A History of Scientific Racialism

Prepared by Hunn Choi

1) What were your major learnings from the material for that week?

Race is essentially a science of physical differences, designed to explain, support and

justify racism, racial inferiority or racial superiority, or racist practices.
Racialism is an ideology or doctrine, a set of beliefs suggesting that races exist and that
there are significant differences among them.
Different types of racism:
a. Ideological racism assumes a link between a biological race characteristics and
cultural behavior.
b. Scientific racism
Wow, ethnocentricism has existed from 400 B.C.E.
Scientific racism is traced back to the 18th century.
a. Homo sapiens: white, red, yellow, and black races
b. Behavior characteristics were associated with each race.
Johann Bluemenback
a. Caucasoid, Mongoloid, Malayan, American (red), and Negroid.
b. Degeneration from the Caucasoids perfection.
19th century was the period of crystallization of a core of racist ideas that persisted into
the 20th century.
a. Charles Darwin
b. European ethnocentric superiority
c. Measurements lead to knowledge; races were biological realities
d. Spencer and social Darwinism: the superior biological races triumph over the inferior
e. European colonialism was justified by scientific racism.
f. Samuel G. Morton: cranial volume determines hierarchy; C>M>N.
g. Polygenesis: races had separate origins and some were created inferior.
h. Races were unequal.
i. All human achievements were the work of the Aryan super race, who created the
civilizations of the Hindus, Egyptians, Assyrians, and Europeans.
j. Adolf Hitler: race purification to eliminate non-Aryans.
Racialism
a. Cultures were thought to be as stages of evolution
b. Racialism can also be traced to the attempt to justify European colonization, the rise
of European capitalism, and the slave trade.
c. Monegenism: degeneration from the original creation
d. Darwins natural selection in relation to evolution
e. Polygenism-an influential theory through the early part of the 20th century
f. Based on polygenism and race hierarchy, IQ tests were developed
Eugenics and Scientific Racialism
a. Eugenics was used to designate the science of improving the human species.
b. Hereditary social traits: pauperism, manic depression, scholastic ability,
feeblemindedness, epilepsy and criminality, attributed to the poor, blacks, and

immigrants.
c. Races, nations, classes, and the male gender having more wealth, power, and status
were seen a product of evolution
d. Social welfare defies laws of nature and enables the unfit to multiply.
e. ERO: Restricted immigration from southern and eastern Europe including Catholics
and Jews because they were thought to be biological inferior and prone to criminal
behavior.
f. Sterilization of the unfit was urged
g. Eugenicsinternational movement; the history of racism is note confined to any one
nation.
Racial inequalities in intelligence were viewed as innate.
The US Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution: Equality of Man but
populations such as African slaves and Native American Indians were excluded.
Intelligence and temperament are racially determined and unalterable.
A reformed view of race: races differed only in minor respects.
A Revolution in Science
a. Changes in head shape weakened both the concept of the fixity of race and the
implication that mental ability was racially determined.
b. The idea of culture was popularized and provided a non-racial and non-racist
explanation of human society, but a sociocultural rather than a biological
interpretation.
c. Until about 1940, consistent in view about the reality of race and the inferiority of
blacks.
d. Fredrick Douglas in 1854: Anatomical and cranial similarities of blacks and whites
outweighed the differences; Negro was entitled to full membership in the human
species.
e. W.E.B. Dubois: The color line was the essential problem of the 20th century. The
cause: not biology but the heritage of slavery
f. Otto Klineberg in support of environmental influencesrising IQ scores among
Negro children who moved from southern to northern schools.
g. The rise of antiracialismthe influence of social and cultural conditions.
h. Against Nazi Germany, American proclaimed itself non-racialist.
i. Ashley Montagu: the race concept was invalid and was tied to racialism and racism.
j. In 942, the need to combat racialism rose in US and Great Britain.
k. 1954 US Supreme Court: Separate but equal.
l. In the 1950s was the beginning of the end of scientific racism as the majority belief.
m. No definite evidence that there exist inborn difference between human groups.
Three Peaks of IQ
a. IQ test scores were used to demonstrate racial inferiority.
b. Immigrants, Equal Rights, and Welfare.
c. Skull sizesmental testing
d. The second: Revival of scientific racialism
e. The third: IQ tests measure scholastic learning, not a hereditary essence in the brain.
f. Against biological determinism; the power of the environment.
g. Environmental and educational factors are much more important than heredity in
determining intelligence.

h. Environment is not a minor factor influencing IQ, but a major factor enhancing the
chances for success. IQ is not a fixed or hereditary entity.
i. Remedial social programs are not unproductive.
Philip Rushton: M>C>N due to economic prosperity; environmental influence on a genebased theory; races are a combination of geographic, educational, and morphological
factors and gene frequencies of biochemical components; three major races but other
minor races within them

2) What are key questions you have that come out of the reading(s) that you would like others to
address in their responses on the VC? (Try to come up with at least 2 or 3).

The major consequence of (any) racial hierarchies is to justify discrimination against

those on the bottom. The further consequence is (any) bio-determinism can be taken by
policymakers to justify worldwide benign neglect of those living in poverty, including in
one in five of American children (p. 28). Do you know some current examples of these?
What do you all think about model minority? Is model minority an accurate description
of educationally excelling Asian Americans?
It took awhile to move from Social welfare defies laws of nature to Remedial social
programs are not unproductive. Yet, do you think it is better to have racially (or
culturally) sensitive remedial social programs than universally enforced programs?

3) What are some of the mission implications of the material?

Mission needs to be contextual. Accurate understanding of the social, cultural, racial,

ethnic issues of a people to whom mission is to be carried out is extremely important.
Especially, racialized or ethno-centric baggages must be thoroghly examined.
The differences among human populations and societies are best explained by
examination of their different ecology, geography, demography, and contacts with other
societiesin short, their different cultural histories. This makes mission complex and
challenging.

Wilmer
This chapter traces the development of important terminology within the concept of race. I found
this chapter both interesting and difficult to swallow, especially when you have been on the
wrong side of the definitions and many of the proposal that are being discussed. Furthermore,
his historical analysis, though concise, give us not only the non-Christian perspective, but also
the Christian thought of how some theologians answer such questions of race and differences.
The following are some of the questions that I jotted as I was reading the chapter, do not need to
answer them all, just pick the one that you believe is the most interesting or that connects to your
own reading of the chapter.
Missiological implications:

For years many voices within the scientific world where jumping (for lack of a better word) into
conclusion about human societies, which were founded upon misleading or inconclusive data.
Unfortunately, they maintained the humiliation of certain people groups. We take the same risks
when individual Christians or Churches, do not take time to fully grasp or to study the intricacies
of cross-cultural ministries and depend on data that had been produced by others and handed
down to us.
1. Have been aware how much of folk racialism is present in y/our churches? Is it pure
ignorance or not?
2. Boas and his followers underscored the importance of calling for a sociocultural rather
than a biological interpretation of humanity (p. 19), Do you understand that the majority
of the American society has shifted from a biological interpretation to a social one?
3. What to other missiological issues are found in this chapter?