexpected consequences” of institutions replacing humans with some implementation of AI (artificial intelligence), on 30 January, 2026, Rupert Murdoch’s (b 1931) site news.com.au ran a story with “Sydney Sweeney strips down in racist photo-shoot yet for Cosmo” appearing both as a headline (in bold type) and in the body of the article.  It would once have been classed a “typo” (a clipping of “typographical error”) and in days gone by a sub-editor wearily would have corrected it with a correct adjectival form (“raciest photo-shoot” or “most racy photo-shoot”), suggesting something a little risqué rather than anything to do with ethnicity.  Flesh and blood sub-editors are however an extinct species and content now is left to the writer, the “cut & paster”, the AI bot or a combination of all three.  So more typos seem now slip through although, presumably, as the AI sub-editors improve, the error rate will be cut.  What is intriguing is the speculation the erroneous use of “racist” (constituting or exhibiting racism) may have been the result of an AI bot making “an assumption” based on what it “learned”.  As constantly we’re reminded: “it’s all in the algorithm” and for very good reason the AI tools used by news organizations are built with both a “frequency bias” and a “recency bias”; in other words, a premium is placed on (1) that which most appears and (2) that which is “the latest”, the imperatives which underpin social media and search engines.

American Eagle's "My jeans are blue" campaign, of which not all approved.

Because AI can learn only from what it has access to in digital form, content which is most frequently encountered and most recent will tend to be prioritized.  The speculation is the AI may have been drawn to use of the word by the recent furore suggesting an advertising campaign in which the tag line was “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans” was “racist”, the usual suspects claiming the implication was someone with her physical characteristics (white) was being positioned as the “ideal of attractiveness”, thereby devaluing all those “not white”.  Because what was being advertised was denim apparel (including jeans), most probably just enjoyed the play on words but in the age of identity politics, those with a grievance rarely will miss an opportunity to be outraged.  As a class of phenomenon, it’s something quite specific in that it would pass without comment for anyone to note Usain Bolt (b 1986; holder of the world records for the 100 & 200 metre sprints) has must have the “great genes” needed to be the greatest sprinter ever and had there been a similar campaign with billboards saying “Usain Bolt has Great Jeans”, it would have won awards.  Of course what appeared on news.com.au might really have been a typo (sometimes, “a typo is just a typo”) but it would be interesting to learn if it appeared as a result of an association by AI and that it appeared twice (headline and in the body of the text) might hint at an element of automation.

An informal video clip posted to Instagram at the time of Syrn’s debut.

Ms Sweeney seems to have been unfazed by the attempt to create a moral outrage about her modelling for a company selling jeans and shortly after Cosmopolitan’s “Love Issue” appeared on the newsstands (they really still exist), she released her underwear line (Syrn, pronounced sye-rin), the publicity for which featuring many images of her showing the scanty garments at their best.  She wore them well.