logical construct,” i.e., it is what people think it is. Thus, in the American South and elsewhere, there was the “one-drop rule.” It meant that if you were 99 percent white and 1 percent black, then you were treated as black; yet, 99 percent black and 1 percent white did not mean you were treated as white.)
DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, was discovered and understood in the mid-20th century. Before then, there was “scientific” interest in an inherited basis for white superiority, i.e., a racial basis for advantageous differences such as intelligence. In the 18th century, the botanist Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) helped lead such interest (Linnaeus invented the taxonomic system that yielded names like “homo sapiens”). European imperialism during the 19th century helped strengthen that intellectual pursuit, which led eventually to the Nazi theories that supported the Holocaust. See ARYAN; CAUCASIAN; RACISM, history of; YELLOW PERIL; YELLOW SKIN.
RACISM, history of:
“Racism,” or at least the word, is a recent coinage. It was invented in the 1930s to describe the anti-Semitic theories used by the Nazis to persecute Jews. The ancient Greeks and Romans enslaved any ethnic group, including other whites. George M. Fredrickson, a history professor at Stanford, wrote “Racism: A Short History” (Princeton University Press, 2003). He argued that Western racism has two main ancestors, one anti-Semitic and the other white supremacist, and that anti-Semitism came first. Modern racism, he contended, began in Spain in the 15th century, when antipathy toward Jews as nonbelievers was replaced by a hatred that “made getting rid of Jews seem preferable to trying to convert them.” Jews were once thought to only hold false beliefs but were then seen as intrinsically inferior. Similarly, when the Atlantic slave trade began, also in the 15th century, Europeans did not necessarily believe Africans to be inferior but only nonbelievers who could be cured by conversion to Christianity. With the rise of the Enlightenment and scientific racism, slavery’s defenders needed an ideology. That need gave rise to the belief in white supremacy and the bitter history of slavery in the Caribbean and the Americas. See ASIAN AMERICAN; CAUCASIAN; YELLOW PERIL; YELLOW SKIN.
A policy or practice based on race, but not necessarily leading to persecution.
Arguably the most influential work of fiction on modern journalism. Originally called “In a Grove” and written by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, the story was made into the acclaimed but now little-seen movie “Rashomon” (1950). It tells the story of a crime witnessed by different people and their differing memories of the same crime. Its application to modern journalism was quickly understood. Rashomon (Japanese for “castle gate”) is a dilapidated area in Kyoto, Japan.
SARI (also SAREE):
Often referred in the Western news media as a dress worn by Hindu women. It is also worn by many Christians in India as well as by many Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan women.
SEPTEMBER 11, 2001:
Use sparingly as metaphor or analogy because it may invite stereotypes. See INTERNMENT; ISLAMIST; MOSQUE “AT” GROUND ZERO; PEARL HARBOR; SRI LANKA; SUICIDE BOMBING.
An indigenous Japanese religion that has elements of Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism. There is no clear-cut set of rituals or beliefs. The word Shinto means “the way of kami,” or the divine. It has a polytheistic root centered on shrines that preceded Confucianism’s arrival in Japan in the fifth century. When Buddhism was introduced in Japan in the sixth century, it influenced Shinto. (Zen Buddhism is widely practiced in Japan.) A “State Shinto” is closely identified with the emperor, but does not carry the same force of, say, Anglicanism in Britain. See also BUDDHISM; BUDDHISM, Zen; CONFUCIANISM; JAPAN; TAOISM.
Pronounced SICC-ism. Not an Arab faith, but a monotheistic religion with elements of Hinduism and Islam. Sikhs are often mistaken in the West for Arabs, who wear turbans as an article of clothing. But all Sikhs, men and women, wear turbans and related covering over their uncut hair as a 