The Concept of Race from Past to Present: The controversies
10/08/2007
The Concept of Race from Past to Present: The
controversies
Race and ethnicity are
some of the most widely misunderstood terms. Race refers to the classification
of human beings according to their physical characteristic traits-- and
behavioral differences (I doubt). It is also viewed as a recent idea created by
western Europeans following exploration across the world to account for
differences among people and justify colonization, conquest, enslavement, and
social hierarchy among humans. The term is also used to refer to groupings of
people according to common origin or background and associated with perceived
biological markers. Among humans there are no races except the human race. In
biology, the term has limited use, usually associated with organisms or
populations that are able to interbreed. Ideas about race are culturally and
socially transmitted and form the basis of racism, racial classification and
often complex racial identities.
The concept of Ethnicity, however, connotes shared cultural, linguistic or religious traits. From the past to more recently, the concept of race has shifted from one perception to another because of the different approaches adopted by social scientists. Indeed, if some scientists believe that Race was a genetically related concept, others however believe that it is predominantly a social construct rather than a biological one.
For pedagogical concerns, we are going to talk about Early Anthropology in the 16th and 17th centuries before dealing with more contemporary anthropologists, such Boas (the father of Modern Anthropology).
The voyages of discovery and the travel of merchants and missionaries had brought the Europeans in close contact with a rich panel of cultures. Thus, Eurocentric comparisons started to be made with a focus on similarities and differences. For many observers, savage ways of thought and action were in some sense not easy to refer to as human. Therefore those aberrant men had to be brought into the European framework of thought, in other words, they had to be civilized. Yet, wherever in that Chain of Being the Savage was allotted a place, he was bound to stay. In the Aristotelian sense, although the concept of motion if ever it takes place only within the conceptual boundaries of each category of the scale. As late as the 18th and even the 19th century this position was held among biologists, theologians and philosophers. Linnaeus, a Christian taxonomist accepted the separate and fixed creation of species. He then listed 4 Race groups: Europeaus; White Americanus and “Red”; Asiaticus; and Africanus (Niger) Black. Race was then viewed as a biological characteristics since our race also implied mental and biological superiority or inferiority as also posited by Spencer in his survival of the fittest. That view popular around Europe and America also influenced people behavior and perception of race that brought about Racism, anti-miscegenation laws and anti-semitism…
It was only in the middle of the nineteenth century that Edward Burnett Tylor came up with a new science of Modern Anthropology and his book, Primitive Culture (1871) was to have a tremendous influence upon Race theories. Charles Lyel’s Principle s of Geology posits the concept of evolution as being the only major force that dictates geological change.
Franz Boas (1858-1942) who, as the leading father in the theories around Race, demonstrated that Race was a mere social construct. Scientists have even discovered that only 2 percent of our genes are ultimately responsible for the visible differences such as skin color. Boas and also other scientists found out that there are more similarities than differences between individuals of different races.
Race does not exist biologically but does exist in people mind as Audrey Medley argues: “race has no intrinsic relation to human biological diversity…Such diversity is a natural product of primarily evolutionary forces, whereas race is social invention.”
The only scientific truth that holds water is that we are from a common origin, Africa--more precisely below the equator--which is the only place one can find all the fossils of mankind, from Homo Habilis to Homo Erectus (cf Cheikh Anta Diop 1981). Being Black, Yellow or red is just an expression of survival. Put differently, people like me in tropical areas need to have "melanine" to protect themselves from the UVs, and it is only because of migration that mankind crossed the Detroit of Bering and lost his dark pigmentation, unnecessary in those cold places. That's an Evolution Law of Nature: Mankind will adapt!
The concept of Ethnicity, however, connotes shared cultural, linguistic or religious traits. From the past to more recently, the concept of race has shifted from one perception to another because of the different approaches adopted by social scientists. Indeed, if some scientists believe that Race was a genetically related concept, others however believe that it is predominantly a social construct rather than a biological one.
For pedagogical concerns, we are going to talk about Early Anthropology in the 16th and 17th centuries before dealing with more contemporary anthropologists, such Boas (the father of Modern Anthropology).
The voyages of discovery and the travel of merchants and missionaries had brought the Europeans in close contact with a rich panel of cultures. Thus, Eurocentric comparisons started to be made with a focus on similarities and differences. For many observers, savage ways of thought and action were in some sense not easy to refer to as human. Therefore those aberrant men had to be brought into the European framework of thought, in other words, they had to be civilized. Yet, wherever in that Chain of Being the Savage was allotted a place, he was bound to stay. In the Aristotelian sense, although the concept of motion if ever it takes place only within the conceptual boundaries of each category of the scale. As late as the 18th and even the 19th century this position was held among biologists, theologians and philosophers. Linnaeus, a Christian taxonomist accepted the separate and fixed creation of species. He then listed 4 Race groups: Europeaus; White Americanus and “Red”; Asiaticus; and Africanus (Niger) Black. Race was then viewed as a biological characteristics since our race also implied mental and biological superiority or inferiority as also posited by Spencer in his survival of the fittest. That view popular around Europe and America also influenced people behavior and perception of race that brought about Racism, anti-miscegenation laws and anti-semitism…
It was only in the middle of the nineteenth century that Edward Burnett Tylor came up with a new science of Modern Anthropology and his book, Primitive Culture (1871) was to have a tremendous influence upon Race theories. Charles Lyel’s Principle s of Geology posits the concept of evolution as being the only major force that dictates geological change.
Franz Boas (1858-1942) who, as the leading father in the theories around Race, demonstrated that Race was a mere social construct. Scientists have even discovered that only 2 percent of our genes are ultimately responsible for the visible differences such as skin color. Boas and also other scientists found out that there are more similarities than differences between individuals of different races.
Race does not exist biologically but does exist in people mind as Audrey Medley argues: “race has no intrinsic relation to human biological diversity…Such diversity is a natural product of primarily evolutionary forces, whereas race is social invention.”
The only scientific truth that holds water is that we are from a common origin, Africa--more precisely below the equator--which is the only place one can find all the fossils of mankind, from Homo Habilis to Homo Erectus (cf Cheikh Anta Diop 1981). Being Black, Yellow or red is just an expression of survival. Put differently, people like me in tropical areas need to have "melanine" to protect themselves from the UVs, and it is only because of migration that mankind crossed the Detroit of Bering and lost his dark pigmentation, unnecessary in those cold places. That's an Evolution Law of Nature: Mankind will adapt!
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