By Karin
What do the words ‘Race’ and ‘the West’ mean? Are they real or imaginary constructs? We hear them in decolonial academic contexts and in everyday language but are they really a sign of decoloniality?
‘Race’ and ‘the West’: Segregation in the United States
When I studied Political Science in the United States in the 1990’s, no one where I studied ever used the term ‘race’, it would most likely have been deemed outrageous and, yes, racist. We were, however, invited to fill out our ‘ethnic group’ on administrative forms and the level of social segregation between ethnic groups that I observed in the United States during those years was greater than anything I had seen before and greater than anything I have ever seen since. Even greater than what I observed as a journalist staying for three months in newly post-apartheid South Africa a few years later. With social segregation I mean occurrences in which I would see people of different skin colors talking or sitting together. Today in the United States, using the word ‘race’ about people, whether it be in academia or in other contexts, seems to have become acceptable. Or should I say acceptable AGAIN, since this was normal practice in the United States going back not even a century. As a reminder, it was only in 1954 that the American Supreme Court declared that ‘racial’ segregation in education was unconstitutional. Today, in 2024, there are proposals in the United States that ‘black’ students should have only ‘black’ professors at university. At American universities, professors regularly use the word ‘race’ in their analysis and separate events, like graduation ceremonies, are regularly organized for students according to their ‘race’.
‘Race’ and ‘the West’: American culture is American
My feeling is that many non-Americans who have not spent much time in the United States do not realize that American culture is rather unique to Americans, that most non-American cultures simply do not share their specific cultural heritage. Other cultures may indeed also have horrendous legacies of cultural or religious clashes as well as of discrimination and even civil war between ethnic groups. However, the exact experience of the United States is specific to the United States. This is because no culture in the world is universal. Non-Americans may assume they are almost American when they wear Nike shoes, eat at McDonalds or watch American films. However, there is much more to a culture than these activities and each country or region has its own culture. We may therefore not assume that what American scholars write, whether it be about their own country or about other places in the world, represents anything that can be applied to non-American lived experiences.
Scholars, like everyone else, tend to see the world through their own unique lived experiences, on a collective cultural level and on an individual level. This does not mean we should discard what American scholars write. However, we should take what they write with a grain of salt, as we should do with all things in life, and not forget that the ideas of American scholars are partly an expression of their own collective trauma related to violence and segregation. This is, furthermore, one of the reasons I find the term ‘Western’ problematic. The idea of ‘the West’ seems today to almost have taken the shape and proportions of a mythology – it is written and spoken so often but who can say what this term is meant to mean anymore? In reality, there is of course no such thing as ‘the West’ (other than a geographical direction). Or do you mean the United States?
‘Race’ and ‘the West’: The French podcast ‘Kiffe ta race’
How many people are aware that Critical Race Theory is a theory specifically about the discrimination and structural racism in the United States? Not in ‘the West’. It is not that other countries do not also have problems with racism but they would probably do better to study their own problems rather than trying to apply American theories to their own realities. People deserve real solutions that are based on their concrete problems rather than on vague, mythology-like terms. In French, ‘the West’ is translated into ‘l’Occident’.
I recently listened to a French podcast called Kiffe ta race, which may translate into ‘Love your race’, specifically an episode from 25 July 2024, called ‘Traduire la race sans la trahir’ (meaning ‘Translating race without betraying it’) in which journalist Rokhaya Diallo and author Grace Ly discuss the difficulty of language translations across ‘races’ with anglicist Maboula Soumahoro. The women hold a discussion on the topic of achieving culture-sensitive translations and by choosing translators that know the culture in question. As a multilingual logophile, I find the conversation beautiful and interesting. I consider each language a window to the culture and history of the population that speaks it. They mention, for example, how the English word ‘fierce’ once was translated into the French word ‘sauvage’ (savage) in relation to model Naomi Campbell. Most people who speak both English and French well would likely agree that this is not only a very bad translation but also probably a racist one. However, the women in this episode then argue that translations may be best done by someone of the same ‘race’, not to get linguistic nuances wrong. Notice that they suggest people of the same ‘race’ do the translating, not people of the same culture. As if people of the same ‘race’ automatically shared culture and lived experiences. Indeed, people of a certain skin color (assuming that is what they mean by ‘race’) may sometimes be less likely to hold prejudices against people with that same skin color but far from always. And skin color remains a poor predictor of cultural understanding and sensitivities. French people who have little experience of American culture may believe the two cultures are similar even though they are not.
‘Race’ and ‘the West’: Lost in translation
The podcast is, of course, called ‘Love your race’ so the use of this term should not come as a surprise. Only, ‘races’ do not technically exist within the human species. It has been well established that ‘race’ is a social construct without biological basis. Since the early 2000s, we know, thanks to the Human Genome Project, that humans share 99.9% of genetic material and that the genetic variation that does exist between people is not aligned with ‘racial’ categories. In minute 45:15 into the episode, Rokhaya Diallo states that while working on her new documentary film ‘Destins croisés’, on relations between different ethnic groups in the United States, one person translated the English words ‘racial equality’ to ‘égalité de races’ in French. She tells us that she was very upset by this translation because she finds that speaking about ‘equality between races’ implies there is already an inequality and a hierarchy between ‘races’ in place, which she disagrees with. As someone who speaks both English and French fluently, I cannot find any problem with the translation, which leads me to conclude that the problem lies elsewhere. Perhaps Rokhaya Diallo only realizes how strange these words sound when she hears them in her own native language, French. Indeed, although France has a colonial history, it has never had any kind of ‘racial’ policies that resemble those of the United States in place. It may be the case that Rokhaya Diallo had assumed, since reading texts about ‘race’ by American scholars, that the American cultural heritage and collective experiences also were her own when, in reality, she grew up in a very different culture. She may have assumed American ideas of ‘race’ were somehow representative of ‘the West’ which would include France and many other countries. Now let us ask ourselves, is it really any stranger to speak of ‘hierarchies between races’ than to speak of ‘races’ to begin with? If we look at history, we may observe that discussions of ‘races’ have often encouraged attempts at comparing them. In the light of this, is today’s use of the words ‘race’ and ‘the West’ not a form of intellectual laziness?
‘Race’ and ‘the West’: Taking it further
What has YOUR experience been? Have you noticed the word ‘race‘ has been increasingly used in recent years (in the United States and/or in other countries)? Do you believe the use of the word ‘race’ creates more or less divisions between ethnic groups in society? Do you think the word ‘race’ should be used in academia and in everyday language even though it is scientifically inaccurate? Finally, do you find the term ‘the West’ useful? If so, in what way? I look forward to your comments!
Hi Karin,
I absolutely love the topic you’ve chosen and thoroughly enjoyed reading your post!
In my country (Spain) the word ‘race’ isn’t typically used to talk about humans. It’s a term reserved for animals, especially domesticated ones. So, with the exception of the occasional cliché quote (‘there is only one race —the human race’), it would generally be considered in poor taste to use ‘race’ as a way of categorising people. That said, racism is unfortunately alive and well, and we do use that term to describe discriminatory behaviour and call people out.
When it comes to different groups of people, we tend to use terms like ‘ethnicity,’ nationality, religion or refer directly to specific cultural or racial groups, always avoiding the word ‘race’.
I look forward to reading more of your posts!
Hi Tábata!
Thank you for your comment!
Yes, I would think Spain has had a rather similar culture to France in this respect.
How about the term ‘the West’, or ‘el Occidente’ in Spanish? Do you feel it is a useful term to describe Spanish culture? Or a part of Spanish culture?
Hi again!
I am honestly not sure on that one. The term ‘Occidente’ does exist, but I do not know to what extent it is something people identify with. When I think of Spaniards, regional identities are the first thing that comes to mind in this context. They are very strong and, in many cases, people identify with their region before their country, that is if they identify with their country at all!
The closest thing to ‘the West’ that people might identify with could be the EU. Euroscepticism isn’t much of a thing there, and most Spaniards support the EU, although I don’t think the ‘European’ identity is that strong in the country. In fact, the 2008 financial crisis led to tensions between northern and southern European countries, which reinforced a stronger Mediterranean or “southerner” identity among many Spaniards, rather than a pan-European one.
On the other hand, there is a strong cultural overlap with Latin America in terms of music, dance and language, for example. However, it’s complicated because, despite these shared cultural ties, many Spaniards can be deeply racist, which affects how they perceive and interact with Latin American communities. Honestly, it really depends on the person—some might feel a strong connection to Latin American culture, while others might not feel that way at all. So, it’s a mix, and it varies from one individual to another.
Beyond individual identities, Spain’s membership in the EU has contributed to a certain “Europeanisation” of its culture. But looking at Spain’s history, this influence is fairly new. Spain has been shaped by many different factors, like Moorish rule, American colonization, and a fascist dictatorship that isolated the country from the rest of Europe. These events have all contributed to a unique Spanish identity that doesn’t fully fit with a broader European (Western) one.
Hello Tábata,
Thank you for taking the time to write this very complete and interesting reply. There is so much there in what you are sharing. I guess now is the time for me to admit that I also lived in Spain and Mexico for some years!! It reminds me of how Spain really is such a different cultural and historical landscape from France where I live now. And yet they are neighboring countries. I would say many French people probably identify slightly less with different regions of their country and more with the French nation as a European super power (or so they wish). Many definitely still dream of French becoming a more important language in the world than English (and Spanish). I would say in general there is a feeling of belonging to something that could be imagined as ‘the West’ and yet, when it really comes down to it, there is little identification with a country like the United States. So much food for thought, thank you again and have a lovely day, Karin
Hi Karin and Tábata!
I read your post Karin and your comment Tábata and find it is a very interesting conversation you are having!
I would like to jump in with a perspective from Southern Italy. I will focus mostly on the questions about ‘race’ rather than ‘the West’.
Three aspects I believe are relevant to look at when thinking of ‘racial relations’ in Italy:
(1) Failure of historical processing the Italian colonial enterprise. In mainstream Italian culture people do not talk about Italian colonialism or generally tend to downplay it also because it is associated with “the fascist past” (even though this is not factually true, as Italian colonialism started before fascism). The general idea is that Italians are not colonizers as others were (French, English) and therefore do not reflect their position within colonial structures.
(2) Emigration. The question of emigration is broader (esp. in the context of emigration within Europe) but when we look at emigration to the US, Italians (and especially Southern Italians) have been over the last decades white-washed, to the point that they are now considered white (even though it was not necessarily like this at the beginning of the last century). This was also part of a broader process of becoming part of the European Union, like Tábata also mentions, whereas the imaginary borders of Europe moved south to include Mediterranean regions.
(3) Immigration. Relatively new processes of immigration have changed the social fabric. Until after WWII, a lot of migration was internal and South>North and so was discrimination. It was internally directed to Southern Italians, that were often classified through colonial tropes as ethnically Others, with a lesser culture, etc. This has changed in the past decades with increasing immigration to Italy. While internal discrimination is not over, external discrimination against the so-called “extra-comunitari” (= not belonging to the national and European imagined community, althoguh this is a racialized term as it would not be applied to WASP US citizens) has somehow superseded. This is also connected to processes of commodification of Southern Italian culture and peoples, that are connected to the increasing touristification of the South of Italy. These days, Southern Italian culture is more positively stereotypized than before in opposition to ‘new’ Others (African people, Muslims, Asian people, Eastern European people, etc.).
What I am trying to very shortly suggest here is that, from an academic perspective, I think it is still useful to look at processes of racialization, i.e. how specific values are associated with certain skin-colors and cultures and how this processes are historically changing. The result is always a system of hierarchies between people and, I would argue, this system keeps being connected with race as a social construct and the colonial matrix (referring here to Latinamerican ‘decolonial theory’, rather than ‘Critical Race Theory’ and the US-american context).
In this sense, I think concepts like ‘race’ and ‘the West’ need not to be completely removed but problematized and localized. The global and local perspectives are not necessarily opposing each other but should be complemented more, so it is still possible to address the practical consequences of processes of racialization.
Hello Clau!
Thank you for you comment!
Yes, I agree the concepts ‘race’ and ‘the West’ may still be useful if they are used with their real meaning. However, I think today often they are not and have therefore become misleading. Aside from Americans projecting their own specific history and realities onto other ‘Western’ countries (who do not actually share the same history), countries in the European south, who often see themselves as disadvantaged in relation to the European north today, may paradoxically sometimes project their own colonial past onto northern European countries who have engaged in no such thing. This confusion seems to me very troublesome. Because who may then may be said to have a colonial attitude towards others? Being included in this idea of ‘the West’ is really a problem for countries who do not share neither the history nor the dynamics attributed to this idea. The category even seems to me so artificial and easily debunked that I cannot believe people continue to use it in academia in the way that they do.
When it comes to ‘race’, I do see why you consider it highly relevant still and I agree with what you say. However, I think talking about ‘ethnic groups’ may be more correct. And also, the ‘othering’ is a universal human phenomenon, as illustrated by the shifting ‘othering’ in Italy you describe throughout time. We may believe this ‘othering’ would always present itself as discrimination against people with darker skin color but this too may actually be a Eurocentric idea if you will (since people in Europe have tended to have lighter skin color than people in many other places around the globe). If people in other places had generally had lighter skin than Europeans, perhaps the ‘othering’ would have been greater against lighter skin. Other places in the world also have ‘othering’ processes that do not follow the skin color ideas Europeans tend to have, since skin colors of people there do not follow the same schema there. In short, no matter the skin colors, the ‘othering’ remains. So it may not always be useful to look at the skin color per se.