[PEN-L:3906] Papa Doc and the Social ConstructionofRace

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This is alright. I didn't take time to write out the anti-racist biological assertion that in looking at the "totality" of phenotypes and genotypes of the pseudobiological racial categories of based on skin color etc., there are greater ranges of differences within the socalled races than between them. Skin color, hair texture, facial features are not correlated with other physical characteristics either. I think this is your point below. No wait, your point is that they are not correlated with each other. I agree.

 But the most pernicious history of biological racism has been to falsely correlate skin color with something like "virtue" or "intelligence" which has important social implications. In other words, I don't think the layers you distinguish are at all equal in their perniciousness.

 Of course , skin color has also been stereotypically correlated with more specific behaviors like sex or dancing ("natural rhythm"). And futher, the correlation of "inferior" racial traits with ambiguously positive characteristics is another tricky wrinkle in this discussion. (Blacks alleged as superior athletes). When we consider that American slavemasters had the power and motivation to breed the physically strongest  Black slaves to get the most wealth,  this may not be a mystery or a racism in reverse, rather a residue of a specific historical circumstance. Maybe.

Interjections below.

>>> Peter Dorman <dormanp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 02/25/99 09:28AM >>>
Charles, perhaps we can lower the heat a bit.  I may have misread your
earlier post.  When you referred to the "modern concept of race" I
thought it was something you endorsed.  I'm happy to find out it's not.
Certainly "biology" in the "modern" period is pretty clear about the
vacuousness of racism.  Unfortunately, as you say, millions of people
are walking around with BS ideas about race that have been handed down
from earlier generations of racist natural and social science.

I would still insist, however, that there are layers to racism.  On one
level are the judgments that some "races" are better or worse than
others.  At a deeper level is the notion that such judgments can even be
made in the first place--which they can't.  I believe there is a value
to going beyond the surface level and rooting out the mythologies that
make racist thinking possible in the first place.  I still feel I
haven't communicated this, so let me try again.  You write:

"You will not be able to fully fight racism if you do not understand
that racist biology uses partially true hereditarily caused physical
characteristics BUT MAKES A FALSE CORRELATION BETWEEN THOSE AND OTHER
BEHAVIORAL CHARACTERISTICS. In other words, the error of racism is not
that skin color, hair texture and facial features are not in part
genetically  determined. The ERROR is to try to correlate these
characteristics with somekind of genetic determination of general
behaviors such as "intelligence", humanness!"

Of course, skin color et al. are to a considerable extent inherited.
But "race" in its common usage is based on the supposition that the
human community can be divided into a few major groups, each of which
shares a number of these characteristics.  Thus race X has this sort of
skin color, this sort of hair, these facial features, this type of
build, etc.  This is equivalent to saying that, within such a group,
there is a far greater correlation of these characteristics than you
would find between "races".  All of this is prior to any argument about
behavior, better or worse, etc.  And, as I'm trying to convey, it is all
myth.  The initial error is in thinking that there are racial groups
that can be correlated with behaviors, not that such correlations
exist.
_________

Charles: Your last two sentences are a little confusing. First you say "this is prior to any argument about behavior". Then you say " the initial error is in thinking that there are racial groups that can be correlated with behaviors. " But I thought you were going to point out an initial error that was prior to any argument about behavior.

Maybe you are saying that skin color, hair texture and facial features are not caused by the same set of genes , so even these physical ,non-behavior correlates or complexes are false generalizations. East Indians have dark skin but straight hair. So, skin color and hair texture are not necessarily genetically linked. Your demolition of racist theory at that level is fine by me.
But the most pernicious historical dimension of modern ( since Europeans started conquering the whole globe; as opposed to the races of the ancient Roman world , for example) racism is the link between physical characteristics ( really most especially and specifically SKIN COLOR) and humanness or subhumanness or some major total being category like that. It is Europeans who designated themselves as "WHITE" vs "COLOREDS" , making skin color the main emblem of "race".

____________


If a, b, and c are not correlated with one another, you can't
even ask whether some composite ("race") of them is correlated with x,
y, or z.  (Note: racist authors like the Bell Curve crowd don't argue
that skin color, hair texture, or some other physical feature is
correlated with intelligence, but that "race" is.  Even before they have
abused their data, their very use of race in this context reveals their
racist mode of thought.)
__________

Charles: Yes, the demolition of the a, b, c correlation is alright, but just one of the three (skin color) correlated with 1 through 1000 as a total being complex is pernicious. So the demolition of correlation at the next level is more important.

Exactly, my question to the Bell Curve authors is how are they choosing who goes in what group ? How do they decide who is white and who is black, what is their criteria ? This is a true question. Do they go by self-designation ?  Do they have phenotypical test ? a genotypical test ? Their argument can be defeated right at this point.

__________



I apologize for using the term "racism" in conjunction with your name--a
very bad move on my part.  Nevertheless, I think you are still
formulating the critique of racism in a way that remains problematic.
_________

Charles: Apology accepted. My geno and phenotypes are not evident over e-mail.

You have my whole argument now. I don't think it is problematic. First because I have been thinking about it for a long time. Secondly, because I just thought it through again based on your criticism. Remember my initial argument was why race is socially constructed and not a correct biological category, exactly your position. The part that stuck in your craw was that I said skin color etc. are hereditary in part. I did say skin color, hair texture and facial features because those were the historical pseudobiological main three; but note , I never said they were truly genetically linked themselves to each other (a, b and c).

In the end, it is good that you are militant and a stickler to demolish "race" at every level. However, it is important to say that skin color is genetically determined in part, because that is true and fairly obvious, so if you don't say that, someone might use it to confound or confuse your argument against their racism. Secondly, the linking skin color, hair texture and
facial features is truly benign. If that was all that was done without any link to socially meaningful behaviors or total beings, there would be no special problem. In other words, linking a, b and c by itself is not the problem. It is linking even just "a" to 1,2,3.....that is the problem. If the Europeans had arrived in Africa and said, "Look, they all have dark skin and curly hair. But they are our brothers and sisters, our total equals" and then treated Africans with love and respect, the error of linking skin color and hair texture would truly be benign.

____________

As for the question of whether racism is instinctual, I don't know how
one would test this.  It is extremely widespread but fortunately not
universal.  As with most of us on pen-l, I would embrace some sort of
explanation of the nature and extent of racism that includes both
cultural history and ideology (the role of material interests).  I don't
know where you found any other position in my earlier writing, but in
any event I'm happy to clarify this.
__________

Charles: You didn't oppose this position, but you didn't address it. Racists maintain that it is NATURAL for people to want to be with their own race. Of course, real racists are mulivariate confused and wrong, even more than the hypothetical racist thinking we have been discussing in this exchange. So, what they mean by "natural" is not identical with a scientific biological concept of instinct. Many racists are probably "creationists" , and don't even believe in scientific biology. Nonetheless, as you do have a high level of anti-racist consciousness, you might want to think about this dimension, because it is part of the reality of actually existing racists' consciousness. You might say this aspect logically falls based on your critique of "race" period. But the real world struggle against racism is not always that logical.

Think of it this way. One could think , falsely, that there are different races in some sense, but not think that they shouldn't live together.  Many hardcore racists think segregation of races derives directly from their concept of race.

It might be tested, by the way, by "whites" who live in a "black" household from birth, or the reverse. The trouble is the social causes of racism are widespread.

Regards,



Charles Brown






Charles Brown wrote:
>
> >>> Peter Dorman <dormanp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 02/24/99 10:34PM >>>
> Jeez, it's hard to get through to some people.
> _________
>
> Charles: Yea , I know what you mean. Read the below carefully.
> ____________
>
> Charles Brown wrote:
> >
> > That race  is a socially constructed category means two things > especially.Firstly, skin color, hair texture and facial features ( the main > elements of the modern concept of race), though determined in part by > heredity are not correlated with a hereditary determination of "humanness", > virtue, soulfulness, intelligence, and other behaviors.
>
> Peter:
> Repeat: skin, color, hair texture, and facial features do not constitute
> a basis for "race".  The "modern concept" of race is that it has *no*
> basis in biology.
> _____
>
> Charles: Repeat: the modern concept of race DOES have basis in biology. BAD BIOLOGY. You seem to forget that Darwin made racist statements. Wasn't Darwin a biologist ?? You have the naive position that "biology" , the academic enterprise , has had a correct position on this issue all along. That is stone wrong and historically ignorant.
>
> The scheme Caucasoid/Negroid/?oid/??oid that is in millions of household encylopedias came from BIOLOGY !
> _______
>
> Peter:
>  Neither these three features nor any other set (with
> N>1) provide a stable foundation for dividing humankind into races.
> _________
>
> Charles: True. But that has been established only after a long struggle within BIOLOGY.
> ______________
>
> Peter:
> People with darker skin colors have a vast variety of facial features
> (within Africa alone the variety is extraordinary), etc.  You define
> racism as attaching a higher value to some "races" than others.  I
> reject that.  Racism, as a belief condition, is holding the view that
> races exist as biological entities -- that there are discrete racial
> genuses of species homo sapiens.
> _______
>
> Charles: Actually, it would be two or more SUBspecies, not genuses. Different genuses cannot interbreed. The racists knew that Blacks and Whites could interbreed, so they had to postulate subspecies.
>
> Racism DOES attach higher value to some "races". What do you think racism is ? It is true that racism is based on bad biology, but bad biology existed in biology for a long time.
> ______________
> Peter:
> The only reliable (politically and
> scientifically) view is that race is *entirely* a social construct.
> ______
>
> Charles: That is what I said in my post. Racism is a social construct, because it doesn't work as a biological concept. Maybe you didn't read what I said. I was explaining why race IS a social construct and is BAD  biology. Go read it again.
>
> However, skin color, hair texture and facial features do have some genetic basis, but they are not correlated GENETICALLY with other the other characteristics that racists falsely correlate them with.
>
> Secondly, racists are not racists by instinct. That is just as important as the aspect you discuss.
> _________
>
> Once you accept the notion of biological races you open yourself up to
> all sorts of stereotyping and labeling.  The alternatives then become
> invidious racism a la Herrnstein and Murray and benign racism a la
> Charles Brown (races are different but not better or worse with respect
> to "humanness").  And then you have to play the numbers game to
> determine whether racial differences are benign or malignant.
> ________
>
> Charles: That is slander and an inaccurate reading of what I said. I am an advanced ANTI-racist teaching you something.
>
>  People do have different skin colors, hair textures and facial features in part due to different genes. But those features do not correlate  genetically with the behaviors that racists
> try to correlate them with.
>
> Peter:
> Don't play that game.  Open yourself up to modern biology and reject the
> biological category of race.
>
> Charles: I did reject the biological category of race. You do not understand what I said. I'm not playing games. I am clarifying the biological and socio-political elements of race. You can't fight racism if you don't understand that it orginated in the field of biology. There have been many bases for discriminating against groups of people throughout history. In the modern era, the field of biology was perverted to generate the concept of race as a major way to do it. You will not be able to fully fight racism if you do not understand that racist biology uses partially true hereditarily caused physical characteristics BUT MAKES A FALSE CORRELATION BETWEEN THOSE AND OTHER BEHAVIORAL CHARACTERISTICS. In other words, the error of racism is not that skin color, hair texture and facial features are not in part genetically  determined. The ERROR is to try to correlate these characteristics with somekind of genetic determination of general behaviors such as "intelligence", human!
ness!
> , virtue,
> etc., etc.
>
>  The other part, by the way, is that racists are not racist by instinct. You don't even seem to be aware of that important point to make.
>
> Wake up ! and read carefully.
>
> Charles Brown
>
> MA anthropology 1975 University of Michigan
> Member of the Black Radical Congress