Society

Fiction Treated As Fact: The Myth of Race

/ MeltdownMessiah / 1 Comment

To bring an end to Racism, we need to successfully deconstruct the 17th-century notion of “Race” as a thing. Race, as we commonly think of it, is nothing more than a relatively modern and simplistic categorization based on conveniently visible markers that are both biologically irrelevant and lacking in anything like nuance.

The concept of Race is a Social Construct, not a Biological one, much like Gender. Of course, in both of those arenas, we latch onto these simple Social Constructs because the Biological elements are altogether too complicated and far less conveniently organized. We’re a lazy species that relies far too frequently on simplistic (and often erroneous) Pattern Recognition, as opposed to negotiating with reality on the novel terms required if we aim to be more intellectually honest.

The Enlightenment Era was a time of great advancement in the realms of social and political theory, scientific principles, taxonomy, and philosophy. There’s no disputing the value that arose from the great thinkers and educational centers of the time. I’m personally a great admirer of several of the great thinkers of the time. It is, however, important to note that little of what came from that era is without flaws and errors. There were severe limitations in both the technology available and the understanding of the natural world that even the greatest minds of the time faced.

While much of what we gained from pre-Industrial studies was based on observation, scientific methodology, reason, speculation, and extrapolation, the observable world and scientific tools available to people of the time were not the same ones we have available (and take for granted) today. The great minds of the time certainly performed their duties to the best of their abilities with the information they had available, but we shouldn’t be assuming they had all the answers. Similarly, we shouldn’t assume they didn’t have biases that influenced their findings, conscious or unconscious, as they may have been.

There is arguably no area where that is more true than with the development of concepts regarding Race. And yet our modern notions of Race are virtually indistinguishable from those of Enlightenment Thinkers, despite a plethora of evidence that should dismantle all of it. The biggest problem, and one that great minds could hardly avoid, is that those notions are derived from a White, Eurocentric perspective. Of course, some are deeply invested in maintaining that antiquated worldview, in large part precisely because it is assembled around a White, Eurocentric perspective.

But before modern concepts of Race developed, there was nothing like it in place. Separation between people was based on Political, Religious, and Regional differences. Egyptian, Chinese, Greek, and Roman cultures, for example, had no hierarchical bias regarding the myriad skin tones of their people. It was solely by happenstance that people of similar skin color were lumped together. Their status within the given society was based on where they were from, the society to which they belonged, and the gods they worshipped, not the lightness or darkness of their skin tone. It was instead the assumption that anyone not belonging to one’s culture was some manner of barbarian, but that this cultural defect wasn’t an immutable characteristic. Physiological differences were recognized and somewhat accurately perceived as the result of environmental factors, such as the specific geography where those groups originated, and heritable traits.

Of course, the Greek and Roman societies collapsed, and for a time, the differences were analyzed through a Biblical lens. Medieval thinking led to different skin tones being associated with descending from one of the three sons of Noah. This way of thinking was particularly dominant in Christian and Islamic societies. This showcased a rather large step backward from the earlier recognition that environment and geography were the primary drivers behind those superficial differences. It wasn’t until the 14th Century in Islamic society and the 17th Century in Europe that people began to restore the recognition that a person’s geographic origin played the biggest role in the differences in skin color. That, combined with a moderately greater understanding of heritability, allowed late 17th-century European Naturalists to glimpse the nature of humanity with greater accuracy. Unfortunately, there was still a great deal of error in the interpretations of what they glimpsed.

As White Europeans began to explore the world to a greater extent, they started to consider and explore the superficial differences between people of different regions and cultures in greater detail. It stood to reason, to the scientific minds of the day, that there must be some scientific explanation for the surface-level differences between those other people and themselves, and that required classification. Naturally, these classifications were often based on misapprehensions and limited comprehension of the natural world.

And since they considered themselves to be the arbiters of what constituted civilization and culture, it was just as natural that these classifications were utilized to reinforce the belief that White Europeans were superior, a result that became increasingly imperative as Colonization and Slavery came to the forefront of that White, Eurocentric negotiation with the world surrounding them. With the sociopolitical belief in human equality becoming increasingly widespread, a race was on to define non-white races as somehow subhuman, and thus not deserving of that equality.

It should go without saying that there was no basis in scientific reality for these new Racial Classifications indicating superiority of any group over another. In fact, arguably the greatest single contributor to the concept of Racial Taxonomy, German anthropologist Johann Blumenbach, clearly and concisely showed that there was greater variation within any individual Race than between any two Races (a result later proven by the study of genetics). Even with Christian mythology tainting his research, Blumenbach still arrived at the (correct) conclusion that there was nothing in his findings that reinforced the belief that any Race was superior to another. He actively opposed slavery and those who used his Taxonomy as justification for the poor treatment of non-whites.

But so much hinged on hierarchical thinking that the scientific advancements that should have dismantled it were hampered by assumptions and preconceived notions. Operating from the starting point of White European superiority, several Naturalists spent the late 18th and early 19th Centuries shoring up those assumptions and reinterpreting the data in whatever way was necessary to assure themselves that they were, in fact, superior.

It was the late 19th Century when Charles Darwin advocated for the common ancestry of all humans, regardless of Race, and definitively stated that the characteristics used to separate by Race were exclusively superficial. When writing The Descent of Man, Darwin made it clear that the difficulty in discerning clear delineations between various races should be taken as evidence that distinctive characteristics separating one Race from another simply do not exist. He further argued that non-white people were equal in intellectual capacity to whites.

And yet, to this day, we still suffer fools who will argue that Race is a thing and that there are differences between one Race and another.

Some will attempt to undermine this argument by pointing to Genetics, using everything from inherited traits to predisposition to certain illnesses as a basis for their assertion that Race is a thing. Reality, of course, is more complicated and nuanced than all of that.

Sickle Cell Disease is an excellent example, because it is not (contrary to what many assume) connected to Race, but to Ancestry. Sickle Cell Disease is the result of Natural Selection, due to the Genetic Trait providing a natural defense against Malaria. Thus, this Genetic Trait is exclusive to individuals with Ancestry originating primarily in Sub-Saharan Africa, where Malaria was common. It should be obvious already where I’m going with this, but that means not only is Sickle Cell Disease not something all Black persons are susceptible to, but that it isn’t exclusively Black persons who are susceptible to it. Of course, the predisposition is higher within the Black population, but that’s solely due to the demographic breakdown of the regions where Malaria was most common. It is Genetic, in that it is based on Ancestry, but it is irrespective of Race.
Similar misapprehensions have people believing that Tay-Sachs Disease is something exclusive to Jewish people; however, that is untrue on several fronts.

Originally linked to the Ashkenazi Jewish people of Europe, we know that it is far from exclusive to individuals with that Ancestry. French Canadians, some Amish communities, and Cajuns are also highly susceptible to Tay-Sachs, because it (and other Genetic Diseases) are tied to insular communities with a higher than average historical incidence rate of what geneticists refer to as the Founder Effect, wherein the gene pool is limited and certain forms of Genetic Drift are likely to take place.

Thus, this could arise in any sufficiently isolated population with cultural or environmental factors promoting insularity and lack of interbreeding with other populations. This is why Tay-Sachs is not common in Middle Eastern Jewish populations.

Again, this displays that Race is not a factor, but Ancestry is.

If we want to pretend that Race is a Scientific and Biological categorization, then we’re just as well off breaking the population down by those who can roll their tongues. Or maybe we can draw the line at those who believe cilantro tastes like soap, for all the relevance it has. The amount of Melanin Production only serves as a conveniently visible form of differentiation, no more valuable than eye color, hair color, height, left or right-handedness, or any of the other things we could arbitrarily apply value assessments to.

These things are in no way indicative of any reasonable or useful separation, and I hope the premise helps to showcase how ridiculous and meaningless it is to separate people into groupings based on the things we do utilize.

As it stands, we already do enough segregating based on geographical or national origin, religious beliefs, economic status, and so on. We should focus less on what makes us different than on what we have in common. We should embrace the differences in the same way we embrace the diverse landscapes and ecosystems around the world.

Persecution and Exploitation, the Tools of the Weak and Afraid

/ MeltdownMessiah / Leave a comment

As near as I can place it, the greatest problem we have as a society here in America (and to a lesser extent, the rest of the Western World) is that there are whole cultural groups who perceive any and all interactions with others through a lens of persecution and exploitation. They can’t conceive of anything else. To them, it’s an alien concept that those interactions could be cooperative or mutually beneficial. It’s a shortcoming, and a necessary byproduct of patriarchy, the corrupting influence of certain religious ideologies, and Capitalism.

These groups, when told that they’re no longer allowed to persecute or exploit others, can only imagine that they must be on the receiving end of persecution and exploitation. That’s the only thing they know, and they lack the necessary imagination to comprehend that a loss of privilege is not the same thing as persecution. After so long, always being in control, they can’t accept the loss of it or recognize that the loss is nothing more than that of the shackles that they forced on those upon whom they preyed.

It doesn’t matter if it makes no sense. It will never make sense to anyone not wrapped up in delusions of exceptionalism and their own sense of being what is “normal” and what is “right.” If you’re not them, you’re something less. If they’re not allowed to treat you as being beneath them, they believe it’s because you think yourself to be above them. And, if we’re being honest, not being like them (confined by such petty, binary terms) most certainly does place you above them.

To them, it’s one or the other. If they aren’t persecuting you, then they must be persecuted by you. That’s why you’ll routinely hear them tossing out ridiculous claims of how they’re being harmed or ostracized, even though nothing has changed. In their fevered imaginations, they sincerely believe there’s a “War on Christmas,” a “White Genocide,” or a “Male Loneliness Epidemic.” Again, nothing has changed, beyond the fact that they’re being told to grow the fuck up and behave as if they’re part of a civilized society. No one asked them to change anything about themselves, beyond opening their eyes to the reality that they are not alone, and they are not exclusively in control or entitled to it.

For some, without dominance, there is nothing.

I can’t help but feel that one of the greatest missteps we’ve made as a species is the shift to a perspective in which we have dominance over all other life on the planet, be it plant or animal. Some would claim that to be the natural order of things, but it wasn’t always that way, and in many circles it still is not. That way of thinking originated from somewhere specific and spread like a disease, much like the cultures from which it was spawned.

You see, once a culture begins to perceive anything as being beneath it, it’s a simple thing to perceive ANYTHING as being beneath it. Dominion over the plants and animals quickly becomes dominion over those who see the world differently. It translates easily into dominance over those who look different, or speak a different language, or pray to a different pantheon of gods. The world turns on its axis for centuries, and that thinking persists today.

Unfortunately, that way of thinking began with Genesis and the early Judaic people who shared that story and built upon it, so assured that they were special and destined for more. That philosophy wasn’t present in the pre-Judaic religious traditions of the Sumerians, Canaanites, Assyrians, and others. It’s also notably absent in essentially all other religious thinking around the world. That philosophy of human dominion is all but exclusive to the myths of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim people.

Other cultures saw divinity in the natural world, not as something separate and standing above it, but as an aspect of it. All of existence was a reflection of the divine and the bearer of divinity. Humans were a part of that natural world, and part of that divine manifestation along with everything else. But these new cultures, that spread from the Middle East, saw only themselves as a reflection of the divine in our world. They chose to perceive the natural world as something corrupt and needing to be overcome and subdued, from which to escape.

Some would dismiss all of these pantheistic or semi-pantheistic belief systems as primitive. But I feel like there’s a lot more of the “primitive” in cultures that feel conflict, war, and dominion over others are the natural order.

I think it says something that several great thinkers of the Enlightenment Era (men like Spinoza) embraced various forms of pantheism, as did some who influenced the birth of that age. But they also saw the danger in straying from the “dominant” faith in their corner of the world, and what happened to those who promoted a less “transcendent” interpretation of God, when men like Giordano Bruno were burned at the stake as heretics by the Catholic Church. Those faiths holding to their belief in dominion over all things are insidiously successful in devouring any opposition, and guarding their positions with jealousy that rivals what their god is capable of displaying.

Of course, there’s an exceptionally good chance that the original meaning of what they interpreted as “dominion” was intended more as what we think of as “stewardship,” caring for the plants and animals of the world. In which case, the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim believers have been disappointing the god they pray to for centuries or even millennia.

That seems far more likely to me than them being correct.

It may be time to reevaluate our relationship with the world we live upon and in. It’s the only one we’re guaranteed to have. Everything else is a fantasy (and one that can never be proven), only accepted on faith. And if that’s what someone chooses to believe, good for them, but they need to stop depending (and insisting) on the rest of the world going along with their delusions. We have a responsibility to maintain and care for the world upon which we depend for our survival.

Naturally, all of this appealed a great deal to the patriarchal, as strength and brutality lend themselves nicely to domination and forced compliance. It complements Capitalism well, a worldview and economic system that requires a minority of owners and a majority of subservient workers to feed their productivity upward as they receive the bare minimum to keep them placated. White Supremacy, of course, latched onto this way of thinking as well, looking down on cultures and ethnic groups unlike their own, as if theirs was the only one that should be.

And today, as always before, they project what they perceive as strength, but anyone with open eyes sees it for the transparent weakness of fear and contempt that it’s always been.

We only need to give them a mirror.