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. Dialogue & Nexus | Fall 2015-Spring 2016 |Volume 3 1 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. Dialogue & Nexus | Fall 2015-Spring 2016 |Volume 3 2 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 White Americans 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.