'Racism' verses 'Race War'.

Literally just sat down to revise for my final exam of my final year of bloody university and I come across something that may be worth looking at. Something that differentiates discrimination in such a way that may allow me to come to terms with it in understanding.

I have always had the problem that to me discrimination was difficult to accept on some level. Yes indeed it happens, and yes there is such a thing as racial/sexist/ageist discrimination and it is bad. What I always had a problem with was that much of the things which have been seen as discrimination simply did not seem to be that; they lacked something, or indeed had something more to them that gave them a different category.

Racism for example, happens when someone irrationally 'hates' someone of another 'race' and also discriminates against them, using what abilities they have (within their own personality) to disadvantage another. I don't see racism as such, or at least another sort of racism, in the disadvantagement of a group as a result of societies mechanisms.

Now reading Foucault, or at least an understanding of Foucault from my lectures I think I may have come to the understanding of that differentiation. This proposition is entitled 'Racism' and 'Race War, as it is an idea of a subtle 'Race War' within societal biopolitics which allows for a differentiation.

Biopolitics is the politics of people. It shows how power is a matter for networks and is not physically held by an individual or body but is facilitated by a myriad of other bodies or nodes (in fact all bodies or nodes) that souround it in flows. For example a king has, in a classical understanding of power, all the strength and sovereign right to enact the most power in a nation. But if it happened that all the people died and only he was left then he would loose all power. No matter how insignificant it may seem that an individual is they still are important in the networks of power to some extent.

Thus you can see how it is important inside a biopoltical understanding of power for life to be promoted. And for that life to be statistically understood so as to see, for example, where the best and worst places to live are so as to move populations to the best places and improve the worst. And it is by increasing life that power is increased. Why could it then be seen that some states have the death penalty? Doesn't this go against the very basic premise of a biopolitical structure?

Indeed it would, but as you can control the best places to live, you can also control the best people. It is of control and knowledge of the individual that biopolitics shows it's ugly underbelly. And here Racism is shown. Not the racism of hate, but the mechanisms of race without the discourse of racism. How would this work? And how is this any different from a singular understanding of Racism?

Race War is a matter for societal control. The best populations for the society to promote are thusly encouraged, where as those that are designated by society and not individuals within society are disencouraged to some way. This is still racism, but it isn't a racism, as I have said of hate, this is a racism of the sort that allows society to advance as a body-politic. It is vital for society that it is able to discriminate.

Often this is based on statistics, on evidence but in many instances this is a matter of a cover. Look for example the way in which London gains a certain preferential treatment over other areas of the country. This is State discrimination. This is racism without the discourses of race. This is needed within society. And this can extend to the extremes of the Holocaust, to the most minor of a budget restructuring between county councils.

Ultimately though it is the extremes which highlight the issue and make it most clear. As Foucault said, Biopolitics claims life "in order to reclaim death". He continues, "...to be able to inflict death on it's subjects, its living beings, biopower must make use of racism; more precisely, racism intervenes here to grant access to death to the boipolitical state."

And yes this is the sort of state we live in.