Race Vs Religion
Over history various methods have been used to justify discrimination. Although religion and race were both successful in instituting social hierarchies, the implications of their characterizations were quite different. Though similar in their origins, the transition from religion to race as the basis for discrimination depicts a transition from a focus on changeable characteristics to impermeable differences to support the institution of segregated communities. While religious stratification was often mutable, hierarchies based on race were of a more permanent nature, as illustrated by the use of both methods of discrimination on Jewish and African nations. Both religious and racial hierarchies were instituted to maintain social stratification because of the dominant intellectual beliefs of the time. This is extremely evident in the way Jews and Blacks continued to be oppressed with only the thought behind their oppression being changed. Doctrine or ideology was used to justify or rationalize a range of policies, depending on the circumstances and aims of the racializing group (Fredrickson, 11). Consequently the strength of the Church, and the birth of the Enlightenment, marked the use of religion and race, respectively, to
institute social hierarchies in breast of economic and political change. Like religion, race was also instituted to support a social hierarchy in response to political and economic change. However, the use of race, in particular, stemmed from the Enlightenment's focus on scientific and biologically based differences in racial groups. In the words of George Mosse, European racism originates in the Enlightenment, when the "structure of racial thought was consolidated and determined for the next one and three-quarter centuries" (Endelman, 148). After emancipation, the existence of innate, biological, differences in Blacks helped to explain their further oppression despite the elimination of the slave trade. Analysis of the treatment of both Jewish and African populations throughout history depicts apparent similarities and differences between the use of religion and race as methods of discrimination. While both methods originated in response to economic and/or political change, the permanence and effects of both stratification systems were quite different. While religious based discrimination left opportunity for mobility between the castes, race based discrimination, on the contrary, was quite permanent in nature. As a result, both methods of exclusion had quite different effects on the treatment of African and Jewish civilizations. "Law in the seventeenth century regarded slavery as licit and as a proper condition for those who could be defined as captives of war, particularly if they happened to be heathens" (Fredrickson, 185). As a result Europeans used religion to characterize Africans as savages because of their failure to adhere to European standards of civilization. Africans' lack of knowledge of Christian practices was used to subjugate them as laborers for the New World, and consequently helped to justify the Christian dilemma. The consequences of racial stratification, however, were quite different. While, during periods of religious based oppression there was an opportunity to convert, racia
Some common words found in the essay are:
Church Christian, Adam Eve, Holocaust Lagumuir, Jewish African, Jews Naimark, Mosse European, , Jews Blacks, Christianity Jews, Morton Racism, religion race, 2002 april, religious based, political change, fredrickson 2002, racially based, fredrickson 2002 april, based discrimination, permanent nature, economic and/or political, racial stratification, methods discrimination, based race permanent, hierarchies based race, 2002 april 22,
Approximate Word count = 1372
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
|
