Part 3—Constructing Difference: Creating ‘Other’ Identities

1. Part 3—Constructing Difference: Creating ‘Other’ Identities • 3.1—Assigning Value to Difference, Albert Memmi • “Racism is the generalized and final assigning of values to real or imaginary differences, to the accuser’s benefit and at his victim’s expense, in order to justify the former’s own privileges or aggression” (173) • Stressing the real or imaginary differences between the racist and his victim • “…but it is not the difference which always entails racism; it is racism which makes use of the difference” (174) • It is the interpretation of a difference that defines prejudice and racism • Assigning values to these differences, to the advantage of the racist and the detriment of his victim. • “…intended to prove two things: the inferiority of the victim and the superiority of the racist” (175) • -the racist views the differences as deserving of denunciation • -the racist will maximize the difference between himself and his victim

2. Trying to make them absolutes by generalizing from them and claiming they are final. • “One thing leads to another until all of the victim’s personality is characterized by the difference, and all of the members of his social group are targets for the accusation” (176) • “In the extreme, racism merges into myth” (177) • this occurs often through a process of gradual dehumanization • “Slowly he makes of his victim a sort of animal, a thing or simply a symbol” • 4. Justifying any present or possible aggression or privilege. • “It is in the racist himself that the motives for racism lie” (177) • “A certain embarrassment when faced with what is different, the anxiety which results, spontaneous recourse to aggression in order to push back that anxiety—all of these are to be found in children, and probably in a good many adults as well. Whatever is different or foreign can be felt as a disturbing factor, hence a source of scandal” (177)