Anthropology Discussion 6

Lecture #20—Deconstructing Race as Biology

The Point

• Western racial classifications have historically been used to legally define access (or lack of access) to economic and political rights and privileges. They are socially constructed categories that do not reflect biologically valid differences between human populations. Instead of attempting to define biologically distinct races, current biological anthropology is focused on understanding human phenotypic variation as an adaptation to local conditions.

Video!

• The Social Construction of Race

What is race?

What is race? From the Race exhibit at the Museum

of Man • The previous image shows the racial

classifications each of the individuals would have been placed in at different points in time according to the US census.

• If racial categories really reflected biological differences between populations, would we expect those categories to change?

• Instead of describing biological characteristics, what do you think is going on?

Biological Determinism

• Historically in the West, biological determinism has been the framework for determining racial classifications

• The belief that all characteristics of humans, including behavior, intelligence, and morality, are governed by biological factors. – Association between physical characteristics and

cultural variation – Inaccurate association of behavioral attributes with

physical attributes—equating of phenotype with cultural attributes

Western Racial Classifications

Western Racial Classifications

• Based on a combination of skin color, skull shape, nose shape, lip shape, hair color and texture, and other physical characteristics, Western thinkers divided humans into races

• Taxonomy and Classification – Linneaus and Human Races

• Homo sapiens europicus

• Homo sapiens asiaticus

• Homo sapiens amercanus

• Homo sapiens afar

Western Racial Classifications

– Blumenbach

• Caucasian (Europeans)—most closely approximated God’s perfect plan for humans

• Mongolian (East Asians)

• Malayan (SE Asians)

• American (indigenous Americans)

• Ethiopian (black Africans)

• Linneaus and Blumenbach are just two examples

Western Racial Classifications

• These ideas largely based on creation by God of humans then some change due to migration and adaptation that is not just adaptation to local conditions but is MORAL in character—all but Caucasians are degenerate forms.

• Many of these early classification systems also made further distinctions, including between Northern and Southern Europe (N. fairer, lighter hair, lighter skinned, more noble looking than S.).

• Also, not being Christian was indicative of racial inferiority.

Western Racial Classifications

• Racial classifications cannot be divorced from the social, political, and historical context in which they emerged.

– This context included slavery, colonialism, and the presumed inferiority of non-Europeans and women.

Social Darwinism

• Social Darwinism—a social and political philosophy that argues that: – More successful people in human societies are genetically

superior to less successful people

– Social inequality is justified based on biological inequality

– “Survival of the fittest” applies to human cultures just as it does to human biology

• Commits the Naturalistic Fallacy: – Is ≠ Ought

– Evolution does not have moral consequences, political philosophies do

Social Darwinism

• Misapplication of the biological principles of Darwinian evolution to human social, political, and economic outcomes. – Social Darwinism is a social and political philosophy that

attempts to support its arguments about how human societies should run based on application of the theory of evolution by natural selection to human culture, particularly economic, political, and social outcomes.

– Rests on the idea that genetically superior people are more successful in human societies and outcompete genetically inferior people for access to resources; applying the idea of “survival of the fittest” to human cultural behaviors and outcomes.

Social Darwinism

• Uses these biological principles to justify social policies that promote inequality, arguing that the poor are naturally inferior rather than examining how social, political, and economic structures influence the distribution of resources in society.

• The only connection to Darwin is the name it has been given. Herbert Spencer is generally considered the primary source of Social Darwinism.

Social Darwinism

• Based on the naturalistic fallacy—a logical fallacy in which the leap is made that what is is actually what ought to be; the is = ought fallacy

• Evolutionary theory describes how species change over time as a result of natural selection, differential reproductive success, and mutation; it does not proscribe morality, which is a product of culture

• Evolution does not have moral consequences but political philosophies do

Social Darwinism

• Culture is the defining characteristic of the human experience; Culture, which includes social, political, and economic structures and policies, is what governs how resources are distributed in societies, not differential reproductive success in response to environmental conditions

• Social Darwinism is a political and social philosophy that, like all political and social philosophies, has proponents that make an argument based on evidence to promote it. The problem is that the evidence used is inappropriate for the type of argument being made.

Eugenics

Eugenics

• Social and political movement based on Francis Galton’s work (1822-1911):

– Feared that society was becoming weaker because of the inclusion of more inferior genes in the gene pool—because of programs to help the poor.

– Argued for regulating reproduction so that only the most fit (read: white, Christian, wealthy) could reproduce

– Very popular throughout the Western world and associated with forced sterilization in the US of the poor and blacks, primarily (http://www.uvm.edu/~lkaelber/eugenics/).

– Laid the pseudoscientific foundation for Nazi ideas about race.

– Closely linked to Social Darwinism ideologically.

Eugenics Propaganda from early 20th century

Why Eugenics?

• Eugenics was a reactionary political movement that emerged in response to changing economic and social conditions in the late 19th, early 20th centuriesthe end of slavery, the emergence of greater economic mobility, emerging women’s movement

• Threat to the dominant social order—The entrenched Powers That Be felt threatened by the fact that others (namely, freed slaves and women) had more access to the rights and privileges of society

Why Eugenics?

• This is a very common type of response to changing social order and is still a part of our world.

• The rise of extreme right-wing hate groups documented by the Southern Poverty Law Center in recent years is another example, as are anti-immigrant rhetoric and extreme xenophobia in national politics.

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/hate-map

Hate Map

• Hate groups: All hate groups have beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics.

• Mostly anti-government “Patriot” groups and nativist movements based on white supremacist ideology but can include other ideologies: Ku Klux Clan, racist skinheads, White Nationalists, Christian Identity, Neo-Nazi, Holocaust Denial, anti-immigrant, anti- Muslim, also includes Black Separatists.

• Several factors fueled the growth: resentment over the changing racial demographics of the country, frustration over the lagging economy, and the mainstreaming of conspiracy theories and other demonizing propaganda aimed at minorities, particularly immigrants, and the government.

The Point: Western pseudoscientific racial classifications cannot be separated from the history of colonialism and theories of white racial superiority.

This is not the past. These ideas still live and breath in the world in which we live.

Understanding “Race” and Human Variation

• “Race” is an attempt by humans, who have a hard time with continuous phenomena, to impose order on complex natural phenomena, to simplify biological complexity by organizing it into discrete categories

• From American Anthropological Association website: “just because one can genetically or geographically group individuals, does not mean that these groups are useful. This essentialist notion of race fails to satisfactorily describe and explain the structure of human biological variation.” (Alan Goodman, 2005, Anthropology News)

The American Anthropological Association Statement on Race

• http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/racepp.htm

Moving Past Eugenics The Emerging Evolutionary Perspective • WWII happened

– The consequences of eugenics-based policies.

• Darwin + Modes of Inheritance = Adaptation to Local Conditions – Our knowledge of evolution and biology was

expanding dramatically

• Humans are polytypic – local populations that vary in the expression of more

than one trait – even within human populations there is a great deal

of variation in the expression of traits

The Modern Perspective

• Genetics – Emphasis on phenotype too superficial

– Races are not fixed biological entities with all individuals conforming to a certain type

– Significant variation within populations

• Phenotypic variation exists and roughly corresponds to geographical distribution

• But, need to ask some important questionswhat does this variation mean? what is its origin? – Adaptive significance? Genetic drift? Gene flow between

populations?