Steve Sailor is the rightist
president/founder of his own "Human Biodiversity Institute," and a fellow
of the Hudson Institute. Although Sailor’s adamantly insisting that "race"
exists has him sounding like a closet white supremacist, in other essays he
has said nice things about people "courageously" marrying interracially, and
so on. (And I know that Beth flags links like Sailor’s only for their
pertinent interest to us, without her necessarily endorsing Sailor’s views.)
Mr. Sailor’s error here is the common one of assuming facts not in evidence.
He assumes "race" exists, so therefore he sets out in his essay to defeat
seven arguments against it. (Actually he tilts only with three, since a
pair of his arguments are redundant, two are non-responsive, and
inexplicably he dismisses the pivotal issue of whether everyone must belong
to "a race," as being "unworthy of argument.") Sailor, as well as the
leftists who will agree with him if only because they find "race" is
indispensable for their fighting "racism endemic in society," are all seeing
through the wrong end of the telescope, so to speak. They have the burden
of proof, and they cannot prove that "race" exists.
I grasped that "race" does not exist when I understood no "race-lines’ exist
in nature. Steve Sailor seems to be arguing the "races" can be held
together inside statistical bags. I think he is supporting a sort of
quantum theory of "race" -- let "races" be defined by the probabilities of
finding traits, athletic specialties, and medical susceptibilities
correlating with ancestral geographic origins. Then "African-American," for
instance, becomes a term describing a population sharing a number of
statistically likely things. Isn’t the term simply another name for
"Negroid race," Sailor asks?
If a medical researcher, for instance, wanted to define one or more human
populations by any characteristics s/he finds them sharing, I care not what
names the good doctor gives the subject populations. With no "race-lines"
in nature, no statistical bagging process can contain people in abstract
"categories" past the end of a doctor’s experiment.
My concern is that in 1775 a doctor named Johann Blumenbach named all the
world’s peoples into five geographic "races," which have since come to be
regarded by the general public and Steve Sailor, apparently (and worse, by
U.S. federal & state governments) -- as divinely created divisions of
mankind -- and as biological grounding of a social caste system.
Blumenbach’s ambitious (unending) experiment never rationally defined any
distinct populations to start with. For instance, all the phenotypes, all
the "colors" of peoples are found mixing-up all five of Blumenbach’s
arbitrary "races." These human "race" "categories" endure as an unholy
hybrid of pseudo-science, politics, and hypnotic suggestion. They
constitute a belief-system similar to a religion. Americans indoctrinated
from earliest childhood learn to "see," categorize, human "races," both on
observable features and on categorical abstractions. Thus Nubian Egyptians,
who are Caucasian, are dark-skinned "black" "white" people. (See link to
picture of an Egyptian, post.) Paradoxically, "white"
African-Americans self-identify "black." Clearly, human beings can be
statistically bagged-up in any conceivable combination. But this ability
does not mean the software "bags" -- the learned categories -- exist as
hardware.
No "race-lines" exist in Nature. To me that lack of confining "hardware"
means something. It means regardless how clearly perceived or how fervently
believed-in "race" categories are, and regardless how long-running the
delusion (i.e., Blumenbach’s racial pentagram), that even the obvious, real
"differences" Mr. Sailor enjoys attributing to the various "races" cannot
imply any sort of material difference on the human somatic biological
spectrum. Lack of materiality is the key understanding. It means the
progeny of all our racial "crossings" are viable -- fertile, strong, and fit
human beings. That is the final Human Race criterion -- our beautifully
various "hardware" (i.e., our "mixed" kids).
Mr. Sailor writes (in Part II, supra): "Of course, there are
different racial groups. … their members tend to inherit certain different
genes, on average. …" In Part I, "The Reality of
Race," Sailor defines "race" as "essentially a lineage. A racial
group is merely an extremely extended family that inbreeds to some
extent." Indeed, "race" is the classification of "groups" --
naming Sailor’s "groups." But defined how? And why? He writes
meticulously comparing the sports talents of different "race" players.
Clearly, skin color is not the only noticeable trait shared by regional
populations (although a tropical belt of "black" peoples around the world
steadfastly distinguish themselves from African-American). To Sailor,
natural human biological variation supports the obvious reality of "race."
In Darwin's Enemies
on the Left Sailor concedes our single human species, however, adding
that: "we are also almost endlessly subdividable into partially inbred
races, each with recognizable genetic tendencies." "Almost endlessly"?
What final "race-line," what ultimately indivisible statistical "bag" can
Sailor possibly find not "subdividing" his own "race" outside of his own
skin? Carried out to its logical conclusion, this argument readily
generalizes into recognizing the uniqueness of the "genetic
tendencies" in every individual. Think of the ramifications of
everyone’s name also designating his or her own individual, unique "race"?!
Our all sharing but one (human) "race" is tantamount to our having none, I
think. Eliminating "race" would also eliminate bases for social caste such
as historically go with racial inequality. Might our society’s ongoing
belief in "race" not be a holdover from the sort of classism which permitted
slavery to exist? Slavery, ancient when Christopher Columbus was born, was
commonplace in colonial America without limitation to "color" or national
origin. (It was "equal opportunity slavery" in colonial times.) If, as
history makes clear, the 1775 invention of "race" was intended to
rationalize "white supremacy," then how can this inherent contradiction ever
be reconciled by politicking for the "equality" of "races" whose very
existence implies nothing but inequality?
Mr. Sailor directs his barbs principally at liberals, gays, feminists, and
fundamentalists, and not particularly at us multiracials. Nonetheless, he
fails to question his own reinforcing the ugly rumor Blumenbach started 225
years ago by his creating five "geographic races." Unless Sailor believes
Blumenbach was divinely commissioned to enunciate:
"Race" is a not entitled to the status of an ancient idea, and certainly it
not the natural system Mr. Sailor seems to think. Strained scriptural
readings on the biblical figures Cain and Ham were used to try and justify
slavery. But slave states passed laws to keep "black" slaves illiterate in
order to prevent them reading for themselves, in fact, that about all the
Bible says regarding "race" is this:
Blumenbach’s purpose coining "races" doubtless was justifying the cruel
European colonialism girdling the world by 1775 (and for most of the two
centuries since). Since the end of the colonial era (it substantially ended
about 1960, but only very recently Hong Kong and Macao, last two colonies,
reverted to China), Left-organized "minority" racial separatists are
playing back the same balkanizing "race" card, vying now for their
own racial group empowerment. This is the "racism"-game I want to stop.
Old racial stereotypes associate sets of racial traits with "races," just as
Mr. Sailor notes, carefully cataloging sports talents. In fact, numerous
correlations do exist. But such post hoc correlations are not proof any
"race-lines" are wound around the traits, or that any natural human
categories ever existed like so many egg grades. "Race" is a man-made
system of illusory categories which can appear supported by selectively
picking out real differences.
For example, Dr.
George Gill, University of Wyoming anthropologist, clearly believes he
is confirming existence of "race" with his forensic identifications of
decedents’ remains. Of course, he only "re-clothes" fleshless skeletons
that way, for police records. But pinning "race"-labels (e.g., "Caucasoid,"
"Mongoloid," "Negroid," etc.) onto bones is a poor way of describing anyone,
living or dead. "Race" is archaic French meaning "root." Its function
always has been identifying people by their ancestry for purposes of social
ranking, and this consciousness clearly permeates persistent government
(here police) bean counting. Gill’s crudely correlating bone details with
the psycho-politics driving the names of former racial servitude regions of
the world adds nothing to medical understanding, beyond demonstrating that
bone cells can arbitrarily be put in categories with human skin cells. Gill
would find decedents’ "color," continent, or country resemblance provides
him far more precise tools for describing human remains, without implicitly
remarking on anyone’s ancestry in the language of antebellum human "worth."
Moreover, nowadays people with any features may be members of any "race,"
and accordingly growing numbers of people appear members of another "race."
The numbers of these paradoxical people are increasing exponentially as the
artificial "race" categories becomes ever harder to maintain. Our
interracial marriages are breaking "race" up. Also dismantling it are
persons consciously taking for themselves racial power of choice (e.g.,
those increasingly self-identifying either "mixed-race" or "mostly white").
Mr. Sailor has written essays pillorying Hispanic for color-stratification,
arguing this shows our mixing will not make "race … go away any time
soon." Hispanic probably suffer from U.S.A. racialism’s bad influence,
too, just as Professor C. Loring
Brace, University of Michigan anthropologist, believes the whole world
has picked it up. (How sad!) Anyway, Hispanic "Miranda la raza"
colorism describes persistent prejudice, not "race" exactly. Bigotry and
prejudice are not racial, but rather basic human traits existing, like
slavery, since prehistoric times. We live in a privileged, enlightened age
now a few generations after the abolition of legalized slavery all over the
world! (And only in the Americas in the last decades of its endlessly long
existence, slavery became associated with a "race." A noble People have
needlessly let their "race" be soiled by that fading scandal.) "Race" is a
pejorative classification system, and Sailor has not shown we need it. His
Hispanic evidence only notes the 500 years of color prejudice south of the
border -- all the more convincing evidence that we need to
affirmatively stamp the "race" superstition out!
Mr. Sailor carelessly assumes that all "race"-debunkers are leftists.
Apparently he has not realized some of us opponents of government "race"
classification are NOT part of the whining "minority" Left. (And we range
in colors -- proud of it!)
Dr. Blumenbach as all the other "race" hypothesizers failed because no
material (detrimental) difference can be shown ranking the various peoples
of the world. Racial traits, are obvious, easily seen features; certainly
they are inherited among "extremely extended family" populations.
They clearly are somatic variations correlated with geographic
regions. Many racial traits are almost certainly evolved adaptations to
climatic conditions where the populations sharing them are/were native. The
traits almost certainly evolved by Darwinian natural selection -- although
they seem subtle, non-vital to anyone’s acclimatization anywhere now -- and
they may be admired features. But Mr. Sailor apparently confuses the
reality of the racial traits, which are inherited separately, seamlessly (as
variations), for the illusion/delusion of "race," whose hard categories
rapidly become unmanageable in combinations. (E.g., Tiger Woods’s
"Cablinasian"; the question who is "black," Mulatto, Hapa; etc.? And of
course, it all collapses to the ground if any "black" ever "mixes" with
"white.";) That being said, the absence of any natural categorizing
"race-line" is a very strong argument against "race." However, the
strongest proof the "race" hypothesis fails must be the total lack of any
detriment resulting from any "crossing."
The general fitness
-- if not general superiority
-- of our children proves the racial variations, whatever they are, are
all immaterial variations (non-detrimental, innocent). The absence of
materiality burdens racial separatists, including rightist Steve Sailor and
the leftist "minority" ideologues, with showing why humanity needs
segmenting into "races" if all of our beautiful variations are innocent,
immaterial? They cannot. Being addicted to the "race" concept they cannot
accept that they cannot. They are in denial.
George Winkel
Biography: I practice appellate defense law in the California
Fourth Appellate District, the State Supreme Court, and occasionally before
the U.S. Ninth Circuit.
On 6/29/00 Beth Gray posted a link to one of Steve Sailor’s essays, the
second of two, in the "If we eliminate 'race' altogether, will that make the world a better
place?" Interracial Voice Point-Counterpoint topic. This responds to Steve Sailor’s, recent
column(s): "Cavalli-Sforza II: Seven Dumb Ideas about Race.""Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow,
malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And …. [t]he
fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races
to mix." (The trial court judge’s opinion, reversed in Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, 3, 18 L.Ed.2d
1010, 87 S.Ct. 1817 (1967).)
Sailor fails to understand that "race" is not and never was centered on the
biological variation he speaks of, but instead on CLASSIFICATION. We
recognize "race" for what it is, an unnatural bio-political human taxonomy
(type-naming), and defending it as Sailor does is a bad habit."The Apostle Paul declared that: ‘God ... hath made of one
blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath
determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their
habitation.’ (The Acts of the Apostles, ch. 17, v. 26.)"
(
Perez v. Sharp (1948) 32 Cal.2d 711, 733, 198 P.2d 17, Conc.
Opn. of Justice Carter.)
"Race" today is the social residuum of Blumenbach’s failed 1775
(pre-Darwinian) pseudo-scientific conjecture that civilized Man spread
outward from his place of creationism. Blumenbach selected the Caucasus
Mountains, in the Russian Georgia-Azerbaijan region (land of dark "white"
people, by the way), because Blumenbach -- 18th century German anatomist
that he was -- thought he measured the most beautiful human skulls there.
Blumenbach conjectured that the descendants of Adam and Eve had spread from
the Caucasus outward so far that their seed degenerated into lower "races"
of mankind incapable of self-government. Loosely applying Linnaean animal
taxonomic techniques to Blumenbach’s own indicia of skull-facial features
and "civilization," Blumenbach gerrymandered his fanciful geographic human
"race-lines" so as to include all the historical wisdom of the biblical holy
lands, the Middle East, and the high civilizations of Egypt, Carthage,
Greece, and Rome in his own European racial "district," so to speak. A
late-18th century bone-measurer, Blumenbach was unconcerned with skin color,
and that is why today all of the "mulatto" Arabs and pitch "black" Nubians
of the whole northern and eastern fourth of continental Africa are just as
"pure" Caucasian as Steve Sailor and the Klan’s Grand Dragon are. (E.g.,
see a
picture of an Egyptian Caucasian, and test your modem speed, too.)
Also by George Winkel:
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