Transcript Slide 1

50 Interesting Facts About
RACISM
#1
The concept of race is a modern concept.
In the ancient world, the Greeks,
Romans, Jews, Christians, and Muslims
did not have racial categories. Rather
people were divided according to
religion, class, language, etc.
#2
While humans differ genetically in some
ways, such as blood type and skin
pigmentation, most anthropologists and
biologists believe categories of race are not
biologically grounded because modern
humans simply have not evolved into
separate subspecies or races.
#3
Most anthropologists and biologists view race
as a political grouping with roots in slavery
and colonialism. The number of races and
who belongs in each race have shifted over
time and nations—not because of responses
to scientific advances in human biology, but
rather in response to political purposes.
#4
Aristotle’s famous division between Greek and
Barbarian was not based on race, but on those
who organized themselves into community
city-states and those who did not. The ancient
Romans categorized people not on biological
race or skin color, but on differing legal
structures upon which they organized their
lives.
#5
Samuel George Morton (1799-1851) tried to prove
in the 19th century that select “races” were
superior to others by measuring the cranial
capacity (brain size) of different groups (“whites,”
“American Indians,” “blacks”). He also argued that
there were different origins and lineages for
different races (polygenism), rather than a single
creation (monogenism) as found in the Bible.
#6
In the medieval era, Muslims and Christians
divided humans based on the categories of
“believer” and “nonbeliever,” not on
biological race. Additionally, the Jews based
the differences between “goyim” (non-Jew)
and “Jew” on faith rather than on biological
differences.
#7
The 14th-century Islamic scholar Ibn
Khaldun argued against the theory that
physical characteristics reflected moral
attributes. For example, he explained
that dark skin developed because of the
hot climate of Africa and not due to the
curse of Ham.
#8
Most genetic variety is not between
races, but rather within races. For
example, two random Italians are as
likely to be as genetically different
as an Italian and a Chinese.
#9
The U.S. Census Bureau defines race as a social category
recognized by the United States and does not attempt to
define race biologically, anthropologically, or genetically. The
Census Bureau recognizes five categories of race: White
(people with origins in Europe, the Middle East, or North
Africa,) Black or African American (Africa), American Indian
or Alaska Native, Asian, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific
Islander. The census also includes an Hispanic ethnic category.
It is an ethnic category rather than a race category because
the Latino community includes many races, such as white,
black, Native American, Asian, and mixed.
#10
Scientists believe that geography and ultraviolet rays
cause variation in skin color, not race. Scientists
believe that even though darker-skinned natives of
Alaska and Canada live in northern regions with long
periods of darkness, they receive higher levels of
UVR reflected from the surface of snow and ice
during the summer. Additionally, their diet is rich in
vitamin D (from eating seal and fish), which
compensates for the reduced sunshine in the winter.
#11
Scientists project that in 1,000 years,
humans will still come in many
different colors, though people in the
city will have a more mixed skin
color rather than strikingly dark or
light skin.
#12
Race and ethnicity are different entities.
While both are social constructs, race is
associated with the idea that there are innate
biological differences and has largely been
discredited. Ethnicity, on the other hand, is
associated with culture, religion, language,
etc.
#13
Most people who identify themselves as
African American in the United States
have some European ancestors.
Additionally, a large number of people
who identify themselves as European
American have some Native American or
African ancestors.
#14
In the early 20th century, some churches in
the U.S. would hang a pinewood slab on the
door with a comb hanging from a string. A
person could enter only if his or her skin
was lighter than the pinewood and if they
could run the comb through their hair
without it snagging.
#15
French physician Francois Bernier was
the first to use the word “race” as a
category for scientifically classifying
humans in a 1684 essay titled “A New
Division of the Earth, According to the
Different Species or Races of MenWho
Inhabit It.”
#16
Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), a Swedish botanist and
physician, established the origin of the color scheme of
races. Linnaeus divided Homo sapiens into four “natural”
varieties: H. sapiens americanus, H. sapiens europeans, H.
sapiens asiaticus, and H. sapiens afer, which were linked to
the four known regions of the world: America, Europe,
Asia, and Africa. He color coded the species red, white,
yellow, and black, respectively, and assigned each a set of
physical, personality, cultural, and social traits. He
considered H. sapiens europeaus the ideal.
#17
Johan Friedrich Blumenbach (1752-1840), a medical
professor in Germany, argued that human beings fall
into five races: Caucasian, Mongolian, Ethiopian,
American, and Malay. He argued that Caucasians,
who derived from the Caucasus Mountain region,
embodied the ideal human from which the others
“degenerated.” It was a popular belief that Caucasians
were the ideal form based on a skull that had been
found in the Caucasus Mountains, near the supposed
location of Noah’s ark.
#18
Since the very first U.S. census in
1790, every U.S. census has
sorted people by race. Since
then, racial groupings have
changed 24 times.
#19
According to the 2010 American census,
white and Asian children had the lowest
rates of poverty of any ethnic group. Blacks
had the highest level of children living in
poverty at 38.2%, children who were
identified with two or more races were
reported at 22.7%, and Hispanic children
were reported at 32.3%.
#20
The gene that causes light skin color in
Europeans is different from the gene that
causes light skin color in East Asians,
indicating that they evolved light skin
separately. The allele associated with the
light skin found in Europe originated fairly
recently, approximately 6,000-10,000 years
ago.
#21
The Human Genome Project, which mapped out
the complete human genetic code, proved that
race could not be identified in our genes. While
scientists may use the idea of race to make
practical distinctions among fluid sets of genetic
traits, all people belong to the same hominid
species, Homo sapiens sapiens (Latin for “wise man”
or “knowing man”). In other words, biologically,
there is one human race.
#22
Some scholars believe the earliest use of the word
“race” in the English language was in the 1508 poem
by William Dunbar, a Scottish member of King James
IV’s court who wrote the poem “The Dance of the
Seven Deadly Sins.” One of the verses described
those who were “bakbyttaris of sindry races” or
“backbiters of sundry races.” Dunbar most likely
borrowed the term from the Spanish raza, which
applied to breeds of horses and dogs
#23
Traditionally the U.S. has followed
the concept of hypodescent, or the
rule that a child of a mixed race
union is classified in the less
privileged group.
#24
Before the African slave trade boom in the 18th
century, between one-half and two-thirds of all early
white immigrants to the American colonies were
non-free laborers. Initially, European settlers in the
colonies gave blacks from Africa and Native
Americans the same status as white indentured
servants. By the 1700s, however, Africans and their
children were treated as a different race and were
viewed as life-long properties of their masters.
#25
In 1662, Virginia outlawed interracial sex when the
legislature amended its prohibition of all fornication to
impose heavier penalties if the guilty parties were
“negroes” and “Christians.” In 1691, Virginia made it
illegal for a “negro,” mulatto, or “Indian” man to marry or
“accompany” a white woman. Laws prohibiting mixed
marriage in Virginia were in effect until 1967. South
Carolina did not overturn its ban on interracial marriage
until 1998, and even then 38% of voters opposed the
referendum.
#26
In the early 1800s, blacks hoping to
move to Ohio had to post a $500
bond guaranteeing their good
behavior, and they were required to
produce court documents proving
they were free.
#27
Different nations assign race in different ways. In
Japan and the U.S., race is fixed and assigned at
birth. However, in Brazil, race is more fluid and is
determined by a number of factors such as a
person’s parents, a person’s phenotype, and a
person’s socioeconomic status. In places like
Brazil, a person’s race can change as they become
wealthier or poorer.
#28
Between 1878 and 1952, state and federal judges
issued 52 racial perquisite cases for citizenship in
the U.S. In these cases, judges ruled that Chinese,
Japanese, Koreans, Filipinos, Hawaiians, Afghanis,
Native Americans, and anyone of mixed
ancestries were not white. On the other hand,
Arabs, Syrians, and Asian Indians were generally
considered white.
#29
In the 1800s, Irish immigrants to the
U.S. were considered to be closer
to Africans than to the English.
Italian newcomers were called
Guineas, an epithet reserved for
African Americans.
#30
African Americans/Blacks made up half of all new HIV
diagnoses and slightly under half of all new AIDS
diagnoses in 2009. In 2008, of all the people living
with an HIV diagnosis in 40 U.S. states and 5
independent areas, 46% were African
American/black, 31.6% were white, 20% were
Hispanic/Latino, 1.3% were multiple races, 0.6%
were Asian, 0.4% were American Indian/Alaska
Native, and 0.04% were Native Hawaiian/Other
Pacific Islander.
#31
The term “Arab” is not a racial term
but rather a cultural and linguistic
term. It refers to those who speak
Arabic as their first language. Arabs
share a culture and history, but
“Arabs” are not a race.
#32
According to a White House
spokesperson, President Obama
checked only the box for
black/African American when he
filled out the 2010 census.
#33
When darker Egyptian rulers were in
power in ancient Egypt, they called the
lighter-skinned group “the pale
degraded race of Arvad.” However,
when lighter-skinned Egyptians were in
power, they labeled the darker people
“the evil race of Ish.”
#34
A Harvard professor wrote four adamant
letters in 1863 to Lincoln’s Civil War
Commission asserting that
incorporating blacks as equals in the
reunited nation would contaminate the
white race, both socially and
biologically.
#35
At the end of the 19th century, American
anthropologists used Darwin’s notion of survival
of the fittest to justify the killing of American
Indians and forced regression of blacks to servant
class. In light of the survival of the fittest theory,
it was also popular to believe that the “defective”
bodies and minds of “savage races” would
gradually lead to their own extinction.
#36
In the early 1900s, eugenists attempted to use IQ
tests to prove that certain races were inherently
more intelligent than other races. For example,
they used tests to try to demonstrate that blacks
and recent immigrants from southern and eastern
Europe were intellectually inferior to Americans
of Anglo Saxon or Scandinavian descent. By the
1940s, eugenics had been discredited both as bad
science and as an excuse for racial hatred.
#37
In the early 1900s, the Racial Integrity Act in the
United States required racial classification of
every person at birth and made marriage
between whites and anyone with even a trace
of Negro ancestry a crime. It was motivated by
concern that sexual intermingling between
blacks and whites would deteriorate the white
race.
#38
Thomas Jefferson was not only a political
philosopher but also a naturalist. In one of
his notes, he argued that black people were
predisposed to sleeping more because their
minds were empty: “An animal whose body
is at rest and who does not reflect must be
disposed to sleep, of course.”
#39
The infamous “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in
the Negro Male” launched by the U.S. Public Health
Service in Macon County, Alabama, in 1932 was
created to confirm the long held view that venereal
diseases acted differently in blacks than in whites.
The study is widely considered unethical, mainly
because researchers knowingly did not treat patients
with syphilis, even after penicillin was discovered to
be an effective treatment. The study lasted 40 years,
until 1972.
#40
The Institute of Medicine in 2002
scientifically documented widespread racial
disparities in health care and suggested they
stemmed at least partly from physician bias.
In one generation, between 1940 and 1999,
more than 4 million African Americans died
prematurely relative to whites.
#41
After pornography, ancestry websites
are the most commonly visited on the
Internet. A molecular biologist from
John Hopkins asserts that each one of
us has around 6.7 billion relatives.
#42
Interracial marriage has been legal in the U.S. since
1967. In 2008, a record 14.6% of all first
marriages in the U.S. were interracial marriages.
Nine percent of whites, 16% of blacks, 26% of
Hispanics, and 31% of Asians married someone
whose race or ethnicity was different from their
own. White men/Asian women pairings are the
most common form of interracial dating and
marriage in the U.S.
#43
A daughter born to an Irish
mother and American Indian
father in Maryland in 1680 was
labeled a “mulatto” and sold into
slavery.
#44
Statistics show that white wife/black husband
marriages are twice as likely to end in
divorce than white wife/white husband
couples by the 10th year of marriage.
However, a black wife/white husband
marriage is 44% less likely to divorce than a
white wife/white husband couple by the
10th year of marriage.
#45
In 2007, economists Joseph Price and
Justin Wolfers argued that their
research showed that National
Basketball Association referees are
more likely to call fouls on players of a
different race than themselves.
#46
Research indicates that
infants as young as six
months old notice racial
differences.
#47
According to federal statistics,
one in four students reports
being a target of ethnic or
racial bias in a typical school
year.
#48
In California, 40% of African
American men between 1825 are either in jail, on
parole, or on probation.
#49
Sociologists Simon Cheng and Brian Powell
found that parents in biracial families typically
devote more time and money to enrolling
their kids in activities, such as music lessons
and museum trips—not necessarily because
they have more money, but most likely to
compensate for their marginalized social
status.
#50
California was the first state to ban the use of
race and ethnicity in public university
admissions. However, now that affirmative
action is banned (Proposition 209), Asian
American students have dominated admissions.
At UC Berkeley, for example, 46% of those
admitted into the 2012 freshman class are
Asian; 30% are white.