Politics of race, a subject of modern and colonial history

Abstract

Racist ideologies and regimes confirm the incapacity to change of those who stigmatize, even while fearing their own degeneration (or longing for their own regeneration). The pace of transformation of individuals and populations can be measured at the intersection of these contradictory points of view. This is how the answers provided by race-based political thought can be interpreted. Racism appeals to nature, thus curbing in the short and medium term the processes of social mobility whose long-term effects are seen as threats. It requires certain types of social engineering, both in the old colonial regime and today. The injection of natural traits into the social game constitutes an attempt to slow down transformation or history: just as the ennobled are received into the nobility but as upstarts; just as the conversos share communion but as heirs of a dubious past; just as the American mestizos approach the "Spaniards’ Republic" but in a subordinate position; just as bastards can inherit from their natural father without being admitted to his lineage; just as freedmen cease to be slaves without becoming fellow citizens; just as the colonized are subjects of the Empire without being citizens of the European countries of the nineteenth century. What unites the different racial policies is this common response to social mobility: watching boundaries and limiting social transformation movements.