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Race/Class Hierarchy, Does Race Even Exist? The words like racism, class hierarchy, race discrimination, xenophobia, Chauvinism, ethnocentrism, extremism became familiar to our day-to-day existence. The problem of race and racism became an issue of the day. The idea of race continues to exert so much influence in the United States of America. Why does it continue to be an issue for discussions and debates? The idea of race didnt appear out of nowhere or for no reason at all.
The problem of race has existed long time ago both in the United States and in European countries. The theory of race supremacy was implanted in the nations conscience. The theory of race reveals in the most diverse spheres of our life. It influences not only the everyday life but also the sphere of politics and science. Traditionally the Americans understand the racism as a certain concept that, firstly, traces all differences between people (both in culture, behavior, world outlook, etc) to race features that are allegedly discovered in such characteristics like color of skin, shape of nose, the shape of eyes, structure and color of hair, etc.
Secondly, the racism, based on the first principle, declares the eternal inequality. Moreover, the racism insists on its legal foundation. The racism created by the epoch of colonialism, was based on the concept of superior and inferior races. Despite all scientific data the racism announced that race differences determine the course of history. According to Joseph Birdsell, classical racism was based on: Conviction that superior race does exist; Belief that the races have differences in their genetic basis; Conclusion that some races have substantial advantages over the others; References to intellectual tests that witnessed the fact that white race is more intellectual that the black race; Conviction that brain of people who belong to black race is anatomically underdeveloped; Belief that white race possesses ability to create supreme civilizations; Desire to maintain the purity of white race by method of prevention of interracial marriages; The majority of scientists and researchers understand the doctrine of race and race purity as follows: The concept of race exists. There are groups that have clearly identified differences according to somatic characteristics.
These differences are recognized to be substantial and important for the destiny of nations; There is an indissoluble causal relationship between physical type and moral qualities. Such supposition derives cultural differences from physical; Conviction that racial-cultural (ethical) predefined nature of individual behavior exists; The adherence to idea that universal (actually, egocentric) hierarchy of values exist. Such hierarchy determines unequal position of certain races (minorities); Desire to realize all these postulates into political practice (racism afoot); In case we exclude at least one of these features, the concept of race and race supremacy will not exist any more. The doctrine of race will loose its viability. For example, Herbert J. Gans claims that the concept of race and the class hierarchy should disappear as the nations belonging to different races can interbreed, therefore, the very definition of race can not be used in relation to humans.
The refusal from the first postulate, for example, will mean the transition from racism to cultural ism. The idea of cultural ism makes culture a centre of attention instead of race. Besides, the cultural ism elevated into the absolute (some scientists define it as a cultural fundamentalism) became the metamorphosis of racism in European countries. The successful struggle with racism demands clear understanding the concepts of race and racism. Even liberally minded intellectuals often consider that the models of human behavior and peculiarities of thinking processes are stipulated at least by ethical belonging of a person. However, these suppositions play the role of nutrient medium for racism.
Such position is morally vulnerable. It dooms the struggle with racism for inevitable defeat. Such position also cardinally differs from the conclusions of the modern science, according to which the previous concept of race was re-examined. Some of scientists claim that the previous definition of racism should be examined within the context of XIX century with its dominating principle of scientific racism. It means that the science supported racial stereotypes by its belief into objective existence of races and their natural inequality. Secondly, the science erroneously allotted the racism with eternal and standing feature of human nature.
Thirdly, the previous concept of race and racism had extremely political color and was mainly directed against the German Nazism. Due to all those reasons the theory of race was unable to withstand the modern forms of racism. So, lets revert to the theme of race existence. Herbert J.
Gans claims that people can marry each other and can make babies despite of their race belonging. The biologists who define races as subspecies that cannot interbreed, argue that scientifically there can be no human races. Nonetheless, lay people still see and distinguish between races (Gans n. p. ). In such a way, the very concept of race and racial belonging seems have no right for existence. Yet, the people who make their arguments in favor of race existence are not sociologists, nor are they biologists.
Those people are guided mainly by visible features that can be differentiated. First of all, the concept of race refers rather to its interpretations than to the reality. These interpretations can be diverse. Some researchers are based on the postulate that new interpretation of race should make accent on function but not on the content of discourse. In other words, the racism can be explored as the desire to attach such biological or cultural peculiarities that are able to justify its discrimination. Besides, there is a difference between the concepts of racism and racialization.
The term racialization can be used when social interrelations between humans can be described with help of concentration of human biological characteristics that is aimed to define and construct peculiar social commonalities. Many other researchers started to explore the concept of racialization as a process within the course of which a certain group (or groups) of population possesses certain racial features by their neighboring communities (countries, etc) or by governmental legislation. Such group of population is singled out into a special category and occupies a certain position in the racially colored social structure of society. Some Americans even dwell on colored vision peculiar to European comprehension of group differences. Besides, the history shows that the categories of race differences were often re-examined drastically. There were cases when the same concept gained the opposite meaning.
The concept of supremacy of white race is also very interesting. For example, in XVI century the Portuguese examined the white race as combination of Arabians, Indians, Chinese and traditionally whites. One English geographical textbook speaks about the nations of Africa, such as Arabians, Abyssinians, Berbers, Tuaregs, Masai, and Somali as white nations. The Americans (XIX century), as opposite to other countries, didnt consider Irish and Italians as whites. Only in XX century white race became to be associated with Europeans and their descendants. The Jews started to belong to whites only after the World War II.
In 1920 s the Indians unsuccessfully tried to prove that they also have right to belong to the white Arian race. Up to now, the American bureaucracy adheres to opinion that the border between the Whites and the Asians lays somewhere between Pakistan and India. The idea of black race as a special social category is quite new. Ancient Greeks and Romans differentiated the nations according to the color of their skin. However, they included it into a general social category of Barbarians. There were no sign of idea of white race supremacy.
Only in 1670 s the Virginian law defined the chattel slavery system as an attribute of Africans. Since that time all Africans irrespectively of their ethical belonging became the negro slaves. The Whites, by contrast with the Blacks, were referred to the category of supreme white race. For example, the nations of Northern America considered the white race as absolutely pure and didnt allow any interracial marriage or coupling. According to this unwritten constitutional law, all descendents of interracial couplings automatically belonged to the black race. Yet, scientifically the concept of race cannot exist as all people are able to breed and the products of interracial breeding is viable.
The merging of people arguably belonging to different races is a tendency peculiar to the mankind. Ethical problems gain more important as they make influence on issues related both to the biology of human, politics and to the problems of its social development. Anthropologists claim that at least 1 / 5 part of the Earths population is the product of interracial breeding. What are the perspectives of our mankind from the anthropological point of view in relation to the race issues? Is there a possibility that the mankind belongs to one race? Modern world faces the processes of globalization, the mixture and merger of countries and nations.
Nevertheless, the supposition that in the nearest future the concept of race will disappear hardly can be treated seriously. The human nature is quite conservative. Thousands of generations should die until the concept of race in a common to all mankind way of thinking will disappear. Some biomedical researches determine the ethical belonging of patients to the ethical group based on traditional racial belongings. The discussions about the significance of group belonging is an illustrative example of the racial impact on formation of social and political tendencies. From time immemorial people asked a question about the diverse ethical groups and their kinship with each other.
The scientists and philosophers were lost in conjectures related to visible and invisible differences of diverse races. The recent genetic researchers and methods of analysis finally advanced the solutions of many of those racial mysteries. According to these genetic researches some groups can differ genetically, however, the very principle of differentiation depends on the certain gene examined. To illustrate the theory by example, examining nature of genes defining the color of skin, you can be related to one ethical group, whereas examining the genes with other characteristics you can be related to other group.
Numerous researchers prove that genetic diversity of human is rather stipulated by differences peculiar to populations living in certain continent, than by the differences between continental populations. In such a way, the average genetic differences within the limits of any human population are expressed more vividly than the differences between two populations. It means that the representatives of diverse populations hardly have more differences than the representatives belonging to the same population. Such supposition leads to conclusion that the concept of race doesnt exist. This conclusion, in its turn, forces us to understand our own biological nature and to realize the continuity of congeneric ties uniting all people into unified genetic family where no judging differences in skin color and other racial features has right for existence. Bibliography: Gans, Herbert J.
Race as Class. Contexts, Fall 2005, Vol. 4, No. 4, Pages 17 - 21
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Research essay sample on Race Class Hierarchy Does Even Exist
