What is racism? Some people view it simply as discrimination of people by race, but I think there is much more to it. Racism is the materialistic worldview that is specific to people. Rather than being focused on a person’s qualities, racism focuses on their physical traits like skin color. A materialistic viewpoint would naturally be inclined to prefer things, or in this case people, that are more attractive to them, over those that are not. Racism results from a materialistic view of the world and a sense of cultural superiority.

As seen through the comic book “They Called Us Enemy” by Japanese concentration camp survivor George Takei, the Japanese were controlled heavily by the Americans, who felt a sense of superiority to them. This can be seen through the enactment of the policies by Roosevelt, who passed Executive Order 9066, which isolated the Japanese in concentration camps after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Despite the main battle occurring between the Axis powers of Germany and Italy, the US did not discriminate against them as they did to the Japanese because they were similar physically and culturally. The Japanese, on the other hand, were viewed as inferior because of their physical appearance. The effects of this order also showed that it was not only the President who took part in this discrimination. American citizens themselves were blaming the Japanese for the bombing and were isolating the Japanese in everyday life. This is significant because it shows that despite Japanese citizenship in the US, they were still discriminated against because of their race. 

However, racism isn’t limited to the idea of cultural superiority but is also affected by materialistic ideas. Materialistic ideas put extra emphasis on the physical qualities of an object rather than its cultural or symbolic significance, as people put extra emphasis on the physical qualities of others (skin color) rather than their personality or culture. When people begin to think of people as objects and evaluate them only by the way they look, it creates unnecessary divisions in society that allow for racist thinking. 

In today’s society, to eliminate racism is to eliminate materialistic thinking, and vice versa. People to need to understand that racism is caused by other underlying factors that must be eliminated before addressing the issue of racism itself.