To discuss race, we should start by defining it
Racist: A term bandied about with abandon, and without a widely accepted definition. Problem? Yes. Eighteenth-century naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, who became known as Count de Buffon, crassly asserted that orangutans were, “ardent” for and copulated with black women.
Racist? Ah, yeah.
What about the term “AngloSaxon?” Is it a fair description of a “race,” or a racist term for asserting superior rank over Jews, non-whites and Catholics? Or, is it racist because it ties historically to Germanic tribes, who migrated across Western Europe? Isn’t asserting a tie to ancient German tribes racist?
Not necessarily. But it’s ironic that Hitler and his Herrenvolk went on to model themselves after many things Roman, from architecture to the Hitler salute. In the words of Rome’s famed historian Tacitus, the Germanic tribes were prone to “idleness, thinking of nothing else but sleeping and eating.”
I think most everyone can agree Hitler was racist.
What about more indirect assertions — microaggressions, if you will. Shouldn’t they, too, be categorized as racist? Recent press coverage makes clear that, when talking about racism on college campuses, there is a vocal and sizable plurality who argue, yes, microaggressions deserve just as much attention.
Why? Because the same ignorance that led the buffoon Buffon to his conclusions have only been softened through coded language (microaggressions), veiling animus toward and discomfort with the “Other,” those different from them.
Racism? Perhaps. But another sizable plurality remains sitting there scratching their heads. And, in unison.
“Racism?” they say. “What isn’t considered racist anymore?”
The core of the problem: What is the definition of racism? A race?
So, from a legal perspective here in the U.S., how is race defined? Answer: not very clearly.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the governmental body (per its website) “responsible for enforcing federal laws that make it illegal to discriminate against a job applicant or an employee because of the person’s race, color, … national origin,” etc. The EEOC states that it uses “race/ethnic designations” that aren’t “scientific definitions of anthropological origins.” Instead, “an employee may be included in the group to which he or she appears to belong, identifies with, or is regarded in the community as belonging.”
In a demonstration of governmental consistency, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget defines race in a similar fashion. It takes into account “social and cultural characteristics as well as ancestry.” The OMB definition is the definition outlined for the U.S. Census. It is the legal definition.
Conclusion: America’s bellwether for determining one’s race legally is what one thinks he or she is, or what someone else (or the federal government) sees the person as, and conflating culture and race is legally acceptable.
More sociological and subjective than scientific? Yup.
The EEOC adds to its “five racial categories” the “ethnicity category” of “Hispanic or Latino.”
Europeans, including many from Spain, laugh at us about this — hard. For them, Mediterraneans (or, AtlantoMediteranneans) — Spainards, Portuguese, or Italians — are no less European than their paler-skinned northern counterparts. Unless you are asking an early-20th-century racial theorist — or, apparently, an Americangovernment functionary.
Let’s not forget that this level of categorizing led us to the aforementioned topic of Nazism, which, I think we can agree, didn’t work out so well.
What about dictionaries. Surely there is consensus on what a race is there, right?
Answer: Sort of.
The Cambridge Dictionary defines a race as being, “any group into which humans can be divided according to their shared physical or genetic characteristics” and “a group of people who share the same language, history, characteristics, etc.”
Merriam-Webster defines a race as medically being either “an actually or potentially interbreeding group within a species also: a taxonomic category (as a subspecies) representing such a group” — a breed. A breed is defined as “a group of animals or plants presumably related by descent from common ancestors and visibly similar in most characters.”
Macmillan defines race as “a group of people who are similar because they have the same skin color or other physical features,” and “a group of people who are similar because they speak the same language or have the same history or customs.”
Have the secondary definitions, which include language and customs, led most Americans and their federal government to conflate race and culture? Should we deduce, like many do, that race is a social construct?
Macmillan adds, for “race,” the “more commonly accepted definition is … a category of humankind that shares certain distinctive physical traits.” But, as reasonable people can agree, this, too, has problems.
Head spinning? Understandable. Perhaps the heart of the problem is confusing race and ethnicity? Race and culture?
Maybe leaving race as referring to genetic ancestry, and ethnicity to shared nationality or cultural traditions is a good way to go?
Once we can agree on a definition, a proper discussion on race can commence.
Christopher Brooks is a professor of history at East Stroudsburg University.