Some Facts About Race

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Some Facts About Race
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Defining Ethnic

• Each of us has an ethnicity- frequently confused
  with race
• Shared cultural characteristics of a group
• Includes national origin, language, traditions,
  customs, religious beliefs/practices, etc. as
  well as racial category

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Race is a modern idea

• Ancient societies divided people by
  - religion- social rank or status- language
  - NOT by racial category
• Slavery predates race
• American equality, freedom, and race- early
  economy slave-based- why race science emerges

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Northern European Roots of Racial Ideology

• England- after invasion in the 12th century
• - English (Anglo-Normans) seek to expand
• - Armies invade westward
• - leads to conflict with Irish

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Inventing the Savage

• Irish are described as wild, beastly, ignorant,
  cruel, unruly infidels, cannibals, heathens,
  superstitious, idolatrous, unclean, loathsome,
  wicked, barbarous, unclean, and uncivil.
• Notion of the other and the dividing of people
  into civilized vs. uncivilized categories.

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As English settlers invade Irish lands

• They create laws aimed at preventing the
  assimilation of Irish culture into English
  - English outlaw intermarriage with Irish
• - Forbid the wearing of Irish dress, use of
  Irish language, and many other forms of social
  interaction

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Result

• Irish deemed savages incapable of assimilating
• Ideology will be transferred to America

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The Physiology of Race Categories

• Categories based on physical characteristics -
  skin color, - eye and nose shape, - hair
  texture, etc.
• Biological theories about race (i.e. racial
  science) are problematic.

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Biological Theories of Race Assume

• Humans are divisible into fixed racial
  categories
• Human variation is sharp between races but not
  within a racial category
• Biological traits vary in a consistent way
• Assumptions about genetic basis of race not in
  line with how we think about racial categories

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Most Traits are Continuous, Varying, and
Clinally Distributed

• Human variation gradual, only subtle differences
  between nearby groups
• Race implies variation is discontinuous and sharp

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Biological Variables and Racial Science

• Problem moving from individual-level traits to
  group-level traits
• Example Sickle Cell anemia.
• The allele that causes it is more common in
• Guyana than among Bantu (exposure to malaria is
  the
• key factor in this difference)- cant tell us
  which person has the allele
• Male/Female height difference

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Clinal Variation

• Defined asvariation that accumulates with
  distance
• Examples
• Skin color varies on a north/south
  gradientSickle-cell anemia peaks in West
  Africa- decreases moving away from West Africa
• These variations have no fixed boundaries

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Race is a Pre-Scientific Concept

• Emerges from Platonic notion of the ideal
• Merges with Christian idea of a great chain of
  being
• Little scientific concern over racial differences
  before 1492
• Race science emerges at the same time as European
  Expansionist ideology and is used to support
  notions of white superiority

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Additional Evidence

• On average- two individuals of same purported
  race only marginally more genetically alike than
  any two chosen at random (Lewontin, 1972)
• Humans fail statistical tests for subspecies-
  Fst of Wright must be between 0.25-0.30- Humans
  calculated at 0.156
• Racial Classifications not stable over time-
  Irish, Italians, Jews once not considered white

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Conflating Biology With Lived Experience

• Widely reported that a mean birth weight between
  black and white babies in the United States is
  genetic.
• Statistical Study of Birth Weights (David and
  Collins 1997)
• US white women 3,446 grams
• African black women 3, 333 grams
• US black women 3, 089 grams

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1863 Statement by Anthropologist

• The skeleton of the Negro is heavier, the bones
  thickerthis is especially true with regard to
  the skull, which is hard and unusually thick, so
  that in fighting, Negroes, men and women, butt
  each other like rams without exhibiting much
  sensibility.

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Antacid Tablets and RaceExcerpt from The Six
Wrongs of Racial Science by Alan H. Goodman

• Antacid Labels ClaimRegular exercise and a
  healthy diet with enough calcium helps teen and
  young adult white and Asian women maintain good
  bone health and may reduce their risk of
  osteoporosis later in life.
• Claim is based onStudy by Trotter, Bowman, and
  Patterson (1960)

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A Century Later Wasserman and Barzel (1987)

• Review the causes of osteoporosis list age, sex,
  and race as causal factors
• Section in the review that covers race states
• - It is a well-known fact that blacks do not
  suffer from osteoporosis.
• The well-known fact is based on one
  study- Trotter, Bowman, and Paterson
  (1960)- Study is flawed

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Trotter Study Flaws

• Eighty cadavers
• No description of selection process- causes of
  death?- socio-economic status?
• - diet?- other risk factors?

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Authors Conclusions

• Cervical, thoracis, lumbar vertebrae, sacra,
  humeri, and ulnae heavier in blacks than in
  whites
• No significant racial difference in - radii,
  tibiae, ribs, and femora
• Femoral neck fractures most serious effects of
  osteoporosis

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Authors Conclusions continued

• Scatter plots of original data reveal the
  following- overall trend (for all groups) to
  decline in bone density with age
• - racial difference in rate of decline with age
  unclear

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Significance

• Even if there were a million studies showing such
  a difference, it would still not follow from this
  that blacks are immune to osteoporosis, that they
  should not be given advice and treatment to help
  prevent or slow bone loss, or that they should
  not be encouraged to take TUMS etc.
• Alan H. GoodmanProfessor of Biological
  AnthropologyHampshire College

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Social Darwinism

• Evolutionary biology co-opted to support views of
  social relationships
• Eugenics, Race, and Facism- survival of the
  fittest
• Race and the IQ Fallacy

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Linnaeus (1758)

• Americanus is regulated by custom and paints
  himself with fine red lines Asiaticus is haughty
  and covetous and governed by opinion Afer is
  indolent, anoints himself with grease, and is
  governed by caprice and Europaeus is gentile,
  acute, inventive, and governed by law.

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Prejudice vs. Racism Defined

• Prejudice- conclusions or judgments based on
  limited information or misinformation- an
  unreasonable attitude resistant to rational
  influence
• Racism- system that perpetuates disadvantages
  through institutional practices, cultural
  messages, and individual prejudice

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Forces that influence prejudice

• stranger phenomenon
• economic competition
• perceptions of what is normative (who is normal
  who is not) - often conveyed through stereotypes
• History- whose story gets told?