“Race” (1580), in the sense of a stock or breed of living things, goes back to 1580 in English. Its sense as “the races of mankind”, where humans are divided into a few fixed races, came later, in the 1700s.
The word came well after the start the of the Transatlantic slave trade. It came just after the words “Negro” (1555) and “Indian” (middle 1500s in the sense of Native Americans) entered English and just before whites became “whites” (early 1600s).
Far from being as old as human nature, “race” is newer than guns and ocean-going ships, newer than printed books and looking glasses.
It does not even appear in the King James Bible. There every race is a race to run – “the race is not to the swift”, etc. The King James Bible came out in 1611 but its English was old-fashioned even back then as it closely followed that of the Bishop’s Bible of 1568.
But you do see the word in Shakespeare: “happy race of kings”, “noble race”, “race of heaven”, etc. He applies it to men and horses. It clearly means a stock or breed, a bloodline, like in “Henry VI, Part 2” (1591):
Thy mother took into her blameful bed
Some stern untutor’d churl, and noble stock
Was graft with crab-tree slip, whose fruit thou art,
And never of the Nevils’ noble race.
Some say the word came from French, some say from Italian. No one knows for sure. Most likely it came from Spanish, which is where the English also got “Indian” and “Negro”. Back then the Spanish word for race would have sounded like “reazza” to the English, of which “race” is a reasonable anglicization. The Spanish word also had the same meaning as in Shakespeare: breeds of horses or men.
In Shakespeare’s time the Spanish applied it mainly to horses. Breeds of horses were known to be different in both appearance and behaviour. They could be crossed or kept apart. But the word was also starting to be applied to people, particularly to Moors and Jews who had converted to Christianity – who were one thing by faith, another by “race”. By the early 1700s the Spanish applied it mainly to people, not horses.
In English there are all sorts of words for dividing people one from another: nation, people, kind, variety, etc. Race was just another one of those words, like it is in Shakespeare. It did not become the main word for the divisions of mankind until the 1700s with the rise of scientific racism. That was when the word “Caucasian” (1795) was invented – to divide men into races.
The word “race” caught on because it fit the growing racism of the English-speaking world which, instead of dividing mankind by nation, language or religion like everyone else, divided it, strangely, into breeding stock – as if people (or at least some people) were just animals without soul or speech or country.
See also:
Great post!! If this doesn’t make people think, I wonder what will. Thanks!
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Excellent post. Keep up the great work! Thought-provoking, as always.
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Well someone should notify Demerera because based on her definition of racism she certainly believes in the idea of race.
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Sam,
I agree, and I know a few people that seem stuck on not understanding like this issue is as hard as Calculus with no calculator.
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People can be classified by race, nationality, language or culture. Abagond and I are both Americans who speak English, he is an African American and I am a European American.
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Great post. Yale has a pdf available of a short essay by Nell Painter on the history of the term “Caucasian”. If you’ll permit the link: http://www.yale.edu/glc/events/race/Painter.pdf
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In my language, the word “race” is used as synonym for “breed”.
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Prior to 1600, there was very little contact between disparate peoples and thus litlte need to define “race”.
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The word becomes troublesome even in scientific terms, bc at what point does a person stop being black and then arab, or stop being arab, then white, and so on and so forth. This is especially true in america, where halle berry can still get away with calling her daughter, who is mathematically less 20% subsaharan in ancestry “black”
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I read that link. So basically part of the reason we have to deal with all this bull today is because a bunch of shallow sex tourists decided to rate who’s hot and who’s not? It would be laughable if it weren’t so juvenile and sick. And there are people who look to this crap for pride? Wow.
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@george hatzel: “Prior to 1600, there was very little contact between disparate peoples and thus litlte need to define “race”.”
Not so. Different people have always trough history been contact with one another, just read history. Rome with its almost fascist attutudes was also a hodge podge of various people. During the most intense phase of their war against the germans, the emperor was guarded by german mercenaries. Even during the crusades various people did and were in contact in peaceful terms in the middle of those wars, which were not about the race but religions. Phoenicians were in contact with people from the Black Sea to Brittish Isles way back when. So…
It was only after the invention of the non excisting “race” of “caucasians” that racism as we know it was born.
@Gen: 😀
@lara: “People can be classified by race, nationality, language or culture. Abagond and I are both Americans who speak English, he is an African American and I am a European American.”
Yes they can, in racist system. Scientifically speaking, you are more closer genetically to the australian aborginals than west africans are with south africans. That is a scientifical fact.
@brothawolf: 😀
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@louie jacuzzi: And that example shows how stupid and artificial the whole concept is.
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“Yes they can, in racist system. Scientifically speaking, you are more closer genetically to the australian aborginals than west africans are with south africans. That is a scientifical fact.”
If by racist system you mean where people are able to notice differences or similarities among humans then I guess we do live in one of those.
I’m not a genetics experts (I have a feeling neither are you) so I’m not going to respond to the last part of your comment. I’ll just say I realize there is a lot of genetic variety even among black Africans.
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One of the most fascinating things I’ve read in a long time. Thanks for the excellent post.
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@Lara
Well someone should notify Demerera because based on her definition of racism she certainly believes in the idea of race.
You asked on the ‘Black Racisim is not a mirror image of white racism’ thread, I gave you a generic simplistic definition of the word racism. I also said that it was based on perception – it really doesnt matter what label you put on it, the underlying fact is that it is based on ‘real/perceived differences.’
Let me also remind you of your response on the other post:-
Demerera
I broke it down into the most simplistic terminology I could think of yet still you choose not to get it.”
Lara
I didn’t really disagree with what you said so much as I disagreed there was anything wrong with it. Your definition of racism sounded pretty much like human nature to me.
Shame you didnt raise this with me on the other thread Lara, then I could have responded directly to your question without coming across it by chance on another thread. Then again, I guess you really dont want a response cos you know it all dont you!
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@demera: Don’t feed the troll 😀
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@bulanik: I prefer the concept of “hybrid vigor” 😀
It explains the generally ignorant things people of any so-called “pure” stock tend to say and do.
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@Sam
@demera: Don’t feed the troll
LOL Sam. I go through stages with people of this ilk – at times I try to give the benefit of the doubt as I can’t help thinking that to come across the Abagond website itself and delve therein, you MUST want to engage on some level. At other times, its a waiting game cos the truth will always out…give em enough rope etc…. It does become tedious though 🙂
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@’Lara’:
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@Lara
A poster called Clydeleglide has given a definition of the word racism on the blog below – I thought you might like to look at it and see how often the word ‘race’ is used to describe the definition whether rightly or wrongly!
[The above link has been corrected. – Abagond]
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In the Glossary of this blog I define racism this way:
Though I also go by the more formal Oxford definition too, as in this post about what a racist is:
It quotes the main Oxford meaning:
I think most blacks are racist, though it is mainly of the internalized sort, of unwittingly buying into white supremacist thinking.
Clydetheglide seems to think racism is mainly a matter of unjustified hatred and violence. The Oxford definition is much broader than that. In fact, he is falling into the same error this post is written against: that black racism is necessarily a mirror image of white racism.
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^^^
Thanks for the much needed clarification Abagond 🙂
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“And, yes, I am racist too.”
But it’s okay because you’re a black man. Meanwhile for a white woman like me to express even the slightest bit of awareness of race is a crime against humanity. Okay I get it now.
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@ Lara
” Okay I get it now.”
Great!! Now you can leave!
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Where’s Tyrone? I’d like to get his take on some of this.
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@abagond: “I think most blacks are racist, though it is mainly of the internalized sort, of unwittingly buying into white supremacist thinking.”
Even though I do not agree totally with you here, I think that is the crux of the problem, in my mind. The racist system with its all encompassing penetration of the society is influencing all of us everyday. That is why it is so important to be alert and aware of it all the time.
That is why this particular post is so important. We have to know and learn the history of racism, the history of the words, how their meanings were changed trough the years and how we are influenced by language and definitions of words, even though we are not aware of that happening.
Personally I try to remind myself all the time about the scientific facts of human biology because that is the best way to remind myself that racism, and the whole concept of races, are NOT based on anything other than social constructions. They are ideas, not facts. And in order to get rid of them, we must fight the very Idea. Because that is what keeps this System alive.
Sorry the preaching again 😀
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Interesting info on when the word race came into common use. ‘Race’, as defined in support of racism, may be a construct, but differences (linguistic, cultural, physical etc) and the natural geographic ‘clumping together’ of people who are similarly different is a real human phenomenon. So whether we want to call them races or not, we will always share the world with human beings who are not quite like us in some ways. Too often, admitting the constructed aspects of ‘race’ translates to ‘everybody is same’ which becomes ‘everybody should be the same’ in a literal sense. Which is just another -ism by the ones defining what standard everyone should conform to (usually their image). Comfort with difference is necessary to live harmoniously in this world.
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I define racism as hatred of a group of human beings with common ancestry/inherent physical traits.
It can also mean the belief in superior and inferior grips of human beings with common ancestry/inherent physical traits.
I don’t believe most Americans are racist. Though, I do believe all Americans are prejudice in differing degrees, with the most prejudice people being racist.
White and black Americans seem to be just as prejudice to me (to themselves and other groups), however White Americans seem to collectively hold more racism than black ppl.
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I rarely come across a Black person I would call racist. Whether it is to themselves or other groups. There are a lot of prejudice Black folk though.
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Differences exist between broad populations of people. That a particular term to label such populations is of relatively recent origin or has been used in a discriminatory manner does not invalidate these differences.
Political correctness causes people to throw out the functional baby along with the semantic bathwater.
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(Sigh…)
And here comes Randy, with a derailing Strawman argument. One that is a set-up for a series of long winded and attention shifting back and forths, with whomever officially responds to his bait.
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Franklin,
My comment is relevant.
It’s a short walk from saying “the term is relatively new” to claiming “the concept of race has no meaning and no utility” and then on to “racism only exists because people started thinking about people as being separate races”.
Read sam’s comments above to see textbook examples.
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I think blacks are generally racist towards themselves, I see it all the time and it is a shame.
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Abagond:
The concept of race is not going anywhere. Black people are the reason why it’s here to stay. As long as black people are on this planet, those who are not black will make it their mission to convince black folk to turn against their african ancestry. I’ve talked about this issue many times before, and will continue to do so. Black people want to stay black, which becomes a problem for others. This is how the concept of “Post-Racial” came to be. Whites, asians, and indians want blacks to be carefree with regard to race like them. It’s easy for them to have that mindset, because, they’re not black. All of the racial strife that black people deal with is born out of the fact that we don’t wanna destroy ourselves for the benefit of others…Bottomline!
Tyrone
Black Eros Movement
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@ Tyrone
Bottom-line!!!! Cosign!
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The definition of racism I have come to accept is one that makes it a system in which inequalities based on the assignment of race are perpetrated. So it doesn’t mean that if you don’t ‘feel’ any hatred there is no racism. Maybe some plantation owners didn’t ‘hate’ their slaves but they still participated in a racist system that turned africans (people with their own language, culture etc.) into black slaves. The focus on personal emotion robs individuals of comprehension of racism’s real effects on lives.
By analogy with sexism, countered by 60’s femininsm: white women weren’t concerned that men thought they were better than women. They were concerned about the social systems in place that relegated them to an inferior position in real aspects of life (earning power, education, careers etc.). The system was supported by appropriate propaganda such as the I Love Lucy episode (“Job Switching”) in which Ethel and Lucy fail at a job while Ricky and Fred make a mess of housework. “A woman’s place is in the home”…but she’s needed there.
The systematic nature of white supremacy racism allows many things to be neatly explained. For example, the doll tests in which young black children choose white dolls as better and black dolls as BAD (they say this when asked even when they admit they look more like the black doll). Another example is the IAT test, in which black people often score as preferring white people while the reverse is much rarer. If racism is a ‘human tendency’ to believe your ‘race’ is superior, how is this explained? It is not accounted for by that definition. Racism, as a system in operation, establishes one dichotomy: White good, not-white bad. EVERYONE is subjected to this regardless of race and it manifests itself in every aspect of life from economics, to religion, to entertainment. With this understanding, it is clear why even some black people living under a racist system would hate people like themselves. Needless to say, this system is the creation of white people and they move to establish it everywhere they settle among ‘others’.
I think there are fewer openly racist whites today than in the past but one needs to put that into context. When it was necessary to justify tremendous brutality and aggression against people of other races, all the facets of society (scientific, religious, political, etc.) fell into place in support of it. Racism as an ideal was proper, codified, scientific, sacred (conversion of heathen), institutionalized and accepted. Obviously, after the reality had been established and the benefits had been gained all such institutions could distance themselves from their past complicity in order to appear ‘respectable’ before the wronged peoples. So, in line with this, openly racist rhetoric by white people is very taboo now. It is far more beneficial to camouflage a system in existence that bring open attention and opposition to it. This is why a college textbook can talk about “Racism without racists” and “colorblind racism”.
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@Demerera
on the previous thread you asked:
“So, bearing in mind the this post does anyone think that there will be time when this imbalance can be re-dressed? What ‘baby’ steps can be taken towards this? What should be done going forward to ensure cohesive equality?”
Whilst perusing through the internet I found this article.
INTERNALIZED RACISM
A MAJOR BREAKTHROUGH HAS BEEN ACHIEVED
http://www.rc.org/publications/journals/black_reemergence/br2/br2_5_sl.html
I’m in agreement with Tyrone, racism is here to stay in one variety or another. The main issue lies in helping POC, specifically black people, deal with their realites in a manner that is constructive to themselves.
I’m of the belief that alongside this, aggressive doses of reading, writing and arithmetic outside of the public school venue, ie some sort of group/ collective style home-schooling apparatus, targeting black children both individually and collectively within their own communities would be a great place to start.
I’d love to hear other’s thoughts.
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“I’m of the belief that alongside this, aggressive doses of reading, writing and arithmetic outside of the public school venue, ie some sort of group/ collective style home-schooling apparatus, targeting black children both individually and collectively within their own communities would be a great place to start.
I’d love to hear other’s thoughts.” ~ GoldFire
Agree. It should start before they reach their teens maybe @ around 5 or 6. And it can also begin within the home, but must be a safe space. Maybe moving forward into public centers like libraries.
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“..the doll tests in which young black children choose white dolls as better and black dolls as BAD (they say this when asked even when they admit they look more like the black doll). Another example is the IAT test, in which black people often score as preferring white people while the reverse is much rarer. If racism is a ‘human tendency’ to believe your ‘race’ is superior, how is this explained? It is not accounted for by that definition. Racism, as a system in operation, establishes one dichotomy: White good, not-white bad.”
Excellent point!
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@ Goldfire-
“I’m of the belief that alongside this, aggressive doses of reading, writing and arithmetic outside of the public school venue, ie some sort of group/ collective style home-schooling apparatus, targeting black children both individually and collectively within their own communities would be a great place to start.
I’d love to hear other’s thoughts.” ~ GoldFire
Already on the job here in the Midwest. 2 years now.
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@ Randy
Except that no one said there weren’t any differences between groups. You simply said something that was semi-relevant to Sam’s post, while simultaneously building your own strawman, so you could position yourself to cry about “Political Correctness”.
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@MinneB
“Already on the job here in the Midwest. 2 years now.”
Great to hear. 🙂 If you don’t mind me asking how are you getting it done? Especially regarding the historical and present day contributions of black people. Are you using your own curriculum, or have you found ones specifically targeted to black children in the areas I mentioned?
What an impact it could make if it was done nationwide.
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@Temple:
“Agree. It should start before they reach their teens maybe @ around 5 or 6. And it can also begin within the home, but must be a safe space. Maybe moving forward into public centers like libraries.”
Reminds me of the old Jesuit axiom, “Give me a child till the age of seven and I’ll give you the man”
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@GoldFire
Demerera
on the previous thread you asked:
“So, bearing in mind the this post does anyone think that there will be time when this imbalance can be re-dressed? What ‘baby’ steps can be taken towards this? What should be done going forward to ensure cohesive equality?”
Whilst perusing through the internet I found this article.
INTERNALIZED RACISM
A MAJOR BREAKTHROUGH HAS BEEN ACHIEVED
http://www.rc.org/publications/journals/black_reemergence/br2/br2_5_sl.html
I’m in agreement with Tyrone, racism is here to stay in one variety or another. The main issue lies in helping POC, specifically black people, deal with their realites in a manner that is constructive to themselves.
Only just found this – I appreciate you taking the time to respond and for posting such an interesting article on the matter.
This subject is coming up more and more on these threads and whilst there is an understanding and acceptance that there are societal issues afoot which impede the progress of POC in todays society, that there is also an unpleasant realisation that many POC have succumbed to the exposure of societal influence and as a result are turning this behaviour inwards and it manifests often as negativity to fellow POC thus perpetuating the attitudes of those most influential WP.
From that article though, what is heartening is that clearly steps are being taken towards addressing this – its just ensuring that this is reaching the wider ‘audience’, particularly in areas where human value doesnt have any worth and has all but deteriorated due to the ‘in fighting’ and killing taking place.
@Temple
Agree. It should start before they reach their teens maybe @ around 5 or 6. And it can also begin within the home, but must be a safe space. Maybe moving forward into public centers like libraries.
I also agree but you cant create a ‘whole’ individual without first ensuring that they have the right foundations to support them and in the case of parenting, again there is the issue which links back to society and the influences therein. Nowadays, if a child misbehaves or even if they commit a serious crime, then it links back to the parents – right. So, what if those parents themselves have not had the nurturing and correct upbringing – and have also led criminal lives what hope do those children have? Who takes responsibility then?
Whilst I think we as individuals ALL have a responsibility going forward, I cant help thinking that without addressing the BIGGER picture first. I say this in the hope that it will filter down and become the societal ‘norm’ and thereby become acceptable without question – am I expecting too much 🙂
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Franklin said:
Below are the quotes from sam which illustrate my point. These are representative of much of the “anti-racist” discussion around this topic. Implied in this line of debate is the idea that without the purportedly artificial concept of race, people wouldn’t subdivide into societally pathogenic “-isms” and we’d all be living in peace and harmony.
sam:
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Great post, very useful, thank you Abagond.
The last paragraph, though, is much too . . vague? It leaves out something crucial:
The word “race” caught on because it fit the growing racism of the English-speaking world which, instead of dividing mankind by nation, language or religion like everyone else, divided it, strangely, into breeding stock – as if people (or at least some people) were just animals without soul or speech or country.
I don’t think it’s too much to ask that we think more intersectionally. Social class is a HUGE factor here. In countries in which an elite class stole land, and practiced chattel slavery by limiting the concept of “slave” to “Africans,” that class recognized race as a divide-and-conquer strategy. They basically thought, “I need to get the lower orders of ‘whites’ to think they have more in common with me than they do with their darker brothers and sisters in enforced misery. Then those lower orders won’t band together against me. WIN!”
Origin and Bulanik said as much above, as when the later wrote–
I’m not an expert on American history, but it seems the US was founded on a set of ideals, one of which was equality – a radical idea at the time. It seems though, that the IDEA of “race” was invented as a handy way to explain why some people could be denied the rights and freedoms others took for granted.
In developing a culture of thinking behind ‘race’, it could justify extermination of the Native Americans, exclusion of Asian Americans, the taking of Mexican lands, and so on and on.
So I wonder, Abagond–is it a conscious strategy of yours to focus so exclusively on race and racism? Even when, as in a post like this one, analyzing concurrent factors would make it more clear HOW and WHY racism works its insidious wonders so effectively?
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Randy wrote,
These are representative of much of the “anti-racist” discussion around this topic. Implied in this line of debate is the idea that without the purportedly artificial concept of race, people wouldn’t subdivide into societally pathogenic “-isms” and we’d all be living in peace and harmony.
“Purportedly”? You sound like those blind morons who dismiss evolution as a mere theory.
Sure, there are some actual, minor, biological differences between some of the groups that have been called “races,” but those aren’t the differences that “racism” focuses on.
What you should do is either deal with that point, or admit you’re a troll.
As for the rest of what you’re saying there, it is indeed a straw man argument. No serious anti-racist would argue that people don’t divide up into various kinds of imagined communities other than race-based ones, and then fight with other imagined communities in those terms. Your cherry-picked examples by Sam are not examples of that argument.
Serious anti-racism activists and thinkers are FULLY aware of the human tendency to subdivide into various groups, many of which breed pernicious “-isms.” In fact, there’s even a common term among them for keeping in mind the concurrent workings of other -isms while working against racism. It’s called “intersectionality.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersectionality
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“Whilst I think we as individuals ALL have a responsibility going forward, I cant help thinking that without addressing the BIGGER picture first. I say this in the hope that it will filter down and become the societal ‘norm’ and thereby become acceptable without question – am I expecting too much”
Demerera
My thinking is that addressing the bigger picture by taking an alternate route is possible. The big picture has been addressed in the past with positive outcomes. Many changes have been made due to the hard work of previous generations. Why not refocus the activism energy within. I hope I make sense. What I mean is that there are ways to see concrete forward movement thru giving children a complete & well rounded education.
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@ aspergum
1. This post is about the history of the word “race”, not a history of the set of ideas we call racism. The difference is an important one, which is why I wrote the post the way I did.
2. I know full well that rich whites use race to maintain their class interests. Just type “republican guide to black people” into Google and my link comes first (currently):
3. This blog pays way more attention to race than class because in America it is way more important:
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@Temple
Demerera
What I mean is that there are ways to see concrete forward movement thru giving children a complete & well rounded education.
I see and wholeheartedly agree with the thinking behind this but, I do feel that whilst in the past, great strides have been made to benefit people now, the sacrifices are not fully appreciated. The ‘mentors’ of children/young adults are the ‘grown ups’ who by and large are not focused in taking this mentality going forward IMO.
To bring forth a cliche, children ARE the future, its true, 🙂 but to be equipped to do the ‘right thing’ they need the support of their forefathers figuratively and societally speaking.
The reality though is that the older generation are possibly too entrenched in their own thinking – I guess I am worried that like a virus, it has filtered down too far and become embedded in general culture.
I just wish that the powers that be, the world over would grasp and appreciate this and understand the potential repercussions going forward….
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Mostly all well and good, Abagond, and thanks for the good links, and I’m sorry for basically saying that you never attend to the significance of social class. Yes, once in a great while, you do.
What I actually mean is, since you do “know full well that rich whites use race to maintain their class interests,” then I wonder why you wrote this post’s final paragraph the way you did. That’s because the rich divided people into breeding stock, treating many like animals, not for “strange,” unknown reasons; they did so in order to increase their wealth, and to protect themselves from insurrection.
I’m not saying, as per your second link, that it’s all class, and not race. I’m saying instead that at many points, as in this one, it’s both categories at work (and more), and that it’s often more useful and accurate to think and write intersectionally. You just wrote that “This blog pays way more attention to race than class because in America it is way more important,” which I don’t doubt is true in many analytic or explanatory contexts. But it’s not true in this one, and so again, there’s no good reason that I can see to pretend that you can’t even see class when it’s actually a significant influence on the racial matter at hand. You clearly can see that, which is why what I was basically asking was, if you wrote the last paragraph as if you can’t see it as some sort of conscious strategy.
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This really shows how divisive and stupid we are.
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@ aspergum
The last paragraph is about “dividing mankind”, particularly as it was done in the English-speaking in the 1700s. So far as I know, making class one of the main division of mankind was rare before the Marxists of the 1800s and 1900s.
Even from our point of view, divisions of race in America in the 1700s ran far deeper than those of class. So much so that most Black Americans were no more a part of the the class structure than were horses or dogs – they were PROPERTY.
If you disagree or if I am missing your point then please show me how you would write the last paragraph.
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Okay, sorry if I haven’t been clear. I see where we’re thinking a bit differently.
While most Black Americans were indeed taken out of the class structure in that sense, slavery was limited to them primarily for the class-based, divide-and-conquer reasons that I tried to explain above.
I just tried to rewrite your paragraph, but I know (and appreciate) how much you value being concise. So, instead of adding a sentence or two to explain that, I would just take out the word “strangely.” It implies that the reasons for relegating one group to “breeding stock” on the basis of supposed racial inferiority are unknown, at least by you, and perhaps by experts on the issue in general as well. Again, the reasons are not unknown, and class-based divide-and-conquer of the lower orders was a primary one–perhaps the primary one.
So I don’t think the word “race” caught on in the U.S., especially, merely “because it fit the growing racism of the English-speaking world which, instead of dividing mankind by nation, language or religion like everyone else, divided it, strangely, into breeding stock – as if people (or at least some people) were just animals without soul or speech or country.” The word and notion of “race” caught on with more tenacity there because it helped to justify slavery, and especially, to limiting slavery to blacks. Had that not happened, well, who knows, maybe race wouldn’t be anywhere near the forefront of American thought and practice, as it still is today, and as it is less so in a place like England, at least until fairly recently, when an influx of newly self-affirmative non-white populations finally brought race to English consciousness (Far as I know, British slavery was by and large off in “the colonies,” not on home territory, as in the U.S.).
Do you have some particular attachment to the word “strangely” there that I’m not seeing?
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@abagond: You are right, if we consider this from a modern point of view, but dividing people in classes (even by todays understanding) is actually older than the present concept of race.
The Roman society was divided by class definition (noble men, free men, slaves), as was greek too, also egyptian etc. In the third century one of the military emperors of Rome was Philip the Arab, not a traditional roman, racially that is.
In norman Sicily moors (black muslims) could have official positions in the court. During crusades arabs, moors, kurds etc. were recognized as noble men and equal standing, but a pig herder or feodal slaves were below them to both sides. Even the mongols or huns were seen as divided by class, to noble men, free men, servants and slaves.
During the wars between Austrian empire and Ottoman empire, the enemies recognized each others noble men as equals and servants and slaves from both camps as way below both.
But modern definition of a class, as in Marx or Engles, started to form after their works.
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@ sam: Thanks.
@ aspergum:
By “strangely” I meant that it was an odd way to divide mankind compared to what came before – dividing mankind by nation, religion or language.
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The origin of White People in a divide-and-rule tactic by elite Euro-Americans, while it may not account for the rise of race fully, is a pretty satisfying explanation to this white person. For one, it explains the “mystery” of why modern white Americans consistently act against their economic interests: that’s what Whiteness has largely been for from the beginning of the concept. If you’ll permit the link: http://eserver.org/clogic/1-2/allen.html
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@bingregory,
And if you’ll permit an even more succinct link–
Say what you will, Abagond, but to explain why the word race “caught on” without including the intersectional significance of social class is to leave out a HUGE part of just why it caught on, and why it still kicks people’s asses today.
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@ aspergum
Again, this post is about the word “race”, like it says in the title. It is not about the set of ideas we call racism. People had to be racist for the word “race” to catch on, but HOW they became racist is not the subject of this post. You have your ideas. They are not necessarily right. Nor are they necessary for this post.
I will probably do a post on Theodore W. Allen pretty soon – particularly since Wise and Zinn seem to push his ideas and since they keep coming up in the comments here on this blog.
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Awrighty, fair enough (except that the post is also about why the word race “caught on,” but whatever, it’s your blog!).
I look forward to a post on Allen’s work.
Cheerios.
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Thanks, most helpful, especially the key insight about horses and races. Looking up how Shakespeare used “race,” it’s clear that he frequently uses with an equine double meaning: race is what horses run, and race describes breeds and families and lineages and pedigrees, whether horsey or human. It’s sort of a pun on Shakespeare’s part, but he’s also calling attention to the overlap between horse breeding and human breeding, especially royal or noble lines.
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