PHL323H1 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Kwame Nkrumah, W. E. B. Du Bois, Pleonasm
Appiah
W.E.B Du Bois laid out foundations of Pan-Africanist movement
We scientifically have at least 2/3 races (white/black/yellow)
○
D.B. rejects this and considers 8 races
○
"Negros" must develop themselves as a race
○
Positive conception of race -"antiracist racism" - Negro people, as a race, have a contribution to make to
civilization and humanity, which no other race can make.
○
Race as a sociohistorical concept
○
•
Appiah claims that Du Bois is not transcending the scientific conception of race
Family of common history implies shared ancestry
○
Linear conceptions of family histories underrepresent the biological range of our ancestry
○
We can't accurately track our history back to a specific race
○
Sharing a common group history cannot be a criterion for being members of the same group, for we would
have to be able to identify the group in order to identify its history
○
History may have made us what we are, but the choice of a slice of the past in a period before your birth
as your own history is always exactly that: a choice. The phrase the "invention of tradition" is a pleonasm.
○
DB claims that common impulses are shared between biologically defined races
○
He claims there are 8 racial groups, while science discerns 3, because he superimposes geographical
criterion
○
Admitted colour was a sign of racial essence, which accounted for the intellectual and moral deficiency
○
•
Scientifically there is no connection between race and capacity
It is not legitimate to argue from differences in physical characteristics to differences in mental
characteristics…
○
The civilization of a … race at any particular moment of time offers no index to its innate or inherited
capacities
○
The conclusion: with the exception of those characteristics shared by all human beings (such as being able to
acquire language), knowledge of a person’s ‘gross physical features’ (i.e. race) tells you basically nothing
about their biology
○
Every reputable biologist will agree that human genetic variability between the populations of Africa or
Europe or Asia is not much greater than that within those populations…
○
Apart from visible morphological characteristics of skin, hair, and bone, by which we are inclined to assign
people to the broadest racial categories…there are few genetic characteristics to be found in the population
of England that are not found in similar proportions in Zairs or in China
○
Given only a person's race, it is hard to say what his or her biological characteristics (apart from those that
human beings share) will be, except… features of "morphological differentiation"
○
0.5% difference in probability between people in the same race having the same allele and people in
different races having the same allele
○
Race is not a biological fact but a logical one, for Nei and Roychoudhury's races are defined by their
morphology in the first place
○
Race is a poor indicator of capacity
○
•
There is no doubt that all human beings descend from an original population (probably, as it happens, in Africa),
and that from there people radiated out to cover the habitable globe
At the margins there is always the exchange of genes
○
All human populations are linked to each other through neighbouring populations
○
The classification of people into "races" would be biologically interesting if both margins and the migrations
had not left behind a genetic trail
○
•
In the early phases of theory, scientists begin, inevitably, with the categories of their folk theories of the world,
and often the criteria of membership of these categories can be detected with the unaided senses
But as we go on, we look for "deeper", more theoretical properties
○
•
Du Bois does not escape the concept of race, despite disavowing it - "If he escaped hat racism, he never
completed the escape from race
Du Bois said: "we ought to speak of civilizations where we now speak of races… Indeed, even the physical
characteristics, excluding the skin color of people, are to no small extent the direct result of the physical and
social environment under which it is living"
○
Yet he remains committed to Pan-Africanism
○
He believes that his color and hair mark his heritage and tie him to the history of Africa
○
But why does this matter?
○
Non-sequitur: If what DU Bois has in common with Africa is a history of "discrimination and insult," then this
binds him, on his own account, to "yellow Asia and… the South Seas" also. How can something he shares
with the whole nonwhite world bind him to a part of it?
○
The 'discrimination and insult' he experienced was also different from what was experienced by Kwame
Nkrumah in colonized West Africa
○
What Du bois shares with the nonwhite world is not insult but the badge of insult, and the badge, without
the insult, is just the very skin and hair and bone that it is impossible to connect with the scientific definition
of race
○
Du Bois writes as if he has to choose between Africa, on the one hand, and "yellow Asia and…the South
seas," on the other. But that, it seems to me, is just the choice that racism imposes on us--and just the
choice we must reject.
○
•
Du Bois is an intrinsic racist, while his theoretical racism was extrinsic•
"The truth is that there are no races: there is nothing in the world that can do all we ask race to do for us."
"though he saw the dawn coming, he never faced the sun."
○
We all live in the dusk of that dawn
○
•
Civilisations are socially constructed - if we didn't have society, we wouldn’t have civilisation
But that does not mean it is not real
○
•
Essay Points
Appiah claims: The truth is that there are no races: there is nothing in the world that can do all we
ask race to do for us.
Biologically, there is no basis for race
○
Every reputable biologist will agree that human genetic variability between the populations
of Africa or Europe or Asia is not much greater than that within those populations…
○
•
The fact that civilisation or race is a socially constructed is not sufficient grounds for the claim that
they are not real
The fact is that we are separated by socio-historical associations, marked upon us by
physical characteristics and geographical location
○
•
But the race or civilisation that you belong to is becoming increasingly more difficult to define
With increasing globalisation, most people in the first world recognise a difference between
their origin and their ascribed race
○
•
Paper 2
Friday, March 17, 2017
7:00 PM
Appiah
W.E.B Du Bois laid out foundations of Pan-Africanist movement
We scientifically have at least 2/3 races (white/black/yellow)
○
D.B. rejects this and considers 8 races
○
"Negros" must develop themselves as a race
○
Positive conception of race -"antiracist racism" - Negro people, as a race, have a contribution to make to
civilization and humanity, which no other race can make.
○
Race as a sociohistorical concept
○
•
Appiah claims that Du Bois is not transcending the scientific conception of race
Family of common history implies shared ancestry
○
Linear conceptions of family histories underrepresent the biological range of our ancestry
○
We can't accurately track our history back to a specific race
○
Sharing a common group history cannot be a criterion for being members of the same group, for we would
have to be able to identify the group in order to identify its history
○
History may have made us what we are, but the choice of a slice of the past in a period before your birth
as your own history is always exactly that: a choice. The phrase the "invention of tradition" is a pleonasm.
○
DB claims that common impulses are shared between biologically defined races
○
He claims there are 8 racial groups, while science discerns 3, because he superimposes geographical
criterion
○
Admitted colour was a sign of racial essence, which accounted for the intellectual and moral deficiency
○
•
Scientifically there is no connection between race and capacity
It is not legitimate to argue from differences in physical characteristics to differences in mental
characteristics…
○
The civilization of a … race at any particular moment of time offers no index to its innate or inherited
capacities
○
The conclusion: with the exception of those characteristics shared by all human beings (such as being able to
acquire language), knowledge of a person’s ‘gross physical features’ (i.e. race) tells you basically nothing
about their biology
○
Every reputable biologist will agree that human genetic variability between the populations of Africa or
Europe or Asia is not much greater than that within those populations…
○
Apart from visible morphological characteristics of skin, hair, and bone, by which we are inclined to assign
people to the broadest racial categories…there are few genetic characteristics to be found in the population
of England that are not found in similar proportions in Zairs or in China
○
Given only a person's race, it is hard to say what his or her biological characteristics (apart from those that
human beings share) will be, except… features of "morphological differentiation"
○
0.5% difference in probability between people in the same race having the same allele and people in
different races having the same allele
○
Race is not a biological fact but a logical one, for Nei and Roychoudhury's races are defined by their
morphology in the first place
○
Race is a poor indicator of capacity
○
•
There is no doubt that all human beings descend from an original population (probably, as it happens, in Africa),
and that from there people radiated out to cover the habitable globe
At the margins there is always the exchange of genes
○
All human populations are linked to each other through neighbouring populations
○
The classification of people into "races" would be biologically interesting if both margins and the migrations
had not left behind a genetic trail
○
•
In the early phases of theory, scientists begin, inevitably, with the categories of their folk theories of the world,
and often the criteria of membership of these categories can be detected with the unaided senses
But as we go on, we look for "deeper", more theoretical properties
○
•
Du Bois does not escape the concept of race, despite disavowing it - "If he escaped hat racism, he never
completed the escape from race
Du Bois said: "we ought to speak of civilizations where we now speak of races… Indeed, even the physical
characteristics, excluding the skin color of people, are to no small extent the direct result of the physical and
social environment under which it is living"
○
Yet he remains committed to Pan-Africanism
○
He believes that his color and hair mark his heritage and tie him to the history of Africa
○
But why does this matter?
○
Non-sequitur: If what DU Bois has in common with Africa is a history of "discrimination and insult," then this
binds him, on his own account, to "yellow Asia and… the South Seas" also. How can something he shares
with the whole nonwhite world bind him to a part of it?
○
The 'discrimination and insult' he experienced was also different from what was experienced by Kwame
Nkrumah in colonized West Africa
○
What Du bois shares with the nonwhite world is not insult but the badge of insult, and the badge, without
the insult, is just the very skin and hair and bone that it is impossible to connect with the scientific definition
of race
○
Du Bois writes as if he has to choose between Africa, on the one hand, and "yellow Asia and…the South
seas," on the other. But that, it seems to me, is just the choice that racism imposes on us--and just the
choice we must reject.
○
•
Du Bois is an intrinsic racist, while his theoretical racism was extrinsic•
"The truth is that there are no races: there is nothing in the world that can do all we ask race to do for us."
"though he saw the dawn coming, he never faced the sun."
○
We all live in the dusk of that dawn
○
•
Civilisations are socially constructed - if we didn't have society, we wouldn’t have civilisation
But that does not mean it is not real
○
•
Essay Points
Appiah claims: The truth is that there are no races: there is nothing in the world that can do all we
ask race to do for us.
Biologically, there is no basis for race
○
Every reputable biologist will agree that human genetic variability between the populations
of Africa or Europe or Asia is not much greater than that within those populations…
○
•
The fact that civilisation or race is a socially constructed is not sufficient grounds for the claim that
they are not real
The fact is that we are separated by socio-historical associations, marked upon us by
physical characteristics and geographical location
○
•
But the race or civilisation that you belong to is becoming increasingly more difficult to define
With increasing globalisation, most people in the first world recognise a difference between
their origin and their ascribed race
○
•
Paper 2
Friday, March 17, 2017
7:00 PM
