Racism

Racism

Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is usedpredominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature (i.e. which harms particular groupsof people), and which is often justified by recourse to racial stereotyping or pseudo-science. Racism is popularly associated with various activities that are illegal orcommonly considered harmful, such as extremism, hatred, xenophobia, (malignant or forced) exploitation, separatism, racial supremacy, mass murder (for the purpose ofgenocide), genocide denial, vigilantism (hate crimes, terrorism), etc.
The Nazis considered Jews, Gypsies, Poles and other Slavic people such as the Russians, Ukrainians, Czechsand anyone else who was not an "Aryan" according to the contemporary Nazi race terminology to be subhuman (Untermensch).
During the Congo Civil War (1998–2003), Pygmieswere hunted down like game animals and eaten. Both sides of the war regarded them as "subhuman" and some say their flesh can confer magical powers. UN human rights activistsreported in 2003 that rebels had carried out acts of cannibalism. Sinafasi Makelo, a representative of Mbuti pygmies, has asked the UN Security Council to recognisecannibalism as a crime against humanity and an act of genocide.[
UNESCO marks March 21 as the yearly International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, in memory ofthe events that occurred on March 21, 1960 in Sharpeville, South Africa, where police killed student demonstrators peacefully protesting against the apartheid regime.