Race and Racism
What is race?
We all know that people look different. Anyone can tell a Czech
from a Chinese. But are these differences racial? What does race
mean?
Traditional view
distinct divisions of the human species
into groups based on physical
characteristics such as
- skin color,
- eye 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
What race is this man?
ddPaternal
Grandparents
1 White
1 Native American
2 Black
ddMaternal
Grandparents
2 Chinese
2 Thai
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
very few genes determine racial appearance
 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 hardly 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 thinks such as red
hair, or ear or nose 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
Race is…
 Categories defined and assigned significance by the society
 an ever changing complex of meanings shaped by
sociopolitical conflict
 not a fixed, concrete, natural attribute
 the institutionalisation of physical appearance
 socially or culturally and historically constructed
 shaped by those in power.
 meaningful
 social meaning which has been legally constructed
 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 Anthropology 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
•
•
•
•
•
Life chances
Where you live
How you are treated
Access to wealth, power and prestige
Access to education, housing, and other
valued resources
• Life expectancy
Health Disparity
• The U.S. Census Bureau has been gathering data by race
since 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” has more than
doubled from 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.
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 those who 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
Race and Social Stratification
Linneaus (1758) Systemae Naturae
• Europeaeus (white)
– Acute, inventive, gentle, governed by laws
• Americanus (red)
– Obstinate, merry, free, regulated by custom
• Asiaticus (yellow)
– Haughty, avaricious, severe, ruled
by opinions
• Africanus (black)
– Crafty, indolent, negligent, governed
by caprice or the will of their masters
culminated in 1795 when Johann Friedrich Blumenbach
first used the word ”race” to classify humans into five
divisions
Caucasian,
Johann Friedrich
Malayan
Blumenbach
Ethiopian,
(1752-1840)
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 of known race 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
Samuel G. Morton (1799-1851)
last place to Africans and
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 a anthropology affirmed that race does
not exist
Racism
Homo sapiens celebrating
their diversity (from the
American Anthropological
Association Newsletter).
Vending-machine in Jackson,
Tennessee
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.
Racialism
The belief that differences between human beings
are inherited such that people can be ordered into
separate races where each race shares traits and
tendencies not shared by members of any other
race. Each race has an 'essence'.
Race was essentialized i.e. it came to be seen as
real, natural, and unquestionable
All forms of racism build from the premise of
racialism. Notice that racialism is not saying
anything 'good' or 'bad' about races just that
mutually exclusive races absolutely exist and divide
the species.
Over the centuries, dominant groups have used racial ideology to
justify, explain, and preserve their privileged social positions.
Racism is the socially-organized result of race ranking
“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 men 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.
 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
•the physical features of race are unimportant in themselves
•They enter into social life only when people think they are
important and act as if they are.
•What do people think and feel about the physical differences
of race.
•How does race fit into our common sense views
•People construct racial categories which they then impose on
their own and other groups
•They use physical appearance to mark out the social
boundaries between groups
•They draw a false conclusion that the moral and intellectual
achievements of groups are the result of their physical features.
•to claim that someone has expressed a racist opinion is to
denounce them as immoral and unworthy.
•Racism is a term of political abuse
•related to power relations
On April 20th, 1999
two gun-toting
students at
Columbine High
School in Littleton,
Colo., killing 12
students and a
teacher
What if they had
been black?
In examining inequalities anthropologists are not concerned
with inequalities of ability, aptitude or talent among
individuals
But concerned with inequalities that are 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.