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Although he divides the world population in races, and gives answers to racism, he does not give an explicit meaning to the word race. He uses history, culture and languages, to form several groups of people that he calls races. Appiah discusses 12 British history books, and focuses in the fact that all of them try to hide racism against black people throughout British history. Later in the debate, Appiah says that the existence of racism does not imply that race has to exist, he mentions the Salem witch trials, in which witches were haunted down and sentenced to death because they were supposedly doing witchcraft, to prove his point; he says that although witches do not exist, they were persecuted for witchcraft.
What he means by this cite is that although race does no exist, people are still being persecuted by racist individuals. (Appiah, p. 104) In another part of the debate, he also refutes the idea that race is a group of people with the same socio-historical background; he says that if that statement is true, then his family would have to be a race because they have the same socio-historical background. The most important reason why people try to define race is to understand racism and to see if it is justifiable or not. Racism has been in human nature since the beginning of time and it is a constant problem in modern cultures, thats why through better understanding of how it works, we might be able to finish the history of hate and violence that racism has produced. Racism is the manifestation of the false belief that races are different. Or in the beliefs of a single person which can be manifested when for example: some white people think that they are a superior race and they can treat others differently. To better understand this phenomenon, we need to know what ideology means, since ideology is the basic source of racism.
Eagleton gives several definitions of ideology in his book Ideology, I will cite some of his definitions, and based on the corrections made to the definitions, I will formulate my own definition of ideology to better understand racism. A body of ideas characteristic to a particular social group or class (Eagleton, p. 67). This definition is very accurate, but as history tells us, the greatest ideologists are the ones that defy the ideas and beliefs of the vast majority. Forms of thought motivated by social interests (Eagleton, p. 69).
It is true that everyones thinking is influenced by social pressures, but this definition implies that every belief is social-based, which is certainly not true.
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Research essay sample on Historical Background British History
