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Masks
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please try to refrain from drinking
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Test #1 on Feb. 14th
in ONLINE and no
in-person or online
classes that week.
You can write
anytime between 9
a.m. and 9 p.m.
 Genetics does not support the
classification of humans into discrete
Key points races

on “race” • Many genes = variations of a trait

and biology • Continuous variation, no “racial
clusters” • No set traits define a “race”
• No biological basis (arbitrary, not fact)
 Text example – drugs that
Nevertheless, target racialized groups...eg.
how does BiDil for congestive heart
failure
science often
(erroneously) Since 18th century – scientists
reinforce race have contributed to the
as natural? naturalization of race...this is
called scientific racism
 The use of supposedly
Scientific “scientific” theories, tests and
racism procedures to support racist
cultural agendas
Carl/Karl Linnaeus
(1701-1778)
• Father of taxonomy and scientific
racism
• Suggested five racial categories:
Africanus, Americanus, Asiaticus,
Europeanus and Monstrosus
• Further suggested that there were
BEHAVIOURAL TRAITS associated
with each category, and positioned
Europeanus as the pinnacle of
civilization and human evolution

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND

Samuel George
Morton (1799-
1851)
• Craniometry – compared cranial
capacities of skulls representing
different ”racial groups”
• Problems?
• Critiqued by Stephen Jay Gould in
“The Mismeasure of Man”

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA

Dr. J. Philippe Ruston – U of
W. Ontario, Psychology

• Wrote “Race, Evolution

and Behaviour: A Life
History Perspective”

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA-NC

What is a species?
Groups of organisms that are reproductively isolated from
others (eg. Dogs and cats)

But what is a sub-species?? – sub-division of species;

sufficiently geographically isolated to create difference (eg.
different breeds of cats or dogs)
So…
• All humans belong to the species Homo sapiens
• Those who advocate the idea of race as a BIOLOGICAL
category argue that different races are akin to sub-species
• But that’s impossible for humans because….
• Sub-species/race would require humans to be 1)
morphologically distinct; 2) geographically distinct
Consequences of scientific racism - some
examples:
• Eugenics – founder Sir Francis Galton
• Refers to the “improvement” of the human gene pool
• Eg. Hitler and the Nazi party; Canada – some
provinces up until 1970’s supported sterilization of
certain groups

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-

NC-ND
 We think of race as an
ASCRIBED status

Race
But race is culturally
constructed, not biological and
therefore, it is important for us
to study as anthropologists
Race as a cultural
construction…

Textbook example re: ”white”

Irish people and how the Irish
“became white”
Penal laws in Ireland in 18th
century – could not vote,
attend university, inherit
property from Protestants
Concept of race is fluid,
dynamic and POLITICIZED This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA

INTERSECTIONAL
Race as an INTERSECTIONAL form of identity
• As the Irish example highlights, race
intersects with other identities, like
class, religion or ethnicity
• CLASS – “hierarchical distinctions
between social groups in a society,
usually based on wealth, occupation
and social standing” (see p. 84)
• Class viewed in North America as
ASCRIBED or ACHIEVED
• Eg. of achieved status – the myth of This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY

the “American Dream” and the

myth of meritocracy
Intersectionality
– would Barack
Obama have
been elected
President if he
came from a
lower-class
background? This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-NC
Race is also…
• A form of social
stratification (ie.
inequality) and legal
classification (think
birth certificates or
other legal
documentation)
• The belief that race
exists as an objective This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND

reality has consequences

Example – race as a
cultural construction
• The “one drop” rule = if you have one
ancestor who is of African descent,
then you are automatically labelled
black
• Example of hypodescent –
automatically assigned people of
mixed ancestry to whatever racial
category is of lower status
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND
In some societies…
• Race is viewed along a continuum, and is not a fixed category
• Eg. Anthropologist Conrad Kottak

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY

 Ethnicity = a group of people who
feel that they are united on the
basis of shared territory, national
origin, religion, shared mythologies,
Race is not or other factors
the same as Eg. Someone who is from France
and whose ancestors are from
ETHNICITY France, might self-identify as
“white” in terms of race, and
”French” in terms of ethnicity or
ethnic identity
How does racism operate within various
societies?
Racism can be:

Overt – eg. name calling or racial slurs

OR

Embedded – more subtle forms of racism that often go unnoticed as

“racist.” Examples?
White Privilege – Peggy McIntosh
• White privilege – a form of embedded racism wherein “white”
people are granted greater power, prestige, and/or access to
resources.
• In some societies, it is an outgrowth of colonialism – eg. skin
whitening creams in India, Brazil
White privilege views whiteness….
As both NORMATIVE and
unmarked. It affords many white
people with unearned advantages
Eva Mackey – hierarchies of
Canadianness
• Canadian law and dominant culture is
predicated upon “white” Euro-Canadian
values and aesthetics
• This is called “Canadian-Canadian”
culture
• Stephen Harper, “old-stock Canadians”
• Rise of alt-right populism, often
predicated upon whiteness as
normative and excluding POC
2006 – Filipino-Canadian “cutlery
controversy”
• Montreal-area school principal:
• “[In my conversation with (the mother)] I said, "Here, this is not the
manner in which we eat." ... I don't necessarily want students to eat
with one hand or with only one instrument, I want them to eat
intelligently at the table ... I want them to eat correctly with respect
for others who are eating with them. That's all I ask. Personally, I
don’t have any problems with it, but it is not the way you see people
eat every day. I have never seen somebody eat with a spoon and a
fork at the same time.”
Myth of Meritocracy
• White privilege operates via the myth of meritocracy
• A concept that governs North American society, and is
predicated upon the American dream
• At the heart of meritocracy is the notion that equal opportunity exists
• Leads to “blame the victim” mentality and racism
• But the American Dream/meritocracy is a MYTH
Embedded racism can be structural - examples of
class/race privilege that reinforce inequality
•Workplace discrimination
•Educational system
•Police
Setha Low article
• Focuses upon race (whiteness, in this case)as intersectional
• Whiteness as achieved and intersects with middle-class
values; must have proper “cultural capital”
• Studies gated communities in NY and Texas and how
whiteness is maintained via: 1) fear of Others, and 2)
niceness
• Gated communities rose in popularity in 1980’s and were a
response to perceived ineffectiveness of police and gating
became a ”new form of social ordering” to create a “safe
space”
• This involved excluding many minorities, like POC, especially
Black and LatinX communities

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA

How are gated communities exclusionary?
• Laws re: maximum numbers of people in household
• Discourse re: niceness – houses, lawns, properties are “nice,” which is
often equated with a ‘white’ middle class assumption re: what
constitutes order and proper aesthetics, and “racist assumptions
about urban landscapes
Shalini Shankar
• Language ideology = “widespread assumptions about the degree to
which some languages or dialects are superior or more sophisticated
than others”
• Studied South Asian American (Desi) minorities in a Silicon Valley high
school and how they use language
• Differences in upper class versus middle class use of language; upper
class as conforming to monolingual norms (and upholding stereotype
of the ‘model minority’) while middle class language of mostly Sikh
Punjabi youth is more mixed and “FOB” style