A constant in today's society is the continued legacy of racism that is still felt against many races, but the word “race” has never meant the same thing for too long. Over the years the word race’s primary goal has been to categorize people into predefined groups usually at the hands of colonial powers who believed they were superior because of their colonial success. In this blog, we will look at how we look at race today and contrast it with historical accounts to challenge our preconceived notions of the word. This will first be done by looking at different attempts by multiple biological anthropologists to classify races across time. This demonstrates the racial grouping of people we use today, was vastly different in times past. Secondly, we will look at examples of discrimination and subjugation in recent history of people who most consider non-marginalized today. This will shine a light on how the victims of the changing word race have changed over time. Finally, we will look at personal accounts from my grandfather who experienced prejudice as a dark Serb in Canada at the United States. His account gives first-hand experience of the changing nature of race in his lifetime. In no way does this paper deny institutional racism, it is just an exposé of how the pillars of institutional racism have been altered.
The founders of scientific racism and formal racial classification were Carolus Linnaeus, and Paul Broca two notable biologists. But they will not be the focus, rather we will look at American attempts at classification. Contrary to popular belief racism has not been linearly calming down for the last 500 years but has rather ebbed and flowed throughout time. In the late 1800s and early 1900s racism was at a high, especially in America as it was an excuse for their imperialistic and colonial goals, as well as slavery. Another big reason for the jump in racism was the recent mass immigration to Western countries for the first time. Many scientists observed that people groups did not assimilate as they expected, this was their excuse for scientific racism (2). Many of the early scientific racists formed the American School, whose primary belief was that different people groups are a result of different inceptions resulting in different species of humans (1). A good example of how our classification of race has changed is Samuel George Morton and his anti-black classifications. Morton was most known for his belief that black and white people share next to nothing genetically, and that white culture was intellectual culture. In the context of today, one of his strangest classifications was labelling Egyptians as white because of their allegiance to Britain at the time. (1) From the years of propaganda from scientists the masses had been indoctrinated, racism and white supremacy were now beyond commonplace, especially in America.
The word race at this point was primarily a way to impose racist classifications that white Western Europeans and Americans had used to justify colonial escapades and slavery. Although all of the marginalized groups today still felt racism at the time, there were many groups who today are free from discrimination who once were not. In the late 19th to the early 20th century, America was flooded by immigrants that were new to America such as the Irish and Italians. Under the race classifications done by previous European scientists, Anglo-Saxon Protestants were the superior race while the Irish and Africans played the role of the inferior race (3). This belief was adopted by American scientists and later the American people as this blatant race hierarchy was treated as an academic theory at the time. These beliefs would manifest in the mass mistreatment of Italian and Irish people, people who today would be considered free of discrimination in North America. From 1885 to 1910 the lynchings of 29 Sicilian immigrants were carried out on American soil, far more than any other European immigrant (4). The lynching of 11 Italians in 1891 made the issue of lynching a political issue. When discussing Italian American lynchings in the late 19th century it is important to acknowledge that the vast majority of lynchings were targeting black people, while news media was focusing on crimes against white immigrants. The fact that the media only cared about Italian lynchings showed a hierarchy even among discriminated groups.
On a separate note, my Grandfather moved to Canada from an Italian war camp in 1948 after fighting against Croatia in World War 2. As soon as he moved here he could not find a job because he is Serbian. Contrary to popular belief, America embraced the ideals of Mein Kampf as much as any other Western country at the time, leading to mass prejudice towards Jews, Orthodox Slavs, Roma etc. Since my grandfather was an Orthodox Serbian in the segmented Toronto of the 40s and 50s he was discriminated against. Nowhere is this discrimination as apparent as when my grandfather was arrested for robbery after a store owner set him up. To make a long story short my grandfather was tasked with stocking magazines in corner stores around Toronto. In one of the corner stores he frequented, the owner had always heckled racial insults towards my grandfather until one day he offered him a pipe as a gift. My grandfather trusting the man took the the pipe and left the store, only to be greeted by two police officers who swiftly arrested him for petty robbery, he was able to explain his way out. Because of this experience, my grandfather decided to move to the most Serbian city in Canada, Niagara Falls. This demonstrates the changing nature of race if a Canadian were to look at my grandfather today, they would categorize him as a white man despite his personal experience with racism.
In conclusion, the word race has never had a constant definition, rather it has been defined by those who believed that humans are something to be ranked or conquered. This has been demonstrated through the detailed hierarchy written by race scientists. A Hierarchy whose main goal has been to dehumanize those who have been subjugated by western European colonial powers. This has also been demonstrated by the numerous examples of crimes motivated by racial hatred towards groups who are, today, considered to be white. And finally, this has been demonstrated through my grandfather's personal experience living as a Serbian in Canada in an era dominated by hate. With all that being said, I urge the reader to question other terms that today seem to be set in stone, as the history of the term may surprise you.
Reflection:
When writing this piece about the word race and its different implications and classifications throughout recent history. After writing this essay, it is clear to me that I have succeeded in some regards, and fell flat in a couple of regards. I am still profoundly proud of my topic as the changing nature of race is a subject that has interested me since I figured out how race is purely conceptual. I am also proud of my writing and formatting as I pride myself on my ability to write. With that being said, I still believe that I fell short of diving deeper into the classification of race, as it gives greater context to the rest of my paper. When writing this project it was important to me that it was posted on a blog because the sombre nature of much of what I discussed would not fit in a more fun environment. With that being said, getting my paper onto the blog was the hardest part of the project.
Firstly I wish to discuss what I am most proud of, mainly my writing and the selection of my topic. Throughout the paper, I have made sure that my writing meets my personal standard of writing. I did this by drafting my topics of discussion and the sources that supported the claims I made. I find that drafting is the best way to make sure that my writing flows as intended. Also throughout the process of writing this paper, I found researching the topic immensely interesting, which enhanced the quality of research. This was easy as the topic interested me before I started researching.
While I am proud of many aspects of my project I still believe that I fell short in my first topic paragraph as I did not dive deeply enough into different attempts at racial classifications. I regret this as it is the backbone of scientific racism and immensely important to the rest of my subject. I regret not listing at least 3 different attempts at racial classification, as different scientists had different interpretations which would give greater insight to the fact that race is purely subjective.
Finally, the most difficult part of this project for me was making my paper correctly formatted in my blog. The program I used to create my blog is called Webador and it has more restrictions than features. The first issue I ran into was the inability to create indents on Webador which led to hours of fiddling. Secondly, it was nearly impossible to put an image on my blog, but again all it took was a couple of hours of fiddling.
In conclusion, I am overall proud of the product that I produced and satisfied with my process. Although the process sometimes feels difficult I was sure to finish what I started.
(1)https://muse-jhu-edu.us1.proxy.openathens.net/article/250548
(2) https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/50/8/646/243210?login=false
(4)
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