CONCEPT  OF  RACE :  Man’s  Most  Dangerous  Myth

The Federal US Government, during the 1990 census, proceeded to divide American citizens into four racial categories namely, whites, blacks, Asians and Hispanics. But millions of Americans claimed membership in nearly 300 races or ethnic groups as well as 600 American Indian tribes. Hispanics alone claimed 70 categories and another 75 categories were claimed by those having a multi-racial ancestry. There is no doubt that a major section of white American population, still today, is preoccupied with the obnoxious concept of race or , more precisely, a bi-racial outlook and consider it immutable.

            This bi-racial concept is, however, assuming a complicated shape now-a-days because of the  tremendous influx of immigrants from Latin American, Caribbean and Asian countries since a major section of these immigrants are non-white brown but not blacks.

National  Debate:

            This development has made the matter of determining the racial origin of a particular group of people too complex and the appewarence of mixed races arising out of inter-racial marriages has made the situation really unmanageable. These things have initiated a national debate as to whether instead of the colour of the skin and other superficial differences such as variations of cranial index, the question of race could be resolved on a scientific footing. Dr. C. Loring Brace, an anthropologist of the Central Michigan University and an eminent critic of the conventional notion of race, says, “There is no organizing policy in putting 5 billion people living on this planet into so few categories in a way that tells anything important about diversities of humankind”. In fact, more than 70 per cent of the cultural anthropologists and 50 per cent of the physical anthropologists of the US have refised to admit race as a biological category.

            Dr. Richard Lewontin, a population biologist of Harvard University, has shown that genetics cannot be a basis of differentiating human races. He studied 17 genetic marks of 168 different types of population and observed that there are more genetic differences within one race than there is between that race and another. A similar view is expressed by the 1994 report of the Human Genome Diversity Project. In fact, if the entire humankind is divided on the basis of two forms of genes, the equatorial Africans, Italians and Greeks fall into the “sickle cell” race, while the Swedes and South African Xhosas into the healthy “haemoglobin” race. Dr. Luca Cavalli Storza, a geneticist of Stanford University, therefore says, “The more we learn about human genetic differences the more we see that, they have nothing to do with what we call race”.

            Similarly, traits can also not be used as a basis for grouping the humankind since there are an infinite number of traits which would give rise to an infinite number of races. Dr. Jared Diamond, a biologist, has surveyed half a dozen traits and his opinion in this regard is, “Pick up a trait and the result is surprising races. For example, if the scooped out shape of the back of the front teeth is considered a standard trait, then Asians, Native Americans and Swedes fall in the same category. If the epicanthic-fold eyes are considered a valid trait, then Kung San (Bushmen of Africa) belong with the Chinese or Japanese”. On the other hand, if biochemistry is chosen to demarcate races,Norwegians, Arabians and Fulanis of Northern Nigeria come under the same category of “Lactose race”, since their ancestors drank milk and developed the lactose gene that helps to digest milk and sugar. The rest come under the “non-lactose race”.

Blood Groups:

            Previously, it was believed that blood is the abode of racial qualities and ideas about the superiority of the Aryan blood played the key role in the rise of Nazi fanaticism. But current scientific investigations have proved all such claims to be hopelessly wrong. In fact, an attempt todemarcate the humankind on the basis of the relative abundance of three bllod groups, namely A, B and O, yields very surprising results- Germans and New Guineans, Estonians and Japanese, Swedes and Xhosas come under the same category.

            According to another school of thought, groups of people who evolved together and separately from others, constitute a race. So the entire population of Africa, according to this school, should be included in one race, as they evolved in a separate continent isolated from others. Similarly, the pale and blond variety among the whites should be another race since they evolved separately in Europe. Regarding the colour of the human skin, some biologists maintain the present infinite diversity originated from three archetypes, namely red, yellow and blue, since any hue may be created by mixing these fundamental colours in appropriate proportions. But such a speculation has been rejected by most of the scientists working in this field.

            As a result of this debate, scientists are of the opinion that ethnicity is the more rational term than race, since it is capable of accommodating infinite variations of the humankind and at the same time comprises the local traits and dieting habits evolved out of a particular geographical condition.

Ethnicity:

            This conclusion is surprisingly in tune with the conclusion made earlier in 1942, by the renowned anthropologist Dr. Ashley Montagu, who said, “The notion of race is man’s most dangerous myth. In place of race, a greater number of smaller groups like ethnicity does a better job”.

            The outcome of the debate is important in the Indian context since it repudiates the attemptby our past rulers to divide the inhabitants of this subcontinent into Aryan and non-Aryan races. One can also smell a racist undertone in painting the people of southern India as a subhuman group by declaring them to be of non-Aryan origin. On various occassions, Swami Vivekananda condemned this deplorable effort of the colonilists.

            Most of the scientists today reject the very notion of race. A major section of them are convinced that the concept race originated from cultural contrasts; the boundary between races has no other basis than the classifier’s own cultural norms and such a clissification has always gone against the interest of humanity. In this context, we should remember another remark by Ashley Montagu who said, “The abnormality of persistent ideas of races are powerful and a profound revolution in our thought can only change our conventional notion of race”.

            So, it may be hoped that, by a revolution in his thought, man in near future  would win a victory over the narrowness of his mind that stimulates him to divide humanity into a few races, and would be able to make himself free from the  notoriously slippery concept of race, arising out of prejudice and pride.