Basics

Question 1

Where did race come from in the 17th and early 18th century?

Answer 1

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

Question 2

How did plays change from the 17th century to the 18th century?

Answer 2

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.

Question 3

Why was the Enlightenment period contradictory?

Answer 3

• 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.

Question 4

Why was Linnaeus Edition 1758 to the Enlightenment period?

Answer 4

• 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

Question 5

How did science naturalism come about and what did it insist?

Answer 5

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.

Question 6

How did race become a biological factor in the 18th century?

Answer 6

• The combination of scientific naturalism, integration of humanity, evolutionary thought and Darwinism made race firmly in the biological category

Question 7

What was J. F. Blumebach’s book ‘On the Natural Variety on Mankind about? When was it published?

Answer 7

• 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

Question 8

What happened to cultural society in the 18th Century?

Answer 8

It was stripped away and replaced by biology

Question 9

What did people that supported Blumebach use his work to do?

Answer 9

• To support the justification of Imperialism

- They argued that races can be changed even though there are differences

Question 10

What did George Louis de Buffon 1974 believe?

Answer 10

• 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

Question 11

How did the idea of race change in the 19th century?

Answer 11

• Race transferred almost completely into a natural science category
• Biological
• Race was no longer able to change but viewed as permenant

Question 12

What did W.E.B DuBois name the period of mid 19th-20th century?

Answer 12

‘the century of the colour line’

Question 13

What happened at the Morant Bay Rebellion?

When was it?

Answer 13

• 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

Question 14

What did Edward Eyre’s actions cause in Europe?

Answer 14

• 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

Question 15

What was the big issue in the 19th century in the debate of race?

Answer 15

• 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

Question 16

What change in the 20th century when dealing with the idea of race?
What did it take to change perceptions on race?

Answer 16

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

Question 17

Who were two key black scholars in the theory of race during the 20th century?
What did they show?

Answer 17

• Frantz Fanon
• W. DuBois
• They alternatively showed that racism was a pathology that generated its own fake sciences

Question 18

What did UNESCO do in 1950 and why?

Answer 18

• 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

Question 19

What did Colin Kidd say about race?

Answer 19

• 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

Question 20

What is the Critical Race Theory?

Answer 20

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

Question 21

What is Conrad Kottak’s book called?

What did it say?

Answer 21

• 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.’

Question 22

In the 1960s show as viewed to be most important/prestigious voices in making sense of race?

Answer 22

Sociologists and Social Athropologists

Question 23

Who was Stuart Hall and what did he say about race in the 20th century?

Answer 23

• 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

Question 24

What were the Tories promoting in the 1964 Smethwick bi-election?

Answer 24

• 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’

Question 25

What did Paul Gilroy say in his book the Black Atlantic?

Answer 25

• 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

Question 26

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?

Answer 26

• 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