Basics Flashcards
Learn the basics of the race topic in HTP
Where did race come from in the 17th and early 18th century?
The interpretation of the Bible
Religion was the framework for race with Genesis Chapter 10 was used to justify slavery - the ‘mark of the ham’ being interpreted to mean black
How did plays change from the 17th century to the 18th century?
17th century - girls could play boys and be thought of as boys 18th century - It would be frowned upon for a girl to play a male - Crossing identity was not to be done and this could be applied to race and class too. Categories had become more defined.
Why was the Enlightenment period contradictory?
- The era was all about being equals and freedom from oppression of authorities.
- Yet, with more rigid definitions of humanity in place it became more separate.
Why was Linnaeus Edition 1758 to the Enlightenment period?
- It was a major Enlightenment project of classification of the natural world
- It adds human beings into the categories
- Said there are 6 different races of humanity with different abilities, characteristics, attitudes and physicality
- It was an attempt to categorise people of the world
How did science naturalism come about and what did it insist?
In the C18 the philosophy of science emerged scientific naturalism
- It insisted only that which could be measured by science was real and that everything else could be explained through scientific analysis of its physical characteristics.
How did race become a biological factor in the 18th century?
- The combination of scientific naturalism, integration of humanity, evolutionary thought and Darwinism made race firmly in the biological category
What was J. F. Blumebach’s book ‘On the Natural Variety on Mankind about? When was it published?
- Published in 1795
- It was a first look at different races through physical development
- The first text ever to introduce biological elements in analysis of different groups
- Blumebach’s understanding was very contextual
- Categorising by different social structures and how environment impacted on different people
What happened to cultural society in the 18th Century?
It was stripped away and replaced by biology
What did people that supported Blumebach use his work to do?
- To support the justification of Imperialism
- They argued that races can be changed even though there are differences
What did George Louis de Buffon 1974 believe?
- He believed that all of society/humanity used to be white
- That differences in race happened due to social organisation which people were found and operated in
- If European civilisation was spread than everyone would end up being the same race again
How did the idea of race change in the 19th century?
- Race transferred almost completely into a natural science category
- Biological
- Race was no longer able to change but viewed as permenant
What did W.E.B DuBois name the period of mid 19th-20th century?
‘the century of the colour line’
What happened at the Morant Bay Rebellion?
When was it?
- 1865
- British Governor of Jamaica, Edward J Eyre, tried to suppress the rebellion in a very brutal manner
- Killed 400 Jamaicans
- Burned down 1000s of homes
- Refusing black Jamaicans full privilege of law and humanity
What did Edward Eyre’s actions cause in Europe?
- A great debate about whether he was right in what he did or not
- Those that supported the black Jamaicans were leading names in science: Darwin and Herbert Spencer
- Those that supported the Governor were people who were viewed at the time as having a moral voice: Archbishop of Canterbury and Charles Dickens
What was the big issue in the 19th century in the debate of race?
- The issue was biological views on race against those that had been developed by white colonial people who wanted to sustain their control over other races
- Biological differences were tethered to white supremacy
What change in the 20th century when dealing with the idea of race?
What did it take to change perceptions on race?
After WW2 race became something that sociologists dealt with instead of biologists
- It took the holocaust and revelation of full fascism to generate wide spread revulsion
- That was capable of removing the paradigm of biological race and creating that cultural context
- The events of the 1940s had caused a shift in where authority lay when discussing race
Who were two key black scholars in the theory of race during the 20th century?
What did they show?
- Frantz Fanon
- W. DuBois
- They alternatively showed that racism was a pathology that generated its own fake sciences
What did UNESCO do in 1950 and why?
- To create a post war Visio of what race was
- they brought together a large group of scholars - including sociologists, psychologists, cultural anthropologists and ethnoligists
What did Colin Kidd say about race?
- In the the C20 there was an idea that race was a scientific illusion
- Kidd explained that biologists too have found race to be a scientific mirage and he found those observable differences to be superficial and misleading
What is the Critical Race Theory?
The idea that you don’t need individual racists for a system that is based on the C19 models to perpetuate power structures in relation to race
What is Conrad Kottak’s book called?
What did it say?
- Handbook to Anthropology
- Says race is a cultural category rather than biological
- That races ‘derive from contracts perceived and perpetuated in particular societies…rather than from scientific classifications based on common genes.’
In the 1960s show as viewed to be most important/prestigious voices in making sense of race?
Sociologists and Social Athropologists
Who was Stuart Hall and what did he say about race in the 20th century?
- He studied at Oxford University in 1950s came over from Jamaica
- Argues the importance of mass migration on shaping Britain’s opinions and views on race
- He married a white woman, Historian Catherine Hall, and said that being in an interracial relationship was hard
- In 1960s they went looking for houses and were often met with struggles - he said in this period there problems of racial discrimination, policing, housing and the second generation feeling like they didn’t belong in either Britain or elsewhere
What were the Tories promoting in the 1964 Smethwick bi-election?
- They were promoting an anti-immigration campaign
- There were posters around like ‘If you desire a coloured for your neighbour vote labour, if you’re already burdened with one vote Tory’
What did Paul Gilroy say in his book the Black Atlantic?
- He said black culture and history could not be looked at just from national history
- Black culture is transnational, confined by no borders
- If you look at blackness across all areas you can understand the significance of black cultures contributions
- Only by bringing race to the forefront and not ignoring it will we understand our societies
How did Catherine Hall’s work against people who said black people are not significant till WW1?
What does this show about analysing race in history?
- She traces the money from proceeds of money from slavery to institutions built on them
- She traced the lives of those who had been slaves
- This show just how much we can’t learn about British life if we don’t analyse race
