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Rhetoric, Race, and Exclusion: Paradox vs. Contradiction in the U.S.
To understand the Multicultural Education (MCE) construct in the United States, one must first understand key sociocultural phenomena associated with MCE’s origins, and their interplay within and between federal and state government levels. The notion of race as a hierarchical typology(1) is fundamental to understanding the roots, thrust and goals of multicultural education in the United States, for the notion of race served early on to justify practices of exclusion and enslavement, and, more recently, of second-class and lower quality institutional access and interactions by groups considered to be outside the mainstream of American culture, or not entitled to, or capable of, taking advantage of its benefits. A quote from Edward Long’s 1774 3-volume publication, The History of Jamaica (in Kenneth Little, “Race and Society,” 1951/1969, p.65), illustrates the racial inferiority perspective, and thus the rationale for subjugation, trade, enslavement, exploitation, exile and extermination of non-white people, particularly, but not limited to, of African-origin (see, for example, E. Franklin Frazier, Race and Culture Contacts in the Modern World, [Boston: beacon Press] 1957, on the near-extermination of the Australian indigenous population and the total extermination of the Tasmanian native population, among others):
"We cannot pronounce them unsusceptible of civilization since even apes have been taught to eat, drink, repose and dress like men. But of all the human species hitherto discovered, their natural baseness of mind seems to afford the least hope of their being (except by miraculous interposition of Divine Providence) so refined as to think as well as act like men. I do not think that an Orang Outang (2) husband would be any dishonour to an Hottentot (3) female."
Thus, to the above 18th century author, whose racist work remains in print and available online today, a female from an African community would be honored to have an arboreal anthropoid ape husband (4). Long’s work was used in the 1830s by Southerners in the U.S. to defend the practice of slavery (Horsman, 1981:50).
Renowned philosophers to whom the West has traditionally looked toward to understand and justify its foundations shared and even preceded in print the perspective of Long. David Hume (1711-1776), for example, wrote the essay Of National Characters in 1742, and revised it in 1753 to include the following footnote (5):
"I am apt to suspect the negroes [sic] and in general all the other species of men (for there are four or five different kinds) to be naturally inferior to the whites. There never was a civilized nation of any other complexion than white, nor even any individual eminent either in action or speculation (6). No ingenious manufactures amongst them, no arts, no sciences. On the other hand, the most rude and barbarous of the whites, such as the ancient GERMANS, the present TARTARS, have still something eminent about them, in their valour, form of government, or some other particular. Such a uniform and constant difference could not happen, in so many countries and ages, if nature had not made an original distinction betwixt these breeds of men. Not to mention our colonies, there are Negroe [sic] slaves dispersed all over EUROPE, of which none ever discovered any symptoms of ingenuity; tho’ low people, without education, will start up amongst us, and distinguish themselves in every profession. In JAMAICA indeed they talk of one negroe [sic] as a man of parts and learning; but ‘tis likely he is admired for very slender accomplishments, like a parrot, who speaks a few words plainly."
And, in this same document, Morton (2002) quotes Hume’s assertion that (7):
"...you may obtain any thing of the Negroes by offering them strong drink; and may easily prevail with them to sell, not only their children, but their wives and mistresses, for a cask of brandy."
This particular view of Hume’s toward races other than white was, in fact, one of four prevalent views regarding the superiority of the white race and the relative inferiority of all other races (Morton 2002), based on: (a) mental and moral superiority; (b) color, that is, whiteness as the reference point for superiority in human nature; (c) evolution, that is, that some, such as Africans, are a link between ape and humans, or a different species (i.e., polygenesis rather than monogenesis); and (d) lineage, both spiritual and evolutionary, with whites at the top of the human order.
Publications regarding race, considered scientific, during the 18th century exerted substantive, long-term and extensive influence on the intellectual minds in Europe and its colonies—although flawed in premise and in method. In specific cases, the authors revered, or helped to justify, the Teutonic Anglo-Saxon myth of superiority, both racial and cultural—where freedom, rather than the alleged Roman thirst for power and empire, inherently resided and reigned (see Race and Manifest Destiny: The Origins of American Racial Anglo-Saxonism, Reginald Horsman, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981). Early examples include, among many others, the imminent scientists of their day, Carl Linnaeus and Georges Cuvier, as well as the influential Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, who “considered [the Caucasian race] as the primary or intermediate of these five principal races” (Horsman, p. 46), and English physician John Atkins, who, in the 1730s, wrote: “I am persuaded that the black and white Race have, ab origine [from the beginning], sprung from different-coloured first Parents” (Horsman, p. 47).
Thus, it is to this line of paradoxical universalistic-racialist 18th century thought (strengthened by even more explicit racialist models in the early 19th century) to which the rhetoric—-the very beliefs—-of the Founding Fathers of the United States and their later political progeny adheres (see, for example, Abraham Lincoln’s impressions at http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/ themes/sciences/LifeScience/HumanRaces/mainpage.htm). The paradox is evident in the opposition to slavery held by Thomas Jefferson (although he did not act upon it), on the one hand, and his belief that (8):
"...the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstance, are inferior to the whites in the endowment both of body and mind."
This cultural paradox—-the belief that freedom reigns for all who are in the United States, generally felt by its inhabitants to be the greatest of all countries, co-existing, to differing degrees of tension depending on the era, with the belief that any group who has not availed itself to those opportunities and benefits must be due to the group itself, whether by nature or nurture—-continues to the present, and fueled by faux-academic literature (for example Arthur Jensen [1969,], William Shockley, Lloyd M. Dunn [1988], Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray [1994], and Samuel Huntington [2004], among others).
Of course, the above are not actually paradoxes but contradictions. In the former case, these two elements—-however distant they might appear to be-—could actually occupy the same space in essential harmonious and synergistic juxtaposition; in the latter case, the elements are in a mutually exclusive relationship where only one can actually survive if the politic unit as a whole is to operate according to its founding principles—in this case, embodied by the notion of democracy. Thus, the United States must, through its institutions—most importantly, its educational institutions—transform its interpretation of its historical behavior and persistent cultural core to view and assess its supposed paradoxes of race as unsustainable contradictions of race and the democratic endeavor.
ENDNOTES:
The term race has been conflated, and thus confused, with both culture and ethnicity. The fact that there is no scientific biological basis for the notion of race among humans has been widely communicated and agreed upon within the general scientific community since 1951, when Race and Science, a work analyzing the scientific legitimacy and social misuse of the term, and which formed part of the UNESCO (United National Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization) program on Race and Culture, was published.
2 An arboreal anthropoid ape (simia satyrus), which inhabits borneo and Sumatra. It is over four feet high, when full grown, and has very long arms, which reach nearly or quite to the ground when the body is erect. Its colour is reddish brown. In structure, it closely resembles man in many respects. (http://www.biology-online.org/dictionary/Orang-outang)
3 A term of disparagement used by the 17th century Dutch in contact with the Khoikhoi people, who now number about 55,000, and reside mainly in Namibia and in W South Africa. (http://www.answers.com/Khoikhoin)
4 The Catholic Church had, in the mid-16th century (1541-1542 prohibited enslavement of the Indians (see http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15767a.htm).
5 “Race and Racism in the Works of David Hume,” Eric Morton, Journal on African Philosophy, 1:1, 2002, http://www.africanphilosophy.com/vol1.1/morton.html
6 Morton (2002) states that due to pressure from colleagues, Hume later revised his statement, a copy of which was discovered and read: “I am apt to suspect the negroes to be naturally inferior to whites. There scarcely ever was a civilized nation of that complexion, nor even any individual eminent either in action or speculation.” His universal racist claim was thus narrowed to specify only the African race.
7 http://www.econlib.org/library/LFBooks/Hume/hmMPL21.html#Part%20I,%20Essay%
8 Cited in John Hope Franklin, “The Two Worlds of Race,” DAEDALUS, Fall 1965:901.
"We cannot pronounce them unsusceptible of civilization since even apes have been taught to eat, drink, repose and dress like men. But of all the human species hitherto discovered, their natural baseness of mind seems to afford the least hope of their being (except by miraculous interposition of Divine Providence) so refined as to think as well as act like men. I do not think that an Orang Outang (2) husband would be any dishonour to an Hottentot (3) female."
Thus, to the above 18th century author, whose racist work remains in print and available online today, a female from an African community would be honored to have an arboreal anthropoid ape husband (4). Long’s work was used in the 1830s by Southerners in the U.S. to defend the practice of slavery (Horsman, 1981:50).
Renowned philosophers to whom the West has traditionally looked toward to understand and justify its foundations shared and even preceded in print the perspective of Long. David Hume (1711-1776), for example, wrote the essay Of National Characters in 1742, and revised it in 1753 to include the following footnote (5):
"I am apt to suspect the negroes [sic] and in general all the other species of men (for there are four or five different kinds) to be naturally inferior to the whites. There never was a civilized nation of any other complexion than white, nor even any individual eminent either in action or speculation (6). No ingenious manufactures amongst them, no arts, no sciences. On the other hand, the most rude and barbarous of the whites, such as the ancient GERMANS, the present TARTARS, have still something eminent about them, in their valour, form of government, or some other particular. Such a uniform and constant difference could not happen, in so many countries and ages, if nature had not made an original distinction betwixt these breeds of men. Not to mention our colonies, there are Negroe [sic] slaves dispersed all over EUROPE, of which none ever discovered any symptoms of ingenuity; tho’ low people, without education, will start up amongst us, and distinguish themselves in every profession. In JAMAICA indeed they talk of one negroe [sic] as a man of parts and learning; but ‘tis likely he is admired for very slender accomplishments, like a parrot, who speaks a few words plainly."
And, in this same document, Morton (2002) quotes Hume’s assertion that (7):
"...you may obtain any thing of the Negroes by offering them strong drink; and may easily prevail with them to sell, not only their children, but their wives and mistresses, for a cask of brandy."
This particular view of Hume’s toward races other than white was, in fact, one of four prevalent views regarding the superiority of the white race and the relative inferiority of all other races (Morton 2002), based on: (a) mental and moral superiority; (b) color, that is, whiteness as the reference point for superiority in human nature; (c) evolution, that is, that some, such as Africans, are a link between ape and humans, or a different species (i.e., polygenesis rather than monogenesis); and (d) lineage, both spiritual and evolutionary, with whites at the top of the human order.
Publications regarding race, considered scientific, during the 18th century exerted substantive, long-term and extensive influence on the intellectual minds in Europe and its colonies—although flawed in premise and in method. In specific cases, the authors revered, or helped to justify, the Teutonic Anglo-Saxon myth of superiority, both racial and cultural—where freedom, rather than the alleged Roman thirst for power and empire, inherently resided and reigned (see Race and Manifest Destiny: The Origins of American Racial Anglo-Saxonism, Reginald Horsman, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981). Early examples include, among many others, the imminent scientists of their day, Carl Linnaeus and Georges Cuvier, as well as the influential Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, who “considered [the Caucasian race] as the primary or intermediate of these five principal races” (Horsman, p. 46), and English physician John Atkins, who, in the 1730s, wrote: “I am persuaded that the black and white Race have, ab origine [from the beginning], sprung from different-coloured first Parents” (Horsman, p. 47).
Thus, it is to this line of paradoxical universalistic-racialist 18th century thought (strengthened by even more explicit racialist models in the early 19th century) to which the rhetoric—-the very beliefs—-of the Founding Fathers of the United States and their later political progeny adheres (see, for example, Abraham Lincoln’s impressions at http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/ themes/sciences/LifeScience/HumanRaces/mainpage.htm). The paradox is evident in the opposition to slavery held by Thomas Jefferson (although he did not act upon it), on the one hand, and his belief that (8):
"...the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstance, are inferior to the whites in the endowment both of body and mind."
This cultural paradox—-the belief that freedom reigns for all who are in the United States, generally felt by its inhabitants to be the greatest of all countries, co-existing, to differing degrees of tension depending on the era, with the belief that any group who has not availed itself to those opportunities and benefits must be due to the group itself, whether by nature or nurture—-continues to the present, and fueled by faux-academic literature (for example Arthur Jensen [1969,], William Shockley, Lloyd M. Dunn [1988], Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray [1994], and Samuel Huntington [2004], among others).
Of course, the above are not actually paradoxes but contradictions. In the former case, these two elements—-however distant they might appear to be-—could actually occupy the same space in essential harmonious and synergistic juxtaposition; in the latter case, the elements are in a mutually exclusive relationship where only one can actually survive if the politic unit as a whole is to operate according to its founding principles—in this case, embodied by the notion of democracy. Thus, the United States must, through its institutions—most importantly, its educational institutions—transform its interpretation of its historical behavior and persistent cultural core to view and assess its supposed paradoxes of race as unsustainable contradictions of race and the democratic endeavor.
ENDNOTES:
The term race has been conflated, and thus confused, with both culture and ethnicity. The fact that there is no scientific biological basis for the notion of race among humans has been widely communicated and agreed upon within the general scientific community since 1951, when Race and Science, a work analyzing the scientific legitimacy and social misuse of the term, and which formed part of the UNESCO (United National Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization) program on Race and Culture, was published.
2 An arboreal anthropoid ape (simia satyrus), which inhabits borneo and Sumatra. It is over four feet high, when full grown, and has very long arms, which reach nearly or quite to the ground when the body is erect. Its colour is reddish brown. In structure, it closely resembles man in many respects. (http://www.biology-online.org/dictionary/Orang-outang)
3 A term of disparagement used by the 17th century Dutch in contact with the Khoikhoi people, who now number about 55,000, and reside mainly in Namibia and in W South Africa. (http://www.answers.com/Khoikhoin)
4 The Catholic Church had, in the mid-16th century (1541-1542 prohibited enslavement of the Indians (see http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15767a.htm).
5 “Race and Racism in the Works of David Hume,” Eric Morton, Journal on African Philosophy, 1:1, 2002, http://www.africanphilosophy.com/vol1.1/morton.html
6 Morton (2002) states that due to pressure from colleagues, Hume later revised his statement, a copy of which was discovered and read: “I am apt to suspect the negroes to be naturally inferior to whites. There scarcely ever was a civilized nation of that complexion, nor even any individual eminent either in action or speculation.” His universal racist claim was thus narrowed to specify only the African race.
7 http://www.econlib.org/library/LFBooks/Hume/hmMPL21.html#Part%20I,%20Essay%
8 Cited in John Hope Franklin, “The Two Worlds of Race,” DAEDALUS, Fall 1965:901.