The 1893 World's Fair in Chicago was also where two exhibits in particular stirred the American imagination. One was a transplanted Dahomeyan village where African Americans could see real African culture in the flesh. This led to, among other things, the first full length African American musical on Broadway, In Dahomey, created by Will Cooke and Paul Lawrence Dunbar. Much of American popular musical culture can be traced to these authors and their fellow African American poets and composers in Harlem. The other Chicago Worlds Fair highlight was Little Egypt whose scantily clad (for the times) act was accompanied by real Arab musicians. Their wild wailing had a direct effect on Jazz, especially after her act was reproduced at other world's fairs shortly thereafter. Finally, there was also a great upsurge of African American culture just off the Chicago World's fairgrounds, in the form of Ragtime piano being played by Scott Joplin and others on the midway. This was of course the wellspring of both African American classical music and American popular music.
4
We now know that the concept of "race" is a made-up "theory," designed to prop up a sense of superiority, contempt, and hegemony, over others, who looked different from people with pale skin.
4
This is an important statement, and I hope Mr. Herschthal expands upon it in future writings on the subject. My own thesis research on the Kansas-Nebraska Act during the 33rd Congress revealed a deep racist vision among some vigorously antislavery Congressmen. They viewed "American slavery" as a form of "African slavery" brought to these shores. During floor debate there was "applause all over the hall" of the House for the statement that our version of slavery was a form of welfare for inferior blacks who would begin to disappear as they competed freely with free white labor. Of course, not all antislavery or abolitionist Americans viewed blacks in this way and it would be a slander to say they were. But even Wm. Lloyd Garrison was alarmed by the potential political disloyalty of blacks that he saw in the occasional slave revolts. Freedom to blacks, he said, would be practical incentive for their loyalty to America. But this is and remains a delicate historical subject and should be touched only very carefully. Personally, this exposure of scientific racism recalls my hearing Ashley Montagu's excoriation of scientific racism at the University of Kansas in the year before KU put Wilt Chamberlain in a basketball uniform. There were several thousand people in the audience and they listened with profound silence to a brilliant Jew with a great passion on this subject. In a time of momentary darkness in the Sunflower State, I recall this some pride.
There are limits to attaining scientific knowledge and limits to scientific reasoning. We should get rid of attempts to measure IQ and other individual differences. We should treat people by the content of their character.
3
From reading many of the comments on this article, one thing stands out.
The complete difference in everyone’s opinion. Are we from Africa? Or is it Egypt? Today, it’s irrelevant. There should be no dialogue on this issue. For? Against? It matters not.
We are one family and that, to me, is the only premise on which to deny racism. Where each race originated is of no consequence. There is no ‘my origin is better than your origin.’ It’s a moot point.
No racism using the primitive science of the time to justify racism. Not that different that the christian's using their bible stories. Read Stephen Jay Gould's "Mismeasure of Man" the so called scientist of the time bent over backwards to get the results they wanted.
I'm a direct descendant of Elizabeth Cady Stanton (my grandmother's father was a Cady), close friend of Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass.
I also have a personal connection to Neil Gorsuch, our newest "originalist," "textualist" justice on the Supreme Court. Considering Douglass' arguments against "scientific racism," I'm compelled to ask what foundation do the originalists/textualists on the Supreme Court claim in light of the Constitution's granting a black man 3/5ths of the rights of a white man (not woman, since women couldn't vote or own property)?
As with Scalia's many rulings (mainly dissensions; he rarely wrote for the majority, as surprising as that may seem) indicate, he adhered to originalism/textualist when it suited his purposes. I already see indications that Gorsuch will follow in Scalia's ideological footsteps. I'd love to hear what Justice Gorsuch has to say about Douglass' writings and how it influences his "originalist" Constitutional interpretations.
3
Egalitarianism or « égalité « written in Banners ,turns out to be a poisonous affair when ja fraternity synchronization is a basic postulate.
Prosperous economic,social and cultural periods innate conditions for the trias :egalitarity,fraternity and liberty.
In historical perspective these periods discerning itself by openness and tolerance and well understood self interests.
See the history of economic doctrines ,as described by a savant as Joseph Schumpeter.
And we should never forget that Frederick Douglass was able to refute the practitioners of scientific racism without any college degrees or even a primary school certificate. This article is a blessing to us all.
5
A few points about Douglass (and Lincoln).
Douglass and Lincoln started out on somewhat opposite ends, ie, Douglass being the fiery end slavery and forget the constitution to Lincoln's slavery is wrong but we must uphold the constitution.
They become students and mentors of each other and together helped win the Civil War and save the first democracy in 2,500 yrs. and end the evil of slavery.
Re the race thing, I think Douglass was influenced by Lincoln who in his 2nd inag. but many other times chastised people for thinking people were superior because of race, gender, religion.
Lincoln famously said in his 2nd inag. and I am paraphrasing don't do as God thinks is right, do as God has given you the ability to see right from wrong.
Also, despite the fact Douglass was for women's rights, he through them under the bus with blacks getting the right to vote and not women getting it.
He learned from Lincoln, get what you need, not what you want. The country was not yet ready to give women the right to vote.
1
Douglass provided what we need much more of in this country right now. He respected his opponents enough not to demean their persons, while still questioning their logic. He did not fear those he debated, he still respected them as reasonable humans. Too many of today's arguments deal only with demeaning huge categories of people, while trampling roughly over simple logic and science in the process. We should never give up on respect, but still backed with patient logic and reason.
1
It is a shame that Mr. Herschthal is still a slave to the racial thinking Frederick Douglass was trying to overturn.
I recently read that he attended the first women's rights conversation, in Seneca falls new York and spoke decisive that they should fight for the right to vote when some attendees thought that might be going too far.
He should be on everyone's list of great Americans.
8
Not entirely true POCivil. Yes he was for women's rights including the right to vote, but when push came to shove with the amendment to give blacks the right to vote, he through women under the bus because he saw he could not get both.
The country was not yet ready to give both the black and the women the right to vote.
He learned from Lincoln. Sometimes you have to put up with evil to end it.
Women had to wait till app. 1920 to get it across the country.
1
I wish I had half this man's courage and conviction
8
Douglass’ genius was that he preferred to debate racialists on their own terms.
4
Though not intended, the bandying about of the word “science” in this article is regrettable. The methodology of science is not to be confused with the views of some scientists. Many scientists have espoused mistaken views that are not scientific findings at all but their own personal convictions.
Of course, science itself cannot pretend to inviolable accuracy, but its methodology is self-correcting, involving testing against facts and publicly accessible, peer reviewed analyses.
Ethnography, taken to be the comparison and analysis of cultural differences, is about objective observations. Ethnology, taken as the attempt to theorize about ethnography, is definitely more subjective than ethnography, which forms its observational basis. It is more conjectural than the harder sciences, but it need not be a crackpot undertaking.
5
a great american intellectual and hero. Thank you for this article.
14
Frederick Douglas is doing a fantastic job and Trump is recommending him, along with himself, for the Nobel Prize.
15
Whether we are going to enslave a people or go to war with them, or both as was often the case, we first need to dehumanize them.
Obvious examples from our recent history would be the editorial cartoons that depicted German and Japanese people as more animal, or subhuman, that we. The same thing was done to Irish immigrants escaping the British potato famine. Now it is Mexicans and Arabs we want to dehumanize.
One day we will learn that we are all children of the same Universe and that we all love our children and fear the unknown. Or not. If not there is probably a very short future for the human race.
15
Douglass "proved" that ancient Egyptians were African...by looking at the Sphinx? Yeah, sure. In that case, I can look at Amarna-period art and prove that the ancient Egyptians were weird space aliens.
The ancient Egyptians were obviously not black. Their skin was more or less the same tanned olive color as other Levantine-Mediterranean peoples.
Did black people come up from Nubia and take over Egypt for a time, in the 25th dynasty? Yes. Were the ancient Egyptians themselves black people? No. This is entirely uncontroversial among archaeologists, art historians, and population geneticists, and it should be plainly obvious to anyone at all, thanks to surviving ancient Egyptian paintings that show their own skin color in contrast with black Nubians. Big deal.
Were the ancient Egyptians Africans? Sure, geographically. According to our invented boundaries and names for "continents," the ancient Egyptians were an African people. Big deal.
I don't care about or understand the politics behind why people get so excited over this issue, I'm just reporting the fact of the matter.
18
I think it’s hard for us living in 2017 America to conceptualize what it was like during early civilization.
Brutality, racism, sexism - all of it goes hand in hand when considering human interaction through the lens conflict theory.
People of similar appearance thinking they are better then other people who lack said appearance doesn’t seem that farfetched at all.
Douglas's final speech sadly recalls the pronouncements of the tarnished hero Charles Lindbergh when four decades later he spoke of Germany's "Jewish Problem" when the real problem in Germany were the Nazis
4
This scholar failed to mention that the word “ethnology” underwent revisions, and in the 20th century came to denote the theoretical work of anthropology, in contrast to “ethnography,” or empirical work in the field. Loose ends in a piece of writing sometimes distract your reader from what may be your bigger purpose.
3
This is an important comment. Ethnology ought not be equated with racist anthropology. Franz Boas's students sometimes described their work as ethnology. They were adamantly opposed to racist pseudo science.
Douglas is great, but the author is entirely wrong about northern Egyptians. No need to make up history.
7
Wouldn't it be great if they had 23&me in the 19th century? It would've been such a blow for those stuffy old men that sat so highly regarded to find that they/we are all the same.
1
Why do numerous African-Americans continue to assume that ancient Egyptians have the phenotype of sub-Saharan Africans?
Look at modern Egyptians. Does Mubarak look like a sub-Saharan African to you? Look at the wall paintings, which clearly contrasted Egyptians with Nubians, with respect to skin color, hair, facial structure. That's not to say they were white. It's just to deny that because two cultures are from the same continent they have some racial bond.
It is disappointing that an outstanding intellectual like Frederick Douglass bought into this narcissistic fiction. Further, It is irresponsible for the Mr. Herschthal to suggest that anybody "proved" ever such a claim.
9
Why do numerous European Americans continue to ignore the historical reality that the Ancient Egypt was united from the South aka Upper Egypt? The Sahara is very new desert. There is an ethnic cultural continuum across and along the Nile River Valley
Ancient Egyptians painted themselves Obama brown, Europeans Trump white Asians were painted yellow and Nubians Boseman black.
Confusing and conflating color with race reflects disappointing biological DNA genetic scientific ignorance.
1
The author, Ken Kesey, quite long ago wrote, "There are only two races, male and female; everything else is tribal."
That means almost nothing, since how we interpret "male" and "female' is just as much a cultural construct as the meaning of skin color is. Let's move away from all kinds of such binaries that ultimately tend to privilege one group of humans over another.
Donald Trump's good friend, Frederick Douglass (who continues to do great things for his race), also continues to impress. Trump's right - he lives on.
1
Douglass was a radical thinker on so many topics that still resonate today. I recently read his 1845 autobiography/extraordinary memoir and was struck by what he wrote about Christianity in America. Here's an excerpt from the Appendix.
"I find, since reading over the foregoing Narrative that I have, in several instances, spoken in such tone and manner, respecting religion, as may possibly lead those unacquainted with my religious views to suppose me an opponent of all religion. To remove the liability of such misapprehension, I deem it proper to append the following brief explanation. What I have said respecting and against religion, I mean strictly to apply to the slaveholding religion of this land, and with no possible reference to Christianity proper; for between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference -- so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. To be the friend of one, is of necessity to be the enemy of the other. I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial, and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity. I look upon it as the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of all frauds, and the grossest of all libels."
11
William Hamilton's altruism equation helps explain our addiction to racism by providing a sociobiological context for this natural tendency. Douglass was correct in asserting that intermarriage will eventually make the addiction moot. What was unknown at his time was the need for intermarriage as a protection against human extinction. The greatest biological challenge to our species is the microorganism world. African humans who did not migrate from the continent have accumulated the most varied gene pool on the planet. If we are to resist infectious disease we need to disseminate their genes within the human population to increase the incidence of those that would enhance resistance.
1
Back in 1963, I was working for a famous Nobel Prize winner at The National Institutes of Health, He made a very memorable quote in that he noticed that differences in the genetic makeup of racial differences among the human races were very small compared to that of the non-human species, like domestic pets, and that consideration be given on our unique likeness rather than differences. In consideration of this, then any notions of white supremacy needs to be put to rest!
1
I thank Mr Herschthal for his thoughtful article but one thing that was not stated was the psuedo-science of race may not be officially taught today but it is what still guides many in this country in their racial attitudes.
5
I would recommend the late Stephen Jay Gould's excellent book, The Mismeasure of Man. For those not familiar with Gould, he was one of the leading paleontologists of our time (of all time?). This book documents very painstakingly how scientists have brought their prejudices into their work, and race was often the prejudice and motivator. The book is written to be accessible to non-scientists. And there were a lot of scientists who did not like this book. Stuck pigs squealing, perhaps?
6
Homer A. Plessy of the infamous 1896 Plessy vs. Ferguson Supreme Court decision that gave us “separate but equal” laws was a so-called “octoroon” meaning that he was only one-eighth black and could have easily “passed for white.” Even so, laws and customs of that time were rooted in a practice that any evidence of African descent defined a person as a “Negro” and, therefore, unfit for the rights and privileges accorded his fellow citizens.
Clearly “scientists” and the architects of those laws were unaware that ALL living human beings descend from “Lucy” the Australopithecus woman whose skeleton was discovered in 1974 in Ethiopia where she lived about 2 million years ago. Moreover, Egypt is located in Africa. Does that mean that, before Brown vs. Board of Education, “separate-but-equal” laws would have applied to visitors from Cairo?
1
"As proof, Morton noted that the Bible made no mention of Egyptians’ color."
This statement is not scientific, by any imaginable standard. None of this is science. If Frederick Douglass simply read books to debunk it, it could not have been science. This article defames modern science by referring to those who would engage in such dishonesty as scientists, drawing no distinction with the modern practice of science. In an era with climate denial placed on the same footing as honest science, I would expect more from the editorial practices of the New York times.
1
He's continues to do a heck of a job, right, Don?
While clearly some of the pharaohs were black -- http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/02/black-pharaohs/robert-draper-t... -- I doubt that Douglass' rational arguments had much effect on racism or bigotry. These are not rationally based beliefs -- and, hence, reasoning with racists, sexists and bigots is largely a wasted effort. The racists, bigots, sexists and anti-Semites are victims of beliefs that they get from parents, teachers or friends. To condemn them for what they were taught to believe from childhood might suppress the expression of their beliefs. However, when mentally able to do so, everyone has a responsibility to eliminate his or her racism, sexism and antisemitism.
1
A very telling historical piece.
WWII, the Nazis attempt to conquer Europe, enter Northern Africa and betray Stalin to the east. Hitler’s ideology of racial purity is too much for the Nazi party to overcome and, when taken prisoner, as per the Geneva Convention, they had to be ‘housed’ somewhere.
After Great Brittan, France and Italy could take no more, Nazi POW camps started popping up in [50] small towns around America. The prisoners were assigned to work as laborers on the railroads, farms, the interstate highway system, etc., while being treated well and slowly integrating into the communities.
“You can take the dog out of the fight but you can’t take the fight out of the dog.”
Ethnology, in that sense, continues to be a driving force in the White Supremacist movement.
_
Lessons learned. Guantanamo Bay?
2
Is ethnology a real science, or just nonsense akin to phrenology?
I read the wiki article on Levi-Strauss:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_L%C3%A9vi-Strauss
What Lévi-Strauss believed he had discovered when he examined the relations between mythemes was that a myth consists of juxtaposed binary oppositions. Oedipus, for example, consists of the overrating of blood relations and the underrating of blood relations, the autochthonous origin of humans and the denial of their autochthonous origin. Influenced by Hegel, yada yada ...
OK, pure nonsense.
Douglass was far too intelligent, possessing superb critical thinking skills to fall for this BS.
This is is a really great article. It addresses what racist white Americans should be thinking about.
" There is no Negro problem. The problem is whether the American people have honesty enough, loyalty enough, honor enough, patriotism enough to live up to their own Constitution.”
This sums up the problem with discrimination in America (not just racial discrimination) as well as anything any champion of equality has ever said.
Douglass knew that it was not about the scientific proof that black people were inferior - if blacks were truly inferior, there would be no reason for barring black people from the best jobs. If they were unable to handle those jobs they would fail because of their innate inferiority. But he understood that what white segregationist really feared was that blacks WERE just as capable.
In our pantheon of great Americans, Frederick Douglass should be up there near the top.
30
We honor scientists as effective seekers of truth about the world around us not because of their personal intellectual superiority. As Mr. Herschthal documents, these highly trained investigators suffer from the same biases and weaknesses as the rest of humanity. Their advantage stems from reliance on the scientific method, which subjects their findings to the ruthless scrutiny of their peers, whose ambition for prestige provides a powerful incentive to detect flaws in any new theory.
But the effectiveness of the scientific method depends on a willingness of other investigators to challenge the ideas of their colleagues. When a cultural prejudice dominates a society, as racism did in 19th and early 20th century America, sceptics may find themselves excluded from academic preferment. Even those who find a niche in the academy, as Franz Boaz did at Columbia, may encounter problems in persuading other scientists to respect their findings, at least for awhile.
The scientific method remains the most effective approach to discovering truth, but only flawed human beings can implement it.
6
One must assume this is a disguised attempt to defend white supremacy fake science. Be honest about your racism.
Outstanding essay. Thank you to the author for giving us a concise history of Douglass’s tireless fight against the pseudoscience of eugenics. If
8
Unfortunately, eugenics lasted until well into the 20th century. What finally destroyed it was revulsion against the Nazis' use of it to justify their racial policies (which they got largely from the US, by the way). Its proponents didn't realize they were fighting a lost battle until the late '40s.
Science or pseudoscience or whatever [e.g. eugenetics],a measure is how thoroughly it was and is accepted generally ,and implemented.
It isn’t just a totalitarian characteristic!
Different “selling”methods.
Mark the contrast between the eloquence and elegance of Mr. Douglas, born in slavery, mostly self-educated, compared to the crude and simple-minded language of our "president", born into wealth and privilege ... This is a sad and shameful time for the United States.
29
Yes, our "very stable genius" president has demonstrated without a doubt that whites are not superior to any other racial group. On the contrary, whites like him seem to suffer from a pathological inferiority complex that drives them to deride people of color. So sad.
2
Even in the age of Science and Technology we have learned that lies and hate can easily trump truth and facts. No matter how advanced we think we are ignorance seems to still have a way to keep up.
15
As our brilliant president said: "Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who's done an amazing job and is getting recognized more and more, I notice."
7
Everybody has an opinion and then there are the facts. Recent DNA analysis of ancient Egyptians from the Pre-Ptolemaic to the Roman Periods has shown that the populations were not sub-Saharan. In fact, Egypt today shows a much more diverse genealogy (with sub-Saharan DNA) than these ancient populations. See the 2017 study in Nature Communications by Schuenemann, et al.
9
Twisted theories to try to prove Egyptian culture is not African.
DNA Analysis of ancient Egyptians: are they just royalty or do they include common folk? It's not evident in the paper you cited unless I missed it.
There is no question that Egypt is located in Africa near Arabia, but to avoid politically correct fallacies during Black History Month, perhaps we gain via adherence to provable *facts we can easily observe for ourselves.
"Race" really IS a social construct, and the physical differences in what we call "races" really *are evolutionary adaptations to region and Climate. No room here to list them all.
However in none of their Hieroglyphics do Ancient Egyptians depict themselves as Negroid Black Africans. Ancient Egyptians represent themselves in painting and in sculpture as looking very much the same as modern Egyptians look today. Ancient Egypt employed as mercenaries, and held as slaves, Black Negroid Africans that Ancient Egyptians referred to as: "Nubians".
Pharaohs briefly *were white, during the dynasty of the "Ptolemy Kings", which included Cleopatra. The Ptolemys were white because they were Greeks, not Egyptians.
Fredrick Douglass was attempting to intellectually refute the old misleading question favored by Racists to justify "White Supremacy" which was "Why have Negroid Africans left no evidence of Ancient Advanced Cultures?" It was always a sneering rhetorical question clearly meant to illogically imply inferiority among Black Africans. However, to this day, I would rather *honestly answer that question with: "I don't know" than to invent p.c. postulates that fly in the face
of facts easily *observable to all. There is only *one set of *actual facts.
11
It is the fashion today to place African Americans on a pedestal of admiration as the abused and neglected race in America and the White race (whatever these racial distinctions mean). To deny that racism still exists is to deny reality.
But racism towards Blacks in America is largely over-exaggerated because, again, this is the current fad.
To call some white people "racists" because they don't go along with every claim of racism in America is dishonest and intellectually insulting. It only divides us more as a nation and we don't need any division, especially with Trump and the Republican Party running our nation.
2
Actually the Greek assumption of Egyptian titles was a mark of respect . You didn’t see British colonialists calling themselves maharajahs, for the simple reason that the British had no wish to emulate Indians, wisely or not. To the contrary for the Seleucid Greeks, Egyptian culture had a deep attraction.
As to your question, I recommend Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel" which argues that the main reason was geography, and gives excellent reasons for his contention.
1
The Ancient Egyptians were, generally, Africans but apart from a dynasty or two of Nubian rulers, were not black. And the Ptolemies, including Cleopatra, were neither black nor African. Recent studies at the University of Tuebingen have shown that the closest living relatives to the Ancient Egyptians are found in the Middle East and Europe.
6
In other words ancient Egyptians were not black except those who were. Um, I smell bad faith in such circular reasoning. Also why no mention of black Athena or the observations of Herodotus?
"But Douglass also wanted to set the record straight about race, or rather, about racism." Or rather, about race; the author had it right the first time. Race and racism are the same thing. There is no such thing as race. It was invented to justify slavery, plain and simple. This is why, as the author points out, there was no concept of race in antiquity.
1
Europe and racism,racial legislation,registration and classification -citizens !-by race,political ideas,health deviations( definitions ),...a bitter history up until this
very day...
many thanks for your article,I didn't know anything about Frederick Douglass.
Frederic Douglass was a genius and recognized the common humanity of all Americans regardless of skin tone. He also was acutely aware of the failure of America to fulfill its majestic ideal that all men are created equal.
He was precocious as well in recognizing that race is a social construct not an immutable fact. Modern genetics now recognizes that all humans have 99.9 percent the same genetic makeup. Of the O.1 percent of genes that make each of us individuals at most 15 percent are involved in personal appearance. And yes all men originally came from subtropical Africa. What a brilliant man! He is truly a giant in American history!
Today's America would be wise to learn from his wisdom and insights and truth!
3
Douglass was a brilliant man. Unfortunately, some of Douglass' facts were simply wrong.
Egyptians are mostly of middle Eastern and North African stock, not sub-Saharan African stock, and evidence suggests that the sub-Saharan African component was smaller in the past and that in many parts of Egypt, is largely the product of the relatively recent Arab slave trade.
5
He presupposed scientific realism and asserted his opponents' theory was false. Isn't that obvious?
The Right can't handle evolution; the Left can't handle race.
The Left view of race has traditionally been that (a) it exists, but (b) nothing suggests that some races are more intelligent, more advanced, or more human than the others.
What's wrong with that? How is this humanistic and respectful view of the diversity of humankind some sort of racist cultural construct for justifying white supremacy and non-white oppression?
There are claims that DNA studies have shown that race is an illusion. And indeed, the authors of some papers have inferred this from their analysis. But, other researchers have argued that their own work demonstrates the reality of race. The jury is still out.
Hegel has a joke: Q: What color is a cow? A: A cow is black---at night all cows are black. In other words, by extinguishing the light of reason, nihilism solves the difficult problems by making them vanish in darkness.
Well, that's one way of overthrowing oppressive racism, the cheap way. The PC way of the present article.
On the other hand, the substantive way is to recognize the reality of race and then set out to show that it is no basis for oppression of one group by another.
For me, I believe that real science will establish beyond reasonable doubt that these are true propositions. I think we can take our chances with competent scientific analysis of race.
But, there is the outside chance that we humanists are wrong. E.g. maybe whites are inferior to non-whites.
2
@ alyosha
Your analysis is irrefutable only if one defines "race" as "region".
The curly, kinky hair of SubSaharan Africans radiates heat *away from the skull. The straight "flat" hair of European Tribes causes heat to be *retained by the skull.
Brown and black skin is so due to the presence of Melanin in skin cells. Under a microscope, Melanin can be seen to be multifaceted like a cut diamond, thus diffusing concentrated sunlight *away from the skin. White skin *absorbs sun, because the far North *has less Sun, thus burning with too much exposure.
Human sinuses "spin" the air we intake, as the hairs in the nose help sweep particulate matter from the air before it hits the lungs. The wide noses of Blacks, and the "big" noses of Semitic Northern Africans spin air to *cool it before it enters the lungs. The narrower noses of European Tribes spin air to *warm it, to avoid frostbiting the lungs. The small, almost flat noses of Inuit and other Arctic tribes both reduce wind exposure *and the sinuses spin the incoming air to *warm it before it hits the lungs.
There are myriad more "racial differences" that have, as DNA shows, *no connection with anything other *than being regional adaptations to local environment. "Race" was a conceptual theory invented to explain observable physical differences between human beings long before regional evolutionary adaptations were understood and *long before the term DNA even *had a Scientific connotation of any kind.
An excellent article. It shows Douglass to be as gifted a thinker as he was a writer and orator.
24
This is a great history lesson, but is it obvious that it is relevant today? I wonder if the author is not overstating the importance of science to everyday life. The U.S. is having a big argument over immigration right now, for example, but I don't remember proponents or opponents of continuing our current system making scientific arguments (an economics-based argument is "social science," not "science"). Maybe the real change from the 19th century to the 21st is that people have lost faith in science as a source of answers to social disputes.
3
@Philip
"People have lost faith in science," but that reflects the weakness of humans, not of science. Scientists know what must be done to reverse climate change, but if "people" don't want to do it, climate change will happen anyway and it's not the fault of science.
You should go on YouTube and search around for videos by "Race Realists". It's not a recommendation I make lightly. I would warn you that these are vile, horrid people, who say vile, horrid things. They are very much a throw-back to the "Scientific Racists" of centuries past. When you scroll-down to the comments under such videos, you'll find a dreadful swamp of alt-right "white ethno-nationalists" and rabid anti-Semites.
These people still exist, and they very much intend to use a perverse form of "science" to justify their racism, and worse. I want to emphasis that: Their entire project is to use the patina of "science" to grant a false respectability to what is otherwise bog-standard racism and ethno-nationalism (read: Nazism). And they are very effective at convincing young vulnerable people (especially angry young men) that they can "prove" the superiority of "whites" to everyone else.
So... yeah, I think this is pretty flipping relevant today. With due respect, I think it may be you who under-appreciating the currency that such pseudo-science has in some corners of our culture. Moreover, this would be the very same corners of our culture who's voices are loudest to, and most heard by, the side of the immigration debate aligned with our current President, and his administration's hostility towards immigrants not born in Northern and Western European countries. These are the kind of people who think of Charles Murray as a "scientist", and quote him at you ad nauseam.
Why would the humanity of black people in Frederick Douglass’ time or today even be in dispute? What scientific study would prove that blacks aren’t human? During World War II, white American soldiers spread the word to the German people that black American soldiers actually had tails like animals. This story was also spread in England by police there who wanted to discourage interracial dating.
The racist and dehumanizing World’s Fair Exhibit in Chicago in 1893 showcasing Haitians’ and Africans’ living conditions was a precursor to the president’s recent rant about Africans living in huts and, along with Haiti, being backward, outhouse countries. The president forgot to serve watermelon at his White House meeting when he made his remarks.
Blaming science as an excuse for racism is completely asinine. It’s a cancer that has eaten away at the fabric of American society for hundreds of years. Martin Luther King challenged America to “rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed”. After the election of 2016, it's clear that these pleas for tolerance and acceptance of black people fell on deaf ears.
18
That 1893 exhibit would have been praised by Woodrow Wilson and the wave of Democrats who put up all those Civil War statues you are required to be mad about now.
The majority of American voters are twenty-years upset about the farce that we call the immigration system. We welcome a million unasked-for guests a year even now, and working Americans and parents of children catching diseases at school we cured a generation ago know we HAVE to stop this.
Trump is the champ of the inflammatory phrase, but you can disagree with his dictionary while agreeing that we have to have borders and control who comes here.
We need educated, cultured Europeans and Asians but NO more penniless, uneducated, unskilled third-worlders carrying TB, etc. Sorry.
1
"The problem is whether the American people have honesty enough, loyalty enough, honor enough, patriotism enough to live up to their own Constitution.” And the clear answer is a resounding "no."
The Dred Scott decision (1857) rendered by the Roger Taney Court, ruled (7-2) that African Americans were not and could never be citizens of the United States. Long before but long after, most Americans hold to this exquisitely un-Christian and un-Constitutional principle.
We witnessed this in an exquisitely telling way in 2016 when President Barack Obama was denied the execution of one of his Constitutionally-officially prescribed duties by the Senate Majority Leader. The Republican majority on the Committee on the Judiciary refused to consider the president's rights. This refusal was race-based. America yawned.
When his main antagonist on race, Donald Trump, challenged his right to be an American president, America was almost completely indifferent to the insult. They (63-millions) giddily rewarded the white man the presidency, never seriously vetting his suitability and fitness for the office. So much for the Constitution as a defining tenet of the uniquely American experiment of "democracy." It was always just for show; was never heartfelt and generous as Christ demanded.
Frederick Douglass and his towering intellect were unappreciated by whites, educated or no. What's so different from 1861 to 2018 but time? Trump proved last year that he didn't know who Mr. Douglass was.
85
Dred Scott v. Sandford was a legally accurate factually defensible interpretation of the Constitution the Founding Father's made. The Constitution permitted the African slave trade and the apprehension of fugitive slaves while counting 3/5ths of slaves as persons for determining representation in the House. The Civil War left 850,000 dead as the price of abolition, citizen ship and voting for enslaved and free black Africans by amending the Constitution. Plessy v. Ferguson reversed that.
1
While the Republican refusal to consider President Obama’s puck for the Supreme Court was shameful and disgraceful, race had nothing to do with it. They would have done the same had Mr. Obama been white. It was partisan politics, impure and simple.
1
Dred Scott was the wrong decision even when made. It was contrary to English common law, and opposed by people like Lincoln from the start. Incidentally the Massachusetts courts upheld the English common law tradition.
”Though often dismissed today as pseudoscience....ethnology". Often? All real scientists say ethnology is pseudoscience.
1
Just want to say that this is a "wow" piece of writing shining light on a person and their ideas that we're all better off just reading and knowing about. I now want to read more from both Mr. Douglass and Mr. Herschthal. Thank you!
17
“Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is getting recognized more and more, I notice,” said our Preschooler-In-Chief in Feb 2017.
Oy vay.
31
We continue to be (willing) victims of Ethnology to this day. Once an idea comes into dominant practice and is backed up by "scientific" study, eradicating it takes generations: perhaps centuries. The acceptance of racial theories, once unleashed will never be willingly surrendered. It must be proved wrong every single day until it dies. Apparently, even now we do have the flat-earth cults that continuously spit-up old theories that mainstream society has left for dead. Not until the immense stressors of evolving civilizations are all resolved can we be hopeful that simple notions of equality will not be questioned.
2
Every human being on earth possesses African features......because we all started out from there. Some may look at me as "white" but I am as Afro-American as LeBron James. I despise the questionnaires that ask my ethnicity....my granddaughter is part Korean....part Filipino.......part Danish.....part German....part Mexican....part Irish.....part...part....part......Well what is she and why would we ask?
How long will it take us to realize the our "garden of Eden" was somewhere in
East Africa - our once true home.
16
What would Mr Douglas think about the science-based eugenicist ideology such as that proposed by Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood that has led to the abortion of millions of African American babies and the loss of all that those precious lives could have given to society?
2
@Joachim McCallister
Do you really think that women who seek abortions are all familiar with "eugenicist ideology"? Republicans complain about abortions, and they complain about government welfare. But what's the morality of forcing a woman to have a baby, then claiming no responsibility for helping that baby to become a productive adult?
Abortion is a difficult issue. I'll value your point of view much more after you're pregnant.
Thank you, Eric Herschthal.
My already great admiration for Douglass continues to grow.
I'm particularly fascinated with the quotation from his World's Fair speech, because I recently saw a television clip of James Baldwin expressing what I understood as the same concept: that racism or race relations were not the essential problems, but rather manifestations of a deeper national sickness.
I grieve to see how deeply that sickness still infects my country.
22
We don't need no stinkin' science. Right, NRA/GOP ????? SAD.
*Religiously-inspired pseudo-science.
President Grant had a fine way of evaluating African Americans. He observed that they were every bit as good, as brave and as smart as whites when they fought for him during the Civil War and therefore considered them equal.
He was a friend of Fredrick Douglas and Douglas knew that no American worked harder to bring blacks to equal citizenship than Grant. He spent his life trying to achieve this while many abolitionists never came to believe in black equality. When push came to shove they allowed the white South to have their way and establish Jim Crow.
Grant would be outraged that, to this day, black Americans have not achieved economic parity to whites and that America still perpetuates systemic anti-black racism.
33
During his Second Inaugural Address Abraham Lincoln noted that although the both the North and South prayed to God for victory that the Lord apparently only heard and answered the prayers of the enslaved Africans.
Frederick Douglass attended the address and came to the White House for the reception and was nearly denied entrance until he caught President Lincoln's eye and was welcomed in by name and asked his opinion.
What would Lincoln think of the hijacking of his party by the likes of Trump, Sessions, Cruz, Cornyn and McConnell?
John Wilkes Booth was also in attendance at the inauguration and caught in a photograph. Booth also attended Lincoln's last public address from the White House on the Monday of the week he murdered him. Lincoln proposed granting voting and other rights to black Civil War veterans outraging Booth.
1
Good story. Tell the rest of it: upon seeing Douglass, Lincoln asked him what he thought of the second inaugural speech, saying: there is no man's opinion I value more on this
How sad that, after all these years, the problem hasn't changed.
3
I know what you mean, the core 'national problem' seems not to have changed.
For what it's worth, at least science went on to show that Douglass's view was right. Not only is there no longer a field of ethnology, many geneticists and biological anthropologist argue there is no biological basis for clear races of any kind. Different populations, sure, with different histories and DIFFERENT DISTANCES FROM THE EQUATOR. Basically we all happen to have our various corners of the big human gene pool.
But SO many people don't even want to understand this. That's the part that hasn't changed, sadly.
2
And over a century later, James Damore (of Google infamy) is making the same arguments about sex differences.
4
There is only one multicolored multiethnic multinational origin biological DNA genetic evolutionary fit human race species that began in Africa 300,000+ years ago.
Color is an evolutionary fit pigmented response to differing levels of solar radiation in isolated populations at altitudes and latitudes primarily related to Vitamin D production and protecting genes from damaging mutations.
Color, ethnicity and national origin as racial markers is a malign white supremacist American historical myth meant to legally, morally, politically and economically justify humanity personhood denying African enslavement and equality defying separate and unequal African Jim Crow.
Mr. Douglass got the human race biological science right in an age when genes and DNA were unknown factors in Darwin's theory on the origin of species by evolutionary fit natural selection.
See "The Emperors New Clothes: Biological Theories of Race at the Millennium ; "The Race Myth: Why We Pretend that Race Exists in America" Joseph L. Graves
3
Perhaps it is only me,
but it seems that while slave holders may have justified
enslaving people of a 'ebony' via their views on "Race"
the bottom line was money - it was very, very profitable
to run a large plantation with slave labor.
We deceive ourselves if we think otherwise and the
same reason exists today as to why African-Americans
are treated so poorly by both political parties.
The Democrats take African-Americans for granted and throw just
enough money at the problems to keep the lid on.
The Republicans cut as close to the bone as they
can and tell African Americans it is their own fault.
Neither party does any real and lasting good.
Those at the bottom of the Economic Pyramid
will be left to suffer and forever told it is their own fault.
3
@ John Brown
On the eve of the Civil War the 4 million enslaved Africans in a nation of 30 million were worth more than all of the other capital assets in America combined except for the land. Every white person benefited from enslaved labor whether or not they owned any slaves.
See "The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism" Edward Baptist
1
My question to those who believe in racial supremacy- was Jesus White? Where was he born? Who were his parents? Could he be European, given what we know about Europe 2000 years ago?
The answer is quite clear- Jesus was a middle eastern man born to a middle eastern mother and (if you are Christian) God (or if Muslim then God is not the father, but rather allowed the formation of Jesus with neither sperm nor divinity). The chances of Jesus being white (read Western European) is abysmally low to non-existent. Most whites were, frankly, barbarian tribes during this time period. The chances that a family or single person trekking from Gaul (France) or modern day Germany to the Middle East and settling down to have their own kids was small. Further, the chance the children would continue to look white as generations passed would shrink with each generation and more and more middle eastern genes are mixed in. Anyway, the point of this is to understand that race is not a marker of natural supremacy. The names of religious characters are also an interesting point for me- the would not have been called Mary or Joseph or probably even Jesus. The closest things we have to their names are perhaps the oldest Latin texts of the Bible (unless there are some written in Aramaic or some other language earlier than after the adoption of Christianity by the Roman Empire) and, ironically, the Quran, which Muslims boast has not changed since it was written. Just a head up to everyone!
6
Except that Europeans were not "barbarians" before Christ. Some civilizations (e.g., Greeks) predate Christianity and Islam by centuries....
1
"The problem is whether the American people have honesty enough, loyalty enough, honor enough, patriotism enough to live up to their own Constitution.”
Frederick Douglass was an incredible intellect and a great American. It's sad that his words still resonate today.
26
Douglass remains a wholly under-appreciated figure in our literary and sociopolitical canon. He was prescient, among his many other amazing qualities. Eugenics is making a comeback, all in the name of progressivism and enlightened science. Want a baby? No need to marry and have one the old fashioned way. Pre-select one from an intellectually superior and racially pleasing pool of genetic baby-making material. Criminal justice? Enlightened "science" gave us the Federal Sentencing Guidelines in the 1980s and 1990's (led by the efforts of Justice Breyer, a liberal's liberal), which hollowed out communities by destroying entire generations of black and Latino men. The Times thought it all a brilliant idea back then. After all, the scientists said so. They are always right. This is now remerging with "scientific" algorithms which tell us who to hold on bail and who not to hold on bail. Douglass rightly pointed out that scientists are not omniscient, though we so want them to be. My scientists say global warming is a hoax! My scientists say global warming is real! Etc. But they are only human. And so they are fallible and suffer from their own biases. As Douglass might agree, history keeps repeating itself, over and over again.
5
These first 7 comments are all great comments. Thank you, everyone.
I’d argue that, other than Native Americans, African-Americans are the only other true Americans. They were dragged here by slave traders, families broken apart, former tribal allegiances completely dismantled. They had to create their own culture just to survive, just to maintain their sanity. Look at their unique contributions to art and music. Let’s face it, we wouldn’t have The Rolling Stones without African American influence, and the unique and utterly creative nature of just the music they produced, not to mention their many other contributions, in the face of overwhelming oppression and misery. It was that very misery that gave rise to the uniquely nature of the Blues. That required not just talent, but courage and commitment.
Slaves banded together under the harshest of circumstances to create what is probably as close as we can get to original American Culture (again, Native Americans aside for this argument).
Did Morton think Native Americans were also inferior? Based on what evidence?
We have a pretty good idea of how Homo sapiens came to populate the entire world. We may look and act different, but we are all the same.
4
Scientific racism is alive and well. Like Confederate VP Andrew Stephens, academic Jordan Peterson is a white segregationist, and when he is one of the speakers at a university-sponsored panel discussion, he presents his justification system for the segregation of the races. "The disgust mechanism serves a protective function." I applaud Peterson for his honesty. He reveals the essence of the political soul of the many who agree with him: disgust. Scientifically, he justifies his disgust by presenting it as a survival instinct.
The Republican base does not care about policy, the Republican base cares about the aspect of American culture that disgusts them: integration.
Those of you who are not comfortable with integration, please raise your hand.
2
Science is the best defense against racism. All humans arose in Africa and all of today's human beings have almost no variance in their DNA--there is more variety in a single, small, group of chimps than in the entire human population. That important piece of knowledge should be enough to undermine racism. Whatever racism is leftover isn't scientific.
2
I'm going to challenge your statement that "Science is the best defense against racism" because we have scientists like James Watson, Henry Harpending that did great scientific work and espoused views as detestable, specifically in the case of Henry Harpending, like promoting eugenics, arguing that money spent towards education "is wasted, because variation in test scores is due entirely to the racial makeup of the test-taking populations." (https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/henry.... Harpending was a frequent speaker at far-right and white supremacists events.
If you take the argument of Morton that blacks and whites descended (or arose) from different sources, then why stop there? Under this flawed logic, different ethnicities could also have evolved from different “trees”. No. Homo Sapien evolved from the same origin species, and to argue otherwise is foolish with all the scientific advances since the early 1800s. This isn’t a debate we should be having.
Amazing that Douglass had such awareness back in the 1840s to realize and refute this argument. But for too long, and probably continuing today with certain alt-right/racial purist groups, there is some master race that is somehow “smarter” than all the other fictitious trees.
That such an argument could be even considered in the 21st century shows just how far we have to go. And Douglass, after all, had a white father. If these different evolutionary paths had been that well drawn, it would have/should have been impossible for the different races to produce offspring.
We all evolved out of the same primordial ooze millions if not billions of years ago. Yes, there were many branches from there, but Homo sapiens followed one path, we all come from the same place. Variations on skin color are completely useless.
We all contribute differently based on our individual attributes. That doesn’t mean we came from different places, with different genetic ancestors. Sorry alt-right, in this regard, all humans are the same.
2
I heard he’s doing great work.
11
Zing!
Let's not overstate Douglass' scientific arguments here. This lecture was years before Darwin was published, decades before the fossil record emerged, and Douglass held prevailing beliefs (i.e., about phrenology, transmission of intelligence exclusively through the female, etc.) which have long since been discarded. Other than his conclusion, we're likely to find little of his scientific analysis "every bit as relevant today."
What is relevant today, and the reason we celebrate his birthday, is because of his moral compass, vision and modern political savvy, combined with energy, eloquence, intellect, courage and powers of persuasion.
He promoted and personified the unity of all mankind, and relentlessly pointed out the contradictions in a democracy that refused to embrace it.
It's a shame that the science caught up with him a lot faster than the democracy did.
12
An informative, fascinating op ed on Douglass.
See NY Times in 2000--- "Do Races Differ? Not Really, DNA Shows.."
Quotes:
"The criteria people use for race are based entirely on external features that we're programmed to recognize. Our whole social structure is based on visual cues, and we've been programmed to recognize them."
"If you ask what percentage of your genes is reflected in your external appearance, the basis by which we talk about race, the answer seems to be in the range of .01 percent,"
"Scientists say that while it may be easy to tell at a glance whether a person is Asian, African or Caucasian, the differences dissolve when one looks beyond surface features and scans the human genome for DNA hallmarks of "race.….the standard labels used to distinguish people by "race" have little or no biological meaning."
Compared to other democracies we have a large % of minorities in the population, who were once owned by whites, seen as inferior, but who eventually had to be integrated as equals into society. They didn't get voting rights in many states untiil the 1960s, within the lifetimes of many people living now.
Yet the US was once the most progressive country in its Constitution, advancing rights of average white people. We were a role model for European class stratified countries way back when. Now we are going backward in race relations and economic equality.
2
The most brilliant sentence in this piece was the very first one:
"The 200th birthday of one of America’s greatest thinkers, Frederick Douglass, is being celebrated this month"
Why is that sentence the most brilliant? Because Herschthal didn't include that INFURIATING caveat "greatest black thinker", he wrote "greatest thinker". And that makes all the difference in the world.
When my son asked me about skin color when he was a very small boy, I said that the southern hemisphere was hotter and sunnier and therefore more people had darker skin to help protect from the sun. He said he wished he did too - because sunscreen always got in his eyes (I did explain that black people need sunscreen too, but in his mind, even applying a little less often would be unbelievably awesome.)
The point is - it doesn't take much to explain differences in a way that is not 'less than' or 'more than' - it's humanity, and we're the richer for it.
21
I am being nit picky. But the southern hemisphere is just as cold as the northern. The equatorial regions of both hemispheres are warmer.
1
There are certain human beings whose genius is unfathomable. Albert Einstein, Ludwig van Beethoven, Grace Hopper. We could all make our list, but I don't know of any that could not have Frederick Douglass' name on it.
2
"Though often dismissed today as pseudoscience, at the time Douglass was writing, it was considered legitimate. "
This statement instantly made me think of global warming.
2
People always talk of logic and reason, but they forget that many of society's ills come from emotion. No matter how smart, educated, and scientifically-minded you think you are, emotion and popular opinion clouds all logic.
2
I join other commenters in thanking you for sharing this nice opinion piece about the great Frederick Douglas. But I have to point out the correct title of an article celebrating the 200th birthday of one of America’s greatest thinkers (as the authors rightly call him) should be "Frederick Douglass’s Fight Against Pseudoscientific Racism". The term "Scientific Racism" is a misnomer or - even better - an oxymoron, and should not be dignified by being part of the title of this commemorative piece.
3
How fortunate we are that President Trump,just last year, reminded us that Frederick Douglas did "an amazing job" in ending slavery and that he is "more and more" being recognized for it. What an outstanding and informed President.
1
This is an unfortunate essay, as what it calls "scientific racism" is exemplified by the era ending in the nineteenth century, when tools of analysis such as DNA didn't exist. Most research on advanced new pharmaceuticals report the effects by race, as there are often differences in efficacy.
The science of evolution must include the incremental changes within species that can lead to branching off to new species. Such incremental variation, referred to as sub-species, among humans we use the term "race."
The relative "superiority" of one element - IE: height, life span, disease propensity -- is situational and a response to slightly different environments. Google the term "ethology" to find many state of the art scientific essays about this phenomenon among all living organism.
While those who believe we are God's special creation may deny it, that is what we humans are.
4
This is amazing. Americans in the 1840's were waving the Bible to justify racism and were pretending that God used human stenographers to communicate. For a significant portion on the U.S. population, very little has changed. Progress in the human endeavor is maddeningly slow.
5
This is a cautionary tale that should make many of us think who vehemently advocate certain social theories that are so popular today.
2
This column claims:
"Among the most important to Douglass was Morton’s claim that ancient Egyptians were white. For that theory to work, Morton needed to explain away the fact that ancient Egyptians were Africans ..."
Fortunately, we now have scientific evidence on this question. From "Nature" in 2017:
"The study, published on 30 May in Nature Communications, includes data from 90 mummies buried between 1380 bc, during Egypt’s New Kingdom, and ad 425, in the Roman era. The findings show that the mummies’ closest kin were ancient farmers from a region that includes present-day Israel and Jordan. Modern Egyptians, by contrast, have inherited more of their DNA from central Africans. …
"Both types of genomic material showed that ancient Egyptians shared little DNA with modern sub-Saharan Africans. Instead, their closest relatives were people living during the Neolithic and Bronze ages in an area known as the Levant. Strikingly, the mummies were more closely related to ancient Europeans and Anatolians than to modern Egyptians.
"The researchers say that there was probably a pulse of sub-Saharan African DNA into Egypt roughly 700 years ago. The mixing of ancient Egyptians and Africans from further south means that modern Egyptians can trace 8% more of their ancestry to sub-Saharan Africans than can the mummies from Abusir el-Meleq."
So, classical era mummies were about 8% sub-Saharan black by ancestry, which isn't insignificant but isn't all that much either.
13
I appreciate you contributing this research, but it seems to miss a couple points. First, it looks like modern Egyptians only have “8% more” sub Saharan ancestry than ancient Egyptians, so if the ancients had 46% then the moderns have 54%. Unless it’s in proportion to their percent, then, maybe ancients had about 48% to modern’s 52%.
This looks like a pretty fine distinction. Like, those ancients had one or two more middle eastern ancestors than the modern average. Which makes you wonder, were the nobles like European nobles? Maybe they just had a few more political marriages than the locals.
So here we arrive at the second problem, Douglas wasn’t likely fishing in Egypt for the precise portion of African identity ancient Egypt presents, he was trying to refute the “backward African” view prevalent among American scientists.
Americans enslaved, dehumanized, and punished Americans with African heritage, and then joked that they couldn’t pass the same tests as the elite white kids. It was miraculous that Douglas got out and managed to show us what a thinking person might say despite the prevalent racism of Americans back then.
So it’s interesting that we are still trying to figure out how “African” ancient Egyptians were. Hasn’t Egypt always been part of Africa? Are all Americans Trump? Maybe it’s still good to study this to understand the flow of people for historical and cultural reasons, but (hopefully) this isn’t about defending Africans’ humanity. We’re all human.
1
Thank you Steve Sailer.
That was a very interesting observation.
.
There is a lot of confusion when we don't distinguish between the continent "Africa" with the phrase "sub Sahara Africa".
1
Interesting only when you're interested in denying black genetic ties to Egypt. That's refuted by the comments here that show both that there are sub-saharan genes and that black genetics cannot be confined to the sub-saharan. So what's really interesting HH is how you missed all that?
Thank you! We still need to hear Douglass on living up to our ideals.
2
Though this is an opinion piece, Douglas' issue was not with white people but racism. Even Nat Turner who was a Virginia slave preacher and was black lead an insurgency that killed 60 whites before he was captured and executed. Since the author is writing a book on science and the anti-slavery movement, his mistake on this does not bode well for the accuracy of his book.
1
Been hearing lots of good things about this guy.
2
Very interesting. I look forward to the book.
Racism in America is the manifestation of the ordinary employee-supervisor work relationship. Superior-subordinate politics. Black people then were like the Walmart 'associates' of today.
Imperial Russia never participated in the slave trade and even then they sent diplomatic messages to other countries that practiced it stating their objections. Black people in Russia were able to advance to the highest levels of professional accomplishment. There weren't many blacks in Russia because they didn't transport them by the millions into the country as slaves.
Alexander Pushkin was a mixed black with black features. He's their most revered poet.
1
Scientific racism is fringe science, until they catch a ride on a rising racist swell. Douglass battled the scientific defense of slavery leading up to the Civil War, then Jim Crow. Today the altright promotes Charles Murray's pseudoscience in our Trumpian racist atmosphere. The discovery that English Cheddar Man 10,000 years ago was brown-skinned, that James Watson, a Nobel Prize Winner but racist, and human genome guy Craig Venter were genetically closer to Korean scientist Seong-Jin Kim than to each other are known to the elite, but not the masses. Even for Douglass, the science was overshadowed by his eloquence on history, society, and politics as a writer and speaker. We need to fight racist politics in power.
2
One simply has to visit a modern day care center to clearly see that racism is learned not born into a person.
1
Frederick Douglass's desire to quell "white privilege" was as unsuccessful then as it is today. "White privilege" incentives people with lighter skin-color to perpetuate the prerogatives they attain by just being born with light skin-color.
Our history on this continent is based on racism. Colonists used this idea that the white race was superior to justify the land grabs and slaughter of the Native Americans. Later when indentured servants kept running off this idea of racial superiority was expanded to justify the import of African slaves. Europe may have had their class system but Americans have always had a system based on racism.
There will always be those who ignore new information and facts that counter the narrative that white people built this country and belong at the top. Thankfully we've always had people like Frederick Douglas who defy this mistaken belief system. I'm glad that our view of our own history is being expanded to include minorities who for so long have been silenced even though they have done so much to make our country what it is today.
I hope that we will be introduced to others who also contributed to the understanding that race is a social construct. We need more heroes especially those whose stories haven't been told because of our history with racism. Doing so would help humanize those who are different.
1
"He found it in the ancient pyramids and the majestic sphinxes, with their undeniably African features."
What are the undeniably African features of the sphinxes and ancient pyramids? It is not possible to deny that the sphinx looks like (presumably) Sub-Sarahan African people? Is this really an argument this author wants to make?
Douglass "published another essay proving that Egyptians were, in fact, African." I think its pretty hard to deny that a country in Africa is African. But, as for the Afrocentric pseudo-history the author is implying, I have my doubts. The irony of this editorial is that the author engages in anti-scientific obfuscation to achieve a popular, political end; the opposite of what Douglass advocated. We are all aware that this editorial is in fact an arguing that the Egyptians were black, which is disputed and largely meaningless. Not that they were African, which is tautological.
9
Luke Well, apparently Douglass wanted the world to admit that people who looked like him may have built the pyramids etc. Not white Europeans.
In Douglass' time, art, illustration & theatre portrayed ancient Egyptians as dark-haired whites -- as was also done in 20th century movies as well as art. In other words, ancient Egyptians are often popularly thought of as looking the same as Europeans.
Yet 20th century anthropologists used actually to describe some African ethnic groups as "Nilotic" (after the Nile) -- the Masai, for instance -- because they physically resembled figures in Egyptian wall paintings.
Some ancient Egyptian art does show people who could be European. And some scenes show other Africans as looking more 'African' - darker & different from the Egyptians.
But a lot of the figures look more like Masai than like white Europeans.
By the way, "having doubts" about "pseudo-history" sounds kind of ludicrous. Maybe you should have re-read that sentence before posting it.
As does the conservative notion that whether the Egyptians "were black" is "largely meaningless." White nationalist & other 'tradition'- trumpeting conservative types would never make anything of the idea that Africans who look 'black' lived in huts, while the Africans who built the pyramids & a great historical civilization looked like Richard Burton. Yeah right, meaningless.
Your heart has to go out to Frederick Douglass.
I’ve known several Alzheimer’s sufferers, and two of them were extremely intelligent, accomplished people. Imagine how such people who led rich lives almost entirely of the mind, full of contribution, felt as their minds began to disintegrate. Imagine the point at which they still had just enough left to know that technology would not develop fast enough to save them, and that what had been lost was gone forever. What a hideous way to descend and to die.
Frederick Douglass died at age 77, in 1895, a very advanced age for his time and particularly for a black man who once had been a slave. For his entire life he toiled brilliantly for a full measure of dignity, for himself, for his five children and for all black Americans. How did this man who had suffered so much, accomplished so much, meet his own death while viewing the flowering and gathering strength of Jim Crow? Alzheimer’s patients leave a world too soon and hideously that they had mastered with their minds -- in the end … mindless. Douglass died of a heart attack in full possession of his faculties, but an old man who had dedicated his entire life to fighting racism and who knew that he had stood tall, fought hard and made his personal dent in history … but that, in the end, racism had won during his life. He would not see his children truly free and equal in America.
I can’t imagine that his death was less bitter than those of the Alzheimer suffers I knew.
5
A disturbed, inaccurate interpolation of the Frederick Douglass' mindset, and wrong as usual, Richard.
In fact, Frederick was a bastion of energy, hope, optimism and justice until the end.
On his last day, "Douglass drove into Washington from his residence, about a mile out from Anacostia, a suburb just across the eastern branch of the Potomac, and at 10 o'clock appeared at Metzerott Hall, where the Women's National Council was holding its triennial. Mr. Douglass was a regularly-enrolled member of the National Women's Suffrage Association, and had always attended its conventions."
"Although it was a secret business session of the Council, Mr. Douglass was allowed to remain, and when the meeting had been called to order by Mrs. May Wright Sewall, the President of the Council, she appointed Miss Susan B. Anthony and the Rev. Anna H. Shaw a committee to escort him to the platform, where most of the delegates, not more than fifty in number, were sitting. Mrs. Sewall presented Mr. Douglass to the Council, and contenting himself with a bow in response to the applause that greeted the announcement, he took a seat beside Miss Anthony, his lifelong friend."
"He left the hall on the adjournment of the session, about 5 o'clock, dined at home, and then had a chat in the hallway with his wife about the doings of the council. He grew very enthusiastic in his explanation of one of the events of the day, when he fell upon his knees, with hands clasped...and died".
https://goo.gl/C2KQ37
23
"He would not see his children truly free and equal in America."
It would have been just as accurate if it had read, "He would not see his great-great grandchildren truly free and equal in America."
Richard, I have read many of you comments and you generally condemn racism. Your comments are always well written. However, I can't quite understand this one. Alzheimer’s disease is indeed terrible. I'm just don't quite understand what Alzheimer’s has to do with Fredereick Douglass.
2
For me ironically sadder is the fact that he was slated to give the unveiling speech for the glorious Shaw memorial but it was so long delayed Douglass died. Instead that speech was given by Booker t. Washington. Their differences cannot be overstated. BT washingtin: work and win by superior service. Douglass: power concedes nothing without a struggle.
Nice article.
It is easy to see how Agassiz Morton would have such a devoted scientific AND folk following in the US. What is perhaps lost here is how social, political and cultural trends affected the scientific analysis more generally.
Almost without exception the biological and philosophical commentators of the 18th century rejected biologically fixed races entirely. Indeed, they pretty much had to. They were champions of social equality in an age when elite claimed their privileges were their by right of birth-literally. Accept fixed biological races and their opponents would then argue that things like class and nobility were biologically determined also.
So they were radical environmental determinists. People in, say, Tierra del Fuego might be a debased form of humankind, but only because their environment made them so. Ship them off to France and watch them quickly improve over the generations--physically and mentally. Ship French to Tierra del Fuego and they would quickly be indistinguishable from the locals. [Interestingly, while otherwise an Enlightenment thinker, American Thomas Jefferson ran a bit counter to the mainstream here.]
All this went right down the tube as a result of the huge right wing political counter-reaction after the fall of Napoleon. Only then did notions of fixed, graded human races move from the fringes to being mainstream in Europe.
5
Sandwiched on either side of his great intellectual works were those of Social Darwinism. First by Herbert Spencer in 1850 with "Social Statics" and latter in 1871 by Charles Darwin with "The Decent of Man". Mr. Douglass was a stalwart against the prevailing winds, whose clear voice still speaks to us today. If we as a nation would have only listened to this great man, what a different world we would be living in today. Thank you for speaking truth when others spoke only for themselves!
18
Douglass himself is proof that not all blacks are inferior to all whites. If a society segregated by ability is desired, the way to achieve this is obviously to administer tests, tattoo the results on the faces of the tested, and treat them accordingly. The results of this testing then become the individual's destiny in a self-fulfilling prophesy. Skin color is obviously a poor substitute for such testing.
The reasons why skin color rather than individual testing has been used, and individual testing has never been seriously advocated, are obvious. People say, or used to say, they want a level playing field, but what they want as shown by their behavior is a playing field tilted in favor of them and their offspring. This is now achieved on a family level, as advantaged families provide better education and an advantaged environment to their offspring, thereby passing their status on to the next generation. Advantage redistribution is in reality as unpopular as income redistribution; as long as Oprah or Richard Wright are possible there is no need to address the conditions under which they grew up.
20
Actually such testing is highly flawed because many such instruments accidentally contain class, race and cultural biases that tend to advantage middle to upper class whites. This is a problem inherent in scientific research because scientists' own social locations and experiences make it very difficult to carry out scientific research while also being fully conscious of their own personal biases. In other words, many scientists cannot move past their personal perspectives in order to develop knowledge and create measuring instruments that do not contain any bias.
Scientists are humans, and like every other human they are raised in particular social contexts that shape what individuals understand to be "reality." Consequently, despite scientists' best intentions scientific investigation has frequently not been carried out in a value free manner.
Also, since society constructs values and norms, any testing of qualities defined as superior would automatically be biased by whichever group is powerful enough to create and maintain the dominant ideology. So just as the dominant white middle to upper classes has historically defined being white as a superior quality, measuring a different quality would still produce social inequality--but this would merely produce a different system of inequality. What we really need is full equality, no matter what characteristics individuals or groups possess.
8
Such tests are imperfect, like the tests in European countries that sort students tu University or trade school. But they are still muchfairer than skin color or ethnic origin.
1
Just to reiterate the rancid, racist white supremacy that permeated the South and parts of the North during Frederick Douglass’s life, look at the Cornerstone Speech by Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens on March 21, 1861 before the Civil War began.
Stephens argued that advances and progress in the sciences proved that the 18th-century view that "all men are created equal" was erroneous, and that all men were not created equal.
He stated that advances in science proved that enslavement of African Americans by white men was justified, and it coincided with the Bible's teachings and that the Confederacy was the first country in the world founded on the principle of racial supremacy:
"Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science."
Historian Harry Jaffa said "this remarkable address conveys, more than any other contemporary document, not only the soul of the Confederacy but also of that Jim Crow South that arose from the ashes of the Confederacy."
Frederick Douglass was one of our finest Americans.
116
...and, as I've been told by the best people, he is still doing a great job. Too bad reality ain't following along.
2
@Socrates
Your comment is brilliant. Thanks for this.
You might be interested in the Rev. Fuller vs. Rev. Wayland letter debate over slavery.
Fuller is one of the founders of the Southern Baptist SBCC that had split off from the northern Baptists over slavery.
1
Frederick Douglass speaks to us down through the centuries.He was a visionary in his own time and his words still resonate.He asks whether the American people have the loyalty, honor and patriotism to live up to their Constitution.We all now are fearful that our Constitution will not be honored.Thank you, Mr.Douglass!
52
The legacy we have inherited is not only of slavery (and the genocide of indigenous people), but of the strenuous efforts of pseudo-science and propaganda used to explain it. If slave owners had said, in effect, "this is our economic system and we have the power to enforce it," then the end of the system might have been more complete. Instead, we still live with this poisonous idea that "race" has biological reality, even as decades of anthropology and molecular genetics shows us plainly that it does not.
I've been an admirer of Mr Douglass' work for a long time. As an anthropologist, I thank you for sharing this additional reminder of his greatness and foresight.
38
Science, and basic human decency, have validated Frederick Douglass' thinking and words.
'The first modern Britons, who lived about 10,000 years ago, had “dark to black” skin, a groundbreaking DNA analysis of Britain’s oldest complete skeleton has revealed.
The fossil, known as Cheddar Man, was unearthed more than a century ago in Gough’s Cave in Somerset. Intense speculation has built up around Cheddar Man’s origins and appearance because he lived shortly after the first settlers crossed from continental Europe to Britain at the end of the last ice age. People of white British ancestry alive today are descendants of this population.
It was initially assumed that Cheddar Man had pale skin and fair hair, but his DNA paints a different picture, strongly suggesting he had blue eyes, a very dark brown to black complexion and dark curly hair.
The discovery shows that the genes for lighter skin became widespread in European populations far later than originally thought – and that skin colour was not always a proxy for geographic origin in the way it is often seen to be today.
Tom Booth, an archaeologist at the Natural History Museum who worked on the project, said: “It really shows up that these imaginary racial categories that we have are really very modern constructions, or very recent constructions, that really are not applicable to the past at all.”'
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/feb/07/first-modern-britons-dar...
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Socrates, old fellow, when, oh when, can we convince the citizens of Athens that there are no races of humans, except at the Games of Olympus? If we must make an issue of it, let/s say we have "breeds." Yes, those who don't idolize dogs will be offended. But those of us in love with our own mongrel, or more nobly, our street corner setter, will be offered innumerable instances of private amusement as we watch the passing horde of Lucy's children.
Thank You
3
Twenty years ago they discovered a direct descendant of Cheddar Man living in present day Cheddar just a hhalf mile from his burial site.
http://articles.latimes.com/1997-03-09/news/mn-36565_1_cheddar-man
3
As it was then, so it is now. People who accept fake science without question refuse to learn better when exposed to the real thing.
60
One thing to consider when condemning 'fake science' is the varied reality in which every person exists. Your science could very well be crazy-talk to another person, just as the barbaric science from our own country's past is laughable to our present 'evolved' thought. How evolved is it really? What will your grandchildren call your science?
2
There is no "fake science." There is only science.
Science is the best natural explanation for observed natural phenomena based upon the best natural data. Science is based upon double-blind controls of known limited factors that provides predictable repeatable results.
Neither politics nor economics nor sociology nor theology are science. There are too many unknowns and variables.
1
Whereas in physics everything is known and cut and dry?