Group items tagged

Grant was not the first proponent of “race science.” In 1853, across the Atlantic, Joseph Arthur de Gobineau, a French count, first identified the “Aryan” race as “great, noble, and fruitful in the works of man on this earth.” Half a century later, as the eugenics movement gathered force in the U.S., “experts” began dividing white people into distinct races. In 1899, William Z. Ripley, an economist, concluded that Europeans consisted of “three races”: the brave, beautiful, blond “Teutons”; the stocky “Alpines”; and the swarthy “Mediterraneans.” Another leading academic contributor to race science in turn-of-the-century America was a statistician named Francis Walker, who argued in The Atlantic that the new immigrants lacked the pioneer spirit of their predecessors; they were made up of “beaten men from beaten races,” whose offspring were crowding out the fine “native” stock of white people. In 1901 the sociologist Edward A. Ross, who similarly described the new immigrants as “masses of fecund but beaten humanity from the hovels of far Lombardy and Galicia,” coined the term race suicide.

What Grant’s work lacked in scientific rigor, it made up for in canny packaging. He blended Nordic boosterism with fearmongering, and supplied a scholarly veneer for notions many white citizens already wanted to believe. Americans’ gauzy idealism blinded them, he argued, to the reality that newcomers from the Mediterranean and eastern Europe—to say nothing of anyone from Asia or Africa—could never hope to possess the genetic potential innate in the nation’s original Nordic inhabitants, which was the source of the nation’s greatness

Reconstruction struggles; U.S. expansion in the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Hawaii; high levels of immigration—each had raised the specter of white people losing political power and influence to nonwhite people, or to the wrong kind of white people. On Capitol Hill debate raged, yet Republicans and Democrats were converging on the idea that America was a white man’s country, and must stay that way. The influx of foreigners diluted the nation with inferiors unfit for self-government, many politicians in both parties energetically concurred. The Supreme Court chimed in with decisions in a series of cases, beginning in 1901, that assigned the status of “nationals” rather than “citizens” to colonial newcomers

much of the nativist energy in the U.S. came from old-money elites in the Northeast, and was also fueled by labor struggles in the Pacific Northwest, which had stirred a wave of bigotry that led to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

In 1917, overriding President Woodrow Wilson’s veto, Congress passed a law that banned immigration not just from Asian but also from Middle Eastern countries and imposed a literacy test on new immigrants

historical amnesia, the excision of the memory of how the seed of racism in America blossomed into the Third Reich in Europe, has allowed Grantism to be resurrected with a new name. In the conflict between the Trump administration and its opponents, those rival American principles of exclusion and pluralism confront each other more starkly than they have since Grant’s own time. And the ideology that has gained ground under Trump may well not disappear when Trump does. Grant’s philosophical framework has found new life among extremists at home and abroad, and echoes of his rhetoric can be heard from the Republican base and the conservative media figures the base trusts, as well as—once again—in the highest reaches of government

Senator David Reed of Pennsylvania, who sponsored the 1924 bill in the Senate. A Princeton-educated lawyer, he feared that America was going the way of Rome, where the “inpouring of captives and alien slaves” had caused the empire to sink “into an impotency which made her the prey of every barbarian invader.” This was almost verbatim Grant, whose portrait of Rome’s fall culminated in the lowly immigrants “gradually occupying the country and literally breeding out their former masters.” (His plotline helped him preserve the notion that fair-haired and -skinned people are responsible for all the world’s great achievements: Rome’s original inhabitants were Nordic, but contemporary Italians were descendants of Roman slave races and therefore inferior.)

In 1923, when an Indian veteran named Bhagat Singh Thind—who had fought for the U.S. in World War I—came before the justices with the claim of being Caucasian in the scientific sense of the term, and therefore entitled to the privileges of whiteness, they threw up their hands. In a unanimous ruling against Thind (who was ultimately made a citizen in 1936), Justice George Sutherland wrote:What we now hold is that the words “free white persons” are words of common speech to be interpreted in accordance with the understanding of the common man, synonymous with the word “Caucasian” only as that word is popularly understood.

The justices had unwittingly acknowledged a consistent truth about racism, which is that race is whatever those in power say it is

Addison Smith, a Republican congressman from Idaho, proudly invoked the Scandinavian, English, Irish, and other northern-European immigrants of his district, highlighting that among them were no “ ‘slackers’ of the type to be found in the cities of the East. We have ample room, but no space for such parasites.”

Nazi lawyers carefully studied how the United States, despite its pretense of equal citizenship, had effectively denied that status to those who were not white. They looked at Supreme Court decisions that withheld full citizenship rights from nonwhite subjects in U.S. colonial territories. They examined cases that drew, as Thind’s had, arbitrary but hard lines around who could be considered “white.”

The Nazis reviewed the infamous “one-drop rule,” which defined anyone with any trace of African blood as black, and “found American law on mongrelization too harsh to be embraced by the Third Reich.”

the Supreme Court was struggling mightily to define whiteness in a consistent fashion, an endeavor complicated by the empirical flimsiness of race science

That nations make decisions about appropriate levels of immigration is not inherently evil or fascist. Nor does the return of Grantian ideas to mainstream political discourse signal an inevitable march to Holocaust-level crimes against humanity. But to recognize the homegrown historical antecedents of today’s rhetoric is to call attention to certain disturbing assumptions that have come to define the current immigration debate in America—in particular, that intrinsic human worth is rooted in national origin, and that a certain ethnic group has a legitimate claim to permanent political hegemony in the United States. The most benignly intentioned mainstream-media coverage of demographic change in the U.S. has a tendency to portray as justified the fear and anger of white Americans who believe their political power is threatened by immigration—as though the political views of today’s newcomers were determined by genetic inheritance rather than persuasion.

External forces have rarely been the gravest threat to the social order and political foundations of the United States. Rather, the source of greatest danger has been those who would choose white purity over a diverse democracy. When Americans abandon their commitment to pluralism, the world notices, and catastrophe follows.

It’s time to divest from voluntourism. The push to overhaul the very systems that allow violent experimenting on black bodies in black countries should be amplified. New approaches to our work among our people should centre on dismantling both local and global unequal systems instead of donor demands and visions of Africa.

Voluntourism is rooted in unequal power, unequal wealth that is built on the exploitation of generations of people in the Global South. It is sustained by the belief in white supremacy, white intentions are all that matters and often requires infantilisation of the people. How else do we get all those images of Africa being represented by abandoned children? 

African volunteers in African countries are less likely to be taken on because, on the whole, Africans still face many barriers to safe and regular human mobility. In 2020, it is easier for an American volunteer to go to 65% of African countries visa-free while Africans can travel to about 53% of Africa without a visa. The work on our hands remains enormous.

The Black Lives Matter movement and anti-racism protests are an African struggle, too. Yes, the manifestations of racism and racialised power might be different but the root is the same: white supremacy, patriarchal capitalism.

The word “racism” appears once. The phrase “white supremacy” or any of its variations does not appear in the entire guide. 

3. There’s a lot missing Florida’s white history mandate: While it is impossible to teach all of Black history, perhaps the most significant thing about Florida’s guidelines is the stuff that is intentionally left out. There is nothing about redlining and how its residual effects still shape the lives of African Americans. There are eight mentions of “race riots” but only three “massacres” and a single “lynching.” 

Florida’s Caucasian Race Theory mischaracterizes Black freedom fighters’ intentions by ascribing free white men’s values to a few cherry-picked Black individuals. The correct way to teach this would be to simply teach the facts. Approximately five thousand Black men fought for America in the Revolutionary War; more than 20,000 fought against America. Even the Black Loyalists in the American Revolution were not fighting to preserve the British empire. They were fighting for their freedom.

More than one benchmark requires students to learn about “Judeo-Christian values and Christianity’s impact on American society” and only lists Black Christian churches, even though scholars estimate that as many as 30 percent of enslaved Africans practiced Islam. The omission leaves students unaware that many of their religious traditions have roots in Africa and the Caribbean, including the ring shout, gospel music and four of the ten largest Christian denominations in the United States. 

AP African American Studies is banned in Florida, partly because it makes white people uncomfortable. Florida’s STOP WOKE Act prohibits classroom instruction that makes white people “feel guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress, because of actions, in which the individual played no part, committed in the past by other members of the same race.” 

Like the legislation, the new curriculum standards are for white people. Everyone except white people believes that increased public attention to the history of racism is good for society. While 62% of Black people and 58% of Hispanics want schools to teach children about the ongoing effects of slavery and racism, most white people do not. How history is taught in schools has always given Black people anguish and psychological distress; white people are perfectly comfortable with Black people’s discomfort. 

the so-called modern state—which, then, is imperial as much as national. The racialized hierarchies of empire defined the broader polity beyond the nation-state and, after decolonization, have continued to construct inequalities of citizenship within states that have only recently become national.

Scholars and practitioners of international relations must take seriously the colonial histories that were constitutive of the formation of modern states

it is clear that many pre-colonial African polities’ activities had important international implications

democratic governance from India to South Africa to the American South has emerged principally through the activism and agency of subaltern populations—those subjected to the hegemony of a more powerful class or group, especially colonial subjects, and those victimized by anti-Black racism and other forms of discrimination.

race almost always operates in conjunction with other categories—such as caste, class, civilization, and, in today’s context, the racialized Muslim. The challenge for IR is to find a new language that is not confined to just one master concept or one corner of the world.

The subalterns have had to rectify the contradictions of global liberalism by transforming the idea of freedom for some into the practice of freedom for all.

there is no historical evidence that Western presence has ever enhanced the well-being of the previously colonized world. It took me a solid decade—and exposure to post- and decolonial approaches—to change my doctoral research question from: “When do Western actors not show up?” to “Should they be there in the first place?”

International relations that do not reproduce the logic of colonialism must instead engage with ideas of repair, dignity, and even retreat.

Taking the problem of racism seriously in the field of IR means viewing it not merely as an issue of stereotypes or cultural insensitivities, but as a colonial technology of life and premature death built on ideologies of whiteness and white supremacy

The scholarly imperative is to study and question the current international system built on racial capitalism, and to imagine alternatives

the global subalterns and historically marginalized peoples are the ones who have pushed the international system to adopt whatever level of democratic governance exists

IR was born in the age of empire, and for the first few decades of its history it was explicitly occupied with questions of colonial administration and the justification of racial supremacy

Race was often viewed as the basic unit of politics—more fundamental than state, society, nation, or individual.

Though the most extravagant versions of Anglo-utopianism were exhausted by the mid-20th century, the idea that the “English-speaking peoples” are destined to play a leading role in shaping world politics has proved remarkably durable. It has resurfaced in assorted conservative visions of the so-called Anglosphere and in projects for reorienting Britain’s post-Brexit foreign policy.

the majority of what students read about in IR continues to be written by a minority of the world’s people. The presumption that all worthwhile ideas originated in the West is not only exclusionary but false

Feminist foreign policy often allows wealthy countries to focus attention on the plight of women in countries with developing economies. Wealthier countries, or developed economies, then position themselves as being better placed to respond to the challenges around gender discrimination.

A country with a feminist foreign policy often invokes its own experiences as good practice elsewhere. Yet gender discrimination is universal, and often members of minority groups within the developed economies are significantly disadvantaged by endemic racism and xenophobia

A different way of doing foreign policy that is people-led rather than state-led and emphasizes solidarity over interest is the only means toward justice for all.

what the world is witnessing today could be the third phase of cultural encounters. The pretention of Western culture to universal validity is being challenged from the angles of cultural relativism (what is valid in one society in the West was not valid in another); historical relativism (what was valid in the West at the beginning of the 20th century was not valid in the West at the beginning of the 21st); and empirical relativism (the West often failed to live up to its own standards, and occasionally those standards were better met by other societies).

This is the era of the West on the defensive.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the global protests against police brutality demonstrate that, first, the challenges to humanity transcend the territoriality of the state and the parochialism of race and, second, a transnational, if rudimentary, convergence of political sensibilities may be emerging at the grassroots level. For many around the world, the moral disease of racism needs to be confronted as vehemently as the physical disease now sweeping around the globe.

shared sensibilities could, in the long run, become a catalyst for something bigger: the creation of a truly global village that is based not on cultural hierarchy but on what Mazrui called cultural ecumenicalism—a combination of a global pool of achievements with local pools of distinctive innovation and tradition

standing in front of Egypt's Great Sphinx in yet another white hat — this one more favored historically by segregationists rather than colonizers — she told reporters "I wish people focus on what I do, not what I wear."

Visiting the center of the slave trade, including Ghana's Cape Coast Castle, the former model posed as though she were in a fashion magazine center spread, wearing the outfits of men who'd committed some of world history's most awful monstrosities.

Traditionally, it is the first lady who acts as the well-dressed conscience of the country. She represents what she wants America to be to the world. She is the country's face of kindness. She is what America aspires to be. God help us all.

On both sides of the Atlantic Beowulfwas translated and adapted for children as a text that could instil in the young imperialist values, nationalist pride, racism, and a myth of heroic masculinity.

In Joseph Bernard Davis and John Truman’s Crania Britannicaof 1865, the size and shape of skulls and other skeletal features were used to liken the medieval Britons (especially the Welsh) to contemporary African and ‘Oriental’ peoples, all of whom were lacking in social and technological sophistication. The implication was that the historic colonisation of the Welsh provided just cause for the colonisation of other lands and peoples in the modern world

Given this history, it is impossible to claim, as do some, that the term ‘Anglo-Saxon’ is free of racist meaning in the UK

The term cannot be separated from its racist past and the violence it helped to justify, nor from its racist implications today, nor from the violence committed by those who in their academic defence of the term incite attacks on their colleagues. The petition signed by a group of (largely) UK academics arguing for retention of an (arguably) historically precise and critically aware use of the term is now circulating amongst white supremacists as an academic endorsement of their views.

another proof, as if we needed one, of the toxicity of so much of contemporary academic culture especiallyin the UK

I find hope in the convivial and subversive interventions of those students and scholars who are fighting for a more just, inclusive, and egalitarian medieval studies