The initial stage established a wide acceptance in Europe and subsequently her cultural dependencies, for the view that racial divisions of man exist. During this stage it was also believed that these "races" formed a natural hierarchy with certain European "races" (naturally) at the apex. Consequently, for much of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries it was normal for most Europeans to believe in their own racial superiority. It was also quite usual to believe that "race" determined a wide range of human social and cultural characteristics. Their supposed racial superiority was used by some European colonialists to justify both colonialism and slavery. Stage 1 reached its zenith around the mid 1880's.
The word "racism" was coined in the 1930's to describe the claim that "race" determines culture. Since WW2, biological and social science has refuted the notion of racial hierarchy with its attendant claims of superiority. At the same time, the idea that "races" are pure and distinct entities with all their members essentially looking alike and thinking alike was also refuted. Once established, this re-evaluation led to Stage 2, when "race" was still thought by many scientists to be a justifiable concept, but with the proviso that "all 'races' are essentially equal". Liberal activists and some social scientists thus saw racism as the denial of equality of opportunity, or the enjoyment of services or the provision of personal needs. Denial being any form of racial oppression, exploitation, discrimination, subordination or inferiorisation.
Since the 1950's "race" has been examined genetically. It has been found that populations grouped by "internal" traits (e.g. blood groups) contradict the pattern of "races" based on the traditionally used superficial human traits (e.g. skin colour, stature, head size, etc.). The latter have also been examined more critically and it has been found that it is often possible to arranged them on a continuous gradient, for example, from the "blackest black skin" at one end to the "whitest white skin" at the other. The cut off point between one "race" and another based on skin colour is thus entirely arbitrary. Traditional physical traits have also been shown to respond to certain environmental factors such as the general state of nutrition. The variation in all traits so far examined is greater within "races" than between "races". The foregoing are typical of the considerations that have weakened the concept of "race" in physical anthropology and allied sciences. It is increasingly the case that scientists deny the very existence of human "races".
However, even if allowance is made for those scientists who continue to see some value in "race", what they mean by this word has little resemblance to the "race" of their scientific forbears. Some of these scientists are now suggesting that for this reason "race" should be dropped from scientific literature and "population" or some other suitable word substituted in its place. The connotations of "race" are such that its use will inevitably be misinterpreted by non-scientists in particular. "Race" in its nineteenth century sense is scientifically dead. In a very real sense we are living in a post-"race" era. This I shall call Stage 3.
"In my view racism, which should be distinguished from racial discrimination, should be restricted to discourses which group human populations into 'races' on the basis of some biological signifier - for example, 'stock' - with each 'race' being regarded as having essential characteristics or a certain essential character (as in the phrase 'the British character', or in attributions to 'races' of laziness, rebelliousness or industriousness) and where inferiorization of some 'races' may or may not be present" (Rattansi, A., In: Donald, J. & Rattansi, A. (eds) "'Race' Culture & Difference," Sage Publications, 1992, p. 36).
Let us deal first with the jargon. Confusingly, a "biological signifier" is not strictly to do with biology. It is what "common sense" makes of certain physical human characteristics (e.g. skin colour, physical descent, etc.) as a putative signifier of "race". So, for example, as already mentioned, modern science would profoundly disagree with the notion that skin colour is a reliable "racial trait". However, in "common sense" appraisals of "race" the reverse is usually thought to be true. Even on those increasingly rare instances when science and "common sense" manage to agree their respective concepts of "race" are widely disparate.
Essentialism (as in "essential character", etc) refers to the notion of an "ultimate essence" (something that is obvious, definable and homogeneous) that transcends historical and cultural boundaries. It was this that Hitler expressed when he wrote in "Mein Kampf" (p. 312), "In his new language (the Jew - my note) will express the old ideas; his inner nature has not changed... the Jew... can speak a thousand languages and nevertheless remains a Jew. His traits of character have remained the same.... It is always the same Jew." For Hitler "Jewishness" is an essentialism, characteristic of a "race" defined in terms of certain biological signifiers like "parentage", "descent" and "birth". The absence of objective biological criteria of "Jewish race" (such criteria cannot exist for something that does not itself exist) resulted in the use by Nazi "race" legislation of current or ancestral adherence to Judaism as a putative "marker" of "Jewish race" membership (1).
To further illustrate the foregoing I will briefly look at the case of the Jews more closely. That the Jews do not constitute a "race" is such common knowledge that it has found its way into certain popular encyclopaedias. For example:
"A common error and persistent modern myth is the designation of the Jews as a 'race'" (Roth, C., Oxford University Reader in Jewish Studies, 1939- 1964, in: "Jews", "Collier's Encyclopedia", 13: 574, 1991).
"For example, there is no such thing as a Jewish race" (Jick, L.A., Chairman of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University, "The World Book Encyclopedia", 11: 118, 1990).
"The findings of physical anthropology show that, contrary to the popular view, there is no Jewish race" (Patai, R., Director of Research, Theodor Herzl Institute, New York. "Encyclopedia Britanica", 12: 1054, 1969).
Nonetheless, it is still commonly believed that the Jews actually do constitute a "race". Racists typically assign individuals to a "Jewish race" ("nation" or "people") on the grounds of either their putative physical descent from the biblical Patriarchs or "birth to a Jewish parent", which, of course, also incorporates the idea of descent (i.e. either can have the role of biological signifier). The "Jewishness" concomitantly attributed to this "race" is clearly, as already mentioned, an essentialism. This entire process is deeply racist and anti-Jewish.
So how can some Christian missionary groups both support the racist concept of the "Messianic Jew" or "Hebrew Christian" yet manage to pass themselves off as anti-racist or campaigners against antisemitism at the same time? I am convinced that this is often because they have an understanding of racism appropriate to a Stage 2 concept of "race". They thus condemn racist practices and "campaign for racial equality" whilst at the same time giving support to their "Jewish race" converts. Such persons need educating to a Stage 3 understanding of racism. This would lead to the natural demise of the "Messianic Jew" and the "Hebrew Christian". Something similar has already happened in the case of the Nazi concept of the "non-Aryan Christian". The concept of the "non-Aryan Christian" differs from those of the "Messianic Jew" and the "Hebrew Christian" only in that it necessarily incorporates the claim that "non-Aryans" are racially inferior to "Aryans". It is a concept that could only gain "respectability" under a Stage 1 understanding of "race", essentially before the word "racism" had even been coined; at a time when a substantial proportional of Europeans believe themselves to be racial superior to Jews as a matter of course. With the advent of a Stage 2 concept of "race" and the acceptance that "races are different but equal" the rapid demise of the "non-Aryan Christian", at least in respectable society, was sealed.
None of the foregoing should be confused with legal definitions of "Jew", such as contained in both Jewish religious law and Israeli immigration legislation respectively. There is a world of difference between, "A Jew is someone born of a Jewish mother" as a legal norm or a cultural convention and the same sentence interpreted in biological/racial terms.