What would we do without anthropologists? (No, don’t tell me. That question was rhetorical.) I had a professor in college who defined an anthropologist as “a sociologist in a tent,” but then he was a sociologist and may simply have been presenting his latest survey findings.
In any event we last encountered an anthropologist here, in the form of John L. Jackson Jr. of the University of Pennsylvania. In his article discussed in that post he shared with the Chronicle of Higher Education’s blog readers the following pearl of anthropological insight — that racism has evolved “from blatant to subtle, from explicit to inferential, from biological to cultural….” And the point of this observation?
The point isn’t that race is less important now than before. It is just more paradoxical. Race is real, but it isn’t. It has value, but it doesn’t. It explains social difference, but it couldn’t possibly….
Well, I’m glad we got that cleared up. And the CHE’s blog editor must be appreciative as well, since now Prof. Jackson is a regular commentator there. In his latest comment he describes the current controversy among one school of scientists and social scientists who believe race is not biologically based, another school who believe it is, and even a third school, of mainly non-scientists, “who argue that race isn’t real (the first group is right) but that even the people in that camp use race in ways that are similar to their rivals.” With regard to the first two,
Each camp sets the other one up as being more powerful — and dangerous. They make accusations about one another’s intentions and morality. And they both imagine the other to be a serious problem to the future of scholarship.
And what does our anthropologist say? Well, he says, it is … and it isn’t.
Race’s complicated relationship to reality (real vs. unreal, there vs. not there) is exactly what has everyone so preoccupied. Of course, just as those junior high school kids in Florida [to whom Prof. Jackson gave a talk] could imagine that race is and isn’t biological at the same time, a little of both and a little of neither, racial experts are caught in the same quicksand — of accusation and innuendo, of charges and countercharges. Race is a social construction, but it is also more than that, and this complicated, contradictory notion of race is exactly what makes racism so tenacious, perched right atop the electrified fence between those racial camps
Of course if “race” (whatever it is … or isn’t) weren’t so “complicated” and “contradictory,” we wouldn’t need deeply perceptive anthropologists looking beneath the misleadingly superficial obvious to give us such a, well, electrifying explanation of it.
I’ve heard anthropology defined as “the study of the exotic by the eccentric.” Fits.
What a load of garbage! Either race is a biological reality or it is not. There is no such thing as “a little of both and a little of neither” and beyond that it is obvious to anyone that race is indeed an undisputable reality.
The biological concept of race is a key element of evolution and a common trait to all species on Earth. Races diversify, evolve and adapt and finally either blend, disperse again or dissapear. I know there are some people who think this is just vile darwinism. If so, when was the last time you saw a Neanderthal?
Amongst all the “quicksand — of accusation and innuendo” Prof. Jackson has failed to address the main issue concerning race. The big question is not wether race is a biological reality or not. The central question is why should it be so important in everyday life?
Race is a very important factor in medicine. It is essential to discriminate between asians, europeans and africans when calculating the dosis for certain medication (especially narcotics) or preparing an organ transplant. Beyond that the importance of race could rapidly diminish if it were not for all those overambitious people who put the question of race on the header of nearly every questionaire and statistic just so they have an excuse for discriminating in every field where the biological reality of race could otherwise not reach.
There is no complicated, contradictory notion of race within itself. The complications and contradicitions arise only when the politically correct social construct of universal equality is compared to reality. That is also not what “what makes racism so tenacious” – it is instead the obnoxious habit of discriminating against and giving preference to people depending on the race they declared on an application form.
– Andrew
Neanderthals are different species, not a different ethnicity.