DOCSLIB.ORG

Classifying Race

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Classifying Race Classifying Race What is race? humans could also be placed in hierarchies opposites. Fair-skinned The concept of ‘race’ is deeply embedded in where different physical characteristics Europeans were our thinking. Many of us take it as a matter of indicated moral virtues. A popular view considered civilized, fact that people can be grouped into ‘races’ developed, that ‘natural’ inequalities existed intelligent and ‘ruled by according to their origins and appearance. between different ‘racial’ groups, religious custom’ while ‘Race’ asks us to define ourselves and each These theories were the starting point for black Africans were other by dividing characteristics such as skin modern racism, and contributed to the portrayed as lazy, savage, colour. political use of ‘race’ as a method of social crafty and ‘ruled by Carl Linnaeus But, biologically speaking, human beings are and cultural segregation. authority’. in fact just one species or ‘race’. We are one Petrus Camper , a Dutch anatomist believed of the most genetically similar species on the Race, politics and science that the angle of the face of different peoples planet. The small amount of genetic In the 17 th and 18 th centuries the economies showed that black Africans were more like difference between humans that does exist of Europe and America were largely apes than white Europeans. However, often has little to do with where someone dependent on the use of African slave labour. Camper did believe humans were one race comes from. There can be more genetic Yet slavery went against the basic human and openly opposed slavery, famously stating variations between two Chinese people, for rights of freedom and equality that were that ‘all of us are black, only more or less’. example, than between a Chinese and an supposedly championed by American and A scientific understanding African person. ‘Race’ is in fact a social idea European societies. Racial theories were that has evolved over time, and not a genetic used to overcome this contradiction and of difference truth. justify why black Africans could be enslaved Today’s anthropologists (who study the and treated badly. By classing Africans as Race and racism origins and characteristics of human beings) ‘less than human’ it was easier to argue that do not use race to classify humans. During ‘The Enlightenment’ (see ‘The ‘human rights’ did not apply to them. However, while different ‘races’ do not exist, Enlightenment and its impact on medicine) The Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus human beings do of course vary. Genetics is biologists and philosophers developed racial believed that the human species comprised helping us understand those differences and ideas that drew on the ancient idea of ‘The four distinct races: Europeans, Africans, put them in context by allowing us, for Chain of Being’. This theory suggested that American Indians and Asians – a theory instance, to identify those of us who are the universe was naturally ordered in a series known as polygenism. Linnaeus presented susceptible to certain diseases (see ‘An of hierarchies. Some thinkers believed Europeans and Africans as extreme Introduction to Genetics’). .
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Race and Membership in American History: the Eugenics Movement
    Race and Membership in American History: The Eugenics Movement Facing History and Ourselves National Foundation, Inc. Brookline, Massachusetts Eugenicstextfinal.qxp 11/6/2006 10:05 AM Page 2 For permission to reproduce the following photographs, posters, and charts in this book, grateful acknowledgement is made to the following: Cover: “Mixed Types of Uncivilized Peoples” from Truman State University. (Image #1028 from Cold Spring Harbor Eugenics Archive, http://www.eugenics archive.org/eugenics/). Fitter Family Contest winners, Kansas State Fair, from American Philosophical Society (image #94 at http://www.amphilsoc.org/ library/guides/eugenics.htm). Ellis Island image from the Library of Congress. Petrus Camper’s illustration of “facial angles” from The Works of the Late Professor Camper by Thomas Cogan, M.D., London: Dilly, 1794. Inside: p. 45: The Works of the Late Professor Camper by Thomas Cogan, M.D., London: Dilly, 1794. 51: “Observations on the Size of the Brain in Various Races and Families of Man” by Samuel Morton. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences, vol. 4, 1849. 74: The American Philosophical Society. 77: Heredity in Relation to Eugenics, Charles Davenport. New York: Henry Holt &Co., 1911. 99: Special Collections and Preservation Division, Chicago Public Library. 116: The Missouri Historical Society. 119: The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit, 1882; John Singer Sargent, American (1856-1925). Oil on canvas; 87 3/8 x 87 5/8 in. (221.9 x 222.6 cm.). Gift of Mary Louisa Boit, Julia Overing Boit, Jane Hubbard Boit, and Florence D. Boit in memory of their father, Edward Darley Boit, 19.124.
    [Show full text]
  • The Following Essay Was Published in Struggles in the Promised Land , Ed
    [The following essay was published in Struggles in the Promised Land , ed. Jack Salzman and Cornel West (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997) 21-51. It appears here substantially as published but with some additions indicated in this color .] THE CURSE OF HAM: A CASE OF RABBINIC RACISM? David M. Goldenberg In 1604 Fray Prudencio de Sandoval had this to say about the Jew and the Black: Who can deny that in the descendants of the Jews there persists and endures the evil inclination of their ancient ingratitude and lack of understanding, just as in the Negroes [there persists] the inseparable quality of their blackness. 1 His linking of Jew and Black was not unusual. Indeed, the explicit and implicit comparison of these two peoples is found throughout western literature over many centuries. Leslie Fiedler may have been right when he said, “Surely the Negro cannot relish...this improbable and unwanted yoking any more than the Jew.” Nevertheless, yoked they are, at least in the minds of the rest of the world. At various times and in various places, both peoples were said to be genetically diseased, physically and intellectually inferior, cursed by God, oversexed, more animal than human, ugly, smelly, and, of course, associated with the devil. From Jerome and Augustine, who saw biblical Ham as typologically the Jew while biologically the Black, to the 1930’s American graffito “A nigger is a Jew turned inside out,” these two peoples have been typecast as reflections of one another, and as substitutes for one another in society’s categorization of the Other.
    [Show full text]
  • The Hamitic Hypothesis; Its Origin and Functions in Time Perspective Author(S): Edith R
    The Hamitic Hypothesis; Its Origin and Functions in Time Perspective Author(s): Edith R. Sanders Source: The Journal of African History, Vol. 10, No. 4 (1969), pp. 521-532 Published by: Cambridge University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/179896 . Accessed: 08/05/2014 00:32 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Cambridge University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of African History. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 128.95.104.66 on Thu, 8 May 2014 00:32:32 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Journal of African History, x, 4 (I969), pp. 521-532 521 Printed in Great Britain THE HAMITIC HYPOTHESIS; ITS ORIGIN AND FUNCTIONS IN TIME PERSPECTIVE1 BY EDITH R. SANDERS THE Hamitic hypothesis is well-known to students of Africa. It states that everything of value ever found in Africa was brought there by the Hamites, allegedlya branchof the Caucasianrace. Seligmanformulates it as follows: Apart from relatively late Semitic influence... the civilizationsof Africa are the civilizations of the
    [Show full text]
  • Miscegenation” This Page Intentionally Left Blank “Miscegenation” Making Race in America
    “Miscegenation” This page intentionally left blank “Miscegenation” Making Race in America ELISE LEMIRE PENN UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS Philadelphia Copyright © 2002 University of Pennsylvania Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Published by University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4011 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lemire, Elise Virginia. “Miscegenation” : making race in America / Elise Lemire. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 0-8122-2064-3 (alk. paper) 1. American literature—19th century—History and criticism. 2. Miscegenation in literature. 3. Literature and society—United States—History—19th century. 4. Jeff erson, Th omas, 1743–1826—In literature. 5. Racially mixed people in literature. 6. Race relations in literature. 7. Racism in literature. 8. Race in literature. I. Title. PS217.M57 L46 2002 810.9'355—dc21 2002018048 For Jim This page intentionally left blank Contents List of Illustrations ix Introduction: The Rhetorical Wedge Between Preference and Prejudice 1 1. Race and the Idea of Preference in the New Republic: The Port Folio Poems About Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 11 2. The Rhetoric of Blood and Mixture: Cooper’s “Man Without a Cross” 35 3. The Barrier of Good Taste: Avoiding A Sojourn in the City of Amalgamation in the Wake of Abolitionism 53 4. Combating Abolitionism with the Species Argument: Race and Economic Anxieties in Poe’s Philadelphia 87 5. Making “Miscegenation”: Alcott’s Paul Frere and the Limits of Brotherhood After Emancipation 115 Epilogue: “Miscegenation” Today 145 Notes 149 Bibliography 179 Index 191 Acknowledgments 203 This page intentionally left blank Illustrations 1.
    [Show full text]
  • Using Facial Angle to Prove Evolution and the Human Race Hierarchy Jerry Bergman
    Papers Using facial angle to prove evolution and the human race hierarchy Jerry Bergman A measurement technique called facial angle has a history of being used to rank the position of animals and humans on the evolutionary hierarchy. The technique was exploited for several decades in order to prove evolution and justify racism. Extensive research on the correlation of brain shapes with mental traits and also the falsification of the whole field of phrenology, an area to which the facial angle theory was strongly linked, caused the theory’s demise. he use of the facial angle, a method of measuring but also the difference between the human “races”.8 Science Tthe forehead-to-jaw relationship, has a long history historian John Haller concluded that the “facial angle was and was often used to make judgments of inferiority and the most extensively elaborated and artlessly abused criteria superiority of certain human races. University of Chicago for racial somatology.”2 zoology professor Ransom Dexter wrote that the “subject of Supporters of this theory cited as proof convincing, the facial angle has occupied the attention of philosophers but very distorted, drawings of an obvious black African or from earliest antiquity.”1 Aristotle used it to help determine Australian Aborigine as being the lowest type of human and a person’s intelligence and to rank humans from inferior a Caucasian as the highest racial type. The slanting African to superior.2 It was first used in modern times to compare forehead shown in the pictures indicates a smaller frontal human races by Petrus Camper (1722–1789), and it became cortex, such as is typical of an ape, demonstrating to naïve widely popular until disproved in the early 20th century.2 observers their inferiority.
    [Show full text]
  • Crania Japonica: Ethnographic Portraiture, Scientific Discourse, and the Fashioning of Ainu/Japanese Colonial Identities
    Portland State University PDXScholar Dissertations and Theses Dissertations and Theses Fall 1-7-2020 Crania Japonica: Ethnographic Portraiture, Scientific Discourse, and the Fashioning of Ainu/Japanese Colonial Identities Jeffrey Braytenbah Portland State University Follow this and additional works at: https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds Part of the Asian History Commons, and the Asian Studies Commons Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Braytenbah, Jeffrey, "Crania Japonica: Ethnographic Portraiture, Scientific Discourse, and the ashioningF of Ainu/Japanese Colonial Identities" (2020). Dissertations and Theses. Paper 5356. https://doi.org/10.15760/etd.7229 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of PDXScholar. Please contact us if we can make this document more accessible: [email protected]. Crania Japonica: Ethnographic Portraiture, Scientific Discourse, and the Fashioning of Ainu/Japanese Colonial Identities by Jeff Braytenbah A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History Thesis Committee: Kenneth J. Ruoff, Chair Laura Robson Jennifer Tappan Portland State University 2019 © 2019 Jeff Braytenbah Abstract Japan’s colonial activities on the island of Hokkaido were instrumental to the creation of modern Japanese national identity. Within this construction, the indigenous Ainu people came to be seen in dialectical opposition to the 'modern' and 'civilized' identity that Japanese colonial actors fashioned for themselves. This process was articulated through travel literature, ethnographic portraiture, and discourse in scientific racism which racialized perceived divisions between the Ainu and Japanese and contributed to the unmaking of the Ainu homeland: Ainu Mosir.
    [Show full text]
  • Why Mammals Are Called Mammals: Gender Politics in Eighteenth-Century Natural History Author(S): Londa Schiebinger Source: the American Historical Review, Vol
    Why Mammals are Called Mammals: Gender Politics in Eighteenth-Century Natural History Author(s): Londa Schiebinger Source: The American Historical Review, Vol. 98, No. 2 (Apr., 1993), pp. 382-411 Published by: American Historical Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2166840 Accessed: 22/01/2010 10:27 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=aha. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. American Historical Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The American Historical Review. http://www.jstor.org Why Mammals Are Called Mammals: Gender Politics in Eighteenth-Century Natural History LONDA SCHIEBINGER IN 1758, IN THE TENTH EDITION OF HIS Systema naturae, Carolus Linnaeus introduced the term Mammaliainto zoological taxonomy.
    [Show full text]
  • Race and Genealogy
    Race and Genealogy. Buffon and the Formation of the Concept of “ Race ” Claude-Olivier Doron To cite this version: Claude-Olivier Doron. Race and Genealogy. Buffon and the Formation of the Concept of “Race”. Humana.Mente: Journal of Philosophical Studies, 2012, 22, pp.75 - 109. halshs-01508913 HAL Id: halshs-01508913 https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01508913 Submitted on 14 Apr 2017 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Race and Genealogy: Buffon and the Formation of the Concept of “Race” Claude-Olivier Doron * [email protected] ABSTRACT This article analyses the conditions of formation of the concept of “race” in natural history in the middle of the eighteenth century. Relying on the method of historical epistemology to avoid some of the aporias raised by the traditional historiography of “racism”, it focuses on the peculiarities of the concept of “race” in contrast to other similar concepts such as “variety”, “species” and tries to answer the following questions: to what extent the concept of “race” was integrated in natural history’s discourses before the middle of the eighteenth century? To which kind of concepts and problems was it linked and to which style of reasoning did it pertain? To which conditions could it enter natural history and develop in it? The article argues that “race” pertained to a genealogical style of reasoning which was largely extraneous to natural history before the middle of the eighteenth century.
    [Show full text]
  • Scientific Racism and the Legal Prohibitions Against Miscegenation
    Michigan Journal of Race and Law Volume 5 2000 Blood Will Tell: Scientific Racism and the Legal Prohibitions Against Miscegenation Keith E. Sealing John Marshall Law School Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjrl Part of the Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons, Law and Race Commons, Legal History Commons, and the Religion Law Commons Recommended Citation Keith E. Sealing, Blood Will Tell: Scientific Racism and the Legal Prohibitions Against Miscegenation, 5 MICH. J. RACE & L. 559 (2000). Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjrl/vol5/iss2/1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Michigan Journal of Race and Law by an authorized editor of University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. BLOOD WILL TELL: SCIENTIFIC RACISM AND THE LEGAL PROHIBITIONS AGAINST MISCEGENATION Keith E. Sealing* INTRODUCTION .......................................................................... 560 I. THE PARADIGM ............................................................................ 565 A. The Conceptual Framework ................................ 565 B. The Legal Argument ........................................................... 569 C. Because The Bible Tells Me So .............................................. 571 D. The Concept of "Race". ...................................................... 574 II.
    [Show full text]
  • Anthropology, History Of
    Encyclopedia of Race and Racism, Vol1 – finals/ 10/4/2007 11:59 Page 93 Anthropology, History of Jefferson, Thomas. 1944. ‘‘Notes on the State of Virginia.’’ In defend that institution from religious abolitionists, who The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson, edited by called for the unity of God’s children, and from Enlight- Adrienne Koch and William Peden. New York: Modern enment critics, who called for liberty, fraternity, and American Library. equality of man. During the early colonial experience in Lewis, R. B. 1844. Light and Truth: Collected from the Bible and Ancient and Modern History Containing the Universal History North America, ‘‘race’’ was not a term that was widely of the Colored and Indian Race; from the Creation of the World employed. Notions of difference were often couched in to the Present Time. Boston: Committee of Colored religious terms, and comparisons between ‘‘heathen’’ and Gentlemen. ‘‘Christian,’’ ‘‘saved’’ and ‘‘unsaved,’’ and ‘‘savage’’ and Morton, Samuel. 1844. Crania Aegyptiaca: Or, Observations on ‘‘civilized’’ were used to distinguish African and indige- Egyptian Ethnography Derived from Anatomy, History, and the nous peoples from Europeans. Beginning in 1661 and Monuments. Philadelphia: J. Penington. continuing through the early eighteenth century, ideas Nash, Gary. 1990. Race and Revolution. Madison, WI: Madison about race began to circulate after Virginia and other House. colonies started passing legislation that made it legal to Pennington, James, W. C. 1969 (1841). A Text Book of the enslave African servants and their children. Origins and History of the Colored People. Detroit, MI: Negro History Press. In 1735 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus com- pleted his first edition of Systema Naturae, in which he attempted to differentiate various types of people scientifi- Mia Bay cally.
    [Show full text]
  • Race As a Legal Concept
    University of Colorado Law School Colorado Law Scholarly Commons Articles Colorado Law Faculty Scholarship 2012 Race as a Legal Concept Justin Desautels-Stein University of Colorado Law School Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.law.colorado.edu/articles Part of the Conflict of Laws Commons, Jurisprudence Commons, Law and Race Commons, and the Legal History Commons Citation Information Justin Desautels-Stein, Race as a Legal Concept, 2 COLUM. J. RACE & L. 1 (2012), available at https://scholar.law.colorado.edu/articles/137. Copyright Statement Copyright protected. Use of materials from this collection beyond the exceptions provided for in the Fair Use and Educational Use clauses of the U.S. Copyright Law may violate federal law. Permission to publish or reproduce is required. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Colorado Law Faculty Scholarship at Colorado Law Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Articles by an authorized administrator of Colorado Law Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. +(,121/,1( Citation: 2 Colum. J. Race & L. 1 2012 Provided by: William A. Wise Law Library Content downloaded/printed from HeinOnline Tue Feb 28 10:02:56 2017 -- Your use of this HeinOnline PDF indicates your acceptance of HeinOnline's Terms and Conditions of the license agreement available at http://heinonline.org/HOL/License -- The search text of this PDF is generated from uncorrected OCR text. -- To obtain permission to use this article beyond the scope of your HeinOnline license, please use: Copyright Information 2012 COLUMBIA JOURNAL OF RACE AND LAW RACE AS A LEGAL CONCEPT JUSTIN DESAUTELS-STEIN* Race is a /el cocpangie a/Il corncepts, it is a matrix of rules.
    [Show full text]
  • Theorising Race and Evolution – German Anthropologie's Utilisation of Australian Aboriginal Skeletal Remains During the Long Nineteenth Century
    Theorising Race and Evolution – German Anthropologie's utilisation of Australian Aboriginal skeletal remains during the Long Nineteenth Century Antje Kühnast A thesis in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctorate of Philosophy University of New South Wales School of Humanities and Languages Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences September 2017 1 THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES Thesis/Dissertation Sheet Surname or Family name: Kühnast First name: Antje Other name/s: Abbreviation for degree as given in the University calendar: PhD School: Humanities and Languages Faculty: Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Title: Theorising race and evolution – German Anthropologie's utilisation of Australian Aboriginal skeletal remains during the Long Nineteenth Century Abstract 350 words maximum: (PLEASE TYPE) This thesis investigates the German physical anthropological discourse on Australian Aborigines during the long nineteenth century. It particularly explores, on the basis of contemporaneous German-language scientific publications, the way in which German physical anthropologists utilised Australian Aboriginal skeletal remains for their theorising on human diversity and evolution. One focus lies on the discussion of the Neuholländer or Australier in its various manifestations: ranging from the speculative theorising of the late Enlightenment period to the natural scientific, physical anthropological investigations of the mid-nineteenth to early twentieth centuries. It is shown that German physical anthropologists first relied on, and
    [Show full text]