RACISM. – A term that came into use in Italy (and in France: racisme) beginning in 1935–38,
to denote a doctrine and a political practice concerning race, propagated by National Socialism (v.), which had shortly before established itself as a totalitarian regime in Germany.
The doctrine was essentially based on the preponderant value attributed to the simultaneous existence of superior races—endowed with leadership, creative, and inventive capacities—and inferior races, suited only for executive tasks and capable of exercising only critical, disintegrating, and subversive activities unless properly restrained and guided. The political practice, dictated by the aforementioned doctrinal associations, aimed to ensure, through an extensive legislative effort, the political and social predominance of the race deemed superior over those considered inferior, while also safeguarding and enhancing, for the future, racial purity and health. Following the German example, the term racism soon acquired a distinctly anti-Semitic meaning, as the Aryan populations of Europe found themselves in imminent danger of irreversible contamination by Jewish communities that had settled within their territories over the centuries.
In Italy, the Fascist government, initially indifferent to racism (v.), eventually embraced it in 1938 by enacting anti-Semitic laws domestically and prohibiting miscegenation in the colonies. However, due to the opposition of the Church and, in general, of the population, racism took on persecutory dimensions only during the German occupation.
Beyond the unjust differentiation of legal status among citizens within their respective states, the aforementioned doctrine and political practice also fostered an alarming tendency among powers claiming to be populated by superior races to impose their hegemony over neighboring ethnic groups, labeled as inferior races. This outcome was achieved, for example, by Nazi Germany—albeit temporarily—by grafting pseudo-scientific racial concepts onto the pangermanist axioms of the recent past (v. PANGERMANISM). It was evident, however, that an irreconcilable contradiction immediately arose between the doctrine and political practice of racism and the precepts of Catholic morality, which affirms the equality of all men in Christ, and of democratic practice, which postulates the equality and freedom of all citizens, regardless of sex, race, language, or religious confession.
The doctrinal precedents of racism are numerous; but, restricting ourselves to the more recent period, it suffices to recall the writings of the Frenchman J. A. Gobineau and the Englishman H. S. Chamberlain, who, in the second half of the 19th century, argued for the absolute superiority of the Aryan race (which, in Chamberlain’s view, existed in its purest form among the Anglo-Saxons, while for Gobineau it was among the Germans).
As precedents for political practice, however, we must recall the numerous measures devised in North America to maintain the large Black population (introduced from the 16th century onward), the remnants of the Red tribes, and also many immigrants of poorer races (Slavs, Latins, etc.) in a state of clear legal and social inferiority. In this regard, it should be noted that, beyond and more than formal legal discriminations, numerous customary and extralegal impositions—traditionally maintained—often proved effective, such as complete segregation in daily life, extended to public spaces and transportation, employment privileges, prohibitions on attending higher education, lynching, and so forth.
At present, one may note the renewed flourishing of racism that has occurred in the Union of South Africa following the 1948 electoral victory of the Nationalist Party of Malan (whose electoral program included the principle of absolute “segregation” for the colored races, known as apartheid).