What is Race?

[Dramatic music plays as Foppington lights a candle]

Foppington: Welcome to my very scientific race laboratory.

[Dramatic music swells as Foppington lights another candle]

Foppington: May the pure light of reason guide us!

[Dramatic music swells again as Foppington lights the third and fourth candles]

Foppington: We'll begin by measuring the superior dimensions of the Caucasoid skull.

[Coriolan Overture plays as Foppington measures the skull]

[What is Race?]

Foppington: 'Tis evident to every scientific enquirer that Nature hath seen fit to divide the creature man into several distinct classes, whereof a manifest hierarchy subsists.

[The Doctor opens the door]

Doctor: Lord Foppington, what are you doing in my lab?

Foppington: I'm delineating the crania of the plurality of human kinds.

Doctor: Well, the 18th century called. They want their ideas back.

Foppington: Well, the anime convention called. They want their wig back.

Doctor: Foppington! Get out of my lab. Before I slice you on the slab.

Foppington: Nay! Naaaaay! [Runs away]

Doctor: The fucking people you have to talk to in this line of work. Where's my Pepsi?

[Part 1: Race and Biology]

Doctor: Because racist pseudoscience has often served as an alibi to genocide, slavery, eugenics, discrimination, imperialism, medical abuse and torture, many people are understandably reluctant to broach the subject of biology and race. Unfortunately, this kind of reluctance can look like a "politically correct" avoidance of the truth. So let's just do away with all reluctance and begin by seeking out an answer to question "is there any biological reality to race?" following the evidence wherever it may lead.

Foppington: Yea verily!

Doctor: How did you get there?

Foppington: Apparently this hallway is just one long circuit.

Doctor: Well, go away!

[Foppington backs out of the room]

Doctor: Now, if we're being honest with ourselves, it's very difficult to approach a topic as politically loaded as race without bringing a lot of baggage to the table. But one way we might try to start from a more objective standpoint, is to try a thought experiment proposed by the YouTuber C0nc0rdance, namely, to imagine that an alien species landed on earth with our contemporary understanding of genetics, but without our knowledge of human social and political history. Would it occur to these alien scientists to divide human beings into the conventional racial categories of white, black, Asian, and so on? The answer to this question is a pretty definite "no". Let's take a look at why.

Doctoc (VO): Geneticist measure human variation by comparing the frequency of genetic markers between different populations. It's pretty well known that around 85% of genetic variation is found within groups, meaning that any two individuals from different populations are not likely to be much more different from the same population. And only around 6-10% of total variation is found between continental groups, what might imprecisely be called races. Now, 6-10% is not 0, so you might think there is some justification for traditional race categories based on continental origin. However, for most of human history there has been continuous gene flow between local populations, including across continental divides. So there are no distinct boundaries separating continental populations from each other, and the continental populations themselves are not homogeneous. This is evident when you look at, for instance, the distribution of Y-Chromosome halpogroups. across the globe. Categories like "white," "black," and "Asian" are therefore extremely arbitrary ways of dividing up the genetic continuum. In fact, there is no purely genetic justification for using. let's say, five race categories as opposed to just one, or 300, or 3 million. And because of global gene flow, there are no "pure" races no matter how many categories you choose, with the possible exception of some Pacific Islanders. This is especially true in countries with recent global immigration like the U.S. and Brazil, where mixed European, African, and Amerindian ancestry is the norm. These points are all made more eloquently and in much more detail in a two-part video by C0nc0rdance, which I highly recommend and have linked to in the description.

Doctor: The upshot is that while geneticists and physical anthropologists can divide humans into populations based on ancestry, there is no scientific reason for those divisions to track traditional race categories. This is because race is a pre-scientific folk taxonomy based on superficial phynotypic attributes like hair and skin color, which are what biologists call polyphyletic, that is, derived from multiple ancestral sources. Compare for instance, the dark skin of sub-Saharan Africans with that of the genetically distant Australian Aborigines. Race as commonly understood, is therefore a social construct. But this is not to say that there is no biological variation due to ancestry, only that traditional racial categories are not a good way to understand that variation.

Doctor (VO): Race realists like to use dog breeds as a counterexample that's supposed to show that everything I've said so far would imply that the distinctions between Chihuahuas and Great Danes is a social construct, which they take to be self-evidently absurd. Now, this is a bad analogy, since dog breeds are deeply inbred by human design, whereas human populations are constantly mating outside the group.

Doctor: However, the example does provide an interesting illustration of the relationship between social and constructs and biology. Dog breeds are biologically real because of human social practices. So in a sense dog breeds are biologically distinct, although they are not "natural." And this biology/nature distinction is a useful distinction to have, since radical injustice can lead to conditions of poverty, malnutrition, environmental toxins and so on that then have a biological effect. So, just like with gender, we shouldn't think of race as either biological or a social construct. It's both, and the relationship between biology and society is very complex, and it involves causation in both directions. So when I say race is a social construct, I'm not saying that biologists and anthropologists shouldn't use categories like haplogroups or clines to describe human populations. I'm simply saying that race is at best a very crude approximation of these categories. And that crude approximation my well be useful in certain forensic or medical contexts.

Doctor (VO): But we should keep in mind that categories of race are based more on social and political divisions rather than pure biology. The racial categories used in the U.S census are the product of the political history of the United States. People who we'd consider white, black, and Hispanic here might be categorized totally differently in Brazil, where different demographics and history have led to different race concepts.

Foppington: This is all good and well, but when are we going to measure the skulls?

Doctor: If I may quote a friend of mine, what is it with you people and skulls?

Foppington: Is it so wrong to enjoy the touch of cold bones?

[Calming music swells as the Doctor picks up a skull and starts tapping it and stroking it]

[Part 2: The origin of the idea of race]

Doctor: Race realists like to talk about race as if it were a natural, intuitive concept believed by everyone except a few politically correct postmodernists who've somehow deceived themselves into not seeing the obvious. It's therefore worth looking at the history of the concept of race, to see if it's really as universal as they say. I'll start, like any true defender of Western Civilization, with Ancient Greece.

Doctor (VO): I can find no evidence that the Greeks had anything like our concept of race, that is, a division of human beings into different kinds with unique physical and psychological attributes, on the basis of ancestry. This is not to say that the Greeks had no concept of ethnicity. They definitely did, and a very ethnocentric one at that. There were Greeks, and then there were the obviously inferior barbarians, that is, the non-Greeks. But the Greeks defined themselves, and distinguished themselves from from say, the Persians or Egyptians, by their language and customs, not their biology and ancestry.

Doctor: Aristotle's political philosophy included the idea of "natural slaves," people who by nature the tools and property of the natural masters. Now, Greek slavery was not based on race, so there was no need to introduce a concept of race to justify it. Instead Aristotle introduces a "natural slave" class in order to explain why slavery is totally natural and fine, don't even worry about it like literally at all. But clearly this is just a post hoc biological rationalization for the political hierarchy of the time. There are no Slave Greeks and Master Greeks. But it's a lot easier to see that when your society is not founded on the idea of there being slave Greeks. So with that in mind, it should not come as much of a surprise that Europeans first really started talking abut race in the 17th century, around the time that slavery and colonialism were really kicking into gear.

Foppington: My time has come!

Doctor: Your time has gone.

Foppington: Awwww.

Doctor: Arguably, the ideas of this goddamn bastard [Points off-screen where Foppington is apparently standing] were foreshadowed during the Spanish Inquisition, when Christian converts became suspect and Torquemada began inquiring into defendants' ancestry, using pure Christian bloodline as a criterion for religious authenticity. Race first became the object of scientific study with François Bernier's 1684 treatise on the subject [Image of the study].

Doctor (VO): Until around the time of Charles Darwin, scientific racism was the only game in town, with naturalists, anthropologists, and philosophers generally ranking the races, always with Caucasians at the top, using such scientific criteria as dietary and sartorial customs, physical beauty, and alleged sexual appetite. Here's Carl Linneaus, creator of our genus-species nomenclature, on the subject of "the Asiaticus"

"yellow, melancholic, stiff; black hair, dark eyes; severe, haughty, greedy; covered with loose clothing, and regulated by opinions."

Doctor (VO): And here's Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, on the term "Caucasian," which he coined:

''"I have taken the name of this variety from Mount Caucasus, both because of it's neighborhood, and especially it's southern slope, produces the most beautiful race of men, I mean the Georgian; and because all physiological reasons converge to this, that in that region, if anywhere, it seems we ought with the greatest probability to place the autochthones of mankind." ''

Doctor (VO): And here's Immanual Kant, who never left his hometown:

"The yellow Indians do have a meagre talent. The Negroes are far below them, and at the lowest point are a part of the American people."

Doctor: Wow. Very Science. Much objective. So reason. Basically what happened is that "scientific insights" not much exceeding the drunken hunches of any backwoods doofus were used, along with some self-interested biblical hermeneutics, to justify centuries of slavery and colonization. And the situation didn't improve much by the beginning of the last century, when crude biological determinism was used to justify an American eugenics program of immigration restriction, forced sterilization, and "euthanasia" that later inspired the Nazis. Speaking of which, let's not forget about [Over the top German accent] ze Jews. Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess famously said that National Socialism is nothing but applied biology. We could call this way of thinking bio-politics.

Doctor (VO): The idea is that the nation is the race, and the race is like an organism. So people of other races, homosexuals, degenerates, criminals, "race traitors" and so on are contaminates, vermin, or agents of infection.

Doctor: It follows from this view that immigration should be banned, homosexuals should be "euthanized" or "cured" (this also applies to trans people by the way), and criminals and degenerates should be sterilized. Now, I know you're probably saying: "Godwin's Law! You compare everyone you disagree with to Hitler and the Holocaust!" But look, historical facts are what they are. And I understand that it's upsetting to you that I would dare bring this up, but I don't respect your willful obliviousness to historical precedent. The historical records show that race has always been a political concept, and an extremely dangerous one at that. So my view that "race" is not a valid biological concept is not a case of "political correctness" invading biology. In fact, it's exactly the opposite: an effort to liberate biology from an inherently political concept that it doesn't need and humanity is better without.

Foppington: Yes, yes, but then how will we know which of the four humors the races correspond?

Doctor: Well gee. I guess we'll never know.

[Part 3: Race as a social construct and individual identity.]

Doctor: Race may be a social construct, but it's not an "illusion." It's real in the way that money in real. It effects the way we all experience the world, and real people are privileged and disadvantaged because of it. So even if our goal is a society where race doesn't exist, we can't get there by denying the political reality of race and racial injustice. "Colorblindness" in other words, is not the answer. However, as society becomes more multiracial, and as there are more mixed race people around, it does get harder and harder to what exactly the nature of race as a social construct is. The ambiguity of race was highlighted by the case of [Image of...] Rachel Dolezal, a white woman who fabricated her biography and lived for a decade "passing" as a black woman.

Doctot (VO): Now I'm not convinced there's a legitimate analogy between race and gender when it comes to psychological self-identification, so I don't think Rachel Dolezal is black. But I do think her story raises complicated questions about what makes a person black or white. Is it the way people perceive you? Or a certain cultural upbringing? Or having racial experiences, maybe being disadvantaged or oppressed in certain ways? Because Rachel Dolezal lied about so many of her experiences, she's maybe not a great case study. But suppose, hypothetically, it turned out one of her parents was black after all. Or suppose she were really the victim of hate crimes, or was discriminated against due to her perceived blackness, or suppose she was raised by black parents.

Doctor: I don't think there is a definite answer to whether a person, in those circumstances, is black or white. But I do think that asking the question reveals the inherent ambiguity of the concept of race.

Foppington: Alright, Doc, I can't stand it anymore. When are we going to measure these bones?

Doctor: Oh my god. Shut up about the fucking bones.

Foppington: Well can I at least do blackface?

Doctor: Absolutely not!

Foppington: Why not, are you too politically correct?

Doctor: Well I did this fucking shit [Image of Natalie in Sugar Skull makeup from her "Cultural Appropriation" video] and people still haven't forgiven me.

Foppington: Alright. So hear me out-

Doctor: NO!

Foppington: -It's ironic blackface, like the joke is that it's racist.

Doctor: You are an actual lord of shit, you know that?

Foppington: What if I only do half my face in blackface?

Doctor: Still no.

Foppington: That's not racist is it?

Doctor: No, it's still racist.

Foppington: One dot of black paint isn't racist.

Doctor: Shut up!

Foppington: So how much of my face has to be painted black before it's racist?

Doctor: Look, you wanna measure some bones? Why don't we start with yours? [Pulls out meat cleaver from under the table]

[Foppington backs out of the room]

Doctor: I like to grind the dust of racist bones. [Creepy nursery music plays] I like to mix it with my milk. That's how I stay so white. It's how I stay so puuuuuure.

[Maniacal laughter]

Special thanks to... [Reads credits] and the other enablers of postmodern cultural-Marxist brainwashing.

[Over a game of Pokemon]

Natalie: Like, this is the end goal of Marxism, it's just cockfights, cockfights all day long, especially children, children fighting their cocks!