ROUGH DRAFT—NOT FOR CITATION
The published form of this work appeared in
Research News and Opportunity in Science and Theology
3.9 (May 2003): 16, 32.
“Debunking the Idea of Race:
New PBS series affirms idea
of Common Humanity”
Even within
the vast wasteland of broadcast TV, one
occasionally stumbles upon a pearl of great price. “Race: The Power of
an Illusion” is a pearl. Of course, most readers of Research News
already recognize the moral and scientific inadequacies of racism as a social,
scientific, or religious creed, but this three hour PBS series questions not
only racism, but also the very concept of race as a biological and social
construct.
The series’s creator, Larry Adelman, challenges conventional wisdom on two fronts. On the one hand, the series marshals compelling evidence that race is meaningless as a biological construct. “Skin color really is only skin deep,” Adelman insists. On the other hand, however, race remains an extremely important social construct. “Just because race is meaningless as a biological construction doesn’t mean that it has no meaning as a social construction,” Adelman warns.
These issues, the rejection of race as a biological category and the significance of race as a social construction, are explored in each of the series’s one hour segments. (The series premiers April 24, May 1 and May 8—check local listings for these and other showings.)
The first episode, “The Difference Between Us,” observes a racially mixed high school biology class as the students prepare to compare their DNA. Before making the comparisons, the students are asked to choose another student whose DNA is likely to resemble their own. Invariably, the students pair themselves with students of the same “race.” As the actual comparisons are made, however, the students find no correlation between a shared racial profile and a shared genetic profile.
Although the producers may find it bold to declare that “the concept of race has no biological basis,” scientists have long noted the incredibly limited genetic diversity among humans. Having experienced only about 70,000 years of evolution, humanity possesses very little genetic diversity—and the diversity that does exist occurs primarily within, not between, “races.”
Genetic diversity within the human species is so limited that Richard Lewontin, emeritus professor of zoology and biology at Harvard University, estimates that 85% of all humanity’s genetic diversity is contained within any randomly selected people group whether Kurds, Koreans or Cherokees. In terms of genetics and biology, “race” is an illusion. No “race” has a set of common genetic markers to distinguish it from other “races.” Yet, to recognize that “race” is an illusion is not to deny to power of that illusion.
The second episode, “The Story We Tell,” recounts the history of the concept of race in America. In colonial America, social status was largely based upon factors other than skin color. Religion was the foremost marker of social status. People were classified as either Christian or pagan. Thus, in colonial times, dark-skinned Christians enjoyed social advantages over lighter skinned “pagan” Native Americans.
In the eighteenth century, however, the growth of slavery required a different means of marking social status—and skin color became the primary marker of social status. Those with black skin were easily identified as “different.” Whereas the light-skinned indentured servants of colonial America were often able to escape and blend in with free citizens, black-skinned slaves found it nearly impossible to blend in with free whites. From a white perspective, black skin made an ideal social marker. The lowest classes of society could be easily identified, controlled and exploited.
In revolutionary times, however, citizens of the newly formed United States faced a problem. As Robin Kelley, professor of history at New York University, explains, Americans “had to figure out ...how [to] promote liberty, freedom, democracy on the one hand, [and] a system of slavery and exploitation of people who are non-white on the other.”
The solution to this problem was to give “race” a biological basis and to argue for what Thomas Jefferson suspected was the “natural inferiority” of Africans. What the eighteenth century Jefferson suspected, the nineteenth century Andrew Jackson assumed and expanded. Jefferson “suspected” the inferiority of Africans; Jackson assumed the inferiority of all non-whites and forcibly removed Native Americans from lands east of the Mississippi River. Jefferson allowed the enslavement of blacks; Jackson promoted the oppression of all non-whites.
Much nineteenth century scientific and legal thought became complicit in this elevation of whiteness as the primary indicator of social status—and the definition of “white” became a significant issue. The third episode, “The House We Live In,” explores the quest to define “white” in the twentieth century and the lingering effects of those definitions.
Because definitions of race varied from state to state, theoretically one could “change race” simply by crossing a state border. Many ethnic groups fought to gain recognition of their “whiteness” and the accompanying social privileges. Italians, Poles, Greeks, and Hebrews were successfully integrated into the “white” community, while Asians found legal barriers to becoming white—and US citizenship was limited to “free, white persons.” In 1915, in contradictory rulings, the US Supreme Court ruled that Japanese born Takeo Ozawa could not become a US citizen in spite of his white skin because his ancestry was non-Caucasian. A few months later, the same court ruled that the Indian born Bhagat Singh Thind could not become a citizen in spite of his Caucasian ancestry because his skin was not white. “White” was being defined as whatever the “white” wished it to be—and being “white” conveyed tremendous privileges.
After World War II, the Federal Housing Administration made home ownership available to millions of veterans and underwrote $120 billion in home loans between 1932 and 1964. Only 2% of this funding went to non-whites. Federal policy explicitly excluded non-whites from entering many areas.
Such racist policies both robbed non-whites of the equity gained through home ownership and isolated non-whites in areas with low housing prices. The illusion of race had the power to impoverish. The average black family in the US owns one eighth of the assets possessed by the average white family.
For generations, the illusion of race has conveyed advantages and disadvantages which cannot be overcome simply by exposing the illusion. The tragedies of the illusion of race can be reversed only when the lingering power of that illusion is broken. How can the power of the illusion be overcome? This question will call for work from the best minds in science and religion for decades to come.
Thomas E. Phillips
Assistant Professor of Greek and New Testament
Colorado Christian University