Meditation on the origin and entrenchment of the term race

Europeans, particularly early explorers, had no insight into African religions or cultures; they were simply different, and compared to the Western norm of Christianity appeared “savage” or “primitive.” European explorers and scientists, having means of physical domination over black Africans due to technological and military superiority, were thus inclined to see Africans not as different equals (as they were yet quite unaware of the complexity existent within African cultures), but as inferiors. They made this assumption (universally it seems) without any inquiry into the culture itself, perceiving nothing on the surface of what they passively observed of it to redeem it as even human. A vast swath of colonial discourse attests to this fact and can be seen most vividly in writings centered on leaving Europe to embark on a “humanizing mission.” An example of such would be Rudyard Kipling’s poem “The White Man’s Burden,” in which he states:

Take up the White Man's burden--

Send forth the best ye breed--

Go bind your sons to exile

To serve your captives' need;

To wait in heavy harness,

On fluttered folk and wild--

Your new-caught, sullen peoples,

Half devil and half child.

The obvious implication here is that Africans are not human, and while this poem was produced in 1899, after the concept of race had matured significantly, it represents only a more developed form of the rationalization of colonial conquest that had existed since Columbus—the mission of humanizing inhuman beings. Scientifically however, one cannot so easily state that Africans are not humans, as were an African and a European, one being male and the other female, to attempt procreation, their attempt would just as likely yield vibrant and fertile offspring as were two Europeans or two Africans to attempt the same. There was no immediate existing identifiable scientific division to delineate the two groups except for the obvious morphological differences, which Europeans, seeing themselves as clearly superior in every aspect (including the biological aspect), simply could not understand. How do these people share a common humanity with us when they are clearly lower than us, almost like animals? Thus a new, artificial division was contrived by scientists and philosophers, based not on the principals of natural science which had been observed for thousands of years, but on the vague notion that these people look and act differently, and so they cannot be of the same blood as us. This division is called race, and since its initiation into science the idea and its implications have complicated and confounded nearly every productive interaction between differing races. The idea of race is a white construction wrought by a European need for division between themselves as civilized Christians and the other as uncivilized savages. Without such labels as Negro and black, how would whites differ in scientific and philosophical dialogue from simply “the other?” With this development in nomenclature, Europeans could identify other races as inferior without jeopardizing their own humanity.

As their technology and science had generally reached superior heights, so, they believed, their culture (particularly its Christian elements) had also developed beyond that of native Africans, and thus were they justified in believing in the superiority of the white race. Many scientists and philosophers expounded on this notion, placing the different races in a hierarchy with, invariably, Europeans at the top. So recently drunk with the rationality and infallibility of science, and its infinite ability to label and classify, creating, even, new categories for classification, if necessary, Europeans were no doubt disposed to yield their entire consciousness to this new distinction. They, being superior in power, had nothing to lose in doing so. With such a distinction they had a basis on which to identify the other, and the notion that this other is lower on the racial hierarchy. White people created the game of race, along with the terms used and these terms’ connotations, and so it is obvious that the concept will favor their superiority. One must realize that the concept of race and what it was originally intended to describe or imply (generally, superiority and inferiority rather than just difference) is artificial rather than natural, and was constructed and introduced already with the idea of European superiority. The term is just a word or a division that was crafted specifically to solidify that notion, which was commonly held in Europe before the term race came to be used. Thus, the term is fundamentally flawed as a scientific distinction and its continued use should be seen as an affront to both science and humanity.

But how can we abandon the term “race?” The concept is entrenched deeply in our society, and there is no obvious alternative. Race seems to describe two things: morphology and culture. The term can seemingly be used to describe both of these distinctions simultaneously, or to describe either individually. One can appear black and be categorized as black by this distinction alone, but it can also be said that a person who appears black is being white if they conform more to white culture. Though the term was originally conceived by Europeans and constructed to facilitate a perception of European superiority, and though it lacks a cohesive definition, leaving many unsure of where they fall in the racial spectrum, it has come to be accepted and used by people of all races. The institutionalization of the superiority of Europeans through the use of the concept of race, it seems, has borne it into the modern era, where it is continuing to be used, despite its obvious flaws and insufficiencies. The term’s ambiguity and the impossibility of locating a single definition also makes it hard to find an alternative which would be so comprehensive in what it describes, and yet productive in how it conceives differences and their origins. It seems then that the term “race” is insurmountable due to its prevalence and ambiguity. We must learn to work with the term, and to, over time, dismantle the inherent favoritism towards white skin and culture around which the term was forged. It is still an artificial division, but one that can yet yield positive results.