Race Relations Dialogue & Nexus | Fall 2015-Spring 2016 |Volume 3 Race Relations: A dialogue between Science and Theology on the Basis of Race Shanice Latham Department of Biology; College of Arts and Sciences Abilene Christian University

When the topic of race is breached the emotions expressed can range from extreme feelings of guilt to extreme feelings of anger. Why is a word that is, today, commonly associated with a person’s skin color and other physical characteristics responsible for such strong emotional reactions? Much of the violence, poverty, injustice, and hurt in the world has been and is caused by racial division. With the continued use of such an arbitrary system as race these issues will continue to persist and deteriorate. This paper will explore the origin, as well as scientific and theological perspectives of race and race relations as it impacts prejudice against groups not one's own. I will conclude the race relations is profoundly impacted by the evolution of the theological and scientific ideas of race.

Despite the fact that it has been over person’s character, in today’s society, than 150 years since the abolition of slavery in the actual person themselves. both Europe and the Americas much of the mentality of slavery still persists. Race is a What is race? concept born during a time of severe The question “what is race” is a oppression in order to justify the incredibly loaded question because often times a cruel acts brought about by human beings person's view of race depends on geography, upon other human beings. The fact that the time period and the individual being asked. oppressors looked significantly different However, if one were to look up “race” than those being oppressed gave birth to according to Merriam Webster they would what is today known as race. Such a discover two things: 1) that the primary miniscule difference in appearance became definition of race has nothing to do with the foundation for much of today's social grouping a set of people based on certain and political upheavals. physical characteristics and 2) instead, it has Today the shade of a person’s skin is to do with competitive running. The often used to predict their life expectancy, definition of race that is useful to this socioeconomic status and overall quality of conversation derives from the old Italian life. Yet, very few people have a working word razza and is used to indicate a group of understanding of what exactly race is. When people that are identifiable by shared asked to define race, a variety of answers are physical characteristics and interests.1 It is given from the shade of a person’s skin to the third definition of race found in Merriam the shape of their nose or eyes to the way Webster even though in the current that they talk. The definition of race does American political climate it would be the not seem to be a concrete one. Despite the number one definition given by most lack of a concrete definition, race is viewed Americans to answer the question “what is as a more powerful defining factor of a race.”

1 Fairbanks, D.J. (2015), 14.

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Race Relations Dialogue & Nexus | Fall 2015-Spring 2016 |Volume 3 History has established that race has and religion, amongst other things like to do with how a person looks, their conqueror and conquered. intellectual ability and their health. It was Often when race is brought up not until fairly recently that scientists have people commonly think of the two found that race, as it is commonly defined predominant “races," Black and White. today, has no genetic basis and therefore is However, there are more races than just not a predictor of a person’s physical these. Racial division looks different appearance, intellectual ability or their depending on the continent and time period health. Instead, a variety of factors inside being referenced. On the continent of and outside the genome influence the Australia it was between the British, the development of physical appearance, aboriginal people, and Chinese.2 In intellect and health. The mere color of a Germany it was between the non-Jewish person’s skin has very little to do with how Germans and the Jewish and non-white smart they will be or how long they can occupants of Germany. On the island of expect to live. Yet, these ideas still persist Hispaniola it is between the Afro-French and people are still told that their race is an Haitians and the mostly white Spanish important social, health, and political factor Dominicans. Each country has different everyday through both private and public views on race and the history behind why relations. The answers to why such an the divide exists is almost always one of unscientific idea still has such a stronghold wars and conquests. on a generation that is becoming known for Wars and conquests are at the root of its scientific and technological intellect lies American history and mark the beginning of within history. Race has a long and the racial divide. Long before African unsurpassed history that if not studied and Slaves would arrive on the eastern coast of understood by society can go wholly America there was a racial war already unnoticed and unfortunately underestimated taking place between America’s new in its impact on everyday life. colonists and the Native Americans. Much of the dispute between these two groups of History of Race people was cultural and based upon a lack of Race, in the context it is used today understanding, which tends to be the is about 500 years old, relatively young if foundation of most racial divisions. English viewed in the context of the existence of colonists came to America for many reasons humans. However, the recentness of race including religious freedom, fortune, and does not negate its impact. Many people land prospects to name just a few. When would subconsciously hypothesize that race they arrived they were met by people looked came before slavery or that race was the slightly different and had a culture that was foundation for slavery, when in fact it is the vastly different than their own. Some settlers exact opposite. Humans had been enslaving like the Quakers saw the Native Americans one another for hundreds of years before as an evangelism opportunity while other race even entered the picture. When one settlers like the Puritans saw them as a group of people conquered another during hindrance to the promise that God had for war it was commonplace for those who were them.3 defeated to become the slaves of their Depending on the lens that one conquerors. Before race came to be, looked through the Native Americans were societies were divided based on language either looked upon as culturally inept

2 Fairbanks, D.J. (2015), 142. 3 Bayor, R. H. (2004), 4.

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Race Relations Dialogue & Nexus | Fall 2015-Spring 2016 |Volume 3 savages or a people equally worthy of God’s White counterparts led a somewhat amicable redeeming love. Unfortunately as more life. Many of the slaves imported to America English settlers arrived with their foreign during the mid-seventeenth century knew diseases and equally foreign ideas they how to speak English and were well versed pushed the Native Americans out of a land on many English customs, so the move to that many had known most of their lives. America was not a big culture shock for Fear of the unknown became prominent in these seventeenth century slaves.4 During both the Native American and English this time many of the other servants were settlers mind. This fear slowly gave way to White indentured servants, who endured anger and anger led to war and the near much of the same treatment from their eradication of a group of people from their masters as their African counterparts. In homeland. This time period gave birth to a fact, in the 1650s and 1660s marriages racial tension that still exists today between between free Black men and free White many and Native women were not uncommon nor was it Americans. uncommon for those same free Black men to While the Native Americans were be landowners.5 The ability to speak English being pushed out of their homeland, the and the understanding of English customs Africans were being taken away from theirs. was crucial to the success of the free Black The Black and White racial divide is man in the mid-1600s. For this short period historically most prominent in North during early slavery in America the color of America. Despite what some people may a person’s skin was just a color and nothing believe, race has not always been what it is else. today. Race did not become a common term However, when the demand for more until the transatlantic slave trade of the laborers to cultivate the land increased and eighteenth century. During this time period a the supply of White indentured servants unique set of circumstances led to the decreased, much of the labor shifted to the establishment of race, as it is used today. use of slavery. With this shift the divide The people being enslaved had similar between Blacks and Whites became more physical characteristics and a culture pronounced. Instead of both Whites and completely foreign to that of their enslavers blacks sharing some of the same life which isolated them from each other. In experiences such as servitude to a common order to explain this difference and justify master, the racial lines became distinctly the reasoning behind the continued drawn between those who were slaves and enslavement of a group of people whose those who were masters. Laws began to home was thousands of miles across the become more racially divided as the close of ocean, the idea of race was born. the seventeenth century approached. By The first slaves set foot on American 1691 laws were passed that prohibited any soil at the end of the seventeenth century. White colonist from marrying a person who But it was not until the eighteenth century was Indian, African, or mulatto.6 In the span when the transatlantic slave trade really of 30 years permanent racial lines were became prominent that the dynamics of the drawn and the categories of races that Black and White racial divide became people know today were cemented into cemented in American history. Prior to this American history. it could be said that African slaves and their

4 Bayor, R.H. (2004), 11. 6 Bayor, R.H. (2004), 12. 5 Bayor, R.H. (2004), 12.

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Race Relations Dialogue & Nexus | Fall 2015-Spring 2016 |Volume 3 As time progressed and important Instead, the twenty-first century gave historical events like the American birth to this new idea of color-blindness. Revolution of 1700s, the Civil War of Color-blindness is the idea that no longer do 1860s, and the of people see race, in fact they do not even 1960s took place these divisions became recognize color, instead people look past the broader. In each of those pivotal times the exterior and judge a person by their conflict between different perceived racial character. Although this idea seems like the groups, especially Blacks and Whites best possible solution to the race problem it became even more pronounced. During the is actually the antithesis of what racial American Revolution many Blacks joined equality actually means. Color-blindness is forces with the British in hopes of gaining impossible because the history of race is too their freedom from their American masters. deep and too painful to be erased from the The American Civil War was primarily a human psyche. Just because one does not fight for the freedom of Blacks from the acknowledge color does not mean that oppressive forces of their White masters. Blacks, Native Americans, and Latinos are The ending of the Civil War should have, not at a disparity when it comes to things theoretically, been the ending of racial like healthcare, education and job status. division. Instead, the ending of slavery Being color blind does not erase the racial further divided the races. Whites and Blacks homogeneity of suburban areas or the became enemies in the late nineteenth and ghetto. These problems, which are the very early twentieth centuries. Blacks were foundations of , will continue to exist discriminated against publically and Whites despite an attempt to be color-blind. Race is became the oppressive monsters in the a fiction; it is a myth but it is a myth that minds of every Black child. will always exist because racism, which is a The 1960s showcased the fears and fact, continues to exist today. prejudices of Americans like no other time in American history. A mere 56 years ago, Scientific View of Race Blacks and Whites could not drink from the In science, race has always existed same water fountain, use the same restrooms but it has existed in a different context than or simply walk through the same door. Race it is applied when used in reference to the had become such a defining factor of society human population. Scientific races, also that it was the norm for people of opposite called subspecies, are populations of species colors to never interact with each other in that have barriers to mating which causes their lifetime. When the demand for equality morphological or genetic variations in that came it was met with much resistance not population.7 For example, let’s say there is a just from Whites but from Blacks also. group of Blue Jays living off the coast of People had become so comfortable in their Florida and some natural phenomenon separate societies that the implications of a happens that separates the Blue Jays into world where Black and White constantly two populations- one that stays on the coast mixed every single day was daunting to say of Florida and the other that ends up on an the least. When the Civil Rights movement island in the Bahamas. Hundreds of ended and equality was gained, for the most thousands of years pass by without contact part, many people in America thought that between these two populations of Blue Jays. was the end of race and racism. Both groups are still Blue Jays however the group that lives on an island has slight

7 Sussman, R.W. (2014), 5.

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Race Relations Dialogue & Nexus | Fall 2015-Spring 2016 |Volume 3 variations that differentiate them from their that there was only one human species and mainland counterparts but the variations are that the differences in human variation were not so drastic as to make them an entirely not major enough to classify into racial new species. This is the scientific meaning categories, he still developed and publish a of race, more commonly known as a human racial classification system in 1775. subspecies. From this explanation it should This classification system divides humans have been clear that there are no biological into five hierarchical races: Caucasian, races among humans since history has American Indian, Malay, Oriental, and cataloged a continuous intermixing of African. These five races still exist today populations despite large geographic and are the foundation for what today in distances. America is commonly known as Equal However, scientists still continued to Employment Opportunity Commission search for a justification of human variation Survey. If one applies for any job in in the context of biological races. In Spain, America they are asked to use during the Spanish inquisition, race and Blumenbach’s racial classification system to ethnicity became the primary mode of identify their race. discriminating against a certain group of Although Blumenbach and many people. When Christopher Columbus came other scientists of the eighteenth and to the Americas, race and ethnicity was nineteenth century believed that there was again used to discriminate against Native only one human species and that human Americans. The Spanish justified their diversity was not a justification for racial mistreatment of Native Americans by classification, they still ascribed to the idea claiming that they were subhumans, who of racial classification. The existence of had no soul.8 This idea of there being a race hierarchical races was the only way that that was subhuman and deserving of Whites could justify the mistreatments of mistreatment was an important factor in the non-whites. Many scientists, who were development and institutionalization of wealthy landowners, stood to lose a lot when slavery. slavery and colonialism were called into Science became an integral part in question. The establishment of biological the institutionalization of slavery and other races silenced any questions as to whether or discriminatory actions when scientists began not non-whites were really inferior and to seek answers to human variation in skin permanently established Whites as the color, eye color and other physical superior race. characteristics. Carl Linnaeus, an important This idea of Whites as superior to all figure in the development of modern biology other variation of people became the and the founder of taxonomy, classified foundation of at the turn of the humans based on their education and the twentieth century. The Eugenics Movement climate they lived in. This idea that changes changed the way that race was viewed and is in climate as the cause of human variation the foundation of modern racism. The means continued to influence many scientists by which eugenics further established during this time period. One of which was biological races came in the form of eighteenth century general physician and genetics. For a considerable amount of time anatomist Johann Blumenbach. It is because eugenics and genetics were inseparable of Blumenbach that the term “caucasian” fields of science founded on the belief that exists today. Though Blumenbach believed within the human genome lies the answers

8 Sussman, R.W. (2014), 13.

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Race Relations Dialogue & Nexus | Fall 2015-Spring 2016 |Volume 3 to human diversity. Eugenics was focused However, only a few decades later in on finding the original perfect race created 1950, all of the Eugenic Movement's by God, a race believed by many to be light assertions about the biological foundation in both hair, eye, and skin color. Many of race was debunked when the United eugenicists, like Charles Davenport, Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural correlated negative social behaviors like Organization (UNESCO) released a insanity and lawlessness with certain races statement stating that despite years of and cited that such behaviors were inherited scientific theories and research that says through certain genes that was found only in otherwise race is a mere myth based more certain races.9 This became the justification on social principles rather than biological used for the mass sterilization of criminals ones.10 This idea that race is a myth, a social and mentally unstable individuals during the construction developed by the leaders of first three decades of the twentieth century society for political and economical in America. purposes was supported by the work of Along with the horrific mass Ashley Montagu, an , that sterilization in North America and the suggested that there was no such thing as extermination of thousands of Jews in Nazi race but instead that racial traits were Germany, the Eugenics Movement also actually clines. Clines have to do with the contributed greatly to the establishment of gradation of a particular trait. This gradation many of America’s segregation laws of the accounts for much of the geographical early twentieth century. The growing study distribution seen when one looks at certain of genetics established the idea of racial racial characteristics like skin and eye color. heredity. Francis Galton, the founder of The distribution of these traits are less eugenics, had a profound effect on this idea discrete as many were made to believe and of racial heredity. Before Galton human instead are gradual in their distribution over variation was seen as coincidental, people time and geography. This is why it is not who live in the same region for large periods totally inconceivable that a dark skin person of times just happened to have the same could have blue eyes. These two physical physical characteristics. However, Galton characteristics are independently distributed used genetics and mathematical methods to and many factors affect the expression of study the heredity of human variation. By such traits. Therefore, having the gene for combining heredity and race, Galton blonde hair does not necessarily mean that redefined race as a biological entity. He you will also have the gene for blue eyes. proposed the idea that those physical Even more complex is the idea that traits characteristics that made a person White or like skin color and eye color are rarely Black are hereditary and thus justifies the determined by a single genetic factor, existence of biological races. Galton and his instead, they are determined by multiple counterparts shifted race from the factors-which is known as polygenic observable skin color to the unobservable inheritance. genes. This transition made race something Despite all the recent genetic and that could never be extinguished from the anthropological evidence that now says race human psyche since it was now believed to is a myth the ideas of Davenport and lie in the very intricate crevices of our Blumenbach are still prominent today. genetic code. Recent genetic studies have dismantled Blumenbach’s human racial classification

9 Yudell, M. (2014), 14. 10 Sussman, R.W. (2014), 1.

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Race Relations Dialogue & Nexus | Fall 2015-Spring 2016 |Volume 3 system of 1775 with the discovery that were different physically and intellectually, humankind originated in Africa. Thus the system of slavery was a way to help making every single person on the face of them in their physical and intellectual the earth, despite skin color, African. Even deficits.13 Two theories developed in order with this discovery conventional racial to explain these deficits: the Pre-Adamite classification still exists. Despite the and Degenerate theory. The Pre-Adamite shocking statistic that 85% of variation is and the Degenerate theories explore the found among racial groups rather than origin of human species and how human between perceived racial groups, race variation came to be. The Pre-Adamite categories still exist.11 This begs the theory proposed that races like Native question if science has erased the existence American and Black were not descendants of race from the genome why does it still of Adam and Eve, instead their origin lies in exist in the human psyche? the time period before the existence of Adam and Eve. This existence before Adam Theology’s View of Race and Eve meant that Native Americans, 1 Corinthians 12:13 says that “ we are Blacks, and other minorities could not be all baptized by one Spirit into one body- human since humanity is biblically said to whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or have begun with Adam and Eve. So it was free- and we were all made to drink of one justifiable that they be treated as inferior in Spirit.”12 This should be the foundation for relation to those who were the rightful theology’s view of race, which should be descendants of Adam and Eve, those who that there are no races because everyone is a are white. The Degenerate theory, on the part of one body and spirit. However, the other hand, proposed that all humans were relationship between the Christian faith and descendants of God however, minorities race has been a long and complicated one. were inferior because of variation in climate During times of , and conditions of life that led to their non- when the Church should have been the white status.14 This variation was not the protector of those who were being fault of non-whites so it was the persecuted for the color of their skin, the responsibility of those who were White to Church chose instead to uphold the racist aid the rehabilitation of those who were status quo of the times. Many of those non-white from their degenerative condition. leading the Church benefiting from the Another explanation that many early status quo financially and politically. During theologians ascribed to in order to justify the the times of slavery, many pastors preached existence of slavery and racial that it was God’s will for Black men to be discrimination was the curse of Ham.15 This slaves to their White counterparts. They curse was issued by Abraham to his son cited scriptures like Ephesians 6:5 and Ham’s descendants after Ham saw Colossians 3:22 as justification for the Abraham’s nakedness when Abraham had continued existence of slavery and drunkenly fallen asleep and exposed. encouraged slaves to obey their masters as a Because of this, Abraham cursed Ham’s means to gaining entrance into eternity. descendants to a life of bondage to his Early theologians took it a step brothers. It was commonly believed that the further by suggesting that because slaves descendants of Ham were cursed with both

11 Fairbanks, D.J. (2015), 22. 14 Sussman, R.W. (2014), 14. 12 NLT 15 Shelton, J.E. (2012), 35. 13 Shelton, J.E. (2012), 35.

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Race Relations Dialogue & Nexus | Fall 2015-Spring 2016 |Volume 3 dark skin and a life of bondage.16 Many love one’s neighbor if the neighbors refused believed that Africans were the descendants to even worship in the presence of one of Ham and that this was justification another. This segregation of the churches enough for the subjugation of the African still exists today despite the recent efforts people. The Church was a big supporter of many evangelicals have put forth to end it. the curse of Ham and used it as a way to The segregation of the Church is just a continue to divide followers by race. smaller manifestation of the segregation of Despite the teachings of Church the world, though it seems harmless and leaders, Blacks still found hope in the unintentional it is in fact, detrimental and Christian faith. They ascribed to the same socially constructed to uphold an age old beliefs as their White slave masters but status quo, one that breathes separation and practiced in a vastly different way. For miscommunication between races. Blacks, the Christian faith came to represent a story of liberation not just from sin but Conclusion from the oppressive forces of their fellow Both science and theology have had man. For this reason, there seems to be an major effects on society’s view of race and almost emotionally charged reawakening in racism. Both now claim that races do not the services of a Black congregation. This exist, that all people are the same in the eyes reawakening and emotionally driven of both God and science. But both still atmosphere can be intimidating and subconsciously ascribe to the principles of uncomfortable for those who do not race. Science through its ideas of racially understand the oppression and bondage that defined health disparities and theology fuels their emotions. With the ending of through its continued segregated Sunday slavery and the institualization of services. Karen Fields and Barbara Fields segregation the Church became place that explained these prevailing ideas of race as many Blacks would congregate and discuss Racecraft, "a way of seeing, understanding the racial climate. The Church was the and reflecting on [the] world, even when birthplace of many of the Civil Rights there is no rational basis for a certain Movement's most influential leaders, Martin worldview”.17 Luther King Jr being one of its most The human brain likes to categorize influential. and create patterns; race is the easiest way It was Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. for the brain to conceptualize physical and who famously said that Sunday morning was cultural differences. Unfortunately, when the most segregated hour of the week and he these generalizations are made barriers are was absolutely right. The Church has always erected and judgements are passed without been segregated, in the beginning that looking at the evidence. Race, is a complex segregation existed under the same roof with social construction, and if people are not the Blacks sitting in one section and the consciously aware of it they fall prey into Whites sitting in another. Today, that thinking that the monster it has created in segregation is even more drastic and the two the form of racism no longer exists. Authors rarely even share the same roof. Dr. King Emerson and Smith said it best when they saw something wrong with the fact that said that people are born into a racialized Whites and Blacks could not even worship society that “does not require racism or together. He thought it was against the prejudice as they are typically defined” Bible’s second greatest commandment to instead this racialized society is one that

16 Fairbanks, D.J. (2015), 46. 17 Yudell, M. (2014), 4.

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Race Relations Dialogue & Nexus | Fall 2015-Spring 2016 |Volume 3 occurs by choice.18 People choose daily to of today’s social, political and economical separate themselves racially by who they problems. This difference of worldview is marry, where they live, the music they listen the very reason why racism will continue to to and where they worship. The statistics on exist and why society will continue to be these matters show that no other factor so racialized. To end racism means a divides these categories than racialization. reawakening to the problems of the past, it These are unconscious choices that people means seriously discussing the problems of make everyday but they are choices that the future and it means re-evaluating the continue to greatly affect the racial divide. means by which people are judged across Depending on who is asked the the world, especially in America. If we wish answer to whether racism still exist varies to overcome racism we must learn the but the answer to this question should not history of race and talk about the place it has depend on who is asked. It should not in society today. Only by educating people depend on where one lives or what color on the history of the development and their skin is, but it does. Racism is not an establishment of race can we ever hope to issue for those who do not suffer from many combat the destructiveness of racism.

Literature Cited Bayor, R.H. (2004). The Columbia Documentary History of Race and Ethnicity in America. New York: Press. Emerson, M. O., & Smith, C. (2001). Divided by faith: evangelical religion and the problem of race in America. New York: Oxford University Press. Fairbanks, D. (2015). Everyone is African. New York: Prometheus Books. Robinson, E. A. (2012). Race and Theology. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press. Shelton, J. E., & Emerson, M. O. (2012). Blacks and Whites in Christian America: how racial discrimination shapes religious convictions. New York: Press. Sussman, R. W. (2014). The Myth of Race: the troubling persistence of an unscientific idea. Cambridge, MA: Press. Yudell, M. (2014). Race Unmasked: biology and race in the 20th Century. New York: Columbia University Press.

18 Emerson, M. (2002), 11.

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