Man's Most Dangerous Myth: the Fallacy of Race - Assignment Example

Race and Ethni It should be d that racial categories are variable and depend on the meanings inserted by contemporaries. According to some scholars, it is wrong to consider the concept of race politically neutral. It always contain, even if just implicitly, the idea of conflict of interests. Omi and Winant (1994, p. 55) state "race is a concept, which signifies and symbolizes social conflicts and interests, by referring to different types of human bodies". Some sociologists state that the notion of race has always been filled with some socio-cultural meaning, demonstrating an attitude towards 'aliens', expressed through the emphasizing of their most observable physical differences. In other words, sociologists consider that physical marks reflect not the objective reality, but subjective attitude. According to Robert Park (1964, pp. 237-239, 315), a racial mark has become the symbol of the suspense, in the ground of which has laid the sense of self-vulnerability. He writes that a sociologist is interested not in physical distinctions, differentiating one race from another, but in less evident lineaments of inner apprehensions. And physical distinctions are just the symbols of these inner apprehensions. Park claims that historical process in the issue is predetermined by the ideological factors, not by the biological ones. The more important is to realize what people believe in and look for, than to know who they are. In other words modern sociologists, considering race as an artificial construct and one of means of creation and description the identity, emphasize that race remains to be rather important notion, which determines and legalizes social and political actions of people. At the same time they are sure that race is a product of racism, and not contrariwise. From this point of view groups, which are called racial, turn out to be racialised. It means that social, political, or economical state of these groups is described with the help of racial categories. A lot of scholars for decades have oppugned against scientific racism, which has tried to ground the idea of racial inequality. They have proved that human capabilities do not depend on the colour of the skin or type of eyes. One of the most outstanding representatives of this stream is Ashley Montague (1952), who from 1940s has insisted that race is just a scientific phantom. However a lot of scholars as before have considered race and ethnos as some biological reality, underestimating the paramount role of social factor. Nonetheless some of these scholars have understood that race is rather social construct then the biological reality, and that the concept of race implicates relationship of dominance and submission. The development of genetic studies has approved that several different genes determine so-called 'racial marks'. This fact has originated the basis for the true scientific approach and has given a possibility to claim that there are no races, only clines (Livingstone, 1962). During last decades this approach has been widely accepted by majority of scholars. During 1960 - 1980 it has been noticed some decline and loss of interest in studying the concept of race. In the mean time we have to confess that unfortunately even in the twenty first century mankind failed to get rid of racism. Just the other way round during last decades of the twentieth century it has got the new, even more 'fastidious' forms. As a result it has become very difficult for scholars to define the notion of 'racism'. And what even worst is that modern racists make use of such uncertainty and declare themselves as intransigent fighters against racism. It should be said that contemporary criminal justice turned out to be just not ready to such metamorphoses of racism. Modern antiracists very often fall short of knowledge about its essence and history, and accordingly they do not take into consideration significant peculiarities, which can be very helpful in struggling against it. In fact antiracism time and again is based on the same prejudices as racism, being just its mirror reverberation (Gilroy, 1990; Solomos & Back 1996, p. 115, 118-119; Wieviorka, 1997). Antiracists, like racists, often consider the race as some objective biological category, and sometimes even attribute biological qualities to ethnical groups. At the end of nineteenth century - the beginning of the twentieth century many scholars followed the idea of psychological differences between particular ethnical groups. Mostly it has respected to wild men. Some scholars have considered that brain of these people has had some other psychological structure, than brain of representatives from "civilized world" has had. Based on the concepts of 'collective identity' and 'primitive mentality" this approach has facilitated the derivation of the notion of 'national character'. One of the followers of this concept is English psychologist, William MacDugle, who has drawn a conclusion that there are some intellectual differences between people of various races. On working out the notion of 'psychological', or 'cultural distance', he has warned that in case this distance is too considerable, the relationship between contacting groups necessarily get catastrophic character. In other words groups, which psychologically differentiate, have no chance to agree with each other. Nowadays such an approach is definitely considered as racist (Thompson, 1999). Denying of biological basis of race by modern geneticists facilitates an interest to its populist definitions. Nowadays have arisen new approaches, supposing an opportunity to define race in terms of culture, and being completely released from its biological basis. In this case in the notion of 'race' are reflected the special historically developed forms of cultural adhesion and solidarity. Supporters of this point of view suppose that in the contemporary world race is nether more nor less than the form of expression of ethnicity (Goldberg 1992, p. 551, 553). Other researchers categorically object, specifying, that racial categories either absorb, or ignore ethnicity (Bashi, 1998). Besides some authors insist, the concept of race includes both social and cultural components. That is why to reduce it only to one of these aspects, ignoring another, would be wrong. So the concept of race, unlike the concept of ethnicity, always assumes attitudes of domination-submission, direct or indirect discrimination. For this reason many experts believe that racial experience cardinally differs from ethnic. In 1996 'Theories of Ethnicity: a Classical reader' was published. It has collected all studies published during the twentieth century, which has obtained world recognition. Instead of the foreword it has had an article of Werner Sollors published in 1981 in The American Quarterly magazine. In the article the author has chosen six central, to his opinion, issues of American ethnicity, around which the studies of modern scholars are concentrated. One of theses issues is 'Race and Ethnicity'. For the USA, occupied by representatives of various races, the question of interrelation between the concepts of 'race' and 'ethnicity' is extremely topical. Sollors in detail considers opinions of various researchers, and makes a conclusion about discrepancy of the content of the concept of 'ethnicity' and the concept of 'race' (Sollors, 1996, p. XXIX). He gives a number of examples of opinions of researchers regarding this issue. So, Nathan Glazer considers 'ethnicity' and 'race' to be homogeneous concepts, but different in their applicability. The author notices, that terms 'ethnicity' and 'race' are included into the family of concepts defining social identity, where alongside with racial and ethnic notions exist religious (as in Holland) and language (as Belgium) groups, which can be united under the name of ethnic groups, as their representatives have common real or mythical ancestors, share one history and experience (Sollors, 1996, p. XXX). For Gordon the meaning of the term 'ethnic group' is much wider, than the term 'racial group', which also can be subsumed to an ethnic group. He associates physical attributes of the representatives of a group with race, and cultural attributes - with ethnicity. But such authors as Michael Omi, Howard Winant, etc. hold the opposite opinion. They believe that racial groups are also culturally and socially determined, as if to follow Gordon's positions, all black population should be referred to one ethnic group as all the population belongs to one race (Sollors, 1996, p. XXXI-XXXIV). Besides races can be ethnically determined (for example, Afro-Americans and Jamaicans in the USA), as well as ethnic groups can be differentiated by race (Spanish speaking Americans). According to the neat statement of Stewart Hall, the categories of "race" and "ethnicity" play in hide-in-sick with each other, but they play hide-and-sick also with researchers, who have not arrived to a common opinion. At the same time, many scholars support the idea that the difference between race and ethnicity does not lay in differences between physical attributes as describing race and cultural, inherent to ethnicity. Authors of the monograph 'Ethnicity and Race: Making Identities in a Changing World' Hartman and Cornell have devoted their work to the problem of correspondence of the subject-matter of concept of 'ethnicity' and the concept of 'race' in modern conditions. They have conducted the deep analysis of all opinions stated by all predecessors, having noticed the occurrence of new streams. Authors have drawn a conclusion that now these concepts underlie the life of society. By means of these concepts it is possible to explain such phenomena as genocide, discrimination, prejudice, opposition of various forces, the requirements put forward by various forces. At the same time, these categories are invented, however, as well as all the others. The only important is the meaning, which people put in them, and the way they use them in their actions. In the twenty first century the special value gets not the theoritisation of these notions, but real effects of matters of ethnicity and race, as representatives of ethnic and racial groups understand them. Bibliography: 1. Bashi, Vilna. "Racial Categories Matter Because Racial Hierarchies Matter: a Commentary." Ethnic and Racial Studies. 21. 5 (1998): 959-968. 2. Goldberg, D. T. "The semantics of race." Ethnic and Racial Studies. 15. 4 (1992): 543. 3. Gilroy, Paul. "The End of Anti-racism." Race and Local Politics, Basingstoke. Basinstoke, 1990. 4. Livingstone, Frank B. "On the Non-Existence of Human Races". Current Anthropology. Vol. 3. 1962. 5. Montagu, Ashley. Man's Most Dangerous Myth: the Fallacy of Race. New York: Harper, 1952. 6. Omi, Michael, and Howard Winant. Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s. New York: Routledge, 1994. 7. Park, Robert Ezra. Race and Culture. Glencoe, Ill: Free Press, 1964. 8. Solomos, John, and Les Back. Racism and Society. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996. 9. Werner Sollors, "Foreword: Theories of American Ethnicity," in Werner Sollors ed., Theories of Ethnicity .London: Macmillan, 1996. 10. Thompson, Mark. Forging War: The Media in Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Hercegovina. Luton: University of Luton Press, 1999. 11. Wieviorka, Michel. "Is It Difficult To Be an Anti-racist" in Werbner, Pnina, and Tariq Modood. Debating Cultural Hybridity: Multi-Cultural Identities and the Politics of Anti-Racism. London: Zed Books, 1997. Read More