Racism in all its forms

Frédéric de Monicault - You've been working on racism for several years now. What triggered your work?

Francisco Bethencourt - The trigger was a story that happened to a Brazilian colleague. It went like this: one day, he went into a restaurant in Austin (Texas) for lunch, accompanied by one of his American friends. He was told that there were no more tables available, but a glance around the room showed exactly the opposite. Clearly, this colleague doesn't fit into the establishment's "codes", i.e. you have to be white to be allowed to sit there. And yet, in Brazil, this colleague had the feeling of being white, he later told me. It made me realize how, in one country, people can see you as black, while in another, they see you as white.

This episode in Austin had a profound effect on my mixed-race colleague, because racism has an impact on all aspects of life. It's not just a remark, an assertion or a behavior that brutalizes you; it's a whole wave that hits you and makes you feel you're no longer the same person. From there, I decided to go further, with the intention of using the historical approach to pinpoint the phenomenon as closely as possible.

F. de M. - You don't speak of racism, but of racisms, in the plural. Why do you make this distinction? 

F. B. - I think there are several forms of racism: one is genealogical, another hierarchical, yet another ethnic, not forgetting economic, social or religious categorizations. For example, discrimination against Dalits in India is genealogical in nature. The discrimination suffered by young people at the hands of the police in many working-class neighborhoods around the world is socio-economic. As for anti-Semitism, which recently gave rise to a tragic murderous incident in Australia, it is a religious racism. Not only can these different forms intermingle, they are also deeply rooted. Take "competitive" racism - to use a certain terminology - which arises when a settled community deplores the fact that a minority allegedly deprives it of its gains: the phenomenon emerged as early as the end of the 14thcentury in Spain, when Christians criticized the Jews - whom they had worked hard to convert - for deviating from the traditional faith. In fact, the Christians took a dim view of the Jews taking up positions in a range of trades and functions in which they had previously held a virtual monopoly.

This offensive was taken to such extremes that in 1449, in Spain, it coincided with the Statute of Toledo on the purity of blood, a text that says exactly what it means. It's no less astonishing to note how long this doctrine endured: it wasn't until the 19th century that it was erased from administrative practice. Until then, its founding principle - exclusion based on descent - had endured in the form of customary law, with the backing of the State. In the meantime, Catholic chapters and communities were moved by …