Race

Race and Racism

What is race?

We all know people look different. Anyone can tell a Czech from a

Chinese. But are these differences racial? What does race mean?

 Are the Ainu a race?



 If not, to what race

do they belong?



 What do we mean

when we the word

―race?‖

Race is a biological concept

 Race is a geographically

(hence, reproductively)

isolated subdivision of a

species, or subspecies.



 If reproductive isolation

lasts long enough, then

a new species is

produced.

Do human ―races‖ exist?

 Human populations have

not been reproductively

isolated long enough to

have developed into

biological races.

 Early human classification

into races have been

dependent solely on the

evaluation of phenotype

(manifest biology—

appearance, skin color,

eyes and nose shape, hair

texture, etc.).

Which Race?



English Algerians

French Native Americans

Jews Inuit

Gypsies Italians

Norwegians Australian aborigines

Saudi Arabians Egyptians

Ukranians South Africans

Koreans Chinese

Nigerians The Baka

Ethiopians New Guineans

Geographic ―types‖ are ambiguous

 Only 6% of human genes account for the phenotypical

differences seen between ―races.‖



 Greater overall

variation exists within

each ―racial‖ grouping

than between such

groups.



 The phenotypic

traits that do exist are

largely adaptive in

nature. skin color in about 1500 AD-

Compare this map with the previous one

 If human races were as

distinct as many have

assumed, shouldn’t there be

some correlation between skin

color and blood type?



Skin color is a function of

melanin production in the

dermis layer of the skin. Distribution of Type ―O‖ blood



Melanocytes - cells, located in the

basal layer of the skin, produce melanin,

a pigment in the skin, eyes, and hair.

 Differences in skin color are not due to

the number of melanocytes in the skin,

but to the melanocytes' level of activity

 Skin coloring is adaptive.

Skin pigmentation, Vitamin D, and survival



 Vitamin D not common in nature; the human

body synthesizes it in the skin with the help

of ultraviolet radiation.

 Vitamin D is necessary for directing the

body’s use of calcium.

 Too much Vitamin D is toxic; too little will

result in rickets – a debilitating bone disease.

 Skin pigmentation levels control Vitamin D

production.

Dark skin protects skin from

excessive ultraviolet radiation

 Northern populations, with little sunlight, require

minimal pigmentation to produce Vitamin D.

 Tropical populations require protection from too

much ultraviolet radiation and too much Vitamin

D.

 Light skinned people are maladapted for tropical

areas.

 Dark skinned people are maladated to northern

areas

Hair form types and skin colours

shade into each other; there is no

line in nature between a white

and a black race, or Asian race

Simplistic racial categories

based merely upon a few traits do

not constitute a scientific

approach to human biological

variability.

 while there is plenty of genetic

variation in humans, most of the

variation is individual variation.

While between-population

variation exists, it is minimal

There are no races in the biological sense of

distinct divisions of the human species

The physical traits chosen to define race are

basically arbitrary and could be things such as red

hair, or ear, nose or eye shape

terms like Black, White, Asian, and

Latino are social groups, not

genetically distinct branches of

humankind.

Race is a real cultural, political and

economic concept in society

What race is this man?

ddPaternal ddMaternal

Grandparents Grandparents

1 White 2 Chinese

1 Native American 2 Thai

2 Black





Father Mother

What assumptions

lie behind the

designation of Tiger

Woods as an

―African American‖?



• The “drop of blood” theory

• Southern segregation laws: 1/64 black = black

• The obsession to classify people by race in the US:

•These are social, not biological ideas

Race is…

 not a fixed, concrete, natural attribute

 the institutionalisation of physical appearance

 socially or culturally and historically

constructed

 Categories defined and assigned significance by

the society



 social meaning which has been legally

constructed

 shaped by those in power.

an ever changing complex of meanings shaped by sociopolitical

conflict

racial differences exist and are perpetuated because they have

cultural significance

S.Washburn, anthropologist



…the number of races will depend on the purpose

of classification. I think we should require

people who propose a classification of races to

state in the first place why they wish to divide

the human species.

The Anthropological View

Although people obviously differ from each

other physically, we are not able to attribute

differences in culture to differences in

physique (or ―mentality‖). In our study of

culture, therefore, we may regard human race

as of uniform quality, i.e., as a constant, and,

hence, we eliminate it from our study.—

Leslie White (1900-1975)

Social Meaning of Race Affects



 Access to wealth, power and prestige

 Access to education, housing, and other

valued resources

 Where you live

 How you are treated

 Life chances

Health Disparity

• The U.S. Census Bureau began gathering data by race in

1790 because the Constitution specified that a slave counted

as three-fifths of a white person, and because Indians were

not taxed.

• More recently, the way in which information

regarding race is collected has been hotly debated.

– Some social scientists and interested citizens have been

working to add a ―multiracial‖ category to the census.

– This ―multiracial‖ category has been opposed by the

NAACP and the National Council of La Raza because

both groups feel that the communities they represent will

lose access to funding, resources, and jobs if their

numbers as counted by the census go down.

• The choice of ―some other race‖ more than

doubled between 1980 and 2000.

– This represents an imprecision in and dissatisfaction

with the existing categories.

– Also, the number of interracial marriages and

children is increasing.

Some people argue that since race has no biological

existence, the U.S. government should cease collecting

data about race

the American Sociological Association asks “Would

„Race” Disappear if the United States Officially Stopped

Measuring It?”

―As long as Americans routinely sort each other into

racial categories and act on the basis of those

attributions, research on the role of race and race

relations in the United States falls squarely within [a]

scientific agenda...As the United States becomes

more diverse, the need for public agencies to

continue to collect data on racial categories will

become even more important. The continuation of

the collection and scholarly analysis of data serves

both science and the public interest.‖ --American

Sociological Assoc.

Statistics Canada

Collects information on

1. Visible minorities

• persons who are identified according to the Employment

Equity Act as being non-Caucasian in race or non-white in

colour

• Aboriginal persons are not considered to be members of

visible minority groups

2. Ethnicity

• includes aspects such as race, origin or ancestry, identity,

language and religion, culture, the arts, customs and beliefs

and even practices such as dress and food preparation.

• It is also dynamic and in a constant state of flux. It will

change as a result of new immigration flows, blending and

intermarriage, and new identities may be formed.

There are three fundamental ways of measuring

ethnicity: origin or ancestry, race and identity.

Race refers to the genetically imparted

physiognomical features of a person

The change in format to an open-ended question

in 1996 likely affected response patterns, especially for

groups who had been included as mark-in response

categories in 1991.

In addition, the presence of examples such as

"Canadian", which were not included in previous

censuses, may also affect response patterns.

Ethnicity

Each of us has an ethnicity

- frequently confused with race

Shared cultural characteristics of a group

Includes: national origin, language,

traditions, customs, religious beliefs/practices,

etc. as well as racial category

The American Anthropological Association

has recommended that the Census Bureau

eliminate the term "race" and replace it with

"ethnic origins," noting that many Americans

confuse race, ethnicity and ancestry.

A Brief History of race

Race did not exist until the European expansion and exploration

beginning around 1500

The ancient Greeks, for example,

saw themselves as first among civilized

nations around the Mediterranean

But the Greeks did not link physical

appearance and cultural attainment.

They granted civilized status to the

Nile Valley Nubians who were among

the darkest skinned people they knew

 They did not grant it to European

barbarians to the north who were

lighter skinned than they were

 People were divided on the basis of

religion, class or language or status

The distribution of human skin color before A.D. 1400

Slavery

Before the 1400s slavery was widespread in

state societies



 but its victims were either recruited internally

or from neighbouring groups and were largely

physically indistinguishable from slave-holders. Egyptian slaves

i .e. slavery was not based on race

 Slavery was a status that

might be held by anyone.



 Slave descendants could

acculturate into the

dominant population and did

not become permanently

demarcated by race.

Romans slaves pouring wine

After 1500

European exploration brought them increasingly into

contact with other human societies





 Europeans did not

encounter them on

equal terms

 superior

technology,

especially military

technology, meant

Europeans were

significantly more

powerful

As a result, exploration quickly turned to conquest and gave

rise to an Ethnocentric feeling of European superiority.









Francisco Pizarro

Pizarro at The Battle of Cajamarca 1475–1541)

Nov 16, 1532

Pizarro and 168 Spanish Conquistadores with cannons, guns

and horses defeat Atahuallpa, the last independent Inca

emperor and an army of 80,000 precipitating the demise of

the great Incan Empire.

After 1500 a racial

order built on the

ethnocentrism of the

various European

colonial powers.



A Women of

Color with her

African Slave.

1804

What struck explorers most forcefully were differences in physical

appearance particularly skin colour

 An early distinction emerged between those who had black skin as

opposed to had white skin.

This characterisation was important because

of the way in which the colours black and white

were emotionally loaded concepts in European

languages especially English

The contrasts denoted polar opposites

 white represented good, purity and virginity

 black symbolized death, evil and debasement

 Africans, native Americans, and colonised

Asians were devalued, intermarriage was

prohibited and persons of mixed ancestry were

denied same entitlements as those of solely

European ancestry

evident in all European colonial societies by the late 1600s

Races as families or inbred lines

• 16th & 17th C: race used interchangeably with

type, variety, people, nation, generation & species



• By the latter half of the 18th C race is strongly

equated with “breeding stock”



– Farmers and herders understand animal breeds as

highly inbred lineages with heritable characteristics

– Emphasizes innateness of characteristics



– Value judgments were and are critical to choosing the

reproducing members of a line of stock, because one

breeds for some specific, valued quality

The Scientific basis of race



 The concept of race emerged in modern form between the

end of the 18th century and the middle of the 19th.



 Its emergence is, in part, an aspect of the general growth of

scientific enquiry and explanation



 In the 1700s as Western science developed it began thinking

about, and explaining natural and social phenomena and to

place the world‟s peoples into natural schemes



a drive was underway to map and explain a similar order in

the natural and social worlds.

Formal Human Classification

Linneaus Systemae Naturae, 1758

• Europeaeus

– White; muscular; hair – long, flowing;

eyes blue

• Americanus

– Reddish; erect; hair – black, straight, thick;

wide nostrils

• Asiaticus

– Sallow (yellow); hair black; eyes dark

• Africanus

– Black; hair – black, frizzled; skin silky; nose

flat; lips tumid

Formal Human Classification

Linneaus Systemae Naturae, 1758

• Europeaeus

– White; muscular; hair – long, flowing;

eyes blue

• Americanus

– Reddish; erect; hair – black, straight, thick;

wide nostrils

• Asiaticus

– Sallow (yellow); hair black; eyes dark

• Africanus

– Black; hair – black, frizzled; skin silky; nose

flat; lips tumid

culminated in 1795 when Johann Friedrich Blumenbach

first used the word ”race” to classify humans into five

divisions



Caucasian, Johann Friedrich



Malayan Blumenbach

(1752-1840)

Ethiopian,

American

Mongolian,









Blumenbach also coined the term "Caucasian" because he

believed that the Caucasus region of Asia Minor produced

"the most beautiful race of men".

1830s and 1840s Philadelphia doctor and polygenist Samuel

Morton set out to prove that whites were naturally superior and

that brain size bore a direct relation to intelligence

He collected hundreds of human

skulls and measured them by filling

the skulls with lead pellets and then

pouring the pellets into a glass

measuring cup.

 His tables assign the highest

brain capacity to Europeans (with

the English highest of all). Second

rank goes to Chinese, third to

Southeast Asians and Polynesians,

fourth to American Indians, and

last place to Africans and Samuel G. Morton (1799-1851)

Australian aborigines.

His work helped establish the scientific basis for physical

anthropology but also the idea that race is inherently biological

In 1977 Stephen Jay Gould (In

the Mismeasure of Man 1981),

reanalysed the data

 discovered that Morton‟s racist

bias had prevented identification of

what clearly were fully overlapping

measurements among the racial

skull samples he used.

 Gould in his desire to prove

Morton wrong demonstrated the

opposite bias and discovered that

the skulls of black people were

actually larger.

 He then did a blind test and

discovered the overlapping

measurements

Breaking the link between race and anthropology



Boas in the 1890s broke the

link of anthropology with race

by showing that language,

race and culture were separate

things and needed to be

studied separately.

 Showed that mappings of

Northwest Coast Native

American biological traits,

cultural similarities and

linguistic affinities yielded

different results.

The Concept of race under attack



 The revelation of the Holocaust, and the enlistment

of science in its perpetuation, caused a wave of

international revulsion.

 In the 1960s the idea of race itself became the target

 The anti-racists attacked the notion that the human

species was divisible into five or any other small

number of races.

the result was the gradual disappearance of the

concept of race from natural science

 In the 1960s anthropology affirmed that race does

not exist

Racism









Homo sapiens celebrating

their diversity (from the

American Anthropological Vending-machine in Jackson,

Association Newsletter). Tennessee

Jim Crow Laws (1876 – 1967)

What is Racism?









a doctrine or belief in racial superiority, including the idea that

race determines intelligence, cultural characteristics and moral

attributes

Racism thus makes an association between physical

psychological and moral attributes

 and these are used to justify discrimination and prejudice.

“I have a Dream”

Martin Luther King:

„I have a dream that

my four children

will one day live in a

nation where they

are not judged by

the colour of their

skin but by the

content of their

character‟

Racism

 The notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a

person‟s genetic lineage



 Which means, in practice, that a person is to be judged, not by

their own character and actions, but by the character and actions of

a collective of ancestors.



 Even if it were proved that the incidence of a person of

potentially superior brain power is greater among the members of

certain races than among the members of others, it would tell us

nothing about any given individual and it would be irrelevant to

one‟s judgement of him or her.



 Should a Hitler be raised to superior status because his German

“race” has produced Goethe, Brahms, Wagner, etc.

A genius is a genius, regardless of the number of morons who

belong to the same race - and a moron is a moron, regardless of the

number of geniuses who share his racial origin.



 Racism claims that the content of a

person‟s mind (not their cognitive

apparatus, but its content) is inherited;



 that a persons conviction, values and

character are determined before they are

born, by physical factors beyond their

control.



Race is employed in order to classify and

systematically exclude members of given

groups from full participation in the social

system controlled by the dominant group

Levi Strauss sums up racism doctrine in 4 points



1. There is a correlation between genetic heritage on the one

hand and intellectual aptitudes and moral inclinations on the

other



2. All members of human groups share this heritage, on

which these aptitudes and inclinations depend



3. These groups, called races, can be evaluated as a function

of the quality of their genetic heritage



4. These differences authorise the so-called superior races to

command and exploit the others

In examining inequalities anthropologists are not

concerned with inequalities of ability, aptitude or talent

among individuals

But concerned with inequalities that are an inherent part of

collective existence

and that arise from the evaluation of qualities and

performances and the organization of persons into more or

less stable arrangements.

These studies aim at investigating not only the existing

patterns of inequality but also the mechanisms of their

reproduction over time.

A major change between the past and the present has been

the shift of attention from the origin to the reproduction of

inequality.

On April 20th, 1999

two gun-toting

students entered

Columbine High

School in Littleton,

Colo., killing 12

students and a

teacher

What if they had

been black?