ABSTRACT
One feature of American writing in the 1960s was the display of impatience with the concepts and frameworks available for the sociological study of race relations; it was manifested in the attempt to formulate new concepts like ‘internal colonialism’, and in the tendency to interpret events in terms of oppression, exploitation, revolt, and similar evaluative expressions. The word ‘racism’ appears to have been introduced into the English language in the late 1930s, in order to identify the kind of doctrine that, in essence, asserts that race determines culture. The words ‘racism’ and ‘racist’ were used by people who wished to attack doctrines of inequality and so, within the circles within which they were employed, they acquired strongly pejorative connotations which may help explain the attempt to extend their application. A leading concern of American social scientists working on race relations in the 1950s was with anti-discriminatory legislation, desegregation, and the application of psychological understanding to the reduction of intergroup tensions.
