Prompt:
White supremacist Daniel Malan argues that the white race is vastly superior to all other races. As evidence, he points out that the black community has a consistently higher rate of heart disease than the white community.
In your précis you must argue against Malan’s racist claim.
The modern conception of race is a social and political construct. The categorical separation of people based on race is a flawed system of organisation. This does not mean race is not important. Physical attributes play critical roles in every person’s life because all people are subject to society's conception of race. Too, from the conception of races, racism has emerged. Racist thought glorifies ideas of superiority over ‘lesser races’. Daniel Malan points to evidence of higher heart disease rates among blacks than whites. Concluding that this is proof of white superiority. Although these claims may seem valid, such evidence is misleading.
There are points of data that point towards the white race as superior. Daniel Malan’s argument concerning heart disease with African Americans is factual evidence. The black race also suffers from diabetes, stroke, and hypertension at a higher rate than a white counterpart. People with dark skin also have troubles absorbing vitamin D which can lead to host of problems such as coronary artery disease and higher blood pressure. According to WebMD, black Americans suffer from asthma the most, have a higher chance of developing lung cancer, and goes on to state, “. . . blacks are 3 times more likely to die of asthma than whites.” The article also states that African Americans and Mexican Americans have a higher chance to develop diabetes. As shown there is factual evidence of black Americans having more health problems than other races.
Though through understanding the article entitled, “How Race Becomes Biology” by Clarence Gravlee, one can come to understand that these facts are not caused by the biological makeup of African Americans. Gravlee suggests that these problems transpire from “toxic effects of exposure to racism”. He further supports these claims with evidence, citing a study of infant birth weights before and after the September 11 terrorist attacks. After the attacks racism towards Arabic people rocketed. The effect was that birth weights of Arabic babies born after 9/11 were significantly lower than Arabic babies born a year prior. This evidence supports the effects of racism being ‘toxic’. African Americans have been subject to racism for hundreds of years, the Arabic women only a short amount of time. The stress of racism hinders the ability to rear a child properly in gestation, leading to a host of problems later in life like high blood pressure. Not only are blacks affected by adverse health effects generated by racism, but also the environment they mature in. The WebMd article cited in the former paragraph further explains that blacks suffer from lung problems more than other races because they are more likely to live in places of higher air pollution. The economic affluence of blacks is lower and leads to consumption of less expensive and typically unhealthy food. Moreover, this means less money to spare for medical expenses. This is true for Mexican Americans as well and explains why diabetes is higher amongst these ethnic groups. Yet it is important to remember that health problems are not entirely based upon environmental or economical factors. The genetic makeup of our ancestors plays a significant role in acquiring undesirable diseases such as sickle cell.
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| The Great Chain of Being |
To understand racist ideology, it is important to look to the past and grasp how it emerged. Categorizing races had not always been around. Though, in the past, people have always differentiated others by regional characteristics and physical attributes, there was no scientific way in doing so. It was not until the emergence of the five categories of race by Johan Friedrich Blumenbach that distinctions between one another became relevant. The Great Chain of Being, an ancient understanding of man’s origins concerning various hierarchies descending from god, was understood by most European settlers and, along with Blumenbach’s research, helped establish inferior and superior races. Blumenbach's ideas came a time when the United States was more or less a group colonies and had recently relinquished the grip of Britain. The colonies needed slaves, but also just fought a bloody war for the equality of man (American Revolutionary War). Blumenbach's ideas helped the early Americans to circumnavigate the morality of slavery, reducing the African slaves, as well as Native Americans, to an inferior level. So thus, American society was built by slave labor and on the conquered land of the Native Americans. And these distinctions between European-Americans and their slaves folded into the underlying fabric of early United states, producing scientific racism. This pseudoscience emerged in the 19th century and set out to prove differential features between races, reducing other them to animals or savages. Social Darwinism, natural selection applied aggressively to society, further expanded the reach of scientific racism, influencing the the Eugenics movement and Nazi regime. The base of such a science has no ground as mankind is a single species. Humans are rather a product of their environment or culture than their genetic ancestry. Unfortunately this was not recognized in the past, the Nazis found vindication in scientific racism and social Darwinism, producing mass genocide and sterilizations on the highest scale in hopes of preserving genetic purity. In relation to these crimes, the film District 9 exemplifies how prejudice thinking is created. How foreigners can seem almost like a different species. The film also displays how quickly these boundaries can turn deadly.
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| 11 Ways Race isn't Real |
Since the recognition of races by society, the laws and terms that govern them in American government are constantly shifting. For instance, at one point the Census regarded Mexicans as white, then changed their status to Hispanic. Further, arguments over Japanese people, whether or not to be considered white, have been topics of debate. Yet what it takes to black has varied the most. At one point the ‘one-drop rule’ ruled, saying just a drop of African lineage would deem someone black. Moreover, whether or not a person was black could depend on what state that said person was in. Therefore, in the eyes of the government, someone’s race could change just by crossing an imaginary line. The Census would go on to incorporate the option of being mixed race into their forums, making it possible to be all the races, if one were to choose so. Thus, there is no general consensus on race nor a sure way to determine someone’s race and the classification of people differs by who is doing the judging. President Obama is a famous example of this. Since the president has a white mother some consider him to not be black but mixed race. According to a poll done in 2009, 55% of the black subjects stated Obama was black while 53% of the white subjects that participated said he was mixed race. In addition, determining race becomes even more difficult when twin children born are born black and white. Coming from the same parents, they have relatively the same DNA, but are considered different races by society.
In conclusion, racism emerged to allow dismissal of morality concerning slave treatment, condemning them as not actual people. This toxic notion lived on in society after slavery was abolished. The ramifications of this categorizing humans are now being fully understood. This discrimination can cause health problems, mistrust, and violence. Society can not agree on who is what race and the laws that govern it are subject to change. Although ancestry places a role in hereditary diseases, superior race claims are redundant as ancestry does not determine race, society does.
Sources:
"AAA Statement on "Race"" AAA Statement on "Race" American Anthropological Association, n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2014.
Gravlee, Clarence C. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 139:47–57 (2009) How Race Becomes Biology: Embodiment of Social Inequality (n.d.): n. pag. Web.
"Race Becomes Biology, Inequality Embodied – Anthropology 1.7." Living Anthropologically. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Dec. 2014.
"Why 7 Deadly Diseases Strike Blacks Most." WebMD. WebMD, n.d. Web. 01 Dec. 2014.\
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