"Race" and the Construction of Human Identity Author(s): Audrey Smedley Source: American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 100, No. 3 (Sep., 1998), pp. 690-702 Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/682047 Accessed: 13/11/2008 10:24

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http://www.jstor.org AUDREYSMEDLEY Departmentof Sociology and Anthropology Virginia CommonwealthUniversity Richmond, VA 23284-2040 "Race"and the Constructionof Human Identity

Race as a mechanismof social stratificationand as a forrnof humanidentity is a recentconcept in humanhistory. Histori- cal recordsshow thatneither the idea nor ideologies associatedwith race existed before the seventeenthcentury. In the UnitedStates, race became the main formof humanidentity, and it has hada tragiceffect on low-status"racial" minorities and on those people who perceive themselves as of "mixedrace." We need to researchand understandthe consequences of raceas the premiersource of humanidentity. This paperbriefly explores how racebecame a partof ourculture and con- sciousness and arguesthat we must disconnect culturalfeatures of identity from biological traitsand studyhow "race" erodedand superseded older formsof humanidentity. It suggests that"race" ideology is alreadybeginning to disintegrate as a resultof twentieth-centurychanges. [race, identity,history, ethnicity, culture]

Scholars in a variety of disciplines are increasingly tive studies in history and anthropology.These histories holding that "race"is a cultural invention, that it reveal an extraordinaryamount of interactionamong peo- bears no intrinsic relationship to actual human ples of different ethnic groups who occupied city-states, physical variations,but reflects social meaningsimposed villages, and towns. Throughoutthe known Old World, uponthese variations.If such a perspectiveis to be widely tradewas extensive, much travelwas undertakendespite accepted, we are challenged to explore its ramifications enormous hardships,battles were fought among neigh- and consequences."Race" emerged as the dominantform boringand distantgroups, alliances were established,and of identityin those societies where it functions to stratify treatiesof peace were made. Duringthe expansionof im- the social system. Scholarsin psychology, anthropology, perial states, armies marchedon foot or rode on camels, and other social fields need to examine in much greater asses, horses, or elephants over tremendousdistances. depth the reality of"race" as identity in our society. We The image of Alexanderof Macedonmarching his arrnyto need to explorenot only the consequencesbut the parame- the plains of Afghanistan, or sailing nearly halfway tersand social correlatesof"racial" identity. aroundthe worldto India,in the absenceof steamengines Within the last several decades we also have seen nu- and air power, seems an astonishingaccomplishment. In merous studies on "ethnicity"and "ethnic"differences. times of relativepeace, some individualstraveled widely Most often we see titles of publicationsthat cover both and for many differentreasons and they were received in "race"and"ethnicity." Some studies treat the two as if alien landswith hospitality.They tradedwith one another, they are similarphenomena, perhaps differing only in de- intelmarried,and spreadcultural knowledge from region gree. Others, such as Stephen Steinberg's The Ethnic to region. Myth,and Ronald Takaki's various publications (1987, All of this attests to the fact thatinterethnic interaction 1993) make a clear distinctionbetween the two. My pur- has a long history.We humansare not new to thechallenge pose in this paperis to do several things. One is to drama- of trying to get along with "alien"others. What strategies tize the significanceof"race" as distinctfrom "ethnicity" were used in ancienttimes to accommodateor transcend by referringto historicaldata on humaninteractions in the differences? How did ancestral societies perceive and past. The second is to raise to greaterclarity the realityof deal with humanswho differedfrom themselves, both cul- race as a formof humanidentity by delving into some con- turally andlor physically? In contemporarytimes many temporaryissues seldom confrontedeither by the public, areasof the world arereeling with "ethnic"conflicts, and the media,or the scholarswho writeabout them. "ethnicity"seems to be a relativelynew notion abouthu- man identities encumberedwith elements of exclusivity, P>blems and Issues of Identity: Ethnicily and Race opposition, competition, and antagonism.Some groups Reading the histories of societies in the ancient world define themselves in terms thatappear rigid and unyield- can be very enlighteningfor those of us who do compara- ing and in opposition always to "the others." In many

AmericanAnthropologist 100(3):690-702. Copyright(C) 1999, AmericanAnthropological Association SMEDLEY / RACE AND THE CONSTRUCTIONOF HUMAN IDENTITY 691 cases we have seen populationsassert an almost perma- HistoricalConstructions of Identity nentattachment to an ethnicor religious identity, as if such featuresof our social selves are determinedby our DNA Historicalrecords, including the Old and New Testa- and cannot be transformedor diminished by any social mentsof the Bible, evince scenariosof interethnicinterac- mechanisms.We have seen the hardenednature of ethnic tion that suggest some very differentprinciples in opera- boundaries in places like the former Yugoslavia and tion throughoutmuch of human history.' Ethnic groups Uganda traIlsformneighbors and even kinspeople into have always existed in the sense thatclusters of people liv- hated enemies, subjectedto unimaginablebrutalities. At ing in demarcatedareas develop lifestyles and language the same time more societies than ever before have be- featuresthat distinguish them from others and they per- come seemingly muchmore multiethnic since WorldWar ceive themselves as being separatesocieties with distinct II as various peoples from largely ThirdWorld countries social histories.Although some conflicts amongdifferent began searchingfor job and educationalopportunities in groupshave been characteristicfrom the earliestrecorded the nations of WesternEurope and the United States. In histories,hostilities were usually neitherconstant nor the some cases, populationsthat were once deemed generally basis on which long-termrelationships were established. ethnically homogeneousare now unambiguouslyand ir- One factor separatesmany in the contemporaryworld, revocablyheterogeneous. at least some of our understandingsof it, fromearlier con- The media portraysa popularconception of these phe- ceptions of humanidentity. That is that"ethnic" identity nomenaas if they were somethingnew in the humanexpe- was not perceived as ineluctablyset in stone. Individuals rience, andmany scholarsin the social sciences treatmlll- and groups of individuals often moved to new areas or tiethnicity as not only a modernphenomenon or a novel changedtheir identities by acquiringmembership in a dif- condition, but one that inevitably creates problems and ferentgroup. People of the ancientworld seemed to have potential, if not real, hostilities. Two broadcategories of understoodthat cultural characteristics were externaland problems can be identified:one having to do with how acquiredforms of behavior, and that "barbarians'could people of differentgroups get along with one another;the learn to speak the language of the Romansor the Greeks other is the problemof how individualsand groups per- and become participantsin those cultures,and even citi- ceive who they are-the problemof"identity." The sets of zens of these states. Languages were indeed avenues to problemsare clearly interrelated but not identical. new social identities, and ethnic identity itself was fluid In the f?st categoly, there seems to be an underlying andmalleable. premise or assumption that people of different ethnic Until therise of marketcapitalism, wage labor,the Prot- estantEthic, privateproperty, and possessive individual- groupsare in competitionwith one anotherso thatconflict ism, kinship connections also operatedas majorindices and hostility are inevitable.Another related and often un- thatgave all peoples a sense of who they were.Even in the statedassumption is thatdifferent ethnic groupscan have technologicallyand politically most advancedsocieties of no common interestswhich makes any form of unity or the ancientworld such as in Rome, kinshipwas the impor- even amityimpossible. tantdiacritic of connectednessto the social system. In all It is the second problematicthat this paperaddresses, of the mostly patrilinealsocieties of the MiddleEast, Af- the one involving identity,an arenaof problemsthat may rica,and the Mediterranean,the norrnalperson was identi- be morepeculiar to Americans,in termsof theirindividual fied by who his or her fatherwas. The long list of namesof conceptions of who they are, than to peoples of otherna- who begat whom in the Old Testament(Book of Genesis) tions. There seems to be a psychologically based assump- atteststo the importance,especially at the tribaland chief- tion in our society thatpeople must know who they are, dom levels, of genealogical identity. thata solid andpositive sense of one's individualselfness Anotherimportant diagnostic of identitywas occupa- (or "identity")in a widerworld of other"selves" is a nec- tion.Whether one was a farmer,carpenter, fisherman, tan- essary condition for good psychological health. We hu- ner,brass worker, herdsman, philosopher, government of- mans are apparentlythe only animal that anguishes over ficial, senator, poet, healer, warrior, or harlot, was the question,"Who am I?"Perhaps the questionarises be- significantlysalient in the eyes of the ancientworld to re- cause in industrialsocieties we lack a sense of bondingto a quire the label. Occupations determinedto some extent kinship group, a village, or other more limited territorial how people were viewed and treated,as well as under- entity, and becauseour heavy focus on individualismdis- scoredtheir contribution to the society. connects us from others and fosters an abiding sense of Throughoutmuch of the period of the early imperial isolation and insecurity.Whatever the cause, some les- states,numerous groups were in contactwith one another, sons from history might provide a broader context in and individualsoften traveledfrom one region to another which to comprehendthe dilemmas of humanidentity that as traders, warriors, craftsmen, travelers, geographers, we experiencein the modernworld. teachers,and so forth.From one end of the Mediterranean 692 AMERICANANTHROPOLOGIST * VOL. 100, NO. 3 * SEPTEMBER1998 to another,in spite of thelack of modernforms of transpor- and/or economic alliances with powerful and wealthy tation,many men and women were interactingin an inter- men, withoutregard to ethnic origins. Timotheuswas the ethnic melange thatincluded a wide rangeof culturesand son of a Jewish motherand a Greek father.Samson mar- peoples. Fromtime to time, a conqueststate would expand ried a Philistine woman; Moses married an Ethiopian outwardand incorporatesome or most of this great vari- woman;and many leaders, and lesser men, of the Greeks ety. Populationsdid not necessarilylose any form of eth- andRomans married women not fromtheir own societies. nic identity, but change was clearly understoodas virtu- Differentsocieties and localized segmentsof largerso- ally inevitable as each society learned something new cieties were known either by their ethnic name for them- from the culturesof others.Judging from the Greekhisto- selves or by the region, town, or village of their origins. rians such as Herodotus, Strabo, and Thucydides, the That identities of tlliStype were fluid is indicatedby the Greeks were conscious of their borrowings from other depictionsof individuallives. Paul of Tarsustraveled and cultures(see Godolphin1942). preached extensively throughout much of the known When Alexanderconquered peoples and lands all the Mediterraneanworld during the early Christianera and way to the Indus Valley in India, interactingwith "civi- encounteredindividuals of differentethnic backgrounds. lized"populations, nomadic pastoralists, settled villagers, He even identifiedhimself as a Romanon occasion when and a variety of huntingand fishing peoples, he exhorted it was useful to do so. There are other examples of indi- his warriorsto intermarrywith the peoples theyconquered vidualsin ancientwritings who changedtheir ethnic iden- in orderto learntheir languages and cultures. Garrisons of tities for personalor privatereasons. military men were stationedall over the Roman world, Scholarswho have studiedAfrican societies, especially from Brittanyto the Danubeand the Black Sea, from Gi- Africanhistory, have also been aware of the malleability braltar to the Tigris/Euphratesvalley and the Indian of ethnic identity on that continent. New ethnic groups Ocean, and soldiers often took local women as wives. have emerged out of the colonial period, and individuals When the arrniesof the Moroccanking broughtdown the have been known to transformthemselves accordingto Songhai empire in 1591, his soldiers stayed on in the theirethnic or religiousmilieus. One may be a Christianin WesternSudan frontier area and intermarried with the lo- one context,and a Muslimin another,with no sense of am- cal people. Most of northernAfrica, including Egypt of bivalenceor deception.I have encounteredthis phenome- the Delta, has been periodicallyinvaded and ruled by out- non myself. Most Africans spoke several different lan- siders for the last three thousanclyears or so. Hittites and guages, and this facilitated the molding of multiple Hyksos fromthe mountainousareas of Turkey,Assyrians, ethnicities by providing immediate access to cultural Persians,Syrians, Phoenicians, Greeks, Babylonians, Ro- knowledge.In situationsof potentialor real conflict, alle- mans, and various more recent Turkish and Arabian giances could be fly establishedwithout denial of the groups have settled in the towns of the coasts and inter- extrinsicnature of sociaVethnicidentities (Connah1987; acted with the indigenousBerbers and otherpeoples like Davidson 1991). the Libyan groups, the Garamantes,the Carthaginians, In additionto identitiesthat are predicatedon place of Syngambrians,and many others.Less well known is the birth,membership in kin groups,or descent in the male or fact thatboth the Greeksand the Romansused mercenar- female line from known ancestors,language spoken, and ies from inner Africa (Nubians, Ethiopians, Kushites, lifestyle to which individualshave been conditioned,an- among others) in conflicts such as the Persian and otherfeature critical to individualidentity in the statesys- Peloponnesianwars (Herodotus, in Godolphin1942).2 tems was social position. Aristocratsseemed to have been Peoples of differentcultures coexisted for the most part recognizedeven beyond the boundariesof theirimmedi- without strife, with alien segments often functioning in ate societies. And certainmen were widely famedfor their distinctroles in the largercities. One-thirdof the popula- specialized skills or crafts that set them above others. tion of Athenswere foreignersas earlyas the Classicalpe- Every society had its large body of commonersand usu- riod, five hundredyears before the Christianera (Board- ally a greatnumber of slaves capturedin war or tradedin man et al. 1986:222).And the city of Alexandriawas (and when this enterprisebecame a common regionalfeature. still is) a heterogeneous,sophisticated, and complex com- Slaves were usuallyoutsiders, but slaverywas not consid- munityunder the Greeks,Romans, Christians, and Arabs. ered by law and custom a permanentcondition as slaves Carthagewas foundedin NorthAfrica by Phoenicians,but could be manumitted,redeemed by kinspeople, or could peoples from all over the Mediterraneanworld and other purchasetheirown freedom (Smedley [1993]1999:ch. 6). partsof Africamade their residence, or servedas slaves, in While enslavement was considered an unfortunatecir- this great tradingcity. Moreover,men and women of dif- cumstance and most slaves did the menial and onerous ferent ethnic groups intermarriedfrequently, largely be- tasks of society, the roles of slaves varied widely. There cause malTiagewas often used as a political or economic are numerousexamples of slaves rising to politicalpower strategy. Men gave their daughtersand sisters to other in the ancientstates of the Mediterraneanand in the Mus- men, the historianstell us, because they desired political lim world. Often they held positions as generalswho led SMEDLEY / ' RACE" AND THE CONSTRUCTIONOF HUMAN IDENTITY 693

armiesof conquestand were frequentlyrewarded for their cans long before the Christianera. The peoples of the successes. Whole slave dynasties like the Mamluks in Mediterraneanregularly traded with dark-skinnedpeo- Egyptreigned in variousareas of the Muslimworld (Hitti ples of the upperNile valley (and all those in between), 1953). northwestAfrica, andthe contrasting lighter-skinnedpeo- With the appearanceof the proselytizinguniversal re- ples of NorthernEurope. Various states of the Mediterra- ligions, Christianity andlater Islam, that became competi- nean called upon and used Ethiopianwarriors as merce- tors with one anotherfor the souls of all humangroups, a naries in their armies,as we have seen. Some of the more new focus of identity was gradually and increasingly desired slaves were very fair-skinnedSlavs (from placed on membershipin a religious community.During whom the term slave was the MiddleAges of Europe,Christians and Muslims were derived) who were traded down the competing not only for land and souls, but for political Danubeby Germantribesmen. Northern European slaves power and influence. And various sects that developed were shipped as far away as Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, within each large religious communitycomplicated mat- andthe Muslimcapital at Baghdad(Davis 1966). tersby fosteringinternal dissension and even warfareinter What seems strangeto us today is that the biological alia. Whether one was Sunni or Shiite, Protestant or variations among humangroups were not given signifi- Catholic, was a critical determinantof one's identity lo- cant social meaning.Only occasionallydo ancientwriters cally and in the widerworld. As with otheraspects of eth- ever even remarkon thephysical characteristics of a given nicity and ethnic differences, individualsoften changed personor people. Herodotus,in discussingthe habits,cus- their religious affiliation undercircumstances prompted toms, andorigins of differentgroups and noting variations by self-interest,or self-preservation,as in the case of the in skin color, specifically tells us thatthis hardlymatters. 300,000 or more Jews who were forced to convertto Ca- The Colchians are of Egyptianorigin, he wrote, because tholicism in Medieval Spain duringthe Inquisition(Cas- they have black skins and wooly hair"which amountsto tro 1971). Yet Christians,Jews, andMuslims had lived to- but little, since several other nations are so too."3Most getherin relativeamity, and even intermarried,for several writersexplained such differencesas due to naturalenvi- hundredyears after the Muslim conquestsand before the ronmentalfactors such as the hot sun causingpeople to be rise of the Christian kingdoms to challenge Muslim power. darkskinned. No structuringof inequality,whether social, moral, intellectual, What was absentfrom these differentforms of human culturalor otherwise, was associated identityis whatwe todaywould perceive as classifications with people because of theirskin color, althoughall "bar- into "racial"groups, that is, the organizationof all peoples barians"varied in some ways fromthe somaticnorm of the into a limited number of unequal or ranked categories Mediterraneanworld. But barbarianswere not irredeem- theoretically based on differences in their biophysical ably so, and, as we have seen, nothingin the values of the traits.There are no "racial"designations in the literature public life denied the transformabilityof even the most of the ancientsand few referenceseven to suchhuman fea- backwardof barbarians. turesas skin color. FrankSnowden has demonstratedthat We in the contemporaryWestern world have often ever since at least the second millenniumB.C., the peoples found it difficult to understandthis phenomenonand as- of the Mediterraneanworld have interactedwith other sume that differences in skin color must have had some groups having a variety of physical traits that differed importantmeaning. Historians have triedto discover "ra- from the Italiansand Greeks. Artisticdepictions of Afri- cial" meanings in the literatureof the ancients, assuming cans of clear "negroid"features have been found, andnu- thatthese writershad the same attitudesand beliefs about merousstatues and paintingsthroughout the classical era human differences found in nineteenth- and twentieth- show that physical variations in different populations centuryNorth America. The reasonfor our myopia has to were recognized and accurately depicted (Snowden do with our deeply entrenched 1983). conditioningto the racial worldview (Smedley 1993, 1998). When "race"appeared Exceptfor indigenousAmericans, members of all three in human history, it of the large geographicareas thatcame to be categorized broughtabout a subtle but powerful as "races"in the nineteenthand twentieth centuries (Mon- transformationin the world's perceptionsof humandif- goloid, Negroid, and Caucasoid)interacted in the ancient ferences. It imposed social meanings on physical vari- world. Chinese porcelain vases have been found widely ationsamong human groups that served as the basis for the distributedin the East Africancoastal tradingcities, indi- structuringof the total society. Since thattime manypeo- cating tradebetween these peoples at least two thousand ple in the West have continuedto link humanidentity to yearsold. The peoples of the MalagasyRepublic represent externalphysical features.We have been socialized to an a mixtureof Africanand Asian (Indonesian)ancestry dat- ideology aboutthe meaningof these differencesbased on ing back several thousand years. Greek sailors sailed a notion of heredityand pelmanence that was unknownin downthe Red Sea into the IndianOcean and met East Afri- the ancientworld and in the MiddleAges. 694 AMERICANANTHROPOLOGIST * VOL. 100, NO. 3 * SEPTEMBER1998

Race: The ModernConception of Human counterposedagainst the vision that the English had of Differencesand HumanIdentity themselves as a civilized people. Every new experience, along with a growing technological superiority,widened In the eighteenthcentury this new mode of structuring the differencesand denigrated all otherpeoples who were inequality in human societies evolved in the American not partof the civilized world. The conceptof "civilized" colonies and soon was present throughoutthe overseas polities in contrastto savageryand barbarismwas begin- territoriesof the colonizing countriesof WesternEurope. ning to take hold in much of WesternEurope, and in this "Race"was a form of social identificationand stratifica- sense Englishmenwere not muchdifferent from the rest of tion that was seemingly groundedin the physical differ- the Westernworld. But English notionsof theirown supe- ences of populationsinteracting with one anotherin the riority were enhanced by their technological, material, New World?but whose real meaningrested in social and and politicaI successes, by their earlier successful split political realities.The terrnrace had been used to referto from the Catholic realm, by the early rise of merchant humans occasionally since the sixteenth century in the capitalism,the developmentof new forms of wealth, no- English language but was rarelyused to refer to popula- tions aboutindividual freedom, property rights, and self- tions in the slave trade.It was a mere classificatoryterm sufficiency, and by a growing sense of theirown unique- like kind,type, or even breed,or stock,and it had no clear ness even amongother Europeans. This was summedup in meaninguntil the eighteenth century. During this time, the the mythof Anglo-Saxonism(Horsman 1981). English began to have wider experiences with varied "Race"emerged as a social classificationthat reflected populationsand gradually developed attitudes and beliefs this greatly expanded sense of human separatenessand thathad not appearedbefore in Westernhistory and which differences. Theodore Allen (1997) argues that the "in- reflected a new kind of understandingand interpretation vention"of the white race took place afteran early, but un- of human differences.Understanding the foundationsof successful, colonial revolt of servantsand poor freedmen race ideology is criticalto ouranalysis. known as Bacon's Rebellion in 1676. Colonial leaders English settlers in North America failed to assimilate subsequentlydecided it would be useful to establisha di- the peoples whom they conquered;indeed they generally vision among the masses of poor to preventtheir further kept them at greatlength and social distance from them- collaboration against the governmentalauthorities. As selves (Morgan 1975; Nash 1982). Indigenous Indians African servants were vulnerable to policies that kept were differentin bothcultural and biological features,but them in servitudeindefinitely, and European servants had this was not the necessary and sufficient reason for the theprotection of Englishlaw, colonialleaders developed a English habitsand policies of separateness.They had had policy backedby new laws thatseparated African servants a long history of enmity with earlierpeoples, especially and freedmenfrom those of Europeanbackground. Over the Irish, on their very bordersand had generatedout of the next half century,they passednumerous laws thatpro- their hostility with the Irish an image of"savagery" that vided resourcesand benefits to poor, white freedmenand became institutionalizedas a rnajorpart of public con- otherlaws thatrestricted the rightsof"Africans," "mulat- sciousness about"the other." The policies andpractices of toes,s'and "Indians." the English in Irelandfunctioned to keep those Irish who Callingupon the model of the Chainof Being, andusing refused to accept English domination segregated from naturaldifferences in physical features,they created a new themselves. Failing to even attemptan understandingof form of social identity. "Race"developed in the minds of Irish customs and institutions,the English expressed an some Europeansas a way to rationalizethe conquestand abiding contempt and hatred for both Irish culture and brutaltreatment of Native Americanpopulations, and es- people thatreached a crescendoduring the sixteenth and pecially the retentionand perpetuationof slaveryfor im- seventeenthcenturies when the English were also settling ported Africans. As an ideology structuringsocial, eco- in the New World. It was an extreme form of ethnocen- nomic, and political inequality, "race" contradicted trism or ethnic chauvinismthat some historians believe developing trends in England and in WesternEuropean came close to being racial(Allen 1994;Canny 1973; Lig- societies that promoted freedom, democracy, equality, gio 1976). andhuman rights. Europeans justified this attitudetoward "Savagery"was an image abouthuman differences that humandifferences by focusing on the physicalfeatures of became deeply embeddedin English life and thoughtand the New World populations,magnifying and exaggerat- provided a foil againstwhich they constructedtheir own ing theirdifferences, and concluding that the Africansand identityas "civilized"Englishmen. They broughtthis im- Indiansand their descendants were lesser formsof human age of what savagerywas all aboutwith them to the New beings, and that their inferioritywas naturaland/or God- World where it was soon imposed on the native popula- given. tions when they, too, began to resist English encroach- The creationof "race"and racial ideology imposed on ment. Savagery carried with it an enormous burden of the conqueredand enslaved peoples an identityas the low- negative and stereotypic characteristics grotesquely est status groups in society. Myths about their inferior SMEDLEY/ "RACE ANDTHE CONSTRUCTION OF HUMAN IDENTITY 695 moral, intellectual,and behavioralfeatures had begun to serving of the benefits of civilization, insensitive to the develop andthese facilitatedproscription of any competi- finer arts, and (in the case of Africans)aesthetically ugly tion with Europeans.By the mid-eighteenthcentury, Ne- andanimal-like. Because ofthe culturalimperative of race groes hadbeen segregatedfrom poor whites in the laws of ideology, all Americanswere compelledto the view thata most colonies andtransforrned into propertyas slaves in a racial status, symbolized by biophysical attributes,was stateof perrnanentbondage. the premierdeterrninant of theiridentity. "Race" identity EdmundMorgan (1975) also intexpretedthe actionsof took priority over religion, ethnic origin, education and the early colonists in the process of establishing"racial" training,socioeconomic class, occupation,language, val- identitiesas stemmingfrom the propertiedcolonists' fear ues, beliefs, morals,lifestyles, geographicallocation, and of poor whites andpossibly slaves engaging in rebellions all otherhuman attributes that hitherto provided all groups together. Colonial leaders consciously formulatedpoli- and individuals with a sense of who they were. The di- cies thatwould separatepoor whites fromIndians, blacks, lemma for the low-status races was, and still is, how to and mulattoesand proceeded to provide the white poor, constructa positive identityfor themselvesin the light of whom they hadhitherto treated with contemptand hatred, the "racial"identity imposed on them by the dominant with some privileges and special advantages.4In time, society. class divisions diminishedin the mindsof poor whitesand In recentdecades, one responseto this dilemmaon the they saw themselves as having something in common part of some African Americanshas been Afrocentrism with the propertiedclass, symbolized by their light skins (which is not the same as an olderversion of "Negritude" and common origins in Europe.With laws progressively that black intellectualshad developed earlierin this cen- continuingto reduce the rights of blacks and Indians,it tury).And for some Indiansa new formof"Nativism" has was not long before the various Europeangroups coa- emerged, harkeningback to a Native Americanlifestyle. lesced into a white "racial"category whose high-status Afrocentrismseeks to reidentifywith thepeoples andcul- identity gave them access to wealth, power, opportunity, turesof Africa and to elevate Africansto a position of es- andprivilege.5 teem by emphasizingvaluable aspects of Africancultures. By the mid-nineteenthcentury virtually all Americans Some Afrocentristsalso make assertionsabout the posi- had been conditioned to this arbitraryranking of the tive qualitiesof Africanpeople and seek to recognize and American peoples, and racial ideology had diffused objectifyAfricanisms in the behaviorof African-descend- aroundmuch of the world,including to the colonized peo- ed peoples who have been scattered all over the New ples of the Third World and among Europeans them- World. Many assume or operateon the premise that all selves. peoples who descendedfrom Africans during the diaspora maintaincertain behaviorismsthat mark them off from "Race" as Identity otherpeoples. Their argumentsseem similarto thatof the biological deterministsin the dominantsociety, but most In the UnitedStates the biophysicalfeatures of different would probablynot go so far as to asserta genetic basis to populations,which had become markersof social status, certain "African"-originatedbehaviors. Those who take were internalizedas sourcesof individualand group iden- the position asserting a common African personalityor tities. After the Civil War, although slavery ended, race behaviorreflect the degreeto whichthe ideology of "race" and racialideology remainedand were strengthened.Af- has been implantedin them. Like most Americans,they ricanAmericans particularly had to grapplewith the real- find it difficult to think beyond the racial worldview and ity of beingdefined as the lowest statusgroup in American drawupon the same strategiesas white racistsin claiming society and with the associatedstereotyping that became superiorfeatures for "African"people. At the same time increasinglypart of the barriersto their integrationinto there are many Afrocentristswho are very conscious of Americansociety (Conrad1969). And Native Americans the fact that theirs is a political position and that they are had to try to reinventtheir identities,whether in towns or using the same biological argumentsas racists,the people isolated on remote reservations where traditionallife- whom they theoreticallyoppose. They fail to realize that styles were no longer possible. American society had operatingwithin the racialworldview, accepting its prem- made "race"(and the physical features connected to it) ises thatbiologically distinctraces exist, each with unique equivalentto, andthe dominantsource of, humanidentity, culturallbehavioralfeatures, and simply denying inferior- supersedingall otheraspects of identity. ity while asserting African superioritydoes nothing to The problemsthat this has entailed, especially for the changethe racismin oursociety. low-status"races," have beenenormous, immensely com- However, we also must understandthat what Afrocen- plex, and almost intractable.Constant and unrelenting trismis really intendedto do is to restorea sense of pride portrayalsof their inferiorityconditioned them to a self- and dignity to ordinaryAfrican Americans, regardless of imageryof being culturallybackward, primitive, intellec- how whites and othersregard their positions. By looking tually stunted,prone to violence, morally corrupt,unde- to the "real"Africa, studyingher history, learningabout 696 AMERICANANTHROPOLOGIST * VOL. 100, NO. 3 * SEPTEMBER1998 and being involved in certainrituals and festivals thatfo- membersare. As the idea of"race" was not traditionalto cus on African arts,dance, dress, music, and so on, some Indiansocieties, membershiphad been basedon otherfac- activistsfeel thatthey areengendering this prideand help- tors, primarilybirth, descent, and adoption.The policy of ing to remove the contempt and denigrationthat has ac- specifying degreesof Indianidentity by "bloodquantum" companiedour ideas aboutAfrica in the past.They under- is indicativeof the distortionsthat the ideology of racehas stand that for too long African Americans have been forcedon all Americans. conditionedto the same negative beliefs aboutAfrica and In contemporarytimes, however, there are more prag- Africansas have whites andothers and that there is a need matic and political considerations in those situations to eliminate the self-depreciation and self-hatred that wherebeing an Indianmeans sharing in some of the newly black Americans have experienced with regardto their generatedwealth from oil discoveries in Oklahoma,or the Africanancestry. royaltiesfrom gambling casinos now so widespread.Con- A similarsituation obtains with manyNative American tested identities have become fairly commonplace in people, especially those activists who must counter the those areas where such benefits have become available, stereotypeof the savage Indianand the denigrationof na- even thoughmany "mixed bloods" have often functioned tive cultures.Indians have also ingested the elements of as whites. (Itis importantto note thatin the rankingsystem the racial worldview; and they have felt the brunt of of the racial worldview, Indians were rankedsomewhat disempowermentand oppression and of alienationfrom a higherthan blacks but much lower thanwhites.) once establishedand viable community.They too are en- deavoringto constructa new image of Indiansas a people The Non-Problem of "Mixed-Race" People of achievement, pride, determination,and worthiness. Some claim that Indians were creators of beautiful art One of the more tragicaspects of the racial worldview forms and democratic and egalitariangovernments and has been the seeming dilemma of people whose parents were preserversof the greatbounties of nature.Many ar- are identifiablyof different"races." Historically, "race" gue for restoring the "spiritual"qualities of the Native was groundedin the myth of biologically separate,exclu- Americans,imagining a gentle ethos thatgoverned a spe- sive, and distinctpopulations. No social ingredientin our cial relationshipto nature.The concern for naturereso- race ideology allowed for an identity of"mixed-races." nateswith manypeople andmilitates against the material- Indeedover thepast century and a half, the Americanpub- ism andconsumerism of the largersociety. lic was conditionedto the belief that"mixed-race" people Althoughmany Native Americanslive on or nearreser- (especially of black and white ancestry) were abnormal vations, the realityis thatin most areasit has been largely productsof the unnaturalmating of two species, besides the federalgovernment that deterlllined who is or is not a being socially unacceptable in the normal scheme of Native American by the amount of"Indian blood" they things. The tragedyfor "mixed"people is that powerful presumablyhave.6 The IndianAl lotmentAct (Dawes Act) social lie, the assumptionat the heartof "race,"that a pre- was passed in 1887 ostensibly to transformIndians from sumed biological essence is the basis of one's true iden- membersof tribalsocieties into citizens and landowners. tity. Identityis biology, racial ideology tells us, and it is It also establishedthat all those personsreceiving land al- permanentand immutable.The emphasis on and signifi- lotments be of one-half or more Indianancestry.7 In this cance given to "race"precludes any possibility for estab- century,the Bureauof IndianAffairs (BIA) hasprovided a lishing ourpremier identities on the basis of othercharac- new measureof one-fourthIndian blood in assessing who teristics. In this sense it may be argued that the myth of is or is not an Indian,particularly to control who has the "race"has been a barrierto truehuman identities. rightto live on a reservationand/or to receive benefltsand The unfortunateconsequence of race ideology is that services from the government(Jaimes 1994:49). And it is many of the people with this 4'mixed-race"background the BIA thatissues certificatescertifying whether one is or have also been conditionedto the belief in the biological is not Indian. Indian communities have opposed the salience of "race."Their efforts to establish a "Mixed- "bloodquantum" criterion as a racistpolicy. But much of Race"category in the Americancensus forms show a total the dilemmathat Indians have faced is thatthey have never misunderstandingof what"race" is all about,and this is, of been able to define their own identities, even though course,a majorpart of the tragedy.Their arguments imply treated(at least superficially)for most of our historyas if a feeling of having no identity at all because they do not they were foreignautonomous nations. exist formally(that is, socially) as a "biological"category. This has creatednumerous frustrating problems for in- The fact is that from the standpointof biology, there dividualsand divisiveness in and amongIndian societies. have been "mixed"people in North America ever since It has led to conflicts over, and among,various degrees of Europeansfirst encounteredindigenous Americans and "mixed bloods," along with accusations of illegitimacy the first Africanswere broughtto the English colonies in and fraud.Most of all, it has contradictedthe practicesof the 1620s. The averageAfrican American has aboutone- Indian tribes in determining for themselves who their quarterof his or her genes from non-African(nonblack) SMEDLEY / "RACE" AND THE CONSTRUCTIONOF HUMAN IDENTITY 697 ancestors,although most estimatesare likely to be conser- "race,"as we have seen, thatholds thateach racehas sepa- vative (cf. Marks 1995; Reed 1969). There is a greater rate, biologically determinedpatterns of culturalbehav- rangeof skincolors, hair textures, body sizes, nose shapes, ior. The racial worldview, with its emphasison assump- and otherphysical featuresamong black Americansthan tions of innatenessand immutability,makes it possible to almostany otherpeopleidentified as adistinctpopulation. interpretall forms of human behavior as hereditary.In Virtually all of them could identify as of"mixed-race." fact, it almost mandates such a perspective because of But the physical markersof race statusare always open to powerful forces within our culturethat preserve and pro- interpretationby others. "Race"as social status is in the mote hereditarianideas. The belief in raciallydetermined eye of the beholder."Mixed" people will still be treatedas culturalbehavior, despite all evidence to the contrary,is black if theirphenotypes cause themto be so perceivedby perpetuatedin Americansociety by the popularmedia and others.Insistence on being in a separateclassification will as a partof folk wisdom abouthuman differences. Witness not change that perceptionor the reaction of people to the inordinateattention to and sales of Herrnsteinand them. Murray'sThe Bell Curve (1994). This belief has been a What compoundsand complicates mattersis another necessarycomponent of the ideology of "race,"because it lie that is one of the basic tenets, or constituentcompo- helps to perpetuatethe notion that majordifferences be- nents, of the racial worldview:the myth that biology has tween "races"exist. some intrinsicconnection to culture.Some advocatesof a People who consider themselves of "mixedrace" and new "mixed-race"category have arguedthat they want to experiencesome form of psychic stressbecause they feel recognize the "culture"of theirother parent. For example, they have no identity in Americansociety, perhapsmore in a black/whitemixed marriage,a black parentpresum- thanmost, need to have understandingof this history. ably has "black"culture, and the white parenthas "white" culture.These advocatesfail to realize what anthropolo- The Tragedyof UrbanBlack Youth Identity gists have long known, that there is no relationshipbe- tween one 's cultureor lifestyle andone 's genes or biologi- This leads us to consideranother element of the tragedy cal features.All native-bornAmericans share some basic of racial ideology and the way it structuresand constricts culturalsimilarities, and the ancestorsof modernAfrican humanidentity. That is the degree to which individualsin Americanshave been "American"longer thanthe ances- the low-statusminority "races" have absorbedand acqui- tors of most EuropeanAmericans.8 It is the ideological esced unconsciouslyto the folk beliefs. Many blacks ac- myths of the racialworldview that prevent us from seeing cept withoutquestion the idea thatthere are drastic differ- how very much alike culturallyblack and white Ameri- ences between "white"culture and "black" culture. Some cans are. (This is not to suggest that there are not differ- attemptto constantly underscoretheir differences from ences in the way blacksand whites experienceour culture "white"culture by behaving in a mannerthat contrasts and lifestyle variations that reflect social-class differ- with whites (Fordhamand Ogbu 1986). This deliberate ences andthe isolationof inner-citypopulations.) andprovocative alienation from a dominantculture that is On the other hand,if one parentdid come from a very thoughtto be "white"has inhibitedthe developmentof, different cultural background(e.g., recently emigrated and access to, the wide range of options available to mi- from Asia), a child does not automaticallyhave that cul- nority youth in American society. In recent decades this turebecause of the biology of the parent.Humans acquire has been a particularlyacute problemimposed especially culture;it is learnedbehavior. In orderfor Tiger Woods (a on blackyouth who have been convincedby themedia and golfing star)to have Thai culture,he would have to learn propagandistsof racial differences that the only identity the language and the elements of Thai culture. One can worthhaving lies in excelling in sportsor entertainment.9 learnthese withouthaving a single gene from a Thai par- The racial worldview holds thatblacks cannotachieve in ent. Moreover,there is no reasonwhy one shouldlearn the any intellectualendeavor, and this has so infectedour con- cultures of ancestorsmerely because of some genetic or sciousness that even young black childrenare entrapped genealogical connections.None of us have the culturesof in the myth and inhibited from expressing intellectual any of our ancestorstwo centuries ago because all cul- curiosity.l? tures,including American culture, have changed,some of Fields like anatomy,biology, genetics, chemistry,bot- them drastically, during that time. Cultures constantly any, zoology, physics, mathematics,geology, geometry, change without any correspondingchanges in biological andmany others have been virtuallyclosed to blacksas the features. vistas of too many black youth have been constricted Americansshould understand clearly that humans learn largely by public opinion and peer pressurenot to "act culturalfeatures from one anotherall the time becausethat white" (Fordham and Ogbu 1986; Gibson and Ogbu has been one of the most profoundexperiences of human, 1991). "Research"and "science" are almost unknown and especially American,history. Whatprevents us from words in many inner-city public school systems. The understandingthis is that component in the ideology of irony is thatthis restrictingof the intellectualpotential of 698 AMERICANANTHROPOLOGIST * VOL. 100, NO. 3 * SEPTEMBER1998 particularlyblack boys has taken place during the past whites, even newly immigrantones who soon learnedthe threeor fourdecades even as oursociety has expandedand racialranking, to live andworktogetherwith Negroes.l2 openedmany doors of opportunity. There were forms of racialrepression, often subtlebut Lulled by a culturalethos promoting narcissism and experienced as a constant threatto their humanity,that pleasure, many black youths have fashioned for them- preventedAfrican Americans and Native Americans as selves a new kindof identity,in oppositionas muchas pos- free humanbeings from realizingtheir potential qualities sible to that which they perceive as "white.""Blackness" and gifts and left them dejected and vulnerableto the he- has been defined in many ways in terrnsof that which is donistic trendswithin our culture.In the early twentieth banal and outrageousby middle-class standards.But this century several generations of black men and women, is not seen by blackyouth as a matterof social-class differ- bruisedand weakened by the scornand contempt of white ences; it is a matterof whatthey see as a true"racial" iden- racism, not only lost hope but many descended into de- tity. Saturatedby hype and the glamorizingof sportsand spair. Music and dance became palliativesto the pain of entertainmentfigures who promotesuperficial style with- rejection as full human beings; alcohol and drugs were out much substance,too many black youth now cling to a even more effective. Thus the racial identityimposed on fabricatedidentity whose most obvious characteristicis AfricanAmericans was successful in keepingtoo manyof consumerism.l'Those institutionsthat used to reflect the them in the role of the underdogsof American society. qualities of life that gave meaning to black communities Similarly, Native Americans are among the poorest and have been greatly eroded: the church, kinship and kin- leasteducated of ourpopulation.Formost ofthe twentieth speople, neighborhoodswith caringelders; the preacher, century,they have also sufferedfrom the extremes of alco- the teacher,the musicteacher, the barber,the storekeeper; holism and diseases such as tuberculosis.Indeed, no peo- the dignity and sense of achievement associated with ple have suffered more in American society (Pearce work. 1988). It was not only slaverythat robbed African Americans Many minorityyouth today not only are suffering the of their identity.Far more powerful and telling has been consequences of the oppressive and mean-spiritedpoli- the crueltyof racism.Many historians note how strongand cies of white America, but they are descendantsof men vibrant black communities and families were after the and women whose spirits were brokenby these practices Civil War, despite the threatsof lynchings and the other and who too often turnedtheir pain and frustrationsin- barriersimposed by laws, practices, and customs stem- ward. It is not enough to emphasizeblack resistanceand ming from racialideology (Gutman1976; Staples 1971). overcoming oppression. There are too many African Freed blacks anticipatedopportunities to be educated,to Americans and Native Americans who do not have the obtainjobs, to workhard and make the same advancesthat skills to enter mainstream arenas, who seem to have whites made. They were Americansand saw themselves droppedout of the social system, or who are incapableof as participantsin the Americandream. They were freedat dealingwith the realityof modernlife: those into the drug a time when the UnitedStates was transformingitself into culture,the undereducated,those in ourjails andprisons, a majorindustrial giant and therewere jobs availablefor or the homeless. We need to understandhow to removethe anyone willing to work. Given the labor shortagesin the barriersthat have kept themdown. North, the nation had a "uniqueopportunity to integrate Too few people have studied the phenomenonof the black workersinto the industrialmainstream" (Steinberg transgenerationalretention and transmissionof an ethos 1989:173). Instead, America excluded black workers of hopelessness. But some filmmakershave documented from industrialjobs thatwere the keys to progressand ad- the heartbreakingstories of black men and women who vancementand turnedto white immigrantsfrom Europe. sufferedunbearable discrimination in our nation's indus- After Reconstruction,the South, with the aid of northem tries.13 And othershave told the painfulstories of thehope- industrialists,and dependenton blacklabor to produceits lessness sufferedby so manyon Indianreservations. Their cotton andother valuable commodities, returned blacks to sons anddaughters felt theirpainand the degradation they an impoverishedand dependentposition of virtualforced have experienced.We need to studythis phenomenon and labor in the fields throughtenant farming and sharecrop- to understandwhat these kinds of experienceshave done ping. Policies and practices were developed to prevent to the self-image andself-esteem of low-statusminorities. blacksfrom competing with white laborand from learning new industrialskills that might place them in a more fa- Transcending the Restrictions of vorable economic situation. It was not just that blacks were needed to work the fields of the South. The racial "Racial" Identity worldview, fortifiedby the science of the mid-nineteenth Today scholars are beginning to realize that ;'race"is centurythat had diminished "the Negro" to a separatespe- nothing more and nothing less than a social invention.It cies of humans, "a lesser form of being," so dominated has nothingto do with the intrinsic,or potential,qualities white thinking that it would have been impossible for of the physically differing populations,but much to do SMEDLEY / RACE AND THE CONSTRUCTIONOF HUMAN IDENTITY 699

with the allocationof power,privilege, and wealth among racism.It is farmore accurate and more fruitful to scholar- them. Thisconceptual separation of actualphysicalvari- ship, and possibly to the future of humankind,to define ationswithin the species fzrom the socially invented char- African American people by their sense of community acterizationsof themrepresents a majorparadigm shift in consciousness, and commitment than by some mystical how manyscholars now thinkabout the humanexperi- "racial"essence. It is the Community into which they ence. Anthropologists and biologists no longer see were bornand reared, a Consciousnessof the historicalre- "races"as discrete populationsdefined by blood-group alities and shared experiences of their ancestors, and a patterns or "types" defined by averages of statistical Commitmentto the perspectivesof their"blackness" and measurements.Biophysical variationsare seen as con- to the diminishingof racismthat is criticalto the identities tinuous and gradual,overlapping population boundaries, of the ThurgoodMarshalls and Hazel O'Learysof ourso- fluid, and subjectto evolutionarychanges. In like manner, ciety. The social categoriesof "race"have always encom- scholarshonestly examiningthe historyof Americanatti- passed more than mere physical similarities and differ- tudes toward human differences have concluded that ences. TheodoreAllen tells us in the acknowledgmentsto "race"was a social invention of the eighteenth century his two-volume excoriation of white racism that he has thattook advantageof the superficialphysical differences learnedto say, "Iam not white"( 1994). among the Americanpopulation and the social roles that Even withoutall of the intermixturesof peoples, some these peoples played, and transposedthese into a new Americanshave alreadyexperienced a high level of un- form of social stratification.The symbols of race identity certainty about the "racial" status of individuals with became the substance. whom they have had some interaction.Many peoples in Recognizing the reality of the racial worldview and the world,from Morocco to the PersianGulf, to the islands how it developed as a socioculturalreality requires a in the South Pacific Ocean, have physical features that whole new way of looking at humandiversity in all of its cause them to be "mistaken"for black Americans.In that many forms. It means that( 1) we can betterrecognize and broadband of the earthcalled the tropics we find indige- comprehendaccurately and objectively the naturalcauses nous peoples with tan to brown to darkbrown skins, and of human physical variations aroundthe world without hairthat may be frizzly, kinky, curly, or straight.As more attempting to homogenize people into limited "racial" andmore of thesepeoples eithertravel to the UnitedStates categories;(2) we can liberateourselves from the need to or are encounteredby Americans on missions abroad, utilize physical differencesin apprehendinghuman iden- Americansmust deal with theirperceptions of these peo- tities; (3) freed from the myths of racialdetenninism, we ples. Some time ago, in the space of abouteight months,I can now improve our understandingof the true natureof met a Samoan,a person from the New Guineaarea, and a cultureand cultural differences and begin to view the pro- numberof Arabswho in the course of conversationshave cesses of culturalchange in a moreaccurate light; and (4) indicated that they have been "mistaken"for blacks.'4 we can begin to understandthe real natureof"race" as a Many peoples from the southernregions of Saudi Arabia social constructand to deal with the problemsthat racial look very muchlike theirneighboring Africans across the identitieshave imposedon people. Red Sea, having evolved in the same climate and latitude For example, using this new perspective,we would be (and having intermingledover eons of time). To try to able to avoid the problemsencountered when scholarsex- maintainracial categories based on physical featuresin amine the African Diaspora and attempt to detelmine the face of the real world of humanbiological diversity,I which peoples arelegitimately black products of this mas- suspect,will be increasinglydifficult. sive process of displacement. Several years ago, two There is another option, one that we have not yet Asian studentswho hadrecently immigrated to the United claimed in the establishingand referencingof our human States came to me confidentiallyafter class with a puzzle. identities. We cannot ignore the fact that since the fif- They wanted to know why were people like Hazel teenthcentury, what has happenedin the Americas,and to O'Leary (just appointedas U.S. Secretaryof Energy)and varying degrees in many parts of the Third World, has ThurgoodMarshall, Justice of the United States Supreme been the fusion of genetic materialsfrom all of the great Court,identified as "black"in Americansociety when it continents.So-called "racial" mixture has occurredexten- was obvious that they were not. I explained some of the sively in Latin America, and to a lesser extent in North history of the idea of "race"and the interactionsamong America,so thatmost people aredescendants of ancestors peoples in the New World.I also pointedout thatthere is a from Europe, Africa, and the Americas, and in many greatdeal moreto the identifilcationof AfricanAmericans places like the Caribbean,from Asia also (Graham1990; than similaritiesin physical traits,that in fact, biological Morner 1967). Throughoutthe colonial world, complex variations have little to do with the social categories of genetic mixturesamong various peoples have takenplace; race. Indeed the people of the AfricanDiaspora are a bio- and increasinglyEuropeans at home are participantsin, genetically diverse categoryof people who have an iden- andproducts of, new genetic combinationswith individu- tity derivedfrom common experiences of exploitationand als absorbedinto theirsocieties fromdistant lands. 700 AMERICANANTHROPOLOGIST * VOL. 100, NO. 3 * SEPTEMBER1998

In addition to the increasinggenetic heterogeneityof Indians, but their eventual settlementon some of the poorest individualsand groups,there is the obvious fact thatcul- lands in the country.See Berkhofer( 1978), Hoover ( 1976), and tural features have traveled all over the world inde- Pearce([1953] 1988), amongmany others. pendentlyof the spreadof genetic material.In the midstof 7. There were always ulteriormotives involved in the pas- the Saharadesert, signs proclaim"Coca-Cola," everyone sage of the Dawes Act. SomeWesterners clearly recognized that an unstatedintention of thepromoters of the act was to providea from the Siberiantundra to the Melanesianforests wears legal mechanismof takingreservation land away from Indians "jeans,"Afncan clothingand designs arefound from Paris andallocating it to whites.Several provisions of the law allowed to Sydney, Australia,and Americanseat morepizzas and forfeitureof the landunder certain conditions, most of which the tacos(burritos, tortillas, etc.) thanalmost any otherpeople Indianscould not provide.Within fifty years of the passage of outsideof Italy and Mexico. Whiteboys weardreadlocks, the act, the Indianshad lost sixty percentof the land allottedto and Chinese and other Asian, and increasinglyAfrican, them(Hoover 1976;Takaki 1993:238). ethnicrestaurants are found aroundthe world.Fast foods, 8. Bohannanand Curtin(1995:13) have observed that half music, dance, dress, Hollywood Ellms,whole industrial the ancestors of African Americans were already here in the complexes (includingthe worldof computers),and a wide United States by 1780 while the median date for the arrivalof range of political, religious, and social beliefs have dif- European ancestors was "remarkablylate, 1890s." We need fused around the world. Few cultures have not experi- moreof this kindof honestyin recognizinghistorical realities on the partof scholarsin all disciplines. enced the impactof such massive infusionof new traits. 9. Sportsis a culturalarena that has been highly andpublicly The peoples who have resultedfrom all this continuous racialized.So powerfulis the stereotypeof black athleticprow- blending of genetic features and culturaltraits are truly ess that it has spreadaround the world, affecting virtually all "universal"human beings, regardlessof what languages sportsactivities. For a searingand revealing indictment of how they speak or culturesthey participatein. The concept of the conditionedobsession with sportshas damagedthe outlook "universal"human beings might very well in time obviate of black youth while preservingthe stereotypesand myths of racialcategories (but not ethnicidentities) and may help to race, see Hoberman(1997). The even more tragic fact is that bringabout the eliminationof all suchdesignations. Many black boys who cannotexcel in sportstend to have a diminished personswill come to recognizethemselves as "universal" sense of who they areand seem unawareof the otheroptions for humanbeings, andthere should be perhapsan early census excelling thatmight be availableto them. categorythat proclaims this reality.What anthropologists 10. I am referringhere to the works of some psychologists and sociologists who have focused on the coping mechanisms must do is to make sure that the ideas of "ethnicity"and found largely in the black underclass. See especially Ogbu "ethnicidentity" do not become perceivedas hereditary, (1978, 1982), Gibson and Ogbu (1991), and other works by perrnanent,and unalterable,but remain fluid forms of Ogbu. identitythat will makeus all "multicultural." 1 1. The image of blackyouth shooting one anotherfor a pair of athletic shoes or a jackethas mesmerizedthe public over the Notes past several decades. Such incidents reveal not just a warped sense of values, but the confusion of their identities with the 1. Reference materials for this section were taken largely clothing they wore and the failure of our culture to help such fromthe following: Boardmanet al. (1986), Godolphin(1942), youthdevelop a sense of individualworth. and Snowden (1983). But I have readwidely in ancienthistory 12. For a historyof the processby which science conElImed and am awarethat such materialsare not generallyconsidered and buttressedthe racial worldview, see Fredrickson(1987), partof the anthropologicalrepertoire. We need to realize that Haller(1971), Smedley ([1993]1999), andStanton (1960). historicalmaterials are widely availableto all, andwe shoulden- 13. I am thinkingparticularly of the powerfulfilm, Struggles courage studentsto avail themselves of them, especially since in Steel (CaliforniaNewsreel), which has been shown on public Americanstudents have been shown to be woefully ignorantof television. It is a storyof discriminationagainst black workers in historyand geography. the steel industrymade by a steelworker,Ray Henderson,and 2. Herodotuslists morethan two dozen differentnations that filmmakerTonyBuba,1996. fought on the different sides in the Persian wars: Arabians, 14. See Morsy (1994). When Arabsbegan to migrateto the Ethiopians,Armenians, Thracians, Libyans, and many others. Detroitarea several generations ago, manywere frequentlymis- 3. The PersianWars, Book II, p. 130, in Godolphin(1942). taken for blacks. This became an acute problem in the area 4. Morganclaims that the Virginia Assembly "deliberately aroundDearborn, Michigan, where many of themsettled. There did whatit could to foster the contemptof whites for blacks and had long been a law in Dearbornthat prohibited blacks from be- Indians"(1975:331 ). ing in the city aftersundown. The Dearbornpolice, among oth- 5. For insightful analysis of this process, see also Allen ers, were often very confused. (1994, 1997). 6. The tragicand disastrous American policy towardIndians fromthe beginning has been one in whichIndians were removed References Cited from their lands, forced to make treaties that Europeans Allen, TheodoreW. promptlybroke, and their lands were again expropriated.This [1994]1997 The Inventionof the White Race, vols. 1 and 2. vicious cycle contributedto not only the genocide of scores of London:Verso. SMEDLEY / "RACE" AND THE CONSTRUCTIONOF HUMAN IDENTITY 701

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