Race question (subdivision)
This variant of JEWISH QUESTION invites much the same accusations. To American, Rhodesian, and South African Blacks, or to Asians in East Africa, as examples, their status in the larger, White (or Black-) governed society is no ethereal concern, no matter for rhetorical gamesmanship. It involves survival in its every aspect, physical, cultural, social, economy, and political. The "question" is one of maintaining group (or better, human) integrity and dignity, of ending oppression and the soul-wracking uncertainty that pervades their daily lives; more positively stated: of winning those elemental rights that numberless individual conventions and proclamations have promised to everyone on earth, of becoming free, whole persons who command their own destinies and contribute fully to the body politic of which they form a part. "Race question" is the overlord's terminology, nicely suggesting that the oppressed-represent the "problem". It is a consummate piece of double-think.
Remedy:
(a) Assign RACE QUESTION as a subhead to the dustbin, where it belonged from the start, and excise it as a See referent to RACE PROBLEMS.
(b) Replace RACE DISCRIMINATION with the totally new head RACISM, a broader term encompassing attitudes, as well as deeds, creating extensions and variations as necessary (e.g. RACISM-AFRICA, RACISM-U.S.; RACISM IN EDUCATION; etc.) Additionally, make cross references from and to GENOCIDE and PREJUDICES AND ANTIPATHIES.
(c) Where required to express relationship between various racial groups, particularly those identified by themselves or others as "different" on the basis of physical characteristics to which are linked certain nonphysical attributes, employ the subhead-FACE RELATIONS; or, in the case of relationships between ethically differentiated peoples-i.e. groups distinguished by cultural characteristics like language and religion-use the subdivision INTERETHNIC RELIGIONS.
Sanford Berman, Prejudices and Antipathies, 1971.
