do white people ever feel bad about the social order they've created in America?
- Thread starter Artistic
- Start date
it's a class issue, but race has become it's own problem. Yes, poor white people are to blame as well (especially those from the 20th century) because history has proven from the Irish to the Jews, the different 'white' ethnicities jumped on the white bandwagon and hated/exploited other non-white people instead of fighting side by side for equality for all. But what can you say, America is a state that pushes capitalizing on others mistakes (wheter they be in good or bad faith) and that's what the masses of whites did.
It's not my goddamn responsibility to change the world because of the color of my skin.
Do I want to change the world? Yes. Do I feel responsible because I'm white? Fuck you.
Do I want to change the world? Yes. Do I feel responsible because I'm white? Fuck you.
Props:
milkky and milkky
I don't, but I benefit from black privilege because the Moors conquered Sicily and some other Mediterranean European countries centuries back, but they were expelled and demonized but I benefit from that privilege. You know it's comparable to white privilege in America. I mean even though they still run America it only gives them a slight advantage, to my black Moorish advantage, like half a percent or something.
If you think this is the point I was trying to make, I feel sorry for your ability to comprehend. Either way, instead of trying to explain what other people are thinking, which you are apparently completely unable to do, why don't I take a stab at explaining myself?
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To answer Heresy's question, of course I have benefitted from white privilege. Despite this, I think white privilege is unfair, and I think the social order should be changed. But my feelings are based on the fact that I've assessed the world, came up with my own notions of rights and wrongs, and, based on those notions of fairness, have found the system to be patently unfair. I would feel this way if I were white, black, yellow, Puerto Rican or Haitian. I don't think that my feelings on the topic are any way based on the fact that I'm white, or that I have an inherent guilt attached to my whiteness. I don't think being white is like being born with original sin, where I must pay for the misdoings of my forefathers. Nor should any race feel this way for any reason. (If you really think about it, it is this exact same type of thinking that has Israel and Hamas fighting with each other. This thinking does much more harm than good, assigning blame to various groups based on ancestry rather than working to deal with the actual problem.)
For example, Sicily was sacked by the Moors. (If you disagree with this example, get over yourself and move on to the point.) And this is the point: Moorish occupation of Sicily created a new social order. Good, bad, right, wrong, permanent, brief, whatever. A new social order was created. That really can't be argued, unless you're a fucking moron.
So, reversing the question, should a "Moorish" person feel bad that something that was done by their forefathers affected the social order of another country? No at all. Should a "white" person feel bad that something that was done by their forefathers affected the social order of a country? Not at all.
If a system is fucked, a system is fucked. It's based on many factors, and I don't think any sort of "guilt" should be attached to an individual just because of their race. Basically, I guess what I'm trying to say is what is the purpose of pointing fingers and assigning blame? To me, it's just someone simple minded being bitter.
Sicily was basically an example to help people look at the same question in a different light. Apparently, some people have a hard time being introspective, especially when they have to rethink their ideologies, or cast themselves in the same light as the group which they chose to demonize.
But stripping it away, I didn't mean to highlight the differences between the two, but instead the similarities. Nobody should ever look at a social situation and say I feel bad, or I have guilt, because I come from a race that created this situation. They could say, "well, my group has benefitted from this, and because I have been benefitted, I now stand in a position of power, and I can use that position of power to help those who are less fortunate." In fact, I would argue it is their responsibility to do so.
But in no way should anybody feel a sense of obligation based solely on their race and events that transpired prior to their birth.
I think this is a pretty fair and accurate assessment that all of you should be able to grasp, unless your name is Dhadnot. Then you'd just get caught up on Sicily being a poor example, and find yourself unable to move past that.
Not sure why I'm explaining myself when 99% of you get this, but for the other 1%, here's your ammo, have at me.
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To answer Heresy's question, of course I have benefitted from white privilege. Despite this, I think white privilege is unfair, and I think the social order should be changed. But my feelings are based on the fact that I've assessed the world, came up with my own notions of rights and wrongs, and, based on those notions of fairness, have found the system to be patently unfair. I would feel this way if I were white, black, yellow, Puerto Rican or Haitian. I don't think that my feelings on the topic are any way based on the fact that I'm white, or that I have an inherent guilt attached to my whiteness. I don't think being white is like being born with original sin, where I must pay for the misdoings of my forefathers. Nor should any race feel this way for any reason. (If you really think about it, it is this exact same type of thinking that has Israel and Hamas fighting with each other. This thinking does much more harm than good, assigning blame to various groups based on ancestry rather than working to deal with the actual problem.)
For example, Sicily was sacked by the Moors. (If you disagree with this example, get over yourself and move on to the point.) And this is the point: Moorish occupation of Sicily created a new social order. Good, bad, right, wrong, permanent, brief, whatever. A new social order was created. That really can't be argued, unless you're a fucking moron.
So, reversing the question, should a "Moorish" person feel bad that something that was done by their forefathers affected the social order of another country? No at all. Should a "white" person feel bad that something that was done by their forefathers affected the social order of a country? Not at all.
If a system is fucked, a system is fucked. It's based on many factors, and I don't think any sort of "guilt" should be attached to an individual just because of their race. Basically, I guess what I'm trying to say is what is the purpose of pointing fingers and assigning blame? To me, it's just someone simple minded being bitter.
Sicily was basically an example to help people look at the same question in a different light. Apparently, some people have a hard time being introspective, especially when they have to rethink their ideologies, or cast themselves in the same light as the group which they chose to demonize.
But stripping it away, I didn't mean to highlight the differences between the two, but instead the similarities. Nobody should ever look at a social situation and say I feel bad, or I have guilt, because I come from a race that created this situation. They could say, "well, my group has benefitted from this, and because I have been benefitted, I now stand in a position of power, and I can use that position of power to help those who are less fortunate." In fact, I would argue it is their responsibility to do so.
But in no way should anybody feel a sense of obligation based solely on their race and events that transpired prior to their birth.
I think this is a pretty fair and accurate assessment that all of you should be able to grasp, unless your name is Dhadnot. Then you'd just get caught up on Sicily being a poor example, and find yourself unable to move past that.
Not sure why I'm explaining myself when 99% of you get this, but for the other 1%, here's your ammo, have at me.
and yes, I will have at, and I'm not the 1%:knockout:. Anyway, this is much clearer and what you should've done from the outset of trying to prove your point. Despite your shots at me, this was eloquent mostly devoid of idiotic analogies, and answered the question. Now to finish the Moor thing.
Buffalo soldiers fighting the natives, or black Americans in any American war would've provided for much more suitable analogies. Sicily (understood to be with greater Italia) has conquered before and after the Moors (even conquering Moorish people). Sicily has conquered blacks, 'Asiatics', Americans, et cetera. So if Sicily has been able to conquer Moorish people and others after they were conquered, and is sovereign running its own show, how is anybody to feel bad about implementing a social order that they don't or their direct ancestors never benefited from, plus this system has eroded hundreds yrs ago and a sliver of it can only be enforced by other, whiter Italians since all black interference in Italy/Sicily has been long gone? I just can't see it...I don't see how that could make me think about a point when their is nothing there to even allow the point to blossom. You see what I'm talking about Stealth? it's like saying you see how the sum of that equation is 5, when there is no 0+5, or 1+4, and no 2+3, etc. It's a natural progression of events that have to make sense and your analogy does not because it doesn't compare to Artistic's question. Your analogy, in actuality, has been trampled out by other invasions, and Sicily's colonialistic/imperialistic, and fascistic behavior, and has successfully became the detritus of history while Artistic's remains the the self-sustaining, living dead vampire of American and global history.
That's it, if you can't see my point then you are too what you accuse me of being.
Buffalo soldiers fighting the natives, or black Americans in any American war would've provided for much more suitable analogies. Sicily (understood to be with greater Italia) has conquered before and after the Moors (even conquering Moorish people). Sicily has conquered blacks, 'Asiatics', Americans, et cetera. So if Sicily has been able to conquer Moorish people and others after they were conquered, and is sovereign running its own show, how is anybody to feel bad about implementing a social order that they don't or their direct ancestors never benefited from, plus this system has eroded hundreds yrs ago and a sliver of it can only be enforced by other, whiter Italians since all black interference in Italy/Sicily has been long gone? I just can't see it...I don't see how that could make me think about a point when their is nothing there to even allow the point to blossom. You see what I'm talking about Stealth? it's like saying you see how the sum of that equation is 5, when there is no 0+5, or 1+4, and no 2+3, etc. It's a natural progression of events that have to make sense and your analogy does not because it doesn't compare to Artistic's question. Your analogy, in actuality, has been trampled out by other invasions, and Sicily's colonialistic/imperialistic, and fascistic behavior, and has successfully became the detritus of history while Artistic's remains the the self-sustaining, living dead vampire of American and global history.
That's it, if you can't see my point then you are too what you accuse me of being.
I guess the disagreement comes from me wondering why any of that matters or how it is relevant. The way I see it, Sicily's social order was indeed influenced by Moorish conquest. Whether Sicily conquered others before or after (in my opinion) is irrelevant to the point. Are you saying that because Sicily overcame Moorish influence, or conquered other countries later on, that they "cured" the social influence of the Moors?
Also, I don't think that Sicily has overcome the Moorish influence the way you say it has. Sicilians are not viewed in the same way as mainland Italians. They are thought to be poor, uneducated, dark skinned criminals. It affects their ability to get jobs or play a role in the political process. This is not as true today, but historically, Sicilians were downtrodden members of society, and it is certainly based on the fact that they were viewed differently than mainland Italians. Most everyone would agree that Italians are some of the most racist people on the face of the planet, and they were no different when it came to their dark skinned neighbors.
I also don't think that "Sicily" has conquered blacks, asiatics, americans, etc. You say Sicily is understood to be part of mainland Italy, but when my ancestors came to the US, Sicily was not even recognized as a part of Italy. So I am Sicilian, but legally not Italian. Perhaps mainland Italy did conquer all those groups, but like I said, I distinguish between the two. Sicily was never on the same page as Italian politicians, and never had the money or technology to take part in modern day imperialism. Look at the early 1900s, almost all of the Italians who emigrated to the Americas were dark skinned, dark haired, poor Southern italians. The ones who followed Mussolini were the light skinned, light haired, rich Northern italians.
I'm not trying to disagree for the sake of disagreeing, but I just don't view Sicilians as imperialist monsters. If you wanted to say that about Italians, I'd have no argument at all. But I just feel that Sicily is as responsible for the misdeeds of the Italians as much as Puerto Rico is responsible for the misdeeds of Americans.
Anyways, this whole Sicily argument is not what my point is. You can take out Sicily and add another example if that helps. I was just trying to say that no, white people shouldn't feel bad, and if we flipped the script on the races, I wouldn't expect the other race to feel bad either.
Either way - if we can keep the discussion at this level, we should be kosher.
Also, I don't think that Sicily has overcome the Moorish influence the way you say it has. Sicilians are not viewed in the same way as mainland Italians. They are thought to be poor, uneducated, dark skinned criminals. It affects their ability to get jobs or play a role in the political process. This is not as true today, but historically, Sicilians were downtrodden members of society, and it is certainly based on the fact that they were viewed differently than mainland Italians. Most everyone would agree that Italians are some of the most racist people on the face of the planet, and they were no different when it came to their dark skinned neighbors.
I also don't think that "Sicily" has conquered blacks, asiatics, americans, etc. You say Sicily is understood to be part of mainland Italy, but when my ancestors came to the US, Sicily was not even recognized as a part of Italy. So I am Sicilian, but legally not Italian. Perhaps mainland Italy did conquer all those groups, but like I said, I distinguish between the two. Sicily was never on the same page as Italian politicians, and never had the money or technology to take part in modern day imperialism. Look at the early 1900s, almost all of the Italians who emigrated to the Americas were dark skinned, dark haired, poor Southern italians. The ones who followed Mussolini were the light skinned, light haired, rich Northern italians.
I'm not trying to disagree for the sake of disagreeing, but I just don't view Sicilians as imperialist monsters. If you wanted to say that about Italians, I'd have no argument at all. But I just feel that Sicily is as responsible for the misdeeds of the Italians as much as Puerto Rico is responsible for the misdeeds of Americans.
Anyways, this whole Sicily argument is not what my point is. You can take out Sicily and add another example if that helps. I was just trying to say that no, white people shouldn't feel bad, and if we flipped the script on the races, I wouldn't expect the other race to feel bad either.
Either way - if we can keep the discussion at this level, we should be kosher.
It's hard, I've only seldom seen American-Sicilians disown or separate themselves from mainland Italy, for that reason I consider them Italians. For your first two paragraphs...The Moors introduced genetics and certain phenotypes into the Sicilian gene pool phenotypic selection, but that's not neccessarily creating a system unless the moors said hey all Sicilians that are mixed with Moorish people or that look more Moorish will receive preferential treatment. I said in my previous post that in fact it is the mainland Italians who have chosen to treat the Sicilians worse because of black admixture, but how does that implicate the Moors into creating a system? The Moors unknowingly created racial tension between a sub-racial group, because the northern half of the group is racist? You can't blame the Moors for that, that's the Italians fault.
I think most American-Sicilians have no idea about their heritage (see Shore, Jersey). Most Italians I know actually, their parents wouldn't teach them Italian and forced them to be Americans. The divide was a lot more in the early 1900s. But as for myself and my family's ancestry, they spoke Sicilian and not Italian. The Sicilian phenotype is admittedly much, much more than just the Moorish. But unfortunately, phenotype is what people are judged on. (I knew a guy who had an asylum claim from Indonesia. He said he faced persecution in Indonesia not because he was Chinese, but because he looked Chinese.) Sometimes, fair or not, the phenotype left behind is enough to create a new social order. The Moors created the system by occupying Sicily and infusing their genes into the culture. Not right, not wrong, but that's what it is.
The Moors didn't do it knowingly, they didn't consciously create the system or the racial tension. However, it was Moorish imperialism which eventually led to the system being the way it was. I'm not saying the Moors are at fault in any way, but they did have a hand in the social order of Sicily.
The Moors didn't do it knowingly, they didn't consciously create the system or the racial tension. However, it was Moorish imperialism which eventually led to the system being the way it was. I'm not saying the Moors are at fault in any way, but they did have a hand in the social order of Sicily.
I think America shoulders too much of the blame for the existence of inequity and racism. To put it in perspective; Western countries are more often ahead of countries more heavily populated by nonwhites in terms of equality.
Opportunities still exist here for minorities than dont exist for minorities in many other countries. People point to subliminal, systematic, or subconscious racism here, while for example in India people can be out and out denied work based on the color of their skin or caste and it isnt even thought about twice. Untouchability and the idea of a caste system exist in various forms and on every continent throughout the world.
I think it is far too easy and intellectually weak to assign all third-world discrimination to some sort of global caucasoid racist shroud or the ghosts of colonialism, also.
China wont even provide basic government services to Chinese-born migrant workers.
In countries from India to African countries to Asia there exist social inequities, sometimes based on skin color or some smaller racial or ancestral factor.
Is it a goal of mine to consciously avoid racism or discrimination? Yes, obviously.
But whether or not I benefited from being white I dont see as relevant. Of greater concern to me is that I and my people (friends and fam) survive and thrive. And some kind of amorphous fog of discrimination that blankets America and somehow only exists due to white evil is too simple an explanation.
Opportunities still exist here for minorities than dont exist for minorities in many other countries. People point to subliminal, systematic, or subconscious racism here, while for example in India people can be out and out denied work based on the color of their skin or caste and it isnt even thought about twice. Untouchability and the idea of a caste system exist in various forms and on every continent throughout the world.
I think it is far too easy and intellectually weak to assign all third-world discrimination to some sort of global caucasoid racist shroud or the ghosts of colonialism, also.
China wont even provide basic government services to Chinese-born migrant workers.
In countries from India to African countries to Asia there exist social inequities, sometimes based on skin color or some smaller racial or ancestral factor.
Is it a goal of mine to consciously avoid racism or discrimination? Yes, obviously.
But whether or not I benefited from being white I dont see as relevant. Of greater concern to me is that I and my people (friends and fam) survive and thrive. And some kind of amorphous fog of discrimination that blankets America and somehow only exists due to white evil is too simple an explanation.
The Indians are not 'racially' the same, the social dynamics of their country changed when the Aryans invaded = caucasian racism. The other shit your talking about is what Marx said are the Evils of the old world -Caste systems, feudalism, tribalism, etc. But we're not talking about discrimination in general or we could talk about alot of shit here in America. We are talking about the western invention of race and therefore its offshoot, racism. In the old west, Europe, they have done much more than America to combat racism, but here, the new world, the professed land of equality, we still can't just get on an equal level, and for that this country will forever be criticized.
Discrimination is wrong, but ethnocentrism is different than racism. Racism opened up continents, and entire landmasses, more people etc. On a quantative level it fucked shit up way more than a Greek thinking a Macedonian was somewhat inferior to the Greeks in the south
Discrimination is wrong, but ethnocentrism is different than racism. Racism opened up continents, and entire landmasses, more people etc. On a quantative level it fucked shit up way more than a Greek thinking a Macedonian was somewhat inferior to the Greeks in the south
Here's a nice little scholarly piece about it. We're not talking about ethnocentrism either ("we Navajo or better than you Lakota") ths is racsim, i.e, "all of us black peoples despite our bad or good relations with each other are better than al white peoples."
Here's the article.
ORIGIN OF THE IDEA OF RACE
by Audrey Smedley
Anthropology Newsletter, November 1997
Contemporary scholars agree that "race" was a recent invention and that it was essentially a folk idea, not a product of scientific research and discovery. This is not new to anthropologists. Since the 1940s when Ashley Montagu argued against the use of the term "race" in science, a growing number of scholars in many disciplines have declared that the real meaning of race in American society has to do with social realities, quite distinct from physical variations in the human species. I argue that race was institutionalized beginning in the 18th century as a worldview, a set of culturally created attitudes and beliefs about human group differences.
Slavery and the Coming of Africans
Race and its ideology about human differences arose out of the context of African slavery. But many peoples throughout history have been enslaved without the imposition of racial ideology. When we look at 17th century colonial America before the enactment of laws legitimizing slavery only for Africans and their descendants (after 1660), several facts become clear.
1). The first people that the English tried to enslave and place on plantations were the Irish with whom they had had hostile relations since the 13th century.
2) Some Englishmen had proposed laws enslaving the poor in England and in the colonies to force them to work indefinitely.
3) Most of the slaves on English plantations in Barbados and Jamaica were Irish and Indians.
4) Many historians point out that African servants and bonded indentured white servants were treated much the same way. They often joined together, as in the case of Bacon's Rebellion (1676) to oppose the strict and oppressive laws of the colonial government.
In the latter part of the 17th century the demand for labor grew enormously. It had become clear that neither Irishmen nor Indians made good slaves. More than that, the real threats to social order were the poor freed whites who demanded lands and privileges that the upper class colonial governments refused. Some colonial leaders argued that turning to African labor provided a buffer against the masses of poor whites.
Until the 18th century the image of Africans was generally positive. They were farmers and cattle-breeders; they had industries, arts and crafts, governments and commerce. In addition, Africans had immunities to Old World diseases. They were better laborers and they had nowhere to escape to once transplanted to the New World. The colonists themselves came to believe that they could not survive without Africans.
When some Englishmen entered slave trading directly, it became clear that many of the English public had misgivings about slave-trading and re-creating slavery on English soil. It was an era when the ideals of equality, justice, democracy, and human rights were becoming dominant features of Western political philosophy. Those involved in the trade rationalized their actions by arguing that the Africans were heathens after all, and it was a Christian duty to save their souls. By the early part of the 18th century, the institution was fully established for Africans and their descendants. Large numbers of slaves flooded the southern colonies and even some northern ones. Sometimes they outnumbered whites, and the laws governing slavery became increasingly harsher.
A New Social Identity
Toward the end of the eighteenth century, the image of Africans began to change dramatically. The major catalyst for this transformation was the rise of a powerful antislavery movement that expanded and strengthened during the Revolutionary Era both in Europe and in the United States. As a consequence proslavery forces found it necessary to develop new arguments for defending the institution. Focusing on physical differences, they turned to the notion of the natural inferiority of Africans and thus their God-given suitability for slavery. Such arguments became more frequent and strident from the end of the eighteenth century on, and the characterizations of Africans became more negative.
From here we see the structuring of the ideological components of "race." The term "race," which had been a classificatory term like "type," or "kind," but with ambiguous meaning, became more widely used in the eighteenth century, and crystallized into a distinct reference for Africans, Indians and Europeans. By focusing on the physical and status differences between the conquered and enslaved peoples, and Europeans, the emerging ideology linked the socio-political status and physical traits together and created a new form of social identity. Proslavery leaders among the colonists formulated a new ideology that merged all Europeans together, rich and poor, and fashioned a social system of ranked physically distinct groups. The model for "race" and "races" was the Great Chain of Being or Scale of Nature (Scala Naturae), a semi-scientific theory of a natural hierarchy of all living things, derived from classical Greek writings. The physical features of different groups became markers or symbols of their status on this scale, and thus justified their positions within the social system. Race ideology proclaimed that the social, spiritual, moral, and intellectual inequality of different groups was, like their physical traits, natural, innate, inherited, and unalterable.
Thus was created the only slave system in the world that became exclusively "racial." By limiting perpetual servitude to Africans and their descendants, colonists were proclaiming that blacks would forever be at the bottom of the social hierarchy. By keeping blacks, Indians and whites socially and spatially separated and enforcing endogamous mating, they were making sure that visible physical differences would be preserved as the premier insignia of unequal social statuses. From its inception separateness and inequality was what "race" was all about. The attributes of inferior race status came to be applied to free blacks as well as slaves. In this way, "race" was configured as an autonomous new mechanism of social differentiation that transcended the slave condition and persisted as a form of social identity long after slavery ended.
Humans as Property
American slavery was unique in another way; that is, how North American slave-owners resolved the age-old dilemma of all slave systems. Slaves are both persons and things----human beings and property. How do you treat a human being as both person and property? And what should take precedence, the human rights of the slave or the property rights of the master? American laws made clear that property was more sacred than people, and the property rights of masters overshadowed the human rights of slaves. Said Chief Justice Roger B. Taney in the famous Dred Scott case of 1857, "Negroes were seen only as property; they were never thought of or spoken of except as property" and "(thus) were not intended by the framers of the Constitution to be accorded citizenship rights."
In order to transform people solely into property, you must minimize those qualities that make them human. Literature of the early nineteenth century began to portray "the negro" as a savage in even stronger terms than those that had been used for the Irish two centuries earlier. This was a major transformation in thought about who Africans were. Historian George Fredrickson states explicitly that "before 1830 open assertions of permanent black inferiority were exceedingly rare" (The Black Image in the White Mind, 1987). By mid-century, the ideology of "negro inferiority" dominated both popular and scholarly thought.
Science and the Justification for "Races"
What is so striking about the American experience in creating such an extreme conception of human differences was the role played by scientists and scholars in legitimizing the folk ideas. Scholarly writers began attempting to prove scientifically that "the Negro" was a different and lower kind of human being. The first published materials arguing from a scientific perspective that "negroes" were a separate species from white men appeared in the last decade of the eighteenth century. They argued that Negroes were either a product of degeneration from that first creation, or descendants of a separate creation altogether.
American intellectuals appropriated, and rigidified, the categories of human groups established by European scholars during the eighteenth century, but ignored Blumenbach's caution that human groups blend insensibly into one another, so that it is impossible to place precise boundaries around them.
When Dr. Samuel Morton in the 1830s initiated the field of craniometry, the first school of American anthropology, proponents of race ideology received the most powerful scientific support yet. Measuring the insides of crania collected from many populations, he offered "evidence" that the Negro had a smaller brain than whites, with Indians in-between. Morton is also famous for his involvement in a major scientific controversy over creation.
The very existence of a scientific debate over whether blacks and whites were products of a single creation, or of multiple creations, especially in a society dominated by Biblical explanations, seems anomalous. It indicates that the differences between "races" had been so magnified and exaggerated that popular consciousness had already widely accepted the idea of blacks being a different and inferior species of humans. Justice Taney's decision reflected this, declaring, "the negro is a different order of being." Thus slave-owners' rights to their "property" were upheld in law by appeal to the newly invented identity of peoples from Africa.
Scientists collaborated in confirming popular beliefs, and publications appeared on a regular basis providing the "proof" that comforted the white public. That some social leaders were conscious of their role in giving credibility to the invented myths is manifest in statements such as that found in the Charleston Medical Journal after Dr. Morton's death. It states, "We can only say that we of the South should consider him as our benefactor, for aiding most materially in giving to the negro his true position as an inferior race" (emphasis added). George Gliddon, co-editor of a famous scientific book Types of Mankind, (1854) which argued that Negroes were closer to apes than to humans and ranked all other groups between whites and Negroes, sent a copy of the book to a famous southern politician, saying that he was sure the south would appreciate the powerful support that this book gave for its "peculiar institution" (slavery). Like another famous tome (The Bell Curve, 1995) this was an 800-page book whose first edition sold out immediately; it went through nine other editions before the end of the century. What it said about the inferiority of blacks became widely known, even by those who could not read it.
During discussions in the U.S. Senate on the future of "the negro" after slavery, James Henry Hammond proclaimed in 1858 "somebody has to be the mudsills of society, to do the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life." Negroes were destined to be the mudsills. This was to be their place, one consciously created for them by a society whose cultural values now made it impossible to assimilate them. In the many decades since the Civil War, white society made giant strides to "keep the negro in his place." Public policies and the customs and practices of millions of Americans expressed this racial worldview throughout the twentieth century.
These are some of the circumstances surrounding the origin of the racial worldview in North America. Race ideology was a mechanism justifying what had already been established as unequal social groups; it was from its inception, and is today, about who should have access to privilege, power, status, and wealth, and who should not. As a useful political ideology for conquerors, it spread into colonial situations around the world. It was promulgated in the latter half of the 19th century by some Europeans against other Europeans and reached its most extreme development in the twentieth century Nazi holocaust.
All anthropologists should understand that "race" has no intrinsic relationship to human biological diversity, that such diversity is a natural product of primarily evolutionary forces while "race" is a social invention.
REFERENCES
Fredrickson, G. M. 1987. The Black Image in the White Mind. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press.
Smedley, A. 1993 (1999). Race in North America: Origin and Evolution of a Worldview. Boulder: Westview Press.
Stepan, Nancy. 1982. The Idea of Race in Science. London: Macmillan.
Audrey Smedley is a professor of anthropology at Virginia Commonwealth University. She is author of the American Anthropological Association's position paper on 'race,' and the new millennial edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica's entry on 'race.'
Here's the article.
ORIGIN OF THE IDEA OF RACE
by Audrey Smedley
Anthropology Newsletter, November 1997
Contemporary scholars agree that "race" was a recent invention and that it was essentially a folk idea, not a product of scientific research and discovery. This is not new to anthropologists. Since the 1940s when Ashley Montagu argued against the use of the term "race" in science, a growing number of scholars in many disciplines have declared that the real meaning of race in American society has to do with social realities, quite distinct from physical variations in the human species. I argue that race was institutionalized beginning in the 18th century as a worldview, a set of culturally created attitudes and beliefs about human group differences.
Slavery and the Coming of Africans
Race and its ideology about human differences arose out of the context of African slavery. But many peoples throughout history have been enslaved without the imposition of racial ideology. When we look at 17th century colonial America before the enactment of laws legitimizing slavery only for Africans and their descendants (after 1660), several facts become clear.
1). The first people that the English tried to enslave and place on plantations were the Irish with whom they had had hostile relations since the 13th century.
2) Some Englishmen had proposed laws enslaving the poor in England and in the colonies to force them to work indefinitely.
3) Most of the slaves on English plantations in Barbados and Jamaica were Irish and Indians.
4) Many historians point out that African servants and bonded indentured white servants were treated much the same way. They often joined together, as in the case of Bacon's Rebellion (1676) to oppose the strict and oppressive laws of the colonial government.
In the latter part of the 17th century the demand for labor grew enormously. It had become clear that neither Irishmen nor Indians made good slaves. More than that, the real threats to social order were the poor freed whites who demanded lands and privileges that the upper class colonial governments refused. Some colonial leaders argued that turning to African labor provided a buffer against the masses of poor whites.
Until the 18th century the image of Africans was generally positive. They were farmers and cattle-breeders; they had industries, arts and crafts, governments and commerce. In addition, Africans had immunities to Old World diseases. They were better laborers and they had nowhere to escape to once transplanted to the New World. The colonists themselves came to believe that they could not survive without Africans.
When some Englishmen entered slave trading directly, it became clear that many of the English public had misgivings about slave-trading and re-creating slavery on English soil. It was an era when the ideals of equality, justice, democracy, and human rights were becoming dominant features of Western political philosophy. Those involved in the trade rationalized their actions by arguing that the Africans were heathens after all, and it was a Christian duty to save their souls. By the early part of the 18th century, the institution was fully established for Africans and their descendants. Large numbers of slaves flooded the southern colonies and even some northern ones. Sometimes they outnumbered whites, and the laws governing slavery became increasingly harsher.
A New Social Identity
Toward the end of the eighteenth century, the image of Africans began to change dramatically. The major catalyst for this transformation was the rise of a powerful antislavery movement that expanded and strengthened during the Revolutionary Era both in Europe and in the United States. As a consequence proslavery forces found it necessary to develop new arguments for defending the institution. Focusing on physical differences, they turned to the notion of the natural inferiority of Africans and thus their God-given suitability for slavery. Such arguments became more frequent and strident from the end of the eighteenth century on, and the characterizations of Africans became more negative.
From here we see the structuring of the ideological components of "race." The term "race," which had been a classificatory term like "type," or "kind," but with ambiguous meaning, became more widely used in the eighteenth century, and crystallized into a distinct reference for Africans, Indians and Europeans. By focusing on the physical and status differences between the conquered and enslaved peoples, and Europeans, the emerging ideology linked the socio-political status and physical traits together and created a new form of social identity. Proslavery leaders among the colonists formulated a new ideology that merged all Europeans together, rich and poor, and fashioned a social system of ranked physically distinct groups. The model for "race" and "races" was the Great Chain of Being or Scale of Nature (Scala Naturae), a semi-scientific theory of a natural hierarchy of all living things, derived from classical Greek writings. The physical features of different groups became markers or symbols of their status on this scale, and thus justified their positions within the social system. Race ideology proclaimed that the social, spiritual, moral, and intellectual inequality of different groups was, like their physical traits, natural, innate, inherited, and unalterable.
Thus was created the only slave system in the world that became exclusively "racial." By limiting perpetual servitude to Africans and their descendants, colonists were proclaiming that blacks would forever be at the bottom of the social hierarchy. By keeping blacks, Indians and whites socially and spatially separated and enforcing endogamous mating, they were making sure that visible physical differences would be preserved as the premier insignia of unequal social statuses. From its inception separateness and inequality was what "race" was all about. The attributes of inferior race status came to be applied to free blacks as well as slaves. In this way, "race" was configured as an autonomous new mechanism of social differentiation that transcended the slave condition and persisted as a form of social identity long after slavery ended.
Humans as Property
American slavery was unique in another way; that is, how North American slave-owners resolved the age-old dilemma of all slave systems. Slaves are both persons and things----human beings and property. How do you treat a human being as both person and property? And what should take precedence, the human rights of the slave or the property rights of the master? American laws made clear that property was more sacred than people, and the property rights of masters overshadowed the human rights of slaves. Said Chief Justice Roger B. Taney in the famous Dred Scott case of 1857, "Negroes were seen only as property; they were never thought of or spoken of except as property" and "(thus) were not intended by the framers of the Constitution to be accorded citizenship rights."
In order to transform people solely into property, you must minimize those qualities that make them human. Literature of the early nineteenth century began to portray "the negro" as a savage in even stronger terms than those that had been used for the Irish two centuries earlier. This was a major transformation in thought about who Africans were. Historian George Fredrickson states explicitly that "before 1830 open assertions of permanent black inferiority were exceedingly rare" (The Black Image in the White Mind, 1987). By mid-century, the ideology of "negro inferiority" dominated both popular and scholarly thought.
Science and the Justification for "Races"
What is so striking about the American experience in creating such an extreme conception of human differences was the role played by scientists and scholars in legitimizing the folk ideas. Scholarly writers began attempting to prove scientifically that "the Negro" was a different and lower kind of human being. The first published materials arguing from a scientific perspective that "negroes" were a separate species from white men appeared in the last decade of the eighteenth century. They argued that Negroes were either a product of degeneration from that first creation, or descendants of a separate creation altogether.
American intellectuals appropriated, and rigidified, the categories of human groups established by European scholars during the eighteenth century, but ignored Blumenbach's caution that human groups blend insensibly into one another, so that it is impossible to place precise boundaries around them.
When Dr. Samuel Morton in the 1830s initiated the field of craniometry, the first school of American anthropology, proponents of race ideology received the most powerful scientific support yet. Measuring the insides of crania collected from many populations, he offered "evidence" that the Negro had a smaller brain than whites, with Indians in-between. Morton is also famous for his involvement in a major scientific controversy over creation.
The very existence of a scientific debate over whether blacks and whites were products of a single creation, or of multiple creations, especially in a society dominated by Biblical explanations, seems anomalous. It indicates that the differences between "races" had been so magnified and exaggerated that popular consciousness had already widely accepted the idea of blacks being a different and inferior species of humans. Justice Taney's decision reflected this, declaring, "the negro is a different order of being." Thus slave-owners' rights to their "property" were upheld in law by appeal to the newly invented identity of peoples from Africa.
Scientists collaborated in confirming popular beliefs, and publications appeared on a regular basis providing the "proof" that comforted the white public. That some social leaders were conscious of their role in giving credibility to the invented myths is manifest in statements such as that found in the Charleston Medical Journal after Dr. Morton's death. It states, "We can only say that we of the South should consider him as our benefactor, for aiding most materially in giving to the negro his true position as an inferior race" (emphasis added). George Gliddon, co-editor of a famous scientific book Types of Mankind, (1854) which argued that Negroes were closer to apes than to humans and ranked all other groups between whites and Negroes, sent a copy of the book to a famous southern politician, saying that he was sure the south would appreciate the powerful support that this book gave for its "peculiar institution" (slavery). Like another famous tome (The Bell Curve, 1995) this was an 800-page book whose first edition sold out immediately; it went through nine other editions before the end of the century. What it said about the inferiority of blacks became widely known, even by those who could not read it.
During discussions in the U.S. Senate on the future of "the negro" after slavery, James Henry Hammond proclaimed in 1858 "somebody has to be the mudsills of society, to do the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life." Negroes were destined to be the mudsills. This was to be their place, one consciously created for them by a society whose cultural values now made it impossible to assimilate them. In the many decades since the Civil War, white society made giant strides to "keep the negro in his place." Public policies and the customs and practices of millions of Americans expressed this racial worldview throughout the twentieth century.
These are some of the circumstances surrounding the origin of the racial worldview in North America. Race ideology was a mechanism justifying what had already been established as unequal social groups; it was from its inception, and is today, about who should have access to privilege, power, status, and wealth, and who should not. As a useful political ideology for conquerors, it spread into colonial situations around the world. It was promulgated in the latter half of the 19th century by some Europeans against other Europeans and reached its most extreme development in the twentieth century Nazi holocaust.
All anthropologists should understand that "race" has no intrinsic relationship to human biological diversity, that such diversity is a natural product of primarily evolutionary forces while "race" is a social invention.
REFERENCES
Fredrickson, G. M. 1987. The Black Image in the White Mind. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press.
Smedley, A. 1993 (1999). Race in North America: Origin and Evolution of a Worldview. Boulder: Westview Press.
Stepan, Nancy. 1982. The Idea of Race in Science. London: Macmillan.
Audrey Smedley is a professor of anthropology at Virginia Commonwealth University. She is author of the American Anthropological Association's position paper on 'race,' and the new millennial edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica's entry on 'race.'
wikipedia talks about the origin of "scientific race": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism