The Concept of Race As a Cause of Racism
Why is ‘race’ such a crucial issue today? Are you Black, White, Asian, Hispanic, etcetera? Everyone (especially those on the Left) seems to be urging everyone else to ‘talk about it.’ “We need to have these tough conversations,” people say. “We need to bridge the gap between White and Black America.” (Forget about Asian America or Hispanic America. For some reason it always seems to come down to White versus Black.) However, it is the concept of different races which allows for racism in the first place. Thinking about race, at least in the way everyone seems to want us to, makes you more racist.
The fear of racism breeds racism. As Jedi Grandmaster Yoda said, “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” Let’s unpack this quote and its relevance on the race issue.
Many well-meaning White people are often scared of being racist against the minorities. Why are people scared? Either a person actually is racist and is afraid it will pop out at any moment, or one has been told that he is a racist so much and so often that he begins to internalize it.
It’s very easy for someone to know if he is not racist. Does he believe that anyone is any less valuable or virtuous simply because of the color of his or her skin? If the answer is yes, a person has racists beliefs. If the person answers “no,” he is not racist. Now perhaps it can be argued that implicit racial biases exist in everyone. However, even if this is true, biases do not make one racist. To call someone racist as a general categorization means that the person actually believes that people are prejudged based on their skin color, their biological 'race.' It may also mean that the person acts in a way that is generally in agreement with the afore-described belief regardless of whether or not the person assents to the belief. Regardless, implicit biases (which should be combatted) do not equal bona fide racism.
Despite Critical Race Theory’s claims that race is a defining feature of an individual and of society, the concept of biological race as an academic concept did not become widespread until the advent of Darwinian evolution. Before then, people were divided and grouped by culture, nationality, ethnicity, and religion. Only with the rise of evolutionary materialism did scientists group people primarily according to biological characteristics.
Ethicist and historian Micheal Yudell, in his book Race Unmasked: Biology and Race in the Twentieth Century, claims:
The biological race concept, as we understand it today, originated with eugenic theories of difference and was re-created and integrated into modern biological thought by population geneticists and evolutionary biologists in the 1930s and 1940s during the evolutionary synthesis in biology.
So while there has always been prejudice against various groups, the physical characteristics of groups had not been the chief cause of prejudice most often. Rather, people were persecuted due to non-physical traits like ethnicity.
Jerry Bergman, a professor and biologist, said of the above quote, “This step was critical in establishing and propelling racism that developed and escalated during the last century and a half.” While racism has always existed, Darwinism and eugenics helped establish racist beliefs as 'scientifically validated.' Of course, such science was actually pseudoscience based on unproven assumptions.
Nevertheless, evolutionary thought has contributed to racist ideologies that can thrive under the guise of academia. Charles Darwin in The Descent of Man postulated that “the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races.” This Darwinian-rooted concept of pseudoscientific racism combined with a dose of Marxism has produced Critical Race Theory.
Critical Race Theory urges everyone to think deeply about the differences between the biological 'races.' Race is the main lens through which to view society. Viewing society through the lens of a pseudoscientific concept is simply foolish. At worst, it becomes racist itself. The over-racial societal contemplation leads to viewing people as different simply because of biology. Ideas such as 'Blackness' and 'Whiteness' are advocated as if they are essential characteristics that people have simply because of melanin counts.
Culture and ethnicity is confused with biology. This confusion leads people to cry “Racist!” when someone critiques a culture. As culture has become so intimately tied with race, critiquing one’s culture, which can be changed, has been equated with critiquing one’s skin color, which generally cannot be changed.
To illustrated the folly of such thinking, consider if the same were true of hair color. Imagine if blonde-haired people were all grouped into one way of being simply because of a genetic characteristic. If someone tries to behave differently, he is criticized for trying to be like redheaded culture. If a brunette criticizes the apparent culture of gray haired people, the brunette is called a “hair-ist” despite the fact that the criticism is about the way of being, not the hair color.
A Christian who takes the account of Genesis 1–11 seriously recognizes that all men are the progeny of Adam. The are no substantial differences between the 'races' (though there are substantial differences between cultures). Race is a fallacy. There is no genetic or logical reason to believe that biological race is anything more than a social construct and a pseudoscientific belief. As this pseudoscientific left-over from the failed Social Darwinism of the 20th century is the root of biological conceptions of race, this concept of race needs to be abandoned. This concept is what produced racism.
To hold on to the concept of biological race while decrying racism either leads to a different kind of racism (like what is happening now) or leads to inconsistency which provides no answer to so-called racial tensions.
For more information on this subject, see Dr. Jerry Bergman’s chapter “Evolution, Racism, and the Scientific Vindication of Genesis” in Searching for Adam: Genesis and the Truth about Man’s Origins.
