Several weeks after reading Alain Locke’s “The Concept of Race as Applied to Social Culture,” I’ve had a chance to digest and reflect on his words. He explains that race is a social fact and non-biological. He continues with with what becomes a reversal of emphasis which states that race should not be thought of as producing or expressing culture, but rather it is culture that produces race. Indeed, “man is one and civilizations many,” perhaps the most striking insight in the entire essay.
Locke’s reversal of emphasis produces many questions. Among these is the unanswered (and perhaps unanswerable) dichotomy of race; the phenomenon of race in terms of the cultural vs. physical. It seems impossible to try and confine a term as vast as “race” to one of these categories, but I am inclined to agree with Locke and would offer that race is absolutely cultural. Using the reversal of emphasis, one could argue that social traits such as behavior and cultural tradition produce our concept of race. How else, then, could someone “act” black or “act” white? Since there is no physical change, this anomaly is a behavioral adoption. Thus, what we refer to as black or white in this sense must ultimately be cultural.
On a fundamental level, one can explore the dichotomy of race by observing the history of racism and racial dominance. The white Europeans and Americans that raped Africa for centuries were able to do so not because they were white, but because of an exhaustive list of cultural traits that, under those circumstances, allowed them dominance. It is these cultural categories and differences that divide humankind. Skin color is and was merely a way to identify those who are culturally different. Not unlike the yellow stars placed on German jews during the rise of the nazi party, is skin color. Both are physical representations, or markers of cultural differences, not the differences themselves.
I don’t claim skin color to be insignificant. It is an identity, more for some than for others. However, in trying to understand race, it is important to separate race from skin color, if at least as an intellectual exercise. The root of race and racism lies not in the physical differences, but in the cultural differences such as language, tradition, or behavior. These contrasts and overlaps are complex, while skin color is simple and therefore tempting.
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I do agree with Alex that the term "race" has grown into including cultural aspects of a people. Today, individuals inadvertently identify others as a part of a particular race due to their religion, traditions, and even just their all around demeanor.However, I do beleive that we should not overlook what Fanon believed to be the "crudest" form of division which is skin color. Skin color is what I believed to have laid the foundations for the division of races and humanity.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Casey regarding the significance of skin color and its role as the foundation for racial categories. In the first essay we read for this class, Bernier proposed a division of people into groups based on geography and various physical attributes, but he emphasized skin color as one of the most decisive markers.
ReplyDeleteI really really like this post. Good thoughts. I agree that it is crucial to understand that throughout history whites have been dominant not because they were white, but because they had the culture and language that enabled them to be so.
ReplyDeleteBut I also believe that there is a way to separate racism from racial dominance in the form of colonialism. Of course it is true that racism comes out of colonialism, but I believe it would also hold true that racism would exist without colonialism. In people's natural inclination to distinguish between people in their minds, also comes the unjust and irrational hierarchy of peoples, that creates racism.
I think you sum up the reversal of emphasis very well with your statements regarding the physical markers which sharpen racial and religious dichotomy, when you say, "Both are physical representations, or markers of cultural differences, not the differences themselves." I think that this expresses exactly what Locke intended. I am a little unsure if I am in total agreement with you in your last paragraph, however, in which you state that the root of racism is not physical, but cultural. While I agree entirely that cultural differences play a big part in racism, I don't think that skin color can be completely removed from the question, or should be. Unlike the Jewish stars, the mark of skin color is permanent and will persist far into the future. Understanding race in terms of culture is essential, but the reality must be faced that morphological divisions will not cease perpetuate cultural differences. It is along these lines that the concept of race is rooted and along which this conception persists, and so long as people have the ability to recognize and associate morphology with cultural habits, the physical and the cultural will not be divorced.
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