Chapter One: The Origin of the Idea of Race - PowerPoint Presentation

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Chapter One: The Origin of the Idea of Race

By Tanya Maria Golash-Boza

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When people in the United

States meet someone

and are unsure of his or her

race, they sometimes feelcompelled to ask: “Whatare you?”

p. 5: Martin Barraud/Getty

ImagesSlide3

KEY IDEA: race AN IDEA That Was CREATED NOT DISCOVERED

Race is an idea that has not always existed in human cultures.

(pp. 7-9)

Race is a creation that some take for granted as biologically real but is only socially real. (p. 6) Slide4

KEY IDEA: RACE WAS INVENTED FROM SEVERAL Historical INFLUENCES

“Ancient peoples did not divide the world into

distinct races based on their physical and

cultural traits.” (p. 7)The idea of race developed in stages across time and is still developing. Slide5

KEY IDEA: RACE WAS INVENTED FROM SEVERAL Historical INFLUENCES

Purity of blood idea during the Spanish Inquisition and the mistreatment of Muslim and Jewish peoples

Conquistadores

Treatment of Irish by the EnglishEnglish superiority brought to the Americas in mid 1600s

Slavery based on skin color and place of origin

Colonization of the AmericasSlide6

When Christopher

Columbus encountered

the native peoples of the

Caribbean, he foundthem to be peaceableand generous.

p

. 11: Time & Life Pictures/Getty

ImagesSlide7

“Our contemporary racial worldview is a relic of the systems of human classification that were first used in the context of the colonization of American Indian territories and the enslavement of Africans in the Americas.” (p. 22) Slide8

THE IDEA OF RACE DEVELOPING THROUGH LAWS

State slave codes legislated in the 1660s:

C

learly differentiated between African descended people and English who were indentured servants Refused freedom to African descent people who were enslaved and became Christians in Virginia because they had a “heathen” origin (a 1667 law)Outlawed the freeing of slaves & coalitions between poor whites and blacks, created slavery for life, and prevented interracial marriages (in Virginia and Maryland)Slide9

Between 10 and 30

million Africans

were brought

to the Americas on slave ships. Nearly a quarter died while at sea.

p. 13:

De

Agostini

/Getty ImagesSlide10

Slavery and Race

These laws were put in place to create a class of people that would be a work force. Laws kept blacks separate from other groups like indentured servants or poor whites to prevent them from uprising against the elite classes. Such a revolt based on cross-group coalition happened with Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676. Slide11

Slavery and Race

The idea of freedom that was part of the motivation for the American Revolution and incorporated into the U.S. Constitution coexisted in contradiction with the institution of slavery. Slide12

Figure 1-1.

The

Importation

ofServants fromEurope into British

America, 1580–1775

Figure 1-1: Richard S. Dunn, “Servants and Slaves,” in Jack P. Greene and J. R. Pole,

Colonial

British America

(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1984), p. 159Slide13

Figure 1-2.

Regions

from Which

Captured Africans Were Brought to the Americas, 1501–1867Slide14

Philosophy of race develops in steps

Biblical ideas

Pseudoscience typologies Eighteenth century scientific racism

Manifest Destiny Slide15

Biblical ideas

Europeans first explained the origins of “new” groups of people using the Bible. Slide16

Pseudoscience typologies

Classification systems used for plants and animals were applied to people.

Linnaeus

BlumenbachHume Slide17

Illustration from Josiah Clark Nott and

George Robins

Gliddon’s

IndigenousRaces of the Earth (1857), showingperceived distinctions between the white

man, the black man, and the chimpanzee.

p. 25: from

Indigenous Races of the

EarthSlide18

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY SCIENTIFIC RACISM

Scientific Racism—when allegedly scientific principles and methods were used to prove the existence and qualities of races

d

e GobineauSpencerMortonBroca Slide19

Joseph Arthur Comte de Gobineau

(July 14, 1816 – October 13, 1882) was a French aristocrat who developed the theory of the Aryan master race in his book

An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races

(1853-1855).

Gobineau was a successful diplomat whose career in Iran influenced the development of his ideas. He came to believe that race created culture. In his view the development of empires created racial mixture, which led to the 'degeneration' of races. He called this process

Semiticization,

because of his belief that Semitic peoples were a product of the Middle-Eastern cross-over between the otherwise distinct "black", "white" and "yellow" races. Gobineau was known for his reactionary aristocratic politics, as well as his hatred of mass democratic culture. He believed himself to be the descendant of Nordic Vikings and Condottieri.

The Count Joseph

Authur

de

Gobineau

was a supporter of eugenics. He heavily influenced 19th century thinking concerning race. He referred to race as a cluster of inherited characteristics. De

Gobineau

argued that there are three races: the White, Black, and Yellow. According to De

Gobineau

, Whites were the most evolved of the three races and Blacks the least evolved. De

Gobineau

equated cultural evolution with biological

.

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Manifest Destiny Ideology

Manifest Destiny—an idea that stated that the expansion of whites across the United States was inevitable and meant to be

This ideology was used by white leaders to excuse the forced or coerced removal of multiple native communities from their homelands.Slide21

Conclusion

Understanding race for how it is socially and historically constructed may be a new idea for many. This provides the foundation for other chapters that explain how race and racism can permeate interactions and processes in current day life.