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Categorism is "prejudice, bigotry and discrimination at any level, based on a categorization of people".
While this phenomenon is more commonly known as "racism" in a very wide sense of the word, it may be not only more common but also preferable to make a distinction between racism and categorism: Use the term "categorism" for the general phenomenon which is regardless of what category of people is being targeted or what categorization of people is being focused on, and use the word "racism" when the categorization is one such as skin-color or ethnicity.
Categorism has three aspects operating on several levels. The three aspects are the facets (how the categorism is done), the foci (what categorization the particular case of categorism focuses on) and the abstractions (fallacies where categorization itself becomes a case of categorism). Thus, beside being a concept in its own right, categorism is also a conceptual framework that contain many concepts of these three kinds. Of the levels, two classic examples are the individual level (how a person believes, feels and acts) and the structural level (social, economic and cultural structures). Categorism backed up by power is oppression.
Any comprehensive struggle for universal human rights is a struggle against all categorism. Not merely against some specific facet or focus of it. Any valid struggle against categorism is a struggle for universal human rights. Never to use a person's rights/dignity/freedom/needs as an excuse to deny that person, or someone else, their rights/dignity/freedom/needs. Or to shut down one struggle in favor of another. To derail discussions to drown out important issues is not a good thing either. The goal must be to liberate people and minds, not to move them from one cage to another.
This wiki explores...
- Various facets of categorism, ranging from the three archetypical facets of prejudice, bigotry and discrimination to more specific facets such as marginalization, stigmatization and monolithization.
- Various foci of categorism and abstractions of categorism, ranging from widely know foci such as racism, sexism and homophobia to more obscure foci like gingerism and witchparanoia and abstractions such as equivocations.
- Various Levels of categorism, ranging from individual cases to oppression that is systemic and structural or even enshrined as international law.
...as well as various examples, related concepts and recommended reading. The wiki is primarily based on the Human Rights Studies Master Thesis "Categorization of Human Beings versus the Universality of Human Rights" by Xzenu Cronström Beskow. The thesis is available for download from the university's server.
