SOCIOL 208 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Indentured Servant, Dorothy Roberts, Miscegenation
24 May 2018
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Department
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Early Science of Race
Four Concepts of Interest
• Zoological race
o Race: “a population of organisms that can be distinguished from other
populations in the same species based on differences in inherited traits.”
o Dorothy Roberts: “making race a biological concept served an important
ideological function...biological difference was essential to justifying the
enslavement of Africans in a nation founded on radical commitment to
liberty, equality, and natural rights.”
• Pre-Darwinian Theory
• Classification schemes
• 18th century vs 19th century naturalists
Political History of Race
• Indentured servitude
• Miscegenation
o Blacks not sent to prison, they become slaves
• Legal degradation of non-whites
o No intermarrying
o Every aspect of society defines who gets more and who gets less
o Whiteness as property - even if poor, whiteness gives you access to
things that others (blacks) cannot access
• Race emerges out of an attempt to maintain the power relationship between
whites, blacks, and other non-white groupings
Pre-Darwinian Theories
• Prior to Darwinian theory of evolution, biology largely consisted of disconnected
empirical observations
• The ideas of racial difference were largely rooted in religious ideology
(polygenesis)
• Scientific ideologies at that time were in line with theological beliefs that there
was a hierarchy of human races
o No separation between religion and science
Requisites for Racial Classification
• Taxonomy - classification of things into meaningful groups
o “Directly related to one’s central theory of how and why to classify
organisms into groups” - Graves
• Evolutionary theory (didn’t have when race was being developed)
• Population genetics / biochemistry (didn’t know when race was being developed)
• Full knowledge of environmental influences on population
Classification Schemes
• Graves: “the criteria upon which a classification scheme is based will necessarily
affect the structure of the scheme”
Early Classification
• Carolus Linnaeus
o Classified plant, animal, and mineral kingdoms
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