This is academic nonsense. Pagel and Mace ignore the historical origins of racism. It is NOT simply fear of foreigners or those who are different. The doctrine of racial purity, for example, demands that the “herrenvolk” reject even close relatives who are culturally and physically like them but of mixed ancestry. The average German Jew was very German. The American or Briton accused of “passing for white” is usually very white in both culture and phenotype.
Racism and xenophobia linked to biological fear of outsiders in Stone Age
By Steve Connor
Science Editor
18 March 2004
Racism and xenophobia could have a deep-seated biological basis dating from our Stone Age past, explaining why people naturally tend to shun outsiders.
For tens of thousands of years prior to the rise of agriculture in about 8,000BC, human societies lived in close-knit tribes of hunter-gatherers which survived best if they distrusted outsiders, according to two anthropologists.
Mark Pagel of Reading University and Ruth Mace of University College London believe this aversion to strangers was more than simply protecting territory but a way of ensuring the greatest degree of altruistic co-operation within a social group. Such behaviour could explain why humans are so culturally diverse, because shunning outsiders would lead to the evolution of different languages and traditions which tend to reinforce differences between tribes and ethnic groups.
Also, see: Are “White” Americans All “Passing as White”? The Alchemy of “Race”
This is a really interesting editorial. I worked for Matt Jacobson for several years at Yale. He is a very nice man. I am a student (non-traditional) majoring in liberal studies with minors in anthro, journalism and urban studies and I have continually asked the questions you are exploring here. One of the problems I see in the issue of disscussing race is that in some of the social studies courses like urban studies and anthro we are introduced to the concept that race is a social construct and then we continue to discuss issues in the context of race. Although I understand that in the real world this construct is not widely acknowledged, I have asked scholars why do we not insist on using a new language to describe the human existance and explore fully what the social construst of race has actually done to the teaching and learning experiences in the U.S. Thank you for a wonderful article.
Please see my review of:
Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race by Matthew Frye Jacobson. Harvard University Press, 1998.
http://www.interracialvoice.com/powell11.html
3/29/2004 5:27:33 PM