Glossary

Anti-Asian racism refers to a hostile or negative attitude towards people who come from East or Southeast Asia or to whom this origin is attributed. East and Southeast Asian people are exposed to various forms of racism, which are often at odds with each other. For example, they are associated with the idea of the “exemplary minority”, with the condition of fulfilling the racist stereotype of the “performance-oriented, orderly and grateful person.” They are also presented as a homogeneous group with prejudiced attributions. The sharp increase in racial discrimination against people who read East and Southeast Asia in the context of the corona pandemic is an example of this.

Anti-Muslim racism describes a negative attitude and attitude towards people who describe themselves as Muslims or are perceived as such. Anti-Muslim racism is based on an exclusive we-you worldview (ideology) that is based on historical distortions and negative stereotypes (enemy image of Arabs, Orientalism, Crusades) and conjures up the idea of a “war of civilizations.”

Racism against black people or anti-black racism relates specifically to the characteristic of skin color and to physiognomic characteristics. The external appearance (phenotype) of a person is used to infer their inner nature (genotype), with the attribution of negative personality or behavioral characteristics. Racism against black people is rooted in the racist ideology of the 17th and 18th century, which served as a justification of colonial systems of rule and slavery.

Anti-Semitism expresses a negative attitude or attitude towards people who describe themselves as Jews or are perceived as such. Anti-Semitism is now used as a generic term and partly as a synonym for all forms of anti-Jewish attitudes and attitudes. Anti-Semitism manifests itself in hostile convictions, prejudices or stereotypes that are evident — clearly or diffusely — in culture, society or in individual acts and which aim to insult, disparage, ostracize, disadvantage or even regard Jewish people and institutions as fundamentally “different.” Anti-Semitic statements often include allegations of conspiracy, use negative stereotypes, or imply negative character traits.

Multiple discrimination exists when a person is discriminated against simultaneously on the basis of several characteristics (e.g. on the basis of physiognomic characteristics or religious affiliation and on the basis of gender, social class, disability or another characteristic). In intersectional forms of discrimination, various forms of exclusion interact with each other in a way that creates a specific concern in the first place. For example, a racist act against a woman can manifest itself in a sexist way, or, conversely, the act associated with sexist intent can be racially justified.

Nationalism is the ideology that places one's own “nation” above all other groups. From a nationalist point of view, people perceived as “foreign” are generally perceived as non-affiliated and unequal and even as hostile.

Racial discrimination means any act or practice that unfairly discriminates against, humiliates, threatens or endangers people in life and limb due to external characteristics, ethnic origin, cultural characteristics and/or religious affiliation. In contrast to racism, racial discrimination is not necessarily based on ideology. It can be intentional, but often unintentional (e.g. indirect or structural discrimination).

Racist or ethnic profiling (“racial profiling”) is an expression of institutional discrimination and describes the discriminatory control practices of checks on persons and vehicles without suspicion by police, rail police, border guard corps or private security workers, which are carried out primarily on the basis of group-specific characteristics of those affected, such as skin color, language, religion or ethnic origin.

Racification is the process that categorizes, stereotypes, and hierarchizes people according to actual or attributed characteristics and characteristics. Racification and racism cannot be separated from one another: The process of racialization creates a racialized system of knowledge and values that hierarchically positions socially constructed groups.

Racism is a system of discourses and social practices that legitimize and reproduce historically developed power relations, exclusions and privileges. It is based on an ideology that divides people into supposedly natural groups based on external characteristics and/or their actual or attributed ethnic, cultural, national and religious affiliation and hierarchizes them. As a result, people are not judged and treated as individuals, but as members of pseudo-natural groups with collective characteristics that are regarded as immutable. The “biological” racism, which pseudo-scientifically classifies people into a hierarchy of genetically inherited “racial categories,” has largely been discredited since the Holocaust. This is in contrast to cultural racism or culturalism, “racism without races,” which is based on the alleged irrevocability and insurmountability of “cultural differences.” Racism cannot be attributed solely to the (malicious) actions of individual people. It is conveyed historically, socially and culturally and shapes social structures, institutions and dynamics. Racism is therefore to be regarded as a phenomenon of society as a whole and must be addressed as such.

Yenish, Sinti and Sintizze/Manouches, Roma and Romnja are different ethnic groups, each of which is affected by racism in a specific way. These forms of racism have a long history of economic, social and state discrimination as well as political persecution and genocide. Both traveling and sedentary Yenish, Sinti and Roma are exposed to racism and racial discrimination.

Anti-Balkanism refers to a hostile or negative attitude towards people who come from the Balkan region or to whom this origin is attributed. The negative portrayal of the Balkan region intensified in the 1990s and at the beginning of the 2000s in the context of the Yugoslav Wars and reinforced colonial ideas of “West” and “East.” Anti-Balkanism is expressed through stereotypes, culturalizing ideas, and racial discrimination.

Religious fundamentalism requires a return to the foundations of a particular religion. In order to get closer to this goal, radical and intolerant courses of action are sometimes propagated.

A key feature of right-wing extremism is the questioning of the equality of all people and an ideology of exclusion that can be combined with increased acceptance of violence. All definitions of right-wing extremism agree that racism and xenophobia are constituent elements of right-wing extremism.

Right-wing populism describes a mobilization strategy whose central focus is on creating sentiment against the weaker in order to authoritatively rebuild society through achieved electoral or voting successes through democratically acquired power.

Describes the socially based discrimination or exclusion of racialized groups that goes beyond individual action. It is reflected in values, actions, norms, knowledge bases and institutionalized practices that have grown over time. Structural racism leads to the multiplication of existing inequalities, is difficult for those not affected to recognize or is accepted as “normal” in public perception and barely questioned.

Xenophobia and xenophobia refer to the rejection of people due to a subjectively perceived strangeness. This is a collective category: In addition to explicit hostility against foreign persons, it also includes all so-called xenophobic motivated discrimination, which cannot be attributed to any other specific prejudice or ideology.