A little while ago, I observed that

Opponents of political correctness are quick to claim oppression whenever they are subject to verbal criticism. ‘Racist’ is the absolute taboo term for these reverse-PC types

As if to illustrate this point, Tim Dunlop quotes academic Katharine Betts, saying:

I define racism as the belief that cultural characteristics are biologically determined, that they cannot be changed, and that groups sharing these characteristics can be ranked in a hierarchy of inferiority and superiority. This belief is wrong and it has been used to excuse terrible acts. The word ‘racism’ describes some of the greatest evils we have seen. When it is used loosely as a catchall term of abuse, we trivialize something which should be taken very seriously. For example are ethnic preferences in choice of marriage partners racism, or just personal preference? It’s fashionable now to call racism as I’ve defined it ‘old racism’ and to say that today we must struggle against ‘new racism’. But this ‘new racism’ seems to involve nothing more than preferring to mix with people like yourself. Such behaviour may sometimes be cliquey and unfriendly but it’s a long way from slavery and mass murder.

This quote appears to come from an interview with the Institute for Public Affairs, which is available as a PDF file, here.

Betts’ definition of racism fits Nazi Germany and the Confederate South in the United States, a point underlined by her emphasis on slavery and mass murder. But it excludes apartheid, the ‘Jim Crow’ era in the South and the White Australia policy, at least as far their official theory is concerned. Advocates of all three policies rejected claims of racism, drawing precisely the distinction made by Betts. These policies focused not on the superiority of one race over another, but on the desirability of keeping races separate. (It was, of course, merely coincidental that most of the desirable real estate ended up on the ‘white’ side of the lines of separation).

Most people would regard apartheid as a racist policy. Nevertheless, use of the term ‘racism’ generally ends up bogging arguments down in violent definitional disputes. Perhaps we should return to the more neutral term used to define the Jim Crow laws, ‘segregationism’. Clearly Betts is endorsing racial segregationism, at least as a legitimate personal preference and, by implication, as a public policy.

Tim Dunlop makes the argument that there is a continuum running from the kind of views defended by Betts to the extreme versions she defines as ‘racism’. I think it’s easier to see a continuum of segregationist views running from ‘preferring to mix with people like yourself’ to apartheid and White Australia. The inclusion of explicit pseudo-scientific theories about racial superiority is an additional element, which as Betts says, can justify the worst outrages associated with the term ‘racism’. But even where it does not amount to racism in the sense defined by Betts, segregationism is based on, and justifies, distrust, dislike and ultimately hatred of anyone outside the self-defined group that practises it.

One more point Since I have previously noted the failure of Australia’s free-market thinktanks to give any voice to classical liberal views on the issue of refugee policy, I’m happy to point out that the Centre for Independent Studies has run an article by William Maley in its journal Policy, attacking current government policy. Link via Jason Soon.