Shifting Perceptions of Racism

In the post-Holocaust era, the United Nations supported an international effort to move away from the concept of race as a biological difference. Instead, the focus shifted towards ethnicity, cultural differences, and traditions. The discovery that genetic differences between individuals amount to only 0.012% reinforced the idea that race is a social construct. However, even though the emphasis shifted from biological to cultural differences, notions of difference based on appearance, dress, and language persisted, leading to the emergence of cultural racism. Additionally, the concept of institutional racism gained attention during the civil rights movement in the 1960s, highlighting the embedded racism within institutions.