The Holocaust, Genocide, and the “Logic” of Racism

Abstract

When I consider ethics during and after the Holocaust with my students, they often have heard me say that if I had the chance to remove one word, one concept, from human consciousness, my first choice, arguably, would be race. Few ideas, if any, have been more pernicious and destructive than that one. Race has sometimes been used more-or-less benignly as a synonym for species (as in “the human race”) or as a word that refers neutrally or in some historical sense to physical, cultural, or ethnic differences among people (as in “the black race”). Overwhelmingly, however, the term race has done far more harm than good. Embedded in what can be called the “logic” of racism, the reasons are not hard to find, and they shed light on what ethics after the Holocaust needs to do.¹

My mother’s Singer sewing machine, too, vanished in the confusion of war like an orphan.

Danilo Kiš, Garden, Ashes