We have a dream!

2022-03-19

BRUSSELS - In March 1922, Belgian philologist Théophile Simar published a study entitled Étude critique sur la formation de la doctrine des races au XVIIIe siècle et son expansion au XIXe siècle. In it, the term ‘racism’ is used in a scientific context for the first time. A hundred years later, the term falls dozens of times every day in thousands of places. Racism seems to be an ineradicable social problem.

In this book, Frank Van Laeken and Paul Beloy provide a concise overview of the history of racism. We move from slavery, the Ku Klux Klan and #BlackLivesMatter in the United States, the excesses of colonialism, the Holocaust and apartheid to racist incidents in contemporary Flanders. On the basis of our own definition of racism and discrimination, we examine how these manifest themselves in the immediate living environment, education, the labour market, the housing market, the police and justice system, politics, sport, (social) media and culture; we also highlight persistent stereotypes (Zwarte Piet! / Black Face). We let victims speak at length, because for them racism is never relative. But anecdotes and case histories do not get in the way of the big picture. Our conclusion is that racism is structurally and systemically present in society; it is much more than individual reprehensible behaviour.

To say it is there and how it manifests itself is one thing. But it shouldn't be there, and that's why we should all do something about it. We, the authors of this book and the people we have spoken to, have a dream. We have a dream! So at the end we offer a series of suggestions that could lead to solutions, from prevention to repression.