When immigrants and converts are not truly one of us: Examining the social psychology of marginalising racism

In the current chapter, we use a social-psychological framework to consider a form of racism that has, thus far, eluded formal study. Although both ‘old fashioned’ (e.g., ‘Piss off niggers!’) and ‘modern’ (e.g., ‘Aboriginal Australians just want compensation for the land’) forms of racism have rightly received substantial analysis, neither fully captures a more insidious, marginalising form traceable as far back as (at least) theMiddle Ages, while retaining a presence (albeit with different groups) into the twenty first century. Some early expressions of this marginalising form of racism can be observed during the time of the Spanish Inquisition.1 At this time, Jews, as the targets of racist ideologies and institutions, were often provided with the apparently contradictory message of being able to ‘redeem’ themselves via Christian conversion, yet of never being capable of fully expunging their ‘Jewish blood’. In contemporary, social-psychological language, Jews received the dual messages of group-boundary permeability – wherein they could move from their devalued group status into the higher status group – and group-boundary impermeability – wherein any striving for such individual mobility was destined to failure because of essentialist characteristics believed to be inherent in Jewishness. Thismeant that Jewish conversos were ‘in’, but not really; at best they remained on the margins.