Research Paper
Research Paper on Racism
Nichole Green
Anthropology 1020 Potter
4/21/2018
The concept of race is where we try classify people according to similar traits. For example, hair color, hair shape/texture, eye color and shapes, body height and weight, and skin color. However, race in biology has no taxonomic meaning. Biologically, all humans are the same species. Yet, genetically insignificant physical differences called phenotype expressions are used socially to attempt to separate us.
By categorizing the human population into smaller groups based on physical attributes we have actually caused harm because by doing so we have created racism. Racism has lead our society to discrimination, genocides, slavery, segregation, violence, war, hate crimes and police brutality within our culture.
According to Kenneth Guest, Racism is when an “individual's thoughts and actions and institutional patterns and policies that create or reproduce unequal access to power, privilege, resources, and opportunities based on imagined differences among groups.” The cultural concept of race is, “a flawed system of classification, with no biological basis, that uses certain physical characteristics to divide the human population into supposedly discrete groups.” (Guest 2017, 197.)
The ideas of classifying people appeared about 3000 years ago with the ancient Egyptians who organized people by their geography and skin color. They considered themselves to be red, and used yellow for people of the east, white for people of the north, and black for people of the south. However, the word “race” is a modern term that first appeared in the 18th century. Before this time, slavery had little to do with physical characteristics but instead was based on a person’s social and economic status. For example, in the 13th century, the English enslaved the Irish poor to work for them. It was in the early 18th century that the American colonies began to import and enslave Africans to meet their extremely high demand for labor. The Africans were seen as the most preferable slaves because they had developed immunity to the European diseases that had decimated the Native American population. This enslavery of the Africans, with their easily recognizable skin color as compared to the Irish, accelerated the practice of segregating and exploiting people according to their physical characteristics.
Later in the 20th century the ideas of race reached its most extreme and horrible development with its use to justify the Holocaust in Nazi Germany. (Smedley. 1997)
“The widespread belief that certain phenotypes such as skin color are linked to physical and mental capabilities, personality types, or cultural patterns is incorrect but deeply ingrained and difficult to reimagine.” (Guest 2017, 200.)
In 1883, the idea of Eugenics was proposed by Francis Galton as a way to create a superior race. Galton came to this idea after looking into the breeding of animals for emphasizing certain traits. (Galton. 1883)
Galton believed that by using selective breeding with humans he could improve the “health, energy, ability, manliness, and courteous disposition” of the human species. (James. 2016)
After the ideas of Eugenics spreading throughout society, It gave Adolf Hitler the justification to eradicate “Jews, Slavs, communists, people with physical or mental disabilities, and others they considered inferior.” (Keller, Morton, et al. 2009,734-735.)
I think that racism is wrong. It does not have any biological scientific basis, but is instead an incorrect cultural construct. The idea of racism has caused and continues to cause terrible problems within our society. We use it as a justification and a scapegoat to commit terrible atrocities against one another yet still try to avoid the shame and the responsibility for what we have done to our fellow human beings.
Racism, is a self mutilation of the very egalitarian ideas that we believe make us proud to call ourselves human.
Bibliography
Galton, Francis. (1883). Chapter 30, Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development. Macmillan. Second edition. 1907 by J. M. Dent & Co. (Everyman). First electronic edition, 2001. Part of the online Galton archives at http://galton.org/. Direct link:http://galton.org/books/human-faculty/SecondEdition/text/html-single/human-faculty4.htm
Guest, Kenneth J. 2017. Cultural Anthropology: a toolkit for a global age. Second edition. New York, NY: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc.
Keller, Morton., Klee, Mary Beth., Zeitz, Joshua., Holdren, John., 2009. The American Odyssey, The History of the United States. K12 Incorporated. Printed by: LSC Communications. Roanoke, VA.
James, Michael. Feb 17, 2016 “Race”. Standford.edu. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/race/(accessed on 4/17/2018)
Smedley, A. (1997), Origins of “Race”. Anthropology News, 38: 52-52. doi:10.1111/an.1997.38.8.52
Link to E-Portfolio: https://nicholegreen.weebly.com/physical-anthropology-1020.html
Nichole Green
Anthropology 1020 Potter
4/21/2018
The concept of race is where we try classify people according to similar traits. For example, hair color, hair shape/texture, eye color and shapes, body height and weight, and skin color. However, race in biology has no taxonomic meaning. Biologically, all humans are the same species. Yet, genetically insignificant physical differences called phenotype expressions are used socially to attempt to separate us.
By categorizing the human population into smaller groups based on physical attributes we have actually caused harm because by doing so we have created racism. Racism has lead our society to discrimination, genocides, slavery, segregation, violence, war, hate crimes and police brutality within our culture.
According to Kenneth Guest, Racism is when an “individual's thoughts and actions and institutional patterns and policies that create or reproduce unequal access to power, privilege, resources, and opportunities based on imagined differences among groups.” The cultural concept of race is, “a flawed system of classification, with no biological basis, that uses certain physical characteristics to divide the human population into supposedly discrete groups.” (Guest 2017, 197.)
The ideas of classifying people appeared about 3000 years ago with the ancient Egyptians who organized people by their geography and skin color. They considered themselves to be red, and used yellow for people of the east, white for people of the north, and black for people of the south. However, the word “race” is a modern term that first appeared in the 18th century. Before this time, slavery had little to do with physical characteristics but instead was based on a person’s social and economic status. For example, in the 13th century, the English enslaved the Irish poor to work for them. It was in the early 18th century that the American colonies began to import and enslave Africans to meet their extremely high demand for labor. The Africans were seen as the most preferable slaves because they had developed immunity to the European diseases that had decimated the Native American population. This enslavery of the Africans, with their easily recognizable skin color as compared to the Irish, accelerated the practice of segregating and exploiting people according to their physical characteristics.
Later in the 20th century the ideas of race reached its most extreme and horrible development with its use to justify the Holocaust in Nazi Germany. (Smedley. 1997)
“The widespread belief that certain phenotypes such as skin color are linked to physical and mental capabilities, personality types, or cultural patterns is incorrect but deeply ingrained and difficult to reimagine.” (Guest 2017, 200.)
In 1883, the idea of Eugenics was proposed by Francis Galton as a way to create a superior race. Galton came to this idea after looking into the breeding of animals for emphasizing certain traits. (Galton. 1883)
Galton believed that by using selective breeding with humans he could improve the “health, energy, ability, manliness, and courteous disposition” of the human species. (James. 2016)
After the ideas of Eugenics spreading throughout society, It gave Adolf Hitler the justification to eradicate “Jews, Slavs, communists, people with physical or mental disabilities, and others they considered inferior.” (Keller, Morton, et al. 2009,734-735.)
I think that racism is wrong. It does not have any biological scientific basis, but is instead an incorrect cultural construct. The idea of racism has caused and continues to cause terrible problems within our society. We use it as a justification and a scapegoat to commit terrible atrocities against one another yet still try to avoid the shame and the responsibility for what we have done to our fellow human beings.
Racism, is a self mutilation of the very egalitarian ideas that we believe make us proud to call ourselves human.
Bibliography
Galton, Francis. (1883). Chapter 30, Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development. Macmillan. Second edition. 1907 by J. M. Dent & Co. (Everyman). First electronic edition, 2001. Part of the online Galton archives at http://galton.org/. Direct link:http://galton.org/books/human-faculty/SecondEdition/text/html-single/human-faculty4.htm
Guest, Kenneth J. 2017. Cultural Anthropology: a toolkit for a global age. Second edition. New York, NY: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc.
Keller, Morton., Klee, Mary Beth., Zeitz, Joshua., Holdren, John., 2009. The American Odyssey, The History of the United States. K12 Incorporated. Printed by: LSC Communications. Roanoke, VA.
James, Michael. Feb 17, 2016 “Race”. Standford.edu. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/race/(accessed on 4/17/2018)
Smedley, A. (1997), Origins of “Race”. Anthropology News, 38: 52-52. doi:10.1111/an.1997.38.8.52
Link to E-Portfolio: https://nicholegreen.weebly.com/physical-anthropology-1020.html