Definition of Race
Some definitions on race that came up in the mid of the 20th century were viewed from two perspectives: first with an evolutionary perspective along with the assumption that geographic distribution plays an important role in race formation and second the importance of breeding populations in forming a collection of common traits which sets the groups apart. Scholars such as Hooton, Dobzhansky and Garn in their definitions have explicitly mentioned that these breeding or Mendelian populations can change in time and are not like water tight compartments. Now let us learn some of the important definitions of race given by scholars:
- Hooton (1946) defined race as “a group whose members present individually identical combinations of specific physical characters that they owe to their common descent.”
- According to Dobzansky (1944) “Races are defined as populations differing in the incidence of certain genes, but actually exchanging or potentially able to exchange genes across whatever boundaries (usually geographic) separate them. He further added that race differences are objectively ascertainable facts; the number of races we choose to recognize is a matter of convenience.”
- As per Boyd (1950) race is “a population which differs significantly from other human populations in regard to the frequency of one or more of the genes it possesses. It is an arbitrary matter which, and how many, gene loci we choose to consider as a significant ‘constellation’.”
- Mayr (1963) attempted to define races with reference to the subspecies as “a subspecies is an aggregate of phenotypically similar populations of a species inhabiting a geographic subdivision of the range of the species and differing taxonomically from other populations of the species.”
- According to Baker (1967) “race may be defined operationally as a rough measure of genetic distance in human populations and as such may function as an informational construct in the multidisciplinary area of research in human biology.”
The above definitions may show subtle differences, but at the same time the definitions exhibit certain commonalties like the role of geographic distribution in race formation and sharing of genetic traits among people who are related to each other through common ancestry, i.e. breeding population.
Important Terminalogy
What is Race ?
From 18th century onwards Anthropologists became interested to study human physical variations and on the basis of those studies, various attempts were made to classify the world population into different categories called ‘race’. The term ‘race’ was first used by Buffon, a French naturalist in the 18th century (Joshi, 2015). The criteria that were used to classify the world population were some observable (e. g. skin color, hair color, hair form and nose form), metric (e.g. stature), and other biological characters (e. g. blood groups and blood enzymes). Apart from the physical variations, the world population is also diversified among various human groups on the basis of cultural practices such as language, food pattern, dressing style, behaviour and many more.
Difference between Race and Ethnicity ?
“An ethnic group represents one of a number of populations, which grade into one another and together comprise the species Home sapiens, but individually maintain their differences, physical and cultural, by means of isolating mechanisms such as geographic and social barriers” (Montagu, 1942). These differences will vary as the power of the geographic and social barriers acting upon the original genetic differences vary. The work of Frederik Barth in the 1970, emphasized that members of one ethnic group distinguish themselves from the members of other ethnic groups on the basis of a presumed common ancestry and shared cultural traits. As a consequence, the member of a particular ethnic group prefers to choose mate from the same ethnic group (endogamy). The continuous preference towards endogamy might offer a biological entity to a particular ethnic group. However, these ethnic boundaries are not that rigid; an increase in cross cultural marriages could be a good example. Ethnic boundaries may take in different forms- cultural, linguistic, religious, economic and so on (Heyer et al., 2009).
There is one common thing between the concept of race and ethnicity, i.e. shared common ancestry. Despite this similarity, there are some differences.
“First of all, race is primarily unitary. You can only have one race, while you can claim multiple ethnic affiliations. You can identify ethnically as Oriya and Indian, but for racial identity- you have to be essentially either black or white. Compared to the concept of ethnic group, race is hierarchical and there is a built-in inequality in power. Some are of the opinion that both ethnicity and race are socially constructed and both are illusory and imagined. But racial categories have had a much more concrete impact on peoples’ lives, because they’ve been used to discriminate and to distribute resources unequally and set up different standards for protection under law (Race-The power of an illusion, n. d.).
What is Racism ?
The concept of race gave birth to racism. Racism is based on the false belief that factors such as intellect and various cultural attributes like values and morality are inherited along with one’s physical characteristics like skin color, nose form, hair color and so on. This produced misconception among people that intellect as well as cultural traits was inherited in the same way as the biological features. Such beliefs are based on the assumption that one group is superior to the other. Eugenic movement, notions of purity of races and persecution of people are the outcome of racism- a racial misconception. According to American Anthropological Association Statement on Race (May 17, 1998), “leaders among European–Americans fabricated the cultural/behavioral characteristics associated with each ‘‘race’’, linking superior traits with Europeans and negative and inferior ones to blacks and Indians.”
Racial biasness can appear in many forms such as religion, language, food, dress pattern etc. There have also been instances when racial intolerance led to diplomatic crisis. For example, when Bollywood actor Shahrukh Khan was frisked by American immigration authorities at a US airport or students of Punjabi origin were harassed in Australia. People comment on these incidents as ‘racist remark’ or ‘racism’ and so on.
Racism means a Social Disease
Racism is prejudice or discrimination against other people because of their “race” or because of what is thought to be their race (their biology or ancestry or physical appearance). Racism involves the assumption that people’s birth or biology determines who they are: that behaviour is based on biology. Whether or not there is hatred, racism involves prejudice or discrimination. It may be personal or institutional, felt or unrecognized, but it is normally based on a stereotype that people of a particular genetic background all behave in some unappealing way; they all do, they have no choice, it is in the genes (Reilly et al., 2003).
Consequences
Racially based physical characteristics were erroneously thought to be tightly bound to mental, emotional, intellectual and cultural attributes as well. In this manner, some races were identified as clearly inferior to the others — primitive vs advanced— western civilized populations were held to be superior to the others. Modern European society tended to believe in the division of the world’s population into distinct biological groups, of ‘Black’, ‘White’, ‘Asian’ or other people that are permanently divided and arranged into a hierarchy of superior to inferior types.
For example, when the European explorers located Hottentot and Bushmen people of Africa they found the appearance, language and cultural practices of those people to be of a low and subhuman standard compared to their own characteristics. Similarly, in India, the colonial rulers used to call Indians ‘natives’. In a similar fashion inequalities based on sex and class dominated the western world; and in the Indian subcontinent these were ethnicity and castes. There has been a widespread belief in such categorization and this belief, in turn, has had enormous implications for the way in which ‘white’ Europeans have historically set out to dominate, exploit and kill ‘inferior’ peoples. The belief in such biological differences has had enormous impact on behavior and practice (Mac Master, 2001).
Voices against Racism (Race to Racism)
British-born anthropologist Ashley Montagu, a student of both Franz Boas and Ruth Benedict, was the first scientist who criticized the concept of race. “He earned fame in the 1940s by arguing that race was a social construct, a product of perceptions, rather than a biological fact. Montagu vocally opposed anthropologist Carleton Coon’s notion that whites and blacks evolved along separate paths” (Critiquing Race, n. d.). Montague (1942) questioned the scientific validity of human races in his classic work, “Man’s Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race”. “Likewise, when Frank B. Livingstone wrote his chapter on “The Nonexistence of Human Races” in 1964, he criticized the utility of the race concept for explaining genetic variability, arguing that ‘if a population is X per cent Negro in one characteristic it must be X per cent in all characteristics for this [racial explanation of difference] to be an adequate explanation’. In fact, as Livingstone explained, genetic traits can often be discordant and ‘if two genes vary discordantly, the races set up on the basis of one do not describe the variability in the other’(Outram & Ellison, 2006).” He further suggested that instead of finding out differences between populations, more legitimate and fruitful approach is to understand patterns of biological variation across space. Such an approach would yield greater insight into the adaptive significance of human biological variation because environmental parameters that drive natural selection vary systematically across geographic space. To go by the words of Jacques Barzun (1965) on racial classification “No argument has ever been advanced by any reasonable man against the fact of differences among men. The whole argument is about what difference exists and how they are to be gauged” (Molnar, 2015). Thus, the use of the word ‘race’ has long been, and remains controversial and the anthropologists have never been comfortable with this topic.