Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
position was (however shakily) based to the vastness of the
overseas possessions, covertly (or not so covertly) conveying
the idea that if, say, English lords were naturally superior
to other Englishmen, no matter: these other Englishmen
were no less superior to the subjected natives.
The stories the commoners heard about the “mysti-
cal” and “savage” “Others” fostered feelings of superiority.
One of the easiest ways to defi ne the “Other” is through skin
color because it is visible. Differences in the color of skin,
then, became the basis for a fundamental social divide.
What society typically calls a “race” is in fact a com-
bination of physical attributes in a population. Differences
in skin color, eye color, and hair color likely result from a
long history of adaptation to different environments. Sun-
light stimulates the production of
melanin
, which protects
skin from damaging ultraviolet rays; the more melanin that
is present, the darker the skin will be. Many believe that
this helps to explain why, over the millennia, humans living
in low latitudes (closer to the equator, from tropical Africa
through southern India to Australia) had darker skins.
Another, not incompatible, theory holds that the produc-
tion of vitamin D, which is a vitamin necessary to live a
healthy life, is stimulated by the penetration of ultraviolet
rays. Over the millennia, natural selection in higher lati-
tudes, closer to the North and South Poles, favored those
with the least amount of pigmentation. People with less
pigmentation could more easily absorb ultraviolet rays,
which, in the higher latitudes, are sparse in winter months
with the amount of sunlight is lower and less direct. When
humans absorb ultraviolet light, their bodies in turn pro-
duce vitamin D, which is a necessary nutrient for survival.
Whatever may be said about the link between envi-
ronment and the development of particular physical char-
acteristics, it is important to recognize that skin color is
not
a reliable indicator of genetic closeness. The indigenous
peoples of southern India, New Guinea, and Australia, for
example, are about as dark-skinned as native Africans, but
native Africans, southern Indians, and Aboriginal Austra-
lians are not closely related genetically (Fig. 5.3). Thus
there is no biological basis for dividing the human spe-
cies into four or fi ve groups based on skin color. Instead,
those racial categories are the product of how particular
cultures have dominantly
viewed
skin color.
The racial distinctions used in a place today are
drawn from categories of skin color that are rooted in
the cultural history, power relationships, and politics of a
place over the past few centuries. Geographer Benjamin
Forest gives us a global overview of racial distinctions:
Figure 5.2
United States.
Although biologically there is only one human
race, we are often asked to choose race “boxes” for ourselves.
This page of the 2010 United States Census asks the individ-
ual, “What is this person's race?” and directs the individual to
“Mark one or more races to indicate what you consider yourself
to be.”
© U.S. Census Bureau
precolonial Africa, lines of division sometimes refl ected
differences in skin tones among people whom Europeans
all came to view as “black” during the colonial period. Yet
modern ways of dividing people into races have become so
pervasive that we fi nd ourselves continually fi lling out cen-
sus forms, product warranty information, surveys, medical
forms, and application forms that ask us to “check” a box
identifying ourselves by races, for example “white,” “black,”
“Asian” (Fig. 5.2). Such practices tend to naturalize and rein-
force modern ways of viewing race.
Where did society get the idea that humans fall into dif-
ferent, seemingly unchangeable categories of race? Through-
out history, societies in different parts of the world have
drawn distinctions among peoples based on their physical
characteristics, but many of societies' modern assumptions
about race grew out of the period of European exploration
and colonialism. Yet as Benedict Anderson notes, even before
the Age of Exploration and colonialism, wealthy Europeans
defi ned themselves as superior to those living elsewhere, sug-
gesting that socioeconomic differences can fuel the sense of
superiority attached to race known as
racism.
With the onset
of the colonial era, however, even the nonwealthy in colo-
nizing countries came to defi ne themselves as superior to the
people in the colonies. Anderson explains:
In Britain, the term “black” refers not only to Afro-
Caribbeans and Africans, but also to individuals from the
Indian subcontinent. In Russia, the term “black” is used
to describe “Caucasians,” that is, people such as Chechens
from the Caucasus region. In many parts of Latin America,
particularly Brazil, “racial” classifi cation is really a kind
Colonial racism was a major element in that conception of
“Empire” which attempted to weld dynastic legitimacy and
national community. It did so by generalizing a principle
of innate, inherited superiority on which its own domestic
