The history of the evolution of Man tells us that all humans belong to a single genus and a common species, called Homo Sapiens. This indicates the biological commonalities between all humans that distinguish them from other animals. At the same time, we note that each individual of this highly populous group (now more than 6.8 billion) is physically different in a combination of physical traits. But some of the traits tend to cluster in a given population concentrated at a given geographical space—a region or a country, or a continent. It is these clustered traits that give that population a separate identity as a race.
Analysts of race divided the entire humanity into three major clusters, namely Caucasoid (the White), Mongoloid (the Yellow) and the Negroid (the Black). These are the three great races of Man, which have further been classified into three sub-races each.
Table 15.1 Classification of Races
| CAUCASOID | MONGOLOID | NEGROID |
|---|---|---|
| Nordic | Asiatic | African |
| Mediterranean | Oceanic | Oceanic |
| Alpine | American Indian | Negrito |
This classification is attempted on the basis of some observable physical traits such as colour of hair, texture of hair, quality and distribution of hair on the body, eye colour, shape of the eyelids, shape of the nose and the lips, colour of the skin, body height, type of face, and the general gait and stature. Physical anthropology has developed a set of measures1 for these indicators to classify people in racial terms.
As was said earlier in the race has been used as an ideological tool to emphasize the superiority of the whites over others. In fact, a science of Eugenics was developed for the purpose. This was greatly opposed by a group of anthropologists who insisted that racial superiority is a colonial construct. Ashley-Montagu went to the extent of calling it Man’s Most Dangerous Myth and wrote with this title in 1945 to expose the fallacy of race. UNESCO intervened in this debate right from its inception and brought out a series of pamphlets to discredit the theory of racial superiority.2
It is now generally agreed by all anthropologists that race is a biological concept and should be used in that sense. A commonly agreed definition of race is that it is ‘a major grouping of interrelated people possessing a distinctive combination of physical traits that are the result of distinctive genetic composition’ (Hoebel, 1958: 116). Four factors cause race differentials, namely, gene mutation, natural selection, genetic drift, and population mixture. Today’s world consists of people who have moved from places of their origin and mixed and intermarried with others—the process of such interactions has a long history; as a result, it is absolutely impossible to find any pure races, certainly not the early three groups of Caucasoid, Mongoloid and Negroid. Through racial miscegenation, several hybrid combinations now prevail in the human population.
Neither can one consider language coterminous with either nor culture. People of the same race (or any of its several sub-types caused by racial admixture) are found to speak different languages. They live in different political regimes, practice different religions, and share a variety of cultures. The fact that race figures in the discussion on stratification hints at the existence of multi-racial nations and societies. ‘Most usages of the term race refer to large populations originally or currently dominating a continental land mass or archipelago.’
We can do no better than reproduce Hoebel’s summary on the question of race and cultural capacity. He summed up thus:
Figure 15.1 Major Races and Sub-races of Mankind
- It must be acknowledged that there is the possibility of innate physiological and psychological differences between racial groups;
- however, no such differences have been scientifically isolated and unequivocally established; and
- such differences as are indicated are so slight in their apparent effect on human behaviour that, when compared to the proven influence of culture in determining the action of men, race differences are of such relative insignificance as to be of no functional importance.
Hoebel concludes: ‘Culture, not race, is the great moulder of human society’ (1958: 147).
It is in the cultural sense that race became a variable for social discrimination, particularly during colonial times. It promoted the subjugation of Africans by the whites, who took the former as slaves and despatched them to far-off lands to do menial jobs. In a novel titled Roots, Alex Haley narrated the saga of one such man who was brought to the United States as a slave.3
The slaves constituted the bottom of the social ladder in the United States. Bought as a commodity in an auction, these people were kept in chains and denied the basic human rights. It took a long struggle to break the shackles of slavery.
Another manner in which race was used as a tool of discrimination is known as Apartheid. South Africa continued with this policy right up to the 1990s. Nelson Mandela, the fighter for the cause of the down-trodden Blacks in their own native land, was kept for years at a secluded location and tortured. But he finally won the cause and became the first President of the new Apartheid-free South Africa.
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