Race Differences in Ethnocentrism Read online

  The issue of racial classification provoked particular interest over the course of the nineteenth century, with perhaps the best known racial taxonomist of this period being Count Arthur de Gobineau (1816–1882). His Essay on the Inequality of the Races (Gobineau, 1915) was first published in 1855. The issue of racial superiority or inferiority, upon which Gobineau focused, need not concern us here. But it is worth noting that Gobineau’s taxonomy was composed of just three essential races with pigmentation used as the proxy for inter-correlated morphological and behavioural differences: White, Yellow, and Black. Within these broad categories, Gobineau examined various ‘sub-races’, including the Nordic strain of the ‘White’ race. Debate over the precise number of races continued throughout the nineteenth century, but there was general agreement that race was a meaningful taxonomy.

  With scientific advances in the twentieth century, even more data were collected to show that a large number of important differences, which permitted important Life History predictions to be made, clustered along the kind of racial dividing lines suggested by the eighteenth-century scholars. In the early twentieth century, data were collected on differences in the frequencies of blood groups in various populations throughout the world. Hirszfeld and Hirszfeld (1919) proved that the frequencies of a number of blood groups significantly correlate with racial differences in pigmentation and morphology. For example, blood group A is present in 41% to 48% of Europeans but in only about 28% of Sub-Saharan Africans. Blood group B is present in between 10% and 20% of Europeans and in roughly 34% of Sub-Saharan Africans. Native Americans have almost no A or B blood groups and the overwhelming majority possess the O blood group.

  Data on the distribution of the Rhesus (Rh) blood groups were employed by Boyd (1950) to propose a five race taxonomy. This was composed of:

  1. Europeans with high frequencies of blood groups Rh cde and cde;

  2. Africans with very high frequencies of Rh cde;

  3. East Asians with high frequency of B and almost no cde;

  4. American Indians with a very high frequency of O, absence of B, and few cde;

  5. Australids (Aborigines) with high A, negligible B, and cde.

  This analysis demonstrated that blood-group distributions were consistent with the morphological and pigmentation-based racial taxonomies of classical anthropology. A more detailed taxonomy of races was presented by Coon et al. (1950), who advocated seven major races based on available data, each of which was subdivided into two or more sub-races. These were:

  1. Caucasoids: This category was composed of Nordics (Northwest Europe), Slavs (Northeast Europe), Alpines (Central Europe), Mediterraneans (Southern Europe, North Africa, and the Near East), and Hindis of India and Pakistan.

  2. East Asians: This was composed of Tibetans, North Chinese, Northeast Asians (Koreans, Japanese, Mongolians), and the Inuit and similar Arctic peoples.

  3. Southeast Asians: These were the South Chinese, Thais, Burmese, Malayans, and Indonesians.

  4. American Indians: These were divided into north, central, south, and Fuegians.

  5. Africans: These were divided into East Africans, Sudanese, West Africans, Bantu, Bushmen, and Pygmies.

  6. Pacific Islanders: Melanesians, Micronesians, Polynesians, and Negritos.

  7. Australian Aborigines: Murrayian peoples of southeastern Australia and the Carpentarian people of northern and central Australia.

  Baker (1974) advanced a very similar taxonomy, composed of the five races suggested by Blumenbach, adding the Bushmen and Australids (Aborigines and Melanesians).

  Moving into the 1980s and 1990s, increasing advances in the study of genetics further evidenced the meaningfulness of dividing humans into subspecies along the racial lines advanced by nineteenth century anthropologists. Nei and Roychoudhury (1993) and Cavalli-Sforza et al. (1994) developed a novel means of classifying humans into races on the basis of a variety of genetic polymorphisms. A polymorphism refers to a gene that can be composed of alleles which have different forms. Their technique involved taking polymorphic genes for blood groups, blood proteins, lymphocyte antigens, and immunoglobins, and calculating different allele frequencies in populations throughout the world. The results were then factor analysed to discern the degree to which the allele frequencies were associated into population clusters that were genetically similar to each other. Jensen (1998) demonstrated that factor analysing Nei and Roychoudhury’s data from twenty-six populations reduced it to six population clusters. These six major groups of humans strongly corresponded to the six races proposed by classical anthropologists. These clusters were:

  1. Africans of Sub-Saharan Africa (Pygmies, Nigerians, Bantu, Bushmen);

  2. Caucasoids (Lapps, Finns, Germans, English, Italians, Iranians, North Indians);

  3. Northeast Asians (Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, Tibetans, Mongolians);

  4. Southeast Asians (Southern Chinese, Thais, Filipinos, Indonesians, Polynesians, Micronesians);

  5. Amerindians (North and South Native American Indians and Inuit);

  6. Australian Aborigines (Australian Aborigines and New Guineans).

  It should be noted that this does not correspond precisely to the analysis of Coon et al. (1950), which was more strongly based around morphological features. It is, of course, to be expected that if the method employed to categorize (or the definition of a category) changes, then some subjects will end up within a different category, because it is in the very nature of categorizing that some subjects are in an ambiguous position, on the borders. But we can equally see that the results of categorizing employing a genetic method are substantially the same as when employing a morphological method. In addition, we would also expect changes because the method employed by Nei and Roychoudhury is more scientifically rigorous.

  The same technique has been employed by Cavalli-Sforza, Menozzi, and Piazza (1994) to analyse a larger data set of 120 alleles for forty-two populations. These data were used to calculate the genetic differences between each population and every other population. From these, they calculated a genetic linkage tree that grouped the populations into what they termed ‘clusters’. They found ten major clusters. These were:

  1. Bushmen and Pygmies;

  2. Sub-Saharan Africans;

  3. South Asians and North Africans;

  4. Europeans;

  5. Northeast Asians;

  6. Arctic Peoples;

  7. Native American Indians;

  8. Southeast Asians;

  9. Pacific Islanders;

  10. Australian Aborigines and the Aboriginal New Guineans.

  So, what is seemingly the most rigorous analysis we have examined so far again closely corresponds to the racial taxonomies advanced by classical anthropologists. Cavalli-Sforza et al. use the word ‘cluster’ rather than ‘race’. However, it appears that there is little discernible difference between a cluster and a race, and as race is a commonly understood term, we would suggest it is unnecessary and confusing to introduce a new one which means, in essence, exactly the same thing. This caution about the word race seems to be an example of reflecting the fashion of the time because Cavalli-Sforza expressed no such caution in 1976. Bodmer and Cavalli-Sforza (1976, p. 698) note that:

  races could be called subspecies if we adopted for man a criterion from systematic zoology. The criterion is that two or more groups become subspecies when 75 per cent or more of all individuals constituting the groups can be unequivocally classified as belonging to a particular group.

  They continue by observing that when human races are defined broadly, it is possible to identify the race of many more than 75% of the population. Hence races certainly exist among humans.

  However, the utility of race is not limited to physical environmental adaptations and blood types. There are race differences in a number of serious medical conditions which have a genetic basis, further evidencing the degree to which race is a predictive and useful category. Race-based differences exist in a number of genetically based con
ditions including in cystic fibrosis, PKU (phenylketonuria, this leads to retardation and seizures), hypertension, stroke, diabetes, prostate cancer, breast cancer, obesity, myopia, and schizophrenia. These differences have arisen through founder effect, genetic drift, mutation, and adaptation. There is an extensive body of literature on this subject (e.g. Martin & Soldo, 1997) and the differences can be simply illustrated by Bodmer and Cavalli-Sforza’s (1976) examination of cystic fibrosis and PKU in Europeans, Sub-Saharan Africans, and East Asians. Cystic fibrosis is between 54% and 100% heritable (Willis-Owen and Moffatt, 2012, p. 14). PKU is 100% heritable, though its effects can be reduced by a specialized diet (Joseph, 2006, p. 35).

  Table 1. Gene frequencies (prevalence rate in population, %) of cystic fibrosis and PKU in different races (Source: Lynn, 2006).

  Race

  Cystic Fibrosis

  PKU

  Africans

  0.4

  0.3

  East Asians

  0.3

  0.5

  Europeans

  2.0

  1.1

  Austria

  -

  1.2

  Australia

  2.2

  1.1

  Canada

  -

  0.9

  England

  1.9

  1.5

  USA

  1.9

  0.9

  The gene frequencies of cystic fibrosis in Europeans are four or five times higher than in Sub-Saharan Africans and East Asians, while gene frequencies of PKU are around twice as high in Europeans than in the other two races. However, the genes frequencies are quite similar in assorted European populations such as among Austrians, Australians, Canadians, the English, and European Americans.

  Before moving on to criticisms of the concept of race, it is worth noting that there remains debate over the degree to which, and through what means, the different human races are related. The most widely known theory is the so-called ‘Out of Africa Theory’ whereby anatomically modern humans evolved in Africa and began to migrate between 125,000 and 60,000 years ago, displacing proto-humans and Neanderthals. An alternative theory, which is currently gaining traction, is the ‘Multiregional Origins Theory’. This theory proposes that humans may have left Africa around 338,000 years ago. They interbred with Homo erectus and Neanderthals, the latter having limited genetic influence (1–10%) in all human populations with the exception of Sub-Saharan Africans.7 The correct theory of human origins remains a matter of debate and, to the extent that we draw upon a theory in this study, we tentatively assume the veracity of the more widely accepted Out of Africa Theory.

  4. Criticisms of the Concept of Race

  From the eighteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century, almost all biologists and anthropologists accepted that the human species could be divided into biologically distinct races. Thus, in 1922, the Scottish anthropologist Sir Arthur Keith (1866–1955) wrote that:

  So clearly differentiated are the types of mankind that, were an anthropologist presented with a crowd of men drawn from the Australoid, the Negroid, East Asian or Caucasoid types, he could separate the one human element from the other without hesitation or mistake (Keith, 1922, p. xviii).

  However, the scholarly mood, at least in the social sciences, began to change by 1945 when British-American anthropologist Ashley Montagu (1905–1999) published Mankind’s Most Dangerous Myth (Montagu, 1945). Despite the fact that Montagu clearly stated in this book that different races do exist as we have defined them (p. 6), he attempted to suggest that the whole concept of race was fallacious, indeed subtitling his book The Fallacy of Race. Another anthropologist, the American Frank B. Livingstone (1928–2005), published a paper entitled On the Non-Existence of the Human Races, arguing that there were no races, only ‘clines’ (Livingstone, 1962). There is no such thing as a perfect example of a particular category. We conceive of a category when a number of features correlate together and distinguishing these into a category allows correct predictions to be made. A cline, by definition, sits on the borders between two conceptual extremes (i.e. on the borders between two races which we distinguish because so doing permits correct predictions to be made). Thus, there can be no clines if there are no races.

  Perhaps the fiercest criticism of the concept of race in the latter half of the twentieth century has come from the very discipline that once did the most to promote the concept: anthropology. Since around 1900, anthropology in Western Europe and the USA has gradually moved from being a branch of biology concerned with the physical and social evolution of humans, to a highly ideologically driven discipline strongly influenced by such dogmas as cultural determinism (that differences are caused by culture), cultural relativism (all cultures are equal and cannot be compared), and postmodernism (‘truth’ is merely a reflection of the dominant culture, we have a duty to deconstruct that truth and so empower those who lack power). I would aver that these ideologies are highly problematic. As we will see, differences between humans are significantly genetic. Following the test of pragmatism, if all cultures are equal then seriously ill cultural anthropologists should go to witch doctors rather than hospitals, and should not be happy to fly to anthropology conferences, because this implies that Western science is objectively correct. And if truth is merely a construct, cultural anthropologists should test this by throwing themselves off a tall building. If truth is not objective, they should be fine. The precise history of, and reasons for, this shift have been discussed in depth elsewhere (see Dutton, 2012).

  However, in 2004 the American Anthropological Association announced on its website that ‘race is not a scientifically valid biological category’. In the multi-authored volume, Race and Intelligence: Separating Science from Myth, Graves (2002, p. 5) writes, ‘The majority of geneticists, evolutionary biologists and anthropologists agree that there are no biological races in the human species’. Cohen (2002, p. 211) likewise asserts, ‘Almost all anthropologists agree that races in the popular sense do not exist and never have existed’. This is simply incorrect. For example, a 2001 survey of Polish anthropologists found that 75% agreed that there were races (Kaszycka & Strzalko, 2003), and a 1985 survey of American anthropologists found that 59% agreed that there were races (Lieberman & Reynolds, 1996). Interestingly, the chapter summaries in the volume already mentioned include the line, ‘There are no biological races. Human physical appearance varies gradually around the planet, with the most geographically distant peoples generally appearing the most different from one another’. Even if this were true, this does not undermine the utility of race. If a species varies in small ways due to slightly different environments, then those at the extremes will differ so much, and in consistent ways, that it becomes useful, in terms of making correct predictions, to distinguish between them. As we have seen, there exist population clusters which differ significantly due to varying degrees of evolutionary isolation. Nevertheless, there is clearly a vociferous movement in anthropology opposed to the use of the race category. We shall now examine criticisms of race which they and like-minded scholars advance.

  The first criticism is that race has a history, problematic conceptual borders, and is a Western concept (e.g. Diamond, 1994). The same argument could be made about any concept in the English language. The central question is whether it is a predictive category.

  Secondly, it has been noted that the word race can mean different things. Historically, it has been used as ‘culture’ or ‘nation’ is now used. This is irrelevant. We are clear that by race we mean breeding populations separated in prehistory and adapted to different environments. Accordingly, in categorizing an individual into a particular race, we must remember that as in all taxonomies there will be those who are borderline; but it is clear that by race we are referring to the birthplace of the majority of a person’s ancestors within certain time constraints, based on the widely accepted theories of human origins (e.g. Wilson, 1978, pp. 48–49).

  According to o
ur current chronology (e.g. Stringer & Andrews, 1988), Man evolved in Africa. Humans came to Europe about 110,000 years ago and to North Asia about 70,000 years later. Africa ceased to be isolated about 2000 years ago. Assuming about twenty-five years to a generation, a black African is a person most of whose ancestors, forty to 4400 generations removed, were born in Sub-Saharan Africa. In that African Americans are, on average, about 10–25% European, an African American would be a person at least 75% of whose ancestors forty to 4400 generations removed were born in Sub-Saharan Africa. It has been demonstrated that numerous physical traits such as skin colour, lip eversion, hair texture, facial bone structure, and voice timbre (e.g. Putnam, 1975) are shared, to varying degrees, by Africans. This creates an African stereotype, but it is meaningful because all of the significant traits correlate, they are adaptations to the same environment and, as such, they permit significant predictions to be made. The fact that these correlations can be ascribed to most people whose ancestors were born in Africa means that the ‘African’ group can be compared to other groups, and that the average member of the group will react differently from members of other groups in set circumstances because they are adapted to a specific environment. At an obvious level, being dark skinned is useful for avoiding skin cancer. This is what we mean by race and why it is useful and meaningful, at least in terms of physical predictions. If anyone uses race to mean anything else, then our use of race and his are merely homonyms.