I: Categories of Difference
All too frequently we are thinking of human beings not as unique individuals but as members of a certain group or category. This seems to be typical human behavior, and as such is not necessarily unexpected.
These categories are sometimes based on (more or less) self-chosen group memberships. These can be professions in countries with equal opportunity, religious confessions in countries with religious tolerance, musical or cultural preferences, etc. In such a way, people choose what they want to be or identify as, and other people accept that choice.
Other categories have a biological underpinning, such as biological sex at birth (male, female, intersex), but are then given additional cultural and social properties as regards behavior, mating preferences, etc. This cultural role is called gender. Some of these have been deeply entrenched even though they are culturally contingent (the colors blue and pink for male and female have meant the opposite in the past, for instance), and they are policed by cultural norms oftentimes claimed to be based on religion (yet in fact, things are more complicated there). The normative expectation is to align with your sex at birth, and to seek a partner of a different sex. Some align with their sex but choose same-sex partners (homosexuality), a preference that may well be determined at birth. Others decide to change their biological sex or gender to align with their perception of themselves (transsexuality). In addition to these main types, some may choose to not value sex all that much as a defining feature (asexual), to not prejudge partners based on sex/gender (bisexual) etc. All non-normative sex/gender choices experience discrimination based on the societal perception of the deviation from an allegedly “natural” order.
Yet another category is class, which is a complex interplay of wealth, income and status, and has some measurable components.
The category of race, however, is different from most other identities. As a biological category, “race” in humans is meaningless. Socially and historically, in most societies, ethnicity – which could be understood as enhanced family membership – has been important as a measure of belonging. Yet the category of “race” does not have such a quasi-natural origin; its emergence is purely political.
II: The Origin of the Idea of “Race” in Colonialism
The idea of “race” emerges as a political choice in a specific form of colonialism that unfolded after the contact between Europe and America. Colonialism is nothing new in human history, and it has been perpetrated by various peoples throughout time and space.
Most forms of colonialism are based on a construction of identity which determines whether an individual’s right to personhood or self-determination can be violated entirely, based on a selection of arbitrarily chosen but more or less easily recognizable or realizable differences such as skin color, origin, ethnicity etc. This selection process has historically (sometimes still presently) been used for clear purposes of enslavement, dispossession, subjugation and even elimination.
The specific variant of European colonialism has evolved from a long history of ideas of serfdom, as well as Greek, Roman, Arab, African and Native American slavery. In the context of the colonization of the American continent, ideas of “race” – as a combination of features like skin color, conceptions of indigeneity, as well as ethnicity – have solidified as a category of dehumanization.
These ideas have created the cultural, social and intellectual framework that have enabled legal conceptions of who was allowed to hold land and property, who was seen as a full human being, who had rights of personhood, and who was legally allowed to be owned by other human beings.
III: “Race” and Eugenics
Contrary to difference within the sex or gender categories, “racial” difference cannot be overcome by adhering to social expectations. In some ways, the category of being (or being seen as) female has led – and sometimes continues to lead – to similar forms of dehumanization: Some societies, historically and presently, construct the role of the woman as similar to that of a slave. Being female and racially non-normative is thus considered a double jeopardy. Yet when it comes to being gay or trans, if you chose (against your own identity) to “just conform” and “be normal”, you could “pass” – albeit at the steep price of denying your feelings and your true self.
Not so with race. Even if you can “pass” as another “race”, this is contingent to people not finding out where you are “really from,” where your place in society really should be. In the United States, this is known as the “one drop rule”: One drop of non-normative (non-“white”) blood makes you non-normative, or non-“white.” One drop of “black” blood makes you “black.”
This theory – and practice – is based on the idea of the pollution of assumed purity. It makes no sense biologically. It is the translation of the idea of “breeding” different types of animals to “breeding” different types of humans, in the flawed assumption that “pure” breeds are better than “mixed.” Someone not “pure” is thus automatically seen as “less than.” If you think of only normative people as “pure” humans, then automatically, those who are not “pure” are less human. This theory is called “eugenics” – as from the Greek words “eu” (good) and “genos” (family or genetic descent). As practice assumedly follows theory, you can see how these eugenicist thoughts have led to the differential treatment of others.
IV: “Race” and Profit
However, there is some argument – based on Theodore W. Allen’s excellent book The Invention of the White Race – that in fact, practice here dictated theory. The usefulness of the institution of slavery, the usefulness of the Papal Doctrine of Discovery, of the Lockean idea that you only really own property if you have somehow “improved” upon it, and the usefulness of the idea that you can disenfranchise, enslave or even outright kill others for your own benefit may in fact have influenced theory.
Translation: racism exists because it allows for discrimination which allows for exploitation of others. Personally, I agree with this thesis much more than with the idea that theory influences behavior.
The argument from practice also explains how so many enlightenment thinkers – chief amongst them Thomas Jefferson and other founding fathers – had such a problem with abandoning slavery and colonialism right at the moment of the founding of the United States.
Would it not have been logical for the United States as – together with Haiti – one of the first post-colonial states, to fight colonialism, given that its entire existence is based on the argument that being colonized is wrong? Would it not have been logical for the United States to also fight slavery, as its founding documents so clearly speak about the dignity and natural rights and natural freedom of the individual?
Eventually, these thoughts would be indeed weaponized against the system itself, and America has been on a long, torturous course of self-correction and of actually living up to its ideas. Yet the idea of “race” as something meaningful has persisted for far too long because it has been useful. Jefferson was able to imagine a future without slavery, but did not believe he could bring it about then and there. Even in classical antiquity – a time period so frequently emulated by the Founding Fathers – scholars like Seneca bemoaned slavery as unjust, and even in the Bible the just treatment of slaves is encouraged: yet slavery continued.
Slavery still continues today, world-wide, in slightly different forms, but basically for the same reason: It pays. The only color relevant for the category of “race” is green, or whatever color your currency is.
V: The Continuing Legacy of Colonialism – and a Path Forward
Aside from all of that, and notwithstanding the reasons for the dehumanization of others, what does racism still do to people even after the abolition of slavery and direct colonialism? After all, in the United States, Canada, Europe and many other places, slavery is outlawed, indigenous peoples are citizens and can own land, and officially, eugenicist policies are forbidden. What are we actually talking about?
We are talking about continued acts of dehumanization – in thinking, acting, and the experience with institutions – affecting anyone not considered to be part of the normative racial paradigm. The normative position here is called “white” – which sometimes aligns with visible skin color, but that is not quite the best indicator – for as I (and others) have said before race itself is not real, but racism is.
Thus even if laws have changed after the official end of slavery in the Americas, the cultural and social constructions that were created to facilitate colonialism and slavery continue to remain. We still continue to see some human beings as more human than others, some Americans as more American than others, some skin colors as more normal than others. As long as these perceptions and biases remain, dehumanization remains.
How do we get around this, how do we move on, how do we change this?
I assume that nobody – or hardly anyone – actually wants to be racist. Nobody wants to experience racism or have it be inflicted on loved ones. We all seek to be seen as human. There is common ground.
The problem arises in part from the ways we are trying to overcome the real-life consequences of centuries of discrimination. What is the price for our reckoning with the legacy of colonialism, a legacy that most of us are not personally guilty of?
We need to recognize that even if we are not guilty of consciously dehumanizing others, we are responsible for dealing with our history and shaping a better future. This shift of focus on responsibility rather than guilt can be more productive because it provides us with agency, with an actual path to creating a better future, and it removes the obstacle that “guilt-tripping” creates resentment.
Past discrimination cannot be undone. Our focus needs to be on improving the lives of people today, by offering better opportunities, making sure we create equal opportunity in unequal circumstances (which is called equity), and providing a common path to a joint future where we all are seeing each other as human beings.
Erratic Attempts 