Science must not invent new myths about race

Posted in Articles, Health/Medicine/Genetics, Media Archive, Politics/Public Policy, Social Science, United Kingdom on 2011-08-19 22:38Z by Steven

Science must not invent new myths about race

London Evening Standard
2009-11-16

Lindsay Johns

Science and race have never been easy bedfellows. Since Victorian times, when Western scientific advancement was used as an intellectual and moral justification for European colonial expansion, science or pseudo-science has occupied an uncomfortable place in our understanding of race.

Yet today, as Professor Steve Jones will argue at a debate tonight, it is commonly held by scientists that, genetically, there is no such thing as race.

It has been proven that there is a negligible amount of difference between the DNA of different “races”. Rather, race is a social construct, a fluid and malleable entity.

In America, the “one drop” rule of black blood still effectively renders anyone with any in them, even if they are quite light skinned, as “black”.

Elsewhere, race being such a nebulous entity, it can often be confusing. For example, many mixed-race people, myself included, are often mistaken for Arabs…

…Yet it would be naive to deny that race, although biologically inconsequential, is still very much a social reality.

Many social and economic disparities still arise from it: people use race to define themselves.

Scientists of all backgrounds have a duty to interpret data responsibly: their pronouncements on race have ethical, legal and social implications…

Read the entire article here.

Tags: , ,

The Effects of Race Intermingling

Posted in Anthropology, Articles, Health/Medicine/Genetics, Media Archive, Papers/Presentations, Social Science, United States on 2011-08-17 04:12Z by Steven

The Effects of Race Intermingling

Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society
Volume 56, Number 4 (1917)
pages 364-368

Charles B. Davenport, Director
Department of Experimental Evolution
(Carnegie Institution of Washington)
Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, New York

Read on April 13, 1917

The problem of the effects of race intermingling may well interest us of America, when a single state, like New York, of 9,000,000 inhabitants contains 840,000 Russians and Finns, 720,000 Italians, 1,ooo,ooo Germans, 880,000 Irish, 470,000 Austro-Hungarians, 310,000 of Great Britain, 125,000 Canadians (largely French), and 9o,ooo Scandinavians. All figures include those born abroad or born of two foreign-born parents. Nearly two thirds of the population of New York State is foreign-born or of foreign or mixed parentage. Even in a state like Connecticut it is doubtful if 2 per cent of the population are of pure Anglo-Saxon stock for six generations of ancestors in all lines. Clearly a mixture of European races is going on in America on a colossal scale.

Before proceeding further let us inquire into the meaning of “race.” The modern geneticists’ definition differs from that of the systematist or old fashioned breeder. A race is a more or less pure bred “group” of individuals that differs from other groups by at least one character, or, strictly, a genetically connected group whose germ plasm is characterized by a difference, in one or more genes, from other groups. Thus a blue-eyed Scotchman belongs to a different race from some of the dark Scotch. Strictly, as the term is employed by geneticists they may be said to belong to different elementary species.

Defining race in this sense of elementary species we have to consider our problem: What are the results of race intermingling, or miscegenation? To this question no general answer can be given. A specific answer can, however, be given to questions involving specific characters. For example, if the question be framed: what are the results of hybridization between a blue-eyed race (say Swede) and a brown-eyed race (say South Italian)? The answer is that, since brown eye is dominant over blue eye, all the children will have brown eyes; and if two such children inter-marry brown and blue eyes will appear among their children in the ratio of 3 to 1. Again, if one parent be white and the other a full-blooded negro then the skin color of the children will be about half as dark as that of the darker parent; and the progeny of two such mulattoes will be white, 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 and full black in the ratio of 1:4:6:4:1…

…Not only physical but also mental and temperamental incompatibilities may be a consequence of hybridization. For example, one often sees in mulattoes an ambition and push combined with intellectual inadequacy which makes the unhappy hybrid dissatisfied with his lot and a nuisance to others.

To sum up, then, miscegenation commonly spells disharmony—disharmony of physical, mental and temperamental qualities and this means also disharmony with environment. A hybridized people are a badly put together people and a dissatisfied, restless, ineffective people. One wonders how much of the exceptionally high death rate in middle life in this country is due to such bodily maladjustments; and how much of our crime and insanity is due to mental and temperamental friction.

This country is in for hybridization on the greatest scale that the world has ever seen…

Read the entire article here.

Tags: , , ,

Racialised relations in Liverpool: A contemporary anomaly

Posted in Articles, History, Media Archive, Social Science, United Kingdom on 2011-08-17 01:54Z by Steven

Racialised relations in Liverpool: A contemporary anomaly
 
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies
Volume 17, Issue 4 (1991)
pages 511-537
DOI: 10.1080/1369183X.1991.9976265

Stephen Small, Associate Professor, African American Studies; Associate Director of the Institute of International Studies; Director, The Rotary International Center for Studies in Peace and Conflict Resolution
University of California, Berkeley

The city of Liverpool stands out as an anomaly in the mapping of ‘racialised relations’ and the black experience in England. While it shares a number of continuities with other cities, it reveals several structural and cultural features which are absent or significantly at variance with patterns elsewhere. These include extreme residential segregation, a powerful white local sentiment and insular identity, and extremely virulent ‘racialised’ hostility. In addition, the black population is markedly different in its length of residence, its ethnic and national origins, the proportion of mixed parentage and the frequency of mixed dating and marriages. All of this has occurred in the context of regional deprivation scanning four decades.
 
The city of Liverpool stands out as an anomaly in the mapping of ‘racialised relations’ in England with regard to a number of structural, cultural and ideological features. The notion of an anomaly employed here refers to aspects of ‘racialised retations’, the black experience and the characteristics of the black population. In most analyses of the black experience in England, black people are correctly seen as immigrants of recent arrival, primarily Caribbean in origin, with the vast majority of families headed by two parents from the Caribbean (Daniel 1968; Smith 1977). These newcomers arrived almost exclusively to take up work in areas and industries with a demand for labour (Patterson 1963; Peach 1968; Rose et al 1969; pero 1971).

These characteristics simply do not apply to Liverpool. In Liverpool the vast majority of black people are indigenous, with many families resident over several generations (MAPG 1980; Liverpool Black Caucus 1986); it is a population which only a small proportion of West Indians, most being of African origin (Gifford 1989); and it is one characterised by frequent inter-dating with the white majority and a high proportion of mixed couples and marriages (Commission for Racial Equality 1989). In addition, the majority of black people in the city are of mixed origins (Gifford et al 1989; Ben-Tovim 1989). Black people did not settle there in response to a demand for labour, and they have never been the beneficiaries of an expanding economy (Caradog Jones 1940; Meegan 1989; Parkinson et al 1989).

But the city is not an island of activity unto itself and it is important to recognise the common features it shares with the black experience elsewhere in the country, in particular, the unrelenting ‘racialised’ discrimination, the confinement of black people to the most disadvantaged positions, and the hostility, indifference or inability of the majority population to combat this discrimination. Whether in employment or in housing, education or health, the private, voluntary or public sector, and in relations with the police, evidence from across the nation indicates that ‘racialised’ disadvantage is entrenched and discrimination continues unabated (Small 1984; Brown and Gay 1985; Smith 1989a; Rooney and McKain 1990; Interim Background Report 1991). The continuing impact of these obstacles has led to the charge of ‘uniquely horrific racism’ in the city (Gifford et al 1989: 82).

Both the continuities and the discontinuities are important and this combination makes it an aberrant case, an analysis of which has many implications for the study of ‘racialised relations’. The former because they underline the futility of analysing specific contexts in a vacuum; the latter because they belie the view that there are general solutions to general problems, reaffirming instead the need to find specific solutions 10 the particular manifestations of problems. The city is also important because of its symbolic significance as the longest standing black community in the country…

In this article I want to indicate why Liverpool is best considered as an anomaly and explain how it became one. I want to use the black experience in the city to make a broader contribution to theorising about ‘racisms’ and ‘race’. In so doing I will relate a story not previously told in full, or widely disseminated, and link this to broader debates on ‘racialised relations’ in England. This will highlight some of the limitations in general theories of ‘racialised relations’ and facilitate an examination of the interplay of local, regional, national and international contexts. The desirability of this has been emphasised in recent studies (Ouseley 1984; Boddy and Fudge 1984; Reeves 1989; Goldsmith 1989; Taylor 1989; Harloe et al 1990; Solomos and Back 1990; Ball and Solomos 1990), although most of the assumptions upon which these theories are based do not apply to Liverpool (Smith 1989b: 156). This is especially relevant as the pattern in Liverpool is suggestive of future developments elsewhere, as the black population becomes increasingly indigenous, socialised in England and young, and as patterns of inter-dating and inter-marriage increase (Brown 1984; Liverpool Black Caucus 1986; Smith 1989a; Ben-Tovim 1989).

All of this will be achieved in an approach that emphasises the ‘racialisation’ problematic (Banton 1977; Miles 1982; Jackson 1987; Small 1990c). I will argue that there is a need for considerable rethinking of theory about ‘racialised relations’. In particular, there is a need for a reassessment of ‘racial harmony’ and ‘racial parity’. This will also help advance our understanding of the interplay of ‘racisms’ and class relations, and emphasise the need to unravel the intricacies of this relationship empirically. I will address two specific omissions from existing analyses of ‘racisms’ and class relations. The first is a failure to extend detailed consideration to the nature and impact of the complex dynamic of ‘racialised’ attitudes and ideologies which help to structure relations between blacks and whites. A prime example of this dynamic is the matrix of meanings associated with inter-dating, and the pejorative category of ‘half-caste‘ in Liverpool (Fleming 1930; King and King 1938; McNeil 1948; Collins 1951, 1955; Richmond 1954; Manley 1955; Rich 1984a; Gifford ei al 1989; Wilson 1989)…

Liverpool’s black population…

…The majority of the black residents in Liverpool are indigenous while the majority of black people elsewhere in the country are immigrants (Brown 1984; Smith 1989a; Gifford et al 1989). Most studies date the establishment of the black community to the 1700s, though no doubt there were black individuals in the city before that date (Law and Henfry 1981; Fryer 1984). Liverpool thus has the longest standing and largest indigenous black population in the country. For the country as a whole, black people are becoming increasingly indigenous, but Liverpool is the only city with a major indigenous black community that dates back several generations. Even Bristol and Cardiff do not match it (Fryer 1984; Ramdin 1987). The best estimates place the population of the city with origins outside England in the region of 20,000 to 30,000 (4-6 per cent of the city) (Gifford et al 1989: 37). Some have estimated it to be closer to 40,000 (8 per cent) (MCRC 1980; Liverpool Black Caucus 1986: 17; Ben-Tovim 1989: 129). These figures include substantial numbers of Chinese, Arabs and Asians…

…The majority of black people elsewhere in the country have no immediate or apparent European origin and are presumed to be of exclusive African origins (in the sense of having two parents that are defined as ‘black’), while in Liverpool they are ‘Black People of Mixed Origins’. Again, it is currently impossible to say precisely how many are of mixed origins, but in Liverpool the notion of ‘British-born black’ is usually taken as synonymous with mixed origins (Commission for Racial Equality 1986; Gifford et al 1989; Ben-Tovim 1989: 129). This provides for a mixed population in Liverpool of between 7,400-11,100. This amounts to 37 per cent of the total population with origins outside England, and well over 50 per cent of the population of African origins (Commission for Racial Equality 1989; Gifford et al 1989: 37). Again, if we compare this with the nation as a whole we find that the population of mixed origins amounts to a far smaller proportion (Brown 1984).

The majority of black people elsewhere in the country live in households in which both parents are black, while Liverpool’s black population reveals a high incidence of mixed cohabitation and marriages. The majority of such families involves a white mother and a father who is black (or ‘Black of Mixed Origins’), The prima facie evidence for this is striking—it is invariably mentioned in all reports about the black presence in the city and is undisputed conventional wisdom—though again pinpointing numbers with any precision is not possible (Fletcher 1930a; MAPG 1980; Commission for Racial Equality 1986, 1989; Ben-Tovim 1989; Gifford et al 1989). This profile is in stark contrast to the other cities in which black people are to be found, and to the general settlement pattern of black people for the country as a whole (Bagley 1972, 1981). For England and Wales, Brown calculates that around 6 per cent of minority households involve mixed cohabitation or mixed marriages (1984: 21)…

…Historical background to the anomaly

Any explanation of the distinctive black experience in Liverpool must be located in the historical unfolding of migration and shipping, slavery and freedom, economics and employment, competition and conflict, and demography. Much of this has everything to do with ‘racisms’ of various kinds as evidenced in the coercion and exploitation of African people, the growth of the city on the basis of the slave trade, and the constraints imposed on its black residents (Clemens 1976; Ramdin 1987). But much of it has little to do with ‘racisms’, and is more directly impacted by broader structural developments, as in the changing balance of world trade, the establishment and growth of the European Economic Community and the vicissitudes of regional policy (Taylor 1989; Meegan 1989).

The slave trade made many in Liverpool prosperous, and forced the first black people there, as well as white slave owners and ideologies (Anstey and Hair 1976; Law and Henfry 1981). Black men outnumbered black women, which led to mixed relationships, inter-marriage and children (Richmond 1966; Rich 1984a, 1986). Shipping with Africa brought many black sailors there, and continues to do so (Lane 1990). The University and Polytechnic developed strength in maritime studies and continued to attract African students…

Read the entire article here.

Tags: , , , ,

Being Raced, Acting Racially: Multiracial Tribal College Students’ Representations of Their Racial Identity Choices

Posted in Campus Life, Dissertations, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, Native Americans/First Nation, Social Science, United States on 2011-08-17 01:35Z by Steven

Being Raced, Acting Racially: Multiracial Tribal College Students’ Representations of Their Racial Identity Choices

University of New Mexico, Albuquerque
September 2010
208 pages

Michelle Rene Montgomery

DISSERTATION Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies

In recent years, many studies have clearly documented that mixed-race people are currently engaged in the process of self validation (DaCosta. 2007; Dalmage, 2003; McQueen, 2002; Root, 1996 & 2001; Spencer, J, M., 1997; Spencer, R., 2006a; Thorton, 1992). There is not a lot of empirical research that examines how schools influence the racial identity of multiracial students, in particular mixed-race students that identify as Native American. Even more troubling is the lack of literature on experiences of mixed-race students using racial identity choice as a social and political tool through race discourse and actions. The aim of this qualitative case study was to look at the relationship between the racial agency of multiracial students and the larger white supremacist social structure. The research questions addressed in this study are as follows: (1) How do the formal and informal schooling contexts shape the identity choices of multiracial students? (2) How do the identity choices of multiracial students conform to an/or resist the racialized social system of the United States?

This study was conducted at a tribal college in New Mexico with selected mixed-race participants who identified as Native American, or acknowledged Native American ancestry. At the time of data collection, the school enrollment was 513 students, representing 83 federally recognized tribes and 22 state recognized tribes. The presence of a multi-racial body of students created a unique contributing factor of multiracial participants for a broader understanding of mixed-race experiences in cultural and traditional learning environments. The study was conducted using qualitative case study methodology of mixed-race students interviewed in the last weeks of the fall semester (pre-interview) and once during the last few weeks of the spring semester (post interviews). Mixed-race students were asked to discuss nine group sessions during the spring semester their lived experiences that influenced their identity choices. The sample for this study represented mixed-race participants from various tribal communities. In an eight-month time period of the study, nine participants were interviewed and participated in-group sessions. Of the nine total in sample, two were male, seven were female; three were Native American/white, two were black/white/Native American, three were Hispanic/white/Native American, and one were Hispanic/Native American.

From my analysis of the nine participants’ mixed-race experience, three overarching themes emerged: (a) racial(ized) self-perceptions, (b) peer interactions and influences, and (c) impact on academic experiences. Of the nine participants, how a students’ race was asserted, assigned, and reassigned appears to be determined by being mixed-race with black versus white or non-black. According to the participants, this particular tribal college did not provide a supportive or welcoming environment. As a result, students were highly stratified based on experiences tied to their phenotype and racial mixture; the more “black” they appeared, the more alienated they were. In the classroom, there was often a divide between black/Native mixed-race students versus white/Native mixed-race students, similar to the differences between monoracial white and black student experiences. As a result of dissimilar experiences based on mixedness, there were group association conflicts during their schooling experiences that included feeling vicitimized when their whiteness did not prevail as an asset or being alienated due to blackness. The study also found a clear distinction between the mixed-race black experience versus the mixed-race with white experience based on phenotypic features. Overall, mixed-race with black schooling experiences indicated situations of racial conflict. The findings of this study have policy implications for tribal colleges and other institutions to develop programs and services to help mixed-race students identify and bond with their learning environments.

Table of Contents

  • CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
    • Introduction
    • Statement of the Problem
    • Purpose of the Study
    • Significance of the Study
    • Research Questions
    • Definition of Key Terms
    • Overview of Methodology
    • Limitations of the Study
  • CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW
    • Introduction
      • The Politics of Multiracialism
      • Empirical Research On The Identity Politics of Multiracial Students40
  • CHAPTER 3 METHODS
    • Focus of the Research
    • Research Design
    • Research Participants
    • Setting
    • Portrait of Participants
    • Data Collection
    • Data Analysis
    • Ethics
    • Validity
    • Trustworthiness
  • CHAPTER 4 ANALYSIS OF MIXED-RACE EXPERIENCES
    • Theme One: Racial(ized) Self-Perceptions
      • Identity Politics of Blood Quantum
        • Black/Native American Experience
        • Non-Black/Native American Experience
      • Summary
      • Self-Perceptions of Race Being Asserted, Negotiated and Redefined
        • Non-Black/Native American Experience
        • Black/Native American Experience
        • Non-Black/Native American Experience
          • Black/Native American Experience
          • Non-Black/Native American Experience
      • Disadvantages: Mixed-race Identity Choice
        • Black/Native American Experience
        • Non-Black/Native American Experience
      • Advantages: Mixed-race Identity Choice
        • Non-Black/Native American Experience
      • Summary
    • Theme Two: Peer Interactions and Influences
      • Perceivable Differences
        • Non-Black/Native American Experience
        • Black/Native American Experience
      • Summary
      • Surviving the Losses
        • Non-Black/Native American Experience
        • Black/Native American Experience
      • Summary
    • Theme Three: The Impact on Academic Experiences
      • The Role of Tribal Colleges
      • Schooling Experiences
        • Black/Native American Experience
        • Non-Black/Native American Experience
      • Summary
  • CHAPTER 5 DISCUSSION
    • Discussion
      • Major Findings
        • Research Question #1
        • Research Question #2
      • Summary
      • Recommendations
        • Administrators
        • Faculty and Staff
        • Future Research
        • Conclusion
  • APPENDICES
  • APPENDIX A CONSENT TO PARTICIPATE IN RESEARCH
  • APPENDIX B PARTICIPANT DEMOGRAPHIC QUESTIONNAIRE
  • APPENDIX C FIRST PARTICIPANT INTERVIEW
  • APPENDIX D SECOND PARTICIPANT INTERVIEW
  • REFERENCES

Chapter 1: Introduction

Introduction

Dark brown skin with wavy hair, I am accustomed to being asked, “What are you?” Often I am mistaken for being reserved despite my easy, sincere grin. My facial expression perhaps does not show what I have learned in my life: reluctant people endure, passionate people live. Whether it is the glint of happiness in my eyes or what I call “using laughter to heal your soul,” my past experience as a mixed-race person has been significantly different from my current outlook on life. I am at ease with my lived experiences, very willing to share and even encouraging others to probe more into my racialized experience. Like many mixed-race people, I experienced an epiphany: disowning a need to belong and disengaging from the structure of race has given me the confidence to critique race discourse.

I identify as Native American with mixed-race heritage. I am mixed-race black/white, Native American, and mixed-race Korean/Mongolian. My father is mixedrace black/white and Native American, and my mother is mixed-race Korean/Mongolian. We are enrolled members of the Haliwa Saponi Tribe. When I was growing up, my father taught me that I am a multiracial person. So, I can personally relate to the idea that monoraciality does not fit my multiracial identity or those of other multiracials in our socalled “melting pot” society.

However, countless numbers of times I have been raced in ways that have forced me to choose a group association. My own experiences illustrate how racial designation and group association plays itself out in society, including in classroom learning environments. My siblings and I grew up in a predominantly mixed-race Native American community in northeastern North Carolina that included black, Native American, and white ancestry. I attended a rural high school that contained mixed-race black/Native American, mixed-raced white/Native American, monoracial blacks, and monoracial white students. It was not unusual for mixed-race black/Native American and monoracial blacks to create close group associations, which were exhibited through social interactions that occurred when sitting together in the cafeteria, classrooms, or in designated lounging areas around campus. However, mixed-race white/Native American students, especially those who seemed phenotypically white, did not want to be associated with monoracial black students. Most mixed-race white/Native American students created group associations with monoracial white students. As a brown complexioned multiracial person in this racially polarized environment, I was placed in a situation where I had to choose a group association to keep mixed-race black/Native American and monoracial black students from viewing me as acting white. On the other hand, the mixed-raced white/Native Americans and monoracial whites viewed my actions as acting black.

Because of my Korean and Mongolian ancestry, I was not perceived phenotypically as a true member of the black or Native American groups. My Koreanness caused friction between me and the monoracial black and mixed-race black/Native American groups with which I most commonly associated because it gave me an inroad to the white/r groups that they did not have. Because I did not acknowledge and challenge my advantage, I allowed myself to be used as an agent of racism. This happened in a number of ways. For instance, monoracial white and mixed-race Native American groups asked me to sit with them in the cafeteria, but they did not invite monoracial blacks and mixed-race black/Native Americans. And I accepted their invitation. As a consequence, the group with which I most associated viewed me as a race traitor, as a racial fraud. And I felt like one, too. I am ashamed that I actively participated in the denigration of blacks, which is the most denigrated part of my own ancestry. A multiracial person with black ancestry who accepts not being identified as black in an effort to subvert white privilege (i.e., resisting racial categorization as a way of challenging the notion of race) can actually be reinforcing it, as was the case for me. The problem is how the context and meaning of being a race traitor or committing racial fraud arises out of and is bounded by the social and political descriptions of race. Both social and political constructs are then used as a justification for policing the accuracy of racial identification or political alliance. In most instances, being cast as a race traitor, or as an alleged racial fraud, is a constitutive feature of the dynamics of the informal school setting, and is further developed in the formal schooling setting Since racial identity is a social and political construct, it requires meaning in the context of a particular set of social relationships. In a tribal college setting, the identity politics of blood quantum often influences the multiracial experience of students (i.e., learning environment…

Read the entire dissertation here.

Tags: , , , ,

The Stakes of Race, Color, & Belonging

Posted in Census/Demographics, Identity Development/Psychology, Live Events, Media Archive, Social Science, United States on 2011-08-16 04:02Z by Steven

The Stakes of Race, Color, & Belonging

Thursday Afternoon Forum Series
University of California, Berkeley
Center for Race and Gender
691 Barrows
Thursday, 2011-09-29, 16:00-17:30 PDT (Local Time)

Skin Tone Stratification Among Black Americans, 2001-2003
Ellis Monk Jr., Sociology

“I’m Mixed and Mixed”: Narrating Identities of Individuals with Mexican and Other Ancestries
Jessie Turner, Ethnic Studies

For more information, click here.

Tags: ,

The multiple dimensions of racial mixture in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: from whitening to Brazilian negritude

Posted in Articles, Brazil, Caribbean/Latin America, Media Archive, Social Science on 2011-08-15 03:43Z by Steven

The multiple dimensions of racial mixture in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: from whitening to Brazilian negritude

Ethnic and Racial Studies
Available online: 2011-08-01
18 pages
DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2011.589524

Graziella Moraes D. Silva
Federal University of Rio de Janeiro

Elisa P. Reis, Professor of Political Sociology
Federal University of Rio de Janeiro

The notion that racial mixture is a central feature of Latin American societies has been interpreted in different, if not strictly opposite, ways. On the one hand, scholars have presented it as evidence of weaker racial boundaries. On the other, it has been denounced as an expression of the illusion of harmonic racial relations. Relying on 160 interviews with black Brazilians, we argue that the valorization of racial mixture is an important response to stigmatization, but one that has multiple dimensions and different consequences for the maintenance of racial boundaries. We map out these different dimensions—namely, ‘whitening’, ‘Brazilian negritude’, ‘national identification’ and ‘non-essentialist racialism’—and discuss how these dimensions are combined in different ways by our interviewees according to various circumstances. Exploring these multiple dimensions, we question any simplistic understanding of racial mixture as the blessing or the curse of Latin American racial dynamics.

Read or purchase the article here.

Tags: , , ,

For black Britons, this is not the 80s revisited. It’s worse

Posted in Articles, Law, Media Archive, Politics/Public Policy, Social Science, United Kingdom on 2011-08-15 03:04Z by Steven

For black Britons, this is not the 80s revisited. It’s worse

The Guardian
2011-08-11

Joseph Harker, Assistant Comment Editor

Our MPs are ‘on message’, our media in decline and the Commission for Racial Equality abolished. Who speaks for us?

This is not 1981. Nor 1985. As has been pointed out over the past few days, things have changed a lot since the “inner-city unrest”—as it was quaintly named back then—erupted in Brixton, Tottenham, Toxteth, Handsworth and other parts of Britain.

But with each passing day, the old maxim, “The more things change, the more they stay the same”, has increasing relevance. In the 80s, as now, rioting was sparked by a confrontation between black people and the police and spread to the rest of the country, including to “white” areas. In 1981, the Conservative prime minister dismissed suggestions that the Brixton riot was due to unemployment and racism. Time proved that she was badly wrong. But fast forward three decades, and David Cameron tells the House of Commons that this week’s rioting was “criminality, pure and simple”.

In the years up to 1981, tension had been building between black people and the police over the “sus” laws, which gave officers powers to arrest anyone they suspected may be intending to steal. For them, a black youngster glancing at a handbag was enough. After Brixton, this law was repealed. Today, however, black people are seven times more likely than white people to be stopped and searched. And under the 1994 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act—which allows police to search anyone in a designated area without specific grounds for suspicion—the racial discrepancy rises to 26 times. This is symptomatic of the many ways in which, for black Britons, life seemingly improved but has steadily descended again…

…Over the last three decades we’ve allowed ourselves to be fooled that, with greater integration, plus a few black faces in sport and entertainment, things have improved. People gush about the growing mixed-race population, supposedly Britain’s “beautiful” future. Well, Mark Duggan had a white parent but it didn’t make much difference to his prospects…

Read the entire article here.

Tags: ,

Children of Colonialism: Anglo-Indians in a Postcolonial World

Posted in Anthropology, Asian Diaspora, Books, History, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, Monographs, Social Science on 2011-08-13 20:04Z by Steven

Children of Colonialism: Anglo-Indians in a Postcolonial World

Berg Publishers (an imprint of Macmillan)
October 2001
272 pages
5 1/2 x 8 1/4 inches
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-85973-531-2, ISBN10: 1-85973-531-2
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-85973-632-6, ISBN10: 1-85973-632-7

Lionel Caplan, Emeritus Professor and Professorial Research Associate
School of Oriental and African Studies
University of London

Among the legacies of the colonial encounter are any number of contemporary ‘mixed-race’ populations, descendants of the offspring of sexual unions involving European men (colonial officials, traders, etc.) and local women. These groups invite serious scholarly attention because they not only challenge notions of a rigid divide between colonizer and colonized, but beg a host of questions about continuities and transformations in the postcolonial world.

This book concerns one such group, the Eurasians of India, or Anglo-Indians as they came to be designated. Caplan presents an historicized ethnography of their contemporary lives as these relate both to the colonial past and to conditions in the present. In particular, he forcefully shows that features which theorists associate with the postcolonial present—blurred boundaries, multiple identities, creolized cultures—have been part of the colonial past as well. Presenting a powerful argument against theoretically essentialized notions of culture, hybridity and postcoloniality, this book is a much-needed contribution to recent debates in cultural studies, literary theory, anthropology, sociology as well as historical studies of colonialism, ‘mixed-race’ populations and cosmopolitan identities.

Tags: , ,

The Racial Basis of Civilization: A Critique of the Nordic Doctrine

Posted in Anthropology, Books, Health/Medicine/Genetics, Media Archive, Monographs, Social Science on 2011-08-13 00:06Z by Steven

The Racial Basis of Civilization: A Critique of the Nordic Doctrine

Alfred A. Knopf
1926
411 pages

Frank H. Hankins, Professor of Sociology
Smith College on the Mary Huggins Gamble Foundation

  • PART I–A CRITICAL HISTORY OF THEORIES OF BLOND RACE SUPREMACY
    • I INTRODUCTION
    • II ARYANISM
    • III GOBINISM
    • IV TEUTONISM
    • V ANTHROPO-SOCIOLOGY OR SOCIAL SELECTIONISM
    • VI CELTICISM AND GALLICISM
    • VII ANGLO-SAXONISM AND NORDICISM IN AMERICA
  • PART I–CONCEPT AND SOCIAL ROLE OF RACE
    • I INTRODUCTION
    • II CONCEPT OF RACE
    • III ARE THERE PURE RACES?
    • IV ARE RACE AND NATION IDENTIFIABLE?
    • V POLITICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF RACE
    • VI ARE RACES EQUAL?
    • VII THE PROBLEM OF RACE MIXTURE
    • VIII ARE RACIAL CHARACTERISTICS UNCHANGING?
    • IX CHANGES IN THE HEREDITARY CONSTITUTION OF A POPULATION
    • X RACE AND CULTURAL OPPORTUNITY
    • XI CONCLUSION
  • INDEX

Preface

The pernicious propaganda relating to the Nordic doctrine before, during, and since the war is the excuse for this book. From the closing years of the last century to the outbreak of the Great War there was in Germany a rising tide of adulation of the blond dolichocephal as the embodiment of all that was great in creative genius, organizing ability and power of leadership. Before that war actually broke many a glittering wave of that same tide had splashed resolutely and ominously on the shores of England and America. With the actual outbreak of hostilities the doctrines that the Anglo-Saxons were the purest of the Nordics and that the salvation of the world depended on the maintenance of Nordic domination were widely and loudly proclaimed. The virus of that propaganda is as yet by no means spent, though it appears to be weakening.

The reader of this volume will be convinced that the doctrines of certain American scholars and publicists, which have been hailed by a large part of the American public as more or less fresh discoveries of American scholarship, are very old. Some of them were promulgated several centuries ago and all of them systematically set forth two generations ago. We do not attempt an exhaustive historical study of them. We have subjected a few of their outstanding formulations to internal analysis and self-criticism. When these authors cannot be convicted of gross inconsistency and made to destroy themselves, they are made to destroy each other. We do not, however, anywhere deny that the Nordic race appears to have excellent endowments; we would admit that in this respect it is one of the world’s premier races. We do deny its universal superiority, as also its claim to a monopoly of certain human excellences. We also deny that to this stock can be attributed a special historical role except in a most vague way. Our thesis is that all important historical groups have been heterogeneous in racial composition; and that all areas of high culture have been areas of extensive population movement and race mixture. In such mixtures the Nordic element has been, according to much evidence, a very valuable ingredient.

Having exposed the fallacies, exaggerations and inconsistencies of the Nordicists, we proceed in Part II to a systematic examination of certain fundamental problems related to the significance of race as a factor in the development of civilization. We contend that racial differences are not those of kind; that all races have all human qualities ; but that they have these qualities in different degrees of development. One race may excel in physical energy, another in creative imagination. This conception does away with the notion of a general or universal superiority on the part of any one race. Moreover, in view of the wide range of variation among the members of the same race, inferiority or superiority cannot be attributed to an individual on account of his race. A short member of a tall race may be distinctly shorter than a tall member of a short race. So with intelligence, organizing ability, or artistic sense. Social barriers on account of race have, therefore, no basis in biological fact.

A similar conclusion is reached in the study of race crossing: there is no biological mandate against it, even in the case of widely different races. The sociological grounds for opposition to race mixture are doubtless important but their importance derives almost entirely from the fact that race prejudice is a social force and not a theory. Offspring receive their hereditary endowments from their immediate ancestors ; if the parents are of high quality, so also will be the offspring, regardless of race. This fact is not altered by the crossing of races. On the other hand, every form of inferiority and deformity flourishes among the lowest strains of the Nordic stock, however pure. We think it can be shown also that race crossing is a factor in the production of talented men, and hazard the guess that most of the superior men of European history have been of mixed racial ancestry.

In relating these findings to immigration policy we think it has been shown that the new immigrants, though in the mass less desirable from the standpoint of general intellectual abilities than the native population, nevertheless have brought into the American population endowments of aesthetic appreciation, artistic creation, and sanguine temperament that will contribute much to the enrichment of American life and culture in the years to come. Since the crossing of sound strains of different races is biologically sound, we contend that well-endowed Italians, Hebrews, Turks, Chinese and Negroes are better materials out of which to forge a nation than average or below average Nordics. From this point of view a sound immigration policy, if it could be governed by biological considerations only, would admit, without limitations of numbers, all those of whatever race who can prove themselves free from hereditary taint and pass intelligence tests which show them to be above the average of the present population in native intellectual capacity. Here again the objections are based on sociological considerations, of which the fact of racial antipathy is most important. Were it not for these traditional popular prejudices, America could do no better than to make itself a world asylum for persons of superior quality regardless of race or color.

While we are denying the extravagant claims of the Nordicists, we also deny the equally perverse and doctrinaire contentions of the race egalitarians. There is no respect, apparently, in which races are equal ; but their differences must be thought of in terms of relative frequencies, and not as absolute differences in kind. They are like the differences between classes in the same population. It thus appears that the eugenic contentions are fundamentally sound, as against both the racialists on one extreme and the thorough environmentalists on the other. From the standpoint of the biology of population quality, superior rank within a race is of more importance than race. From the standpoint of the creation and maintenance of culture, high-grade stock is more important than cultural opportunity, though the latter is doubtless also important. The progress of a people is so greatly dependent on the abilities of its few ablest men that the primary question which a theory of the racial basis of civilization must answer is, what are those conditions which produce the greatest supply of genius? We have tried to show that this is primarily a problem of eugenics rather than of race. It is also a problem of race crossing rather than of maintenance of race purity.

In the preparation of the manuscript I received assistance for which I am grateful from my colleague, Professor Joseph Wiehr, who assisted in the digest of certain recent German materials relating to the subject. To another colleague, Professor Howard M. Parshley, I am deeply indebted for a careful reading of the manuscript of Part II, which has greatly benefited by his numerous suggestions and criticisms. I wish also to thank Professor Robert C. Chaddock of Columbia University for permission to reproduce the graphs found on p. 265. Words are inadequate to express my gratitude to my wife and to Miss Mildred Hartsough for reading the proofs, and to the latter for compiling the Index.

F. H. Hankins

Smith College
March, 1926

Read the entire book here.

Tags: , ,

Skin Colour: Does it Matter in New Zealand?

Posted in Articles, Health/Medicine/Genetics, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, Oceania, Social Science on 2011-08-12 21:25Z by Steven

Skin Colour: Does it Matter in New Zealand?

Policy Quarterly (Institute of Policy Studies, Victoria University of Wellington)
Volume 4, Number 1 (2008)
pages 18-25

Paul Callister, Senior Research Fellow
Institute of Policy Studies
Victoria University of Wellington

Introduction

Pick up any official New Zealand publication which includes photographs representing the population and it is highly likely that the people featured will have visible characteristics, including skin colour, that are stereotypically associated with the main ethnic groups living in this country. Equally, examine official reports which consider differences in outcomes between groups of people, such as in health and education, and it is very likely that ethnicity will be a key variable in the analysis. But it is extremely unlikely that skin colour will be explicitly mentioned in either type of report.

This article explores three areas where skin colour might matter. First, with reference primarily to US literature, the question of the role of skin colour in discrimination and, ultimately, economic and health outcomes is examined. Then, turning to New Zealand, there is a discussion of whether skin colour is a factor in why those responding to official surveys who identify themselves as ‘Māori only’ have, on average, worse outcomes than those reporting Māori plus other ethnicities. Finally, two connected health issues are looked at. One is skin colour and the risk of skin cancer; and the second is the hypothesised, but still controversial, links between skin colour, sun exposure, vitamin D production and an inverse risk of developing colorectal cancer. Two main questions are asked in this article. First, in contrast with many other countries, why in recent years have researchers and policy makers in New Zealand been averse to discussing and researching skin colour? Second, is there a case to be made for the use of measures other than self-identified ethnicity – such as skin colour – in official statistics and other large surveys, including health-related surveys?…

…Single and multiple ethnicity and outcomes

Moving back to the American context, two hypotheses have been put forward to explain the effect of mixed race on a variety of outcomes, including health status. One is that mixed-race individuals will be at greater risk of poor outcomes than those who affiliate with a single race because of stresses associated with a mixed identity. The other theory is that outcomes will lie between those of the two single groups. Many factors are likely to be influencing these outcomes, but variations in skin colour could be important, either directly or indirectly.

In New Zealand there has been relatively limited use made to date of single versus dual and multi-ethnic responses when analysing advantage and disadvantage. However, early work by Gould (1996, 2000) suggested a gradient of disadvantage in relation to degree of ‘Māori-ness’. In his 1996 paper Gould associated Ngāi Tahu’s integration into European society with their relative success when compared with other iwi. However, while other people have talked about Ngāi Tahu as being the ‘white tribe’, skin colour was not discussed by Gould in any of his papers.

In a number of papers, Chapple (e.g. 2000) divided the Māori ethnic group into two groups, ‘sole Māori’ and ‘mixed Māori’, and found better outcomes for ‘mixed Māori’. Chapple raised the idea that the disadvantage amongst Māori is concentrated in a particular subset: those who identify only as Māori, who have no educational qualifications, and who live outside major urban centres. Again, skin colour was not a feature of these studies.

However, Kukutai (2003) suggests that social policy makers should not put much weight on categories such as ‘Māori only’ and ‘Māori plus other ethnic group(s)’. Using survey data and a system of self-prioritisation, Kukutai showed that those individuals who identified as both Māori and non-Māori, but more strongly with the latter, tended to be socially and economically much better off than all other Māori. In contrast, those who identified more strongly as Māori had socio-economic and demographic attributes that were similar to those who recorded only Māori as their ethnic group. Kukutai’s work shows that some people recording multiple ethnic responses feel a strong sense of belonging in more than one ethnic group. For others, however, a stronger affiliation is felt with one particular ethnic group. While not discussed directly in the study, factors such as visible difference, including skin colour, may influence such decisions.

What is causing different outcomes between those recording only Māori ethnicity and those recording Māori and European responses? We do not know. No one single factor is likely to be a driver, but skin colour, in a variety of ways, may exert some influence. For example, it may be that those who ‘look more Māori’ (or look more ‘Pacific’) are more likely to record only Māori (or Pacific) ethnicity in official surveys. If this is correct, and if discrimination is common in New Zealand, the Māori-only (or Pacific peoples) group would be more likely to suffer discrimination from police, landlords and healthcare providers…

Read the entire article here.

Tags: ,