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Race and Racism
What is race?
We all know people look different. Anyone can tell a Czech from a
Chinese. But are these differences racial? What does race mean?

Are the Ainu a race?

If not, to what race
do they belong?

What do we mean
when we the word
“race?”
Race is a biological concept

Race is a geographically
(hence, reproductively)
isolated subdivision of a
species, or subspecies.

If reproductive isolation
lasts long enough, then
a new species is
produced.
Do human “races” exist?

Human populations have
not been reproductively
isolated long enough to
have developed into
biological races.

Early human classification
into races have been
dependent solely on the
evaluation of phenotype
(manifest biology—
appearance, skin color,
eyes and nose shape, hair
texture, etc.).
Which Race?
English
Algerians
French
Native Americans
Jews
Inuit
Gypsies
Italians
Norwegians
Australian aborigines
Saudi Arabians
Egyptians
Ukranians
South Africans
Koreans
Chinese
Nigerians
The Baka
Ethiopians
New Guineans
Geographic “types” are ambiguous

Only 6% of human genes account for the phenotypical
differences seen between “races.”
 Greater overall
variation exists within
each “racial” grouping
than between such
groups.
 The phenotypic
traits that do exist are
largely adaptive in
nature.
skin color in about 1500 AD-
Compare this map with the previous one
 If human races were as
distinct as many have
assumed, shouldn’t there be
some correlation between skin
color and blood type?
Skin color is a function of
melanin production in the
dermis layer of the skin.
Distribution of Type “O” blood
Melanocytes - cells, located in the
basal layer of the skin, produce melanin,
a pigment in the skin, eyes, and hair.
 Differences in skin color are not due to
the number of melanocytes in the skin,
but to the melanocytes' level of activity
 Skin coloring is adaptive.
Skin pigmentation, Vitamin D, and survival

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Vitamin D not common in nature; the human
body synthesizes it in the skin with the help
of ultraviolet radiation.
Vitamin D is necessary for directing the
body’s use of calcium.
Too much Vitamin D is toxic; too little will
result in rickets – a debilitating bone disease.
Skin pigmentation levels control Vitamin D
production.
Dark skin protects skin from
excessive ultraviolet radiation

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Northern populations, with little sunlight, require
minimal pigmentation to produce Vitamin D.
Tropical populations require protection from too
much ultraviolet radiation and too much Vitamin
D.
Light skinned people are maladapted for tropical
areas.
Dark skinned people are maladated to northern
areas
Hair form types and skin colours
shade into each other; there is no
line in nature between a white
and a black race, or Asian race
Simplistic racial categories
based merely upon a few traits do
not constitute a scientific
approach to human biological
variability.
 while there is plenty of genetic
variation in humans, most of the
variation is individual variation.
While between-population
variation exists, it is minimal
There are no races in the biological sense of
distinct divisions of the human species
The physical traits chosen to define race are
basically arbitrary and could be things such as red
hair, or ear, nose or eye shape
terms like Black, White, Asian, and
Latino are social groups, not
genetically distinct branches of
humankind.
Race is a real cultural, political and
economic concept in society
What race is this man?
ddPaternal
Grandparents
1 White
1 Native American
2 Black
ddMaternal
Grandparents
2 Chinese
2 Thai
Father
Mother
What assumptions
lie behind the
designation of Tiger
Woods as an
“African American”?
• The “drop of blood” theory
• Southern segregation laws: 1/64 black = black
• The obsession to classify people by race in the US:
•These are social, not biological ideas
Race is…
 not a fixed, concrete, natural attribute
 the institutionalisation of physical appearance
 socially or culturally and historically
constructed
 Categories defined and assigned significance by
the society
 social meaning which has been legally
constructed
 shaped by those in power.
an ever changing complex of meanings shaped by sociopolitical
conflict
racial differences exist and are perpetuated because they have
cultural significance
S.Washburn, anthropologist
…the number of races will depend on the purpose
of classification. I think we should require
people who propose a classification of races to
state in the first place why they wish to divide
the human species.
The Anthropological View
Although people obviously differ from each
other physically, we are not able to attribute
differences in culture to differences in
physique (or “mentality”). In our study of
culture, therefore, we may regard human race
as of uniform quality, i.e., as a constant, and,
hence, we eliminate it from our study.—
Leslie White (1900-1975)
Social Meaning of Race Affects
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Access to wealth, power and prestige
Access to education, housing, and other
valued resources
Where you live
How you are treated
Life chances
Health Disparity
• The U.S. Census Bureau began gathering data by race in
1790 because the Constitution specified that a slave counted
as three-fifths of a white person, and because Indians were
not taxed.
• More recently, the way in which information
regarding race is collected has been hotly debated.
– Some social scientists and interested citizens have been
working to add a “multiracial” category to the census.
– This “multiracial” category has been opposed by the
NAACP and the National Council of La Raza because
both groups feel that the communities they represent will
lose access to funding, resources, and jobs if their
numbers as counted by the census go down.
• The choice of “some other race” more than
doubled between 1980 and 2000.
– This represents an imprecision in and dissatisfaction
with the existing categories.
– Also, the number of interracial marriages and
children is increasing.
Some people argue that since race has no biological
existence, the U.S. government should cease collecting
data about race
the American Sociological Association asks “Would
‘Race” Disappear if the United States Officially Stopped
Measuring It?”
“As long as Americans routinely sort each other into
racial categories and act on the basis of those
attributions, research on the role of race and race
relations in the United States falls squarely within [a]
scientific agenda...As the United States becomes
more diverse, the need for public agencies to
continue to collect data on racial categories will
become even more important. The continuation of
the collection and scholarly analysis of data serves
both science and the public interest.” --American
Sociological Assoc.
Statistics Canada
Collects information on
1. Visible minorities
•
persons who are identified according to the Employment
Equity Act as being non-Caucasian in race or non-white in
colour
•
Aboriginal persons are not considered to be members of
visible minority groups
2. Ethnicity
•
includes aspects such as race, origin or ancestry, identity,
language and religion, culture, the arts, customs and beliefs
and even practices such as dress and food preparation.
•
It is also dynamic and in a constant state of flux. It will
change as a result of new immigration flows, blending and
intermarriage, and new identities may be formed.
There are three fundamental ways of measuring
ethnicity: origin or ancestry, race and identity.
Race refers to the genetically imparted
physiognomical features of a person
The change in format to an open-ended question
in 1996 likely affected response patterns, especially for
groups who had been included as mark-in response
categories in 1991.
In addition, the presence of examples such as
"Canadian", which were not included in previous
censuses, may also affect response patterns.
Ethnicity
Each of us has an ethnicity
- frequently confused with race
Shared cultural characteristics of a group
Includes: national origin, language,
traditions, customs, religious beliefs/practices,
etc. as well as racial category
The American Anthropological Association
has recommended that the Census Bureau
eliminate the term "race" and replace it with
"ethnic origins," noting that many Americans
confuse race, ethnicity and ancestry.
A Brief History of race
Race did not exist until the European expansion and exploration
beginning around 1500
The ancient Greeks, for example,
saw themselves as first among civilized
nations around the Mediterranean
But the Greeks did not link physical
appearance and cultural attainment.
They granted civilized status to the
Nile Valley Nubians who were among
the darkest skinned people they knew
 They did not grant it to European
barbarians to the north who were
lighter skinned than they were
 People were divided on the basis of
religion, class or language or status
The distribution of human skin color before A.D. 1400
Slavery
Before the 1400s slavery was widespread in
state societies
 but its victims were either recruited internally
or from neighbouring groups and were largely
physically indistinguishable from slave-holders. Egyptian slaves
i .e. slavery was not based on race
 Slavery was a status that
might be held by anyone.
 Slave descendants could
acculturate into the
dominant population and did
not become permanently
demarcated by race.
Romans slaves pouring wine
After 1500
European exploration brought them increasingly into
contact with other human societies
 Europeans did not
encounter them on
equal terms
 superior
technology,
especially military
technology, meant
Europeans were
significantly more
powerful
As a result, exploration quickly turned to conquest and gave
rise to an Ethnocentric feeling of European superiority.
Pizarro at The Battle of Cajamarca
Nov 16, 1532
Francisco Pizarro
1475–1541)
Pizarro and 168 Spanish Conquistadores with cannons, guns
and horses defeat Atahuallpa, the last independent Inca
emperor and an army of 80,000 precipitating the demise of
the great Incan Empire.
After 1500 a racial
order built on the
ethnocentrism of the
various European
colonial powers.
A Women of
Color with her
African Slave.
1804
What struck explorers most forcefully were differences in physical
appearance particularly skin colour
 An early distinction emerged between those who had black skin as
opposed to had white skin.
This characterisation was important because
of the way in which the colours black and white
were emotionally loaded concepts in European
languages especially English
The contrasts denoted polar opposites
 white represented good, purity and virginity
 black symbolized death, evil and debasement
 Africans, native Americans, and colonised
Asians were devalued, intermarriage was
prohibited and persons of mixed ancestry were
denied same entitlements as those of solely
European ancestry
evident in all European colonial societies by the late 1600s
Races as families or inbred lines
• 16th & 17th C: race used interchangeably with
type, variety, people, nation, generation & species
• By the latter half of the 18th C race is strongly
equated with “breeding stock”
– Farmers and herders understand animal breeds as
highly inbred lineages with heritable characteristics
– Emphasizes innateness of characteristics
– Value judgments were and are critical to choosing the
reproducing members of a line of stock, because one
breeds for some specific, valued quality
The Scientific basis of race
 The concept of race emerged in modern form between the
end of the 18th century and the middle of the 19th.
 Its emergence is, in part, an aspect of the general growth of
scientific enquiry and explanation
 In the 1700s as Western science developed it began thinking
about, and explaining natural and social phenomena and to
place the world’s peoples into natural schemes
a drive was underway to map and explain a similar order in
the natural and social worlds.
Formal Human Classification
Linneaus Systemae Naturae, 1758
• Europeaeus
– White; muscular; hair – long, flowing;
eyes blue
• Americanus
– Reddish; erect; hair – black, straight, thick;
wide nostrils
• Asiaticus
– Sallow (yellow); hair black; eyes dark
• Africanus
– Black; hair – black, frizzled; skin silky; nose
flat; lips tumid
Formal Human Classification
Linneaus Systemae Naturae, 1758
• Europeaeus
– White; muscular; hair – long, flowing;
eyes blue
• Americanus
– Reddish; erect; hair – black, straight, thick;
wide nostrils
• Asiaticus
– Sallow (yellow); hair black; eyes dark
• Africanus
– Black; hair – black, frizzled; skin silky; nose
flat; lips tumid
culminated in 1795 when Johann Friedrich Blumenbach
first used the word ”race” to classify humans into five
divisions
Caucasian,
Johann Friedrich
Malayan
Blumenbach
Ethiopian,
(1752-1840)
American
Mongolian,
Blumenbach also coined the term "Caucasian" because he
believed that the Caucasus region of Asia Minor produced
"the most beautiful race of men".
1830s and 1840s Philadelphia doctor and polygenist Samuel
Morton set out to prove that whites were naturally superior and
that brain size bore a direct relation to intelligence
He collected hundreds of human
skulls and measured them by filling
the skulls with lead pellets and then
pouring the pellets into a glass
measuring cup.
 His tables assign the highest
brain capacity to Europeans (with
the English highest of all). Second
rank goes to Chinese, third to
Southeast Asians and Polynesians,
fourth to American Indians, and
Samuel G. Morton (1799-1851)
last place to Africans and
Australian aborigines.
His work helped establish the scientific basis for physical
anthropology but also the idea that race is inherently biological
In 1977 Stephen Jay Gould (In
the Mismeasure of Man 1981),
reanalysed the data
 discovered that Morton’s racist
bias had prevented identification of
what clearly were fully overlapping
measurements among the racial
skull samples he used.
 Gould in his desire to prove
Morton wrong demonstrated the
opposite bias and discovered that
the skulls of black people were
actually larger.
 He then did a blind test and
discovered the overlapping
measurements
Breaking the link between race and anthropology
Boas in the 1890s broke the
link of anthropology with race
by showing that language,
race and culture were separate
things and needed to be
studied separately.
 Showed that mappings of
Northwest Coast Native
American biological traits,
cultural similarities and
linguistic affinities yielded
different results.
The Concept of race under attack
 The revelation of the Holocaust, and the enlistment
of science in its perpetuation, caused a wave of
international revulsion.
 In the 1960s the idea of race itself became the target
 The anti-racists attacked the notion that the human
species was divisible into five or any other small
number of races.
the result was the gradual disappearance of the
concept of race from natural science
 In the 1960s anthropology affirmed that race does
not exist
Racism
Homo sapiens celebrating
their diversity (from the
American Anthropological
Association Newsletter).
Vending-machine in Jackson,
Tennessee
Jim Crow Laws (1876 – 1967)
What is Racism?
a doctrine or belief in racial superiority, including the idea that
race determines intelligence, cultural characteristics and moral
attributes
Racism thus makes an association between physical
psychological and moral attributes
 and these are used to justify discrimination and prejudice.
“I have a Dream”
Martin Luther King:
‘I have a dream that
my four children
will one day live in a
nation where they
are not judged by
the colour of their
skin but by the
content of their
character’
Racism
 The notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a
person’s genetic lineage
 Which means, in practice, that a person is to be judged, not by
their own character and actions, but by the character and actions of
a collective of ancestors.
 Even if it were proved that the incidence of a person of
potentially superior brain power is greater among the members of
certain races than among the members of others, it would tell us
nothing about any given individual and it would be irrelevant to
one’s judgement of him or her.
 Should a Hitler be raised to superior status because his German
“race” has produced Goethe, Brahms, Wagner, etc.
A genius is a genius, regardless of the number of morons who
belong to the same race - and a moron is a moron, regardless of the
number of geniuses who share his racial origin.
 Racism claims that the content of a
person’s mind (not their cognitive
apparatus, but its content) is inherited;
 that a persons conviction, values and
character are determined before they are
born, by physical factors beyond their
control.
Race is employed in order to classify and
systematically exclude members of given
groups from full participation in the social
system controlled by the dominant group
Levi Strauss sums up racism doctrine in 4 points
1. There is a correlation between genetic heritage on the one
hand and intellectual aptitudes and moral inclinations on the
other
2. All members of human groups share this heritage, on
which these aptitudes and inclinations depend
3. These groups, called races, can be evaluated as a function
of the quality of their genetic heritage
4. These differences authorise the so-called superior races to
command and exploit the others
In examining inequalities anthropologists are not
concerned with inequalities of ability, aptitude or talent
among individuals
But concerned with inequalities that are an inherent part of
collective existence
and that arise from the evaluation of qualities and
performances and the organization of persons into more or
less stable arrangements.
These studies aim at investigating not only the existing
patterns of inequality but also the mechanisms of their
reproduction over time.
A major change between the past and the present has been
the shift of attention from the origin to the reproduction of
inequality.
On April 20th, 1999
two gun-toting
students entered
Columbine High
School in Littleton,
Colo., killing 12
students and a
teacher
What if they had
been black?