Wednesday, April 10, 2002
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Wednesday, April 10, 2002 |
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What is this obsession with race? It describes nothing Two of your readers were very upset with a McDonald's commercial that seems to slight "white" people in the hope of attracting "black" people to buy their product. I'm not going to address the ludicrous notion that any commercial endorsement on TV should be the subject of major social discourse, particularly since I haven't seen the offending article. I would, however, like to address the subject of race, color, and history since these appear to be the sulfur in the powder keg of human relations. The author Jared Diamond won a Pulitzer prize for his book, "Guns, Germs, and Steel," concerning the rise of great civilizations and likely reasons why some flourished and dominated, while others were absorbed or destroyed. He has some fascinating and well-founded theories about the genesis of ethnic European dominance in modern world affairs. A by-product of reading the book is the general impression that "race" classifies nothing. For instance, Diamond defines the peoples of Africa around 1400 A.D. as belonging to five different groups loosely referred to as blacks, whites, African Pygmies, Khoisan, and Asians. If one examines the example photographs of these loosely associated groups, and breaks them down into "races," I believe most Americans would describe the blacks, Pygmies and Khoisan as "black," the whites as "Arabs" and the Asians as "Indians." The "blacks" have about as much in common as very fair-skinned people from the Indian subcontinent might have with a Swede. The "whites" are olive-skinned Mediterranean people who vary greatly in hue and features, and the "Asians" are dark skinned Indonesians. Geneticists don't use "race" as a scientific description at all. Genetically, the portion of our makeup that ascribes skin color is so insignificant that it would be scientifically impossible to use as a differentiator. Winston Churchill often used "race" as a description of the English-speaking peoples, vis-a-vis those "others" in the world. Being a man of his time, he was referring to those light-skinned peoples who were inheritors of English laws and traditions, but he certainly didn't have only skin color in mind. Mrs. Saul refers to "Jews" as a race. A Semitic band that ventured out of ancient Samaria, the original Hebrews or "Dusty Ones" were of the same tribe as their current implacable foes, the Arabs. So what is race but an easy apportionment of our own preconceived notions of how someone ought to be? On the other hand, we need to recognize that past injustices imposed on people with dark skin have led to many societal inequities that remain extant. The lingering effects of 300 years of black African slavery and 100 more years of de jure and de facto prejudice haven't been erased by three decades of relative good will. The contributions people of color have made to this country have often been deliberately overlooked in the past and "Black History Month" seems to have been an attempt to rectify the slight. As for a "white" history month, I doubt your two enraged readers could even agree on this classification if forced to hash through an amalgam of historical figures. Suffice it to say, most of our history has been written by, for, and about people of fair-skinned, Northern European, Protestant ancestry, so we really have about 11 months of white history per year. So what's the harm? Mrs. Saul seems preoccupied with a real or allegorical cave. Perhaps that is the place she left part of her humanity, most of her reason, and all her empathy. Yes, many groups have been targets of terrible injustices in the past. What we can't escape is the fact that this one was done by our ancestors in this country, and we live with its legacy today. I suppose when we stop lumping together people with a lot of pigment in their skin and African features, they'll get over what many in the majority consider a siege mentality. But it ain't gonna happen soon, so don't hold your breath. Stereotypes are much too comfortable and familiar. Timothy J. Parker Peachtree City
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