The Flimsy Basis of Race Prejudice (1941)

From the January 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

The racial question has become an urgent problem in political controversy in recent years owing to the significance given to it in Germany, where appeals to race prejudice have been used mainly to promote discrimination against the Jews. Antagonism to the Jews is also showing signs of developing in quite unexpected quarters. It is therefore worth while devoting a little space to a brief examination of the question.

In the first place what does the word “race” really mean? Immediately we ask this question we realise into what a morass we have stepped, because the term is used to cover quite different meanings. For instance, the “Black Race,” the “Brown Race,” the “Yellow Race,” each covers groups of people in varying stages of culture and with contrary attributes apart from the colour of their skins. The “American Race,” the “British Race,” the “African Race,” applies to the inhabitants of a particular territory. The “Mohammedan Race” and the “Jewish Race” is a religious distinction. The “Celtic Race,” the “Aryan Race” and the “Semitic Race” refer to particular types of language.

Here, then, are four different meanings commonly applied to the term “race,” and there are many others including those that apply to the shape of the head and to the nature of the hair.

The meaning that it is attempted to foist upon the word “race” is that there are certain groups of people to-day who, like the thoroughbred horse, have kept their blood free from alien mixture for hundreds of years.

At the outset it may be pointed out that there are no physical distinctions that can denote purity of blood. People from this country who spend most of their lifetime in the Colonies develop physical characteristics that mark them from their relatives who have remained at home. In a book by Brunton entitled “Kings and Queens of Ancient Egypt” there are a number of coloured illustrations of Ancient Egyptian women. If one covers the headdress of many of these women with a piece of cardboard the features and colouring are the replica of many present-day English women who have a murky heredity. The reader can multiply instances from his own experience where a black face, apart from its colour, is the facsimile of white faces of allegedly pure blood. Every physical characteristic that one seeks to use as the hall-mark of a particular “race” bristles with exceptions. There are all varieties of white, black and red faces. It is therefore obvious that neither the colour nor the contour of a face is evidence of racial purity.

It may be added that round heads, long heads, and nondescript heads are associated with all varieties of colour, hair and facial characteristics, and even differ in the same family.

Again, place of birth is nothing to go by, as man has been on the move for thousands of years, and the most important geographical unities is inhabited by a vast assortment of mongrels. England is an example in point where one meets many who proudly boast of their “British Nationality” in strange accents. Think, also what a hotch-potch America is where nationals from all over the world have gone into the melting pot, and British and other film stars and “famous” people have recently become “American citizens.” Again, consider the people abroad whose fathers and grandfathers were born abroad, and yet the present generation still calls itself English—they look to England as their “country.” Consider also the varieties of people of alien origin born in England.

These facts banish place of birth or country of origin as a criterion of race.

The fact is that man’s wanderings over the earth have promoted such a mixture of blood that there is no such thing nowadays, even in remote places, as genuine blood purity. Twenty-five thousand or so years has bred many varieties of the human species and will go on doing so. A name may be carried down for generations, but the blood associations of that name through the female side are beyond calculation. Many a fine name has a bundle of skeletons in the cupboard.

Language is also no guide to purity of ancestry. The most diverse people speak the same language now, and did so in the past. For example, at one time Latin was the language of both Roman and Barbarian. To-day Spanish is the language of native inhabitants of South America as well as the people of Spain. English is the language of that mixture of people occupying England, South Africa, Australia, America, Canada and other places. Here we come to another point—the question of “Aryan Race.” But Aryan is a language and not a blood connection. The Aryan-speaking peoples, like the Celtic, were of mixed descent. The barbarian hordes that flooded Europe in the middle ages and mingled with the population destroyed any possibility of racial purity existing in our day.

There is, in fact, no single scheme of classification that will satisfactorily cover the different types of human beings in existence. Alpine, Nordic, Mediterranean and other strains are present in varying degrees in all the peoples of Europe.

The human race comes into the world naked, and clothes with habits and traditions the result of social circumstances. Different sections of the human race rise and fall in culture or importance according to the nature of the social environment, irrespective of colour, language or religion. Egypt, Greece and Rome were each at the top of the cultural scale and each has come down since the time of flowering.

In the long run the social environment blends people of different stocks into one type, with similar habits and outlook. In modern times the United States is an excellent example of this.

The people that to-day are regarded as representative of a low cultural stage may, under favourable social circumstances, rise to supremacy tomorrow. The Australian Maori, not long ago looked upon as at the bottom of the cultural scale, is imbibing the arts of civilisation at a remarkable rate, and may soon be equal to the highest product of civilisation.

In mankind purity of race is impossible, even if it were desirable. Even among domestic animals the greatest care can only guarantee purity from a certain point. The classic example, the thoroughbred racehorse, is only thoroughbred from the already mixed Arabian strain that was introduced into Europe two centuries ago. On the other hand, mixture of peoples has been synonymous with cultural advances from the time of Babylon and Egypt to the present day. Peoples which have not been subjected to the invigorating influence of alien blood have, like the Chinese, stagnated.

The Jews, over whom race-prejudice has been revived in a violent fashion, are of mixed origin, and represent a type with a religious basis and a particular historic tradition. It may be noted that a people that has been battered and hunted for centuries is liable while, and wherever, those conditions exist, to display the characteristics of the battered and hunted—distrust, clannishness and cunning.

Throughout the middle ages the Jew was ruled out of practically every occupation except finance, and consequently they became adepts in that business. Since then, as other occupations have been thrown open to them, they have brought into the new spheres the single-minded concentration forced upon them by their social history and have consequently excelled. This ability has produced distinguished workers in music, literature, science and the art of war. Jews are also as generous, brave, cowardly, self-seeking as other types of people who are proud of their nationality. These “virtues” or “vices,” it may be remarked, have really nothing to do with race, but depend to a great extent upon age, health, sensitiveness, knowledge and circumstances, and vary as much in one type of people as in another. It may be added that they also depend upon the point of view of those concerned.

While, in certain circumstances, the rich Jew is fair game for the rich non-Jew, the poor Jew is always fair game for both under capitalism.

Finally, the Jewish question is not really a race question at all but an economic one. When other excuses fail it serves, as in Germany, to hide the real source of the misery of the mass of people of all colours and creeds. If it is not submerged by the mixture of races by that time it will certainly be solved by the advent of Socialism, under which there will not be economic crises, stagnation and poverty for millions that require a scapegoat to explain. Also there will not be either the competition for markets or for jobs that breed the unnatural fiends of envy, pushfulness and callous brutality.

In conclusion, it may be remarked that we all use the word “race” loosely for want of better terms. But this does little harm as long as prejudice is not tied to it.

Perhaps it may allay prejudice in the mind of the reader of the above if it is mentioned that the writer is of “pure” Irish stock for several generations back—or else the skeletons have been very effectively hidden.

Gilmac.