Midterm Flashcards
(32 cards)
1
Q
Monogenesis
A
- the beginning of one
- all humans are created by God beginning with Adam and Eve
- human equality at creation did not apply to all (explains white superiority)
2
Q
Degeneration Theory
A
- certain people degenerate as a species
- could justify unequal status between races because of “savagery”
3
Q
John Locke
A
(1632-1704)
- believed that non-white races could not participate in a proper government because of their inferiority
- did believe that their souls could be saved
- tried to help by making them adopt Christianity but they will never become equals (couldn’t change their skin colour)
4
Q
Montesquieu
A
(1689-1755)
- believed that people changed by the environment they were in
- believed that moving to civilization could improve the people
5
Q
Blumenbach
A
(1752-1840)
- grouped humanity into 5 categories of races (European being superior)
- said homosapien
6
Q
Polygenesis
A
- humanity originated in various places at various times
- most common minority view (non-Christians)
- not descendants from Adam and Eve
- tried to justify why non-whites were naturally inferior
- civilization had never existed outside of Europe (European point of view)
- all non-white people were “outside of progress”
7
Q
Isaac La Peyrere
A
(1596-1676)
- atheist
- published a book and went to jail because it challenged religious teachings
8
Q
David Hume
A
(1711-1776)
- founding father of Scottish enlightenment
- latched to the idea of different human hierarchies but rejected the idea that they all come from the same place
9
Q
Immanuel Kant
A
(1724-1804)
- German philosopher who is highly celebrated as a guiding thinker on all things concerning morality
- in reality was really racist (thought white people were superior)
- thought race was natural and not a social construct like we do now
10
Q
Louis Agassiz
A
(1807-1873)
- argued racially intermixing was what brought about savagery in the world
- blood represents the dilution of supremacy
- thought racial intermixing would bring the end of the world by making it unpure
11
Q
Scientific Racism
A
- created as a result of theories not having scientific proof to back them up
- development of elaborate systems of human classification
- trying to find research to justify white supremacy
- emergence of tools designed to measure qualities of humans, ex) measurement of skulls (craniometry)
- racial categories and rankings became important in Western thought, politics, and culture
- race was the leading factor to distinguish order and hierarchies, inequalities
12
Q
How were/are various categorical shades of “race” and cultural differences invented in the modern era (1800s - present)?
A
- power relations (making yourself feel better)
- produce knowledge that was detrimental to the other group to justify their bad actions
- rise of human science to try and explain the question of human difference
- phenotype features became major aspect of definition of different types of humankind during settler colonialism accompanied by stereotyped description of attitudes and behaviours (proto- racisim)
13
Q
Race
A
- a social construct
- a way of thinking or being that was developed by humans
- power over another group, a structure of inequality based on ideas of racial differences
- a scientific myth
14
Q
Jose de Acosta
A
(1540-1600)
- identified 3 categories to explain people’s inferiority
1) rational peoples (literate, government, weren’t Christian)
2) people who were illiterate
3) “savages”
15
Q
Settler Colonialism
A
- a subset of empire, form of imperialism
- phenotype features become major aspect of definition of different types of humankind
- accompanied by stereotyped description of attitudes and behaviours (proto- racism)
- want the land without the people living on it
16
Q
Myth of Aryanism
A
- attributed innate biological and behavioral qualities to Aryan speakers (European languages)
- hierarchy of languages that corresponds with hierarchy of race
- Aryans were the purest form of white people biologically as well as most noble, intelligent, and vital branch of white race
- gave white people their supremacy
- success of civilization depended on purity of “Aryan” blood within it
- civilizations were becoming more diluted so it was Aryan’s responsibility to “save the world”
17
Q
Charles Darwin
A
(1809-1882)
- author of “Origin of Species” (1859) and “Descent of Man” (1871), both written at a moment in world history where globalization is becoming increasingly powerful
- did not believe in rigid racial identities but believed in superior qualities of white race
- impacts: placed all humans in nature, broke from the idea of innate, unchangeable features, promoted concepts of evolution by means of natural selection
- believed if you were born into an inferior race you didn’t have to be stuck in that inferiority
18
Q
Social Darwinism
A
- strongest/fittest should survive and flourish in society while weak/unfit should die (assimilate or die, if you’re not superior you won’t make it)
- promoted by Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)
- socio-political use of Darwinist thought about humanity, identities, and inter-cultural relations
- ideas of global hierarchy (failed to reduce racial prejudices)
- globalization and social Darwinism as “travelling theory”
- race thinking is a leading factor in international relations
19
Q
International Eugenics Movement
A
- science of racial improvement
- product of social Darwinism and evolution
- Francis Galton (1822-1911) as “founding father” (believed that controlled breeding was a highly doable goal)
- positive vs negative eugenicists, ex) negative = kill off non-whites, positive = non-invasive (should have one kid with a white person)
- product of this movement was sterilizing without consent
- goals: promotion of selective breeding, sterilization and castration of the “unfit”, use of intelligence testing to identify mentally deficient individuals and to identify differences in intelligence between racial and ethnic groups (racial psychology), limiting immigration of various ethnic and racial groups (white countries should try to stay as white as possible)
20
Q
Whiteness
A
- transnational form of racial identification
- physical traits and phenotype as well as culture or religion (way of thinking)
- being recognized as equal to white people (civilized behaviour)
- a social construct and is fluid (personality)
21
Q
Nationalism
A
- nation as “imagined community”
- myth of exceptionalism
- created by society to generate a cultural pride and identity
- borders as well as cultural limits were integral to defining a nation
- politics of difference impact global affairs as well as every day lives
- race was a factor in deciding who was a member of the nation (led by white phenotype people)
22
Q
Politics of Difference
A
- has existed since the beginning of time
- late 19th century scientific racism justified and sanctioned empires
- race was biggest factor in global interconnection
- differences of imaginations or social constructions linked to power (who can be a citizen?)
- ideas of difference dictated identity formations, inter-cultural relations, and world affairs
- in 1850, race becomes key division among humankind
23
Q
Imperial Culture
A
- structures human inequality for white benefit
- seeing and being (acting in a way that is anchored in human difference)
- Europeans were confident of superiority or their civilization and capacity to dominate others
- boundary between “colonizer” and “colonized”
- defined “others” as lazy, backward, corrupt, irrational, etc.
24
Q
“Colonized Colonizer”
A
- Egyptians resisted colonization from Britain by claiming superiority over the Sudanese people
- not just Europeans doing the colonizing anymore
- Egyptians responded to racial order by racializing Sudanese neighbor (Sudanese had darker skin pigmentation than Egyptians)
- proved Egypt’s ability to govern
25
What were the 3 kinds of politics that were impacted by race?
- politics of empire
- politics of segregation
- politics of migration
26
Politics of Segregation
- became a key strategy for white supremacists around the world to confront "race problems"
- set up to empower "whiteness" and disempower everybody else
- institutional racism, designated spaces for certain groups
- black people had to prove their intelligence to be able to partake in their full citizen rights, ex) literacy test
- the poll tax was put in place in order to prevent financially inferior people (mostly black citizens) from voting
27
Fourteenth Amendment
- all born in the United States (and naturalized) automatically becomes a citizen
- radically altered every day life in the south where slavery was so prominent
28
Fifteenth Amendment
- forbade states and federal governments to deny suffrage to any citizen on account of "race, colour, or previous condition of servitude"
- was not put into effect properly
29
Jim Crow System
- "separate but equal"
- a series of laws that went around the 14th and 15th amendments
- segregation between black and white people
30
Politics of Migration
- race thinking shaped international affairs
- white supremacists viewed migration as a threat to their power so they invented border control regimes to keep non-whites out of their country
- invention of the passport to limit travel in the second half of the 19th century
31
Pan-African Congress
- group of 45 people of African ancestry gathered in London to discuss the problem of white supremacy
- emergence of an international anti-racist movement
- W. E. B Du Bois gave a speech that empowered the attendees
32
Universal Race Congress of 1911
- gathered over 400 people (not just black people)
- aim was the formation of "an association designed to promote inter-racial amity", friendship instead of hate
- "white policy could lead to war" if not dealt with
