1930 The word "racism" is coined sometime in the early 1930's (no one seems sure exactly when) to describe the claim of the Nazis and others that "race" determines culture. After WW2, biological and social science refuted the notion of racial hierarchy with its attendant claims of superiority, and at the same time, the idea that "races" are pure and distinct entities with all their members essentially looking alike and thinking alike. (Fredrickson)