Medicalizing Racism Summary

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Recommended: History of racism in America

Robert Bernasconi describes two early forms of racism: hierarchical and essentialist, the former being the precursor to the latter. Hierarchical racism is based on the idea of one particular person or group being lesser than another by virtue of their sociopolitical status. Hierarchical racism is strongly tied to the ancient Roman standard of the pater familias, wherein the male head of a given household possessed the right to the lives of those within said household be they relatives or slaves. This system of ownership eventually precipitated the medieval institution of chattel slavery; chattel slavery ensured slaves the same rights as livestock, thus predestining all their offspring and future descendants to slavery. Essentialist racism is based on the idea of one particular person or group being lesser than another …show more content…

Associated with the advent of medicalizing racism was an apparent shift of power from the historically and religiously backed notion of sovereignty to the geopolitically backed reality of the state. Medicalizing racism is significantly more modern than the other two and refers to the integration of scientific (especially medical) knowledge of the human body into the conceptualization of race. Medicalizing racism propagated the fear of race mixing adversely affecting the health of a population. This type of racism gave rise to specific oppositions against race-mixing and was integral to the shaping of institutions such as segregation and apartheid, as well as the implementation of eugenics and sterilization programs within the early twentieth century. Bernasconi utilizes Foucault's concept of "biopower" to elucidate the roles which the sciences of genetics and heredity played in the development of state level and systematic racism. He describes how it highlights the origin of races not being of nature, but as the result of human breeding patterns and

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