A Critique on the Essentialist View of Race

In Caesar's "Commentarii de Bello Gallico," he describes the Gallic and Germanic people as distinctively separate from the Mediterraneans in terms of race. His justification for this was their height and long, blonde hair, as compared to the short stature and kempt dark hair of the Mediterraneans. Now, however, both of these peoples would be considered "white," as a racial classification.

When the eastern Asians who would come to be known as the Japanese colonized the island of Japan, they fought against the native ancestors of the modern-day Ainu who still inhabit one of the northern islands. They had a lighter complexion, but accounts describe the main differentiation made between these two "races" as being dependent on the amount of body hair each possessed, with the Japanese having little and the natives having much. To these early Asian people, body hair was a racial determinant.

Going further into the racial classifications of Asian peoples, Indians, who are classified racially as Asian, are descendant of middle easterners, who are classified as white, despite possessing darker skin. Also, many groups of Asian peoples, such as the aforementioned Japanese, have white complexions, despite once being classified as "yellow" and contemporary being racially categorized as "Asian."

There are many more examples of inconsistencies in the racial classifications of peoples throughout history that show that not only were they not solely dependent on skin color as many contemporary interpretations assume, but that irregularities and oddities are scattered throughout suggesting that racial classifications are not touching on some essential property of what it is to be human, but rather an arbitrary, yet in some cases pragmatic, classification of people. However, I will touch on the latter point more in a moment

When looking at the dispersion of haplogroups (tracing the y-chromosome to determine the migration of early humans; a map of which can be seen by simply googling "haplogroup") one sees that not only do many migrations of early humans overlap and that we all share similar ancestry, but there are disparities between these patterns and the contemporary perspective of race. What this suggests is that, once again, these classifications are arbitrary.

They are still, however, pragmatic. In Europe, expressing a commonality among all peoples in a shared skin color strengthened their bonds that had, centuries prior, been forged from a shared religion that was falling out of favor. Furthermore, their racial classifications based on skin color made easier the generalization and subsequent colonization and enslavement of non-white peoples. While these actions are deplorable in hindsight, there was a real motivation in classifying others through racially-defined means in skin color. This can be seen with most other peoples throughout history, as the more distance placed between one group and another makes easier the dehumanization and subsequent oppression, exploitation, and/or conquest of another group people. The concept of race served a purpose. What purpose does it serve now?

None. However, with the rise of the white-skinned Europeans, much of the world bent to, or at the very least incorporated, fragments of their worldview. They were Christians, and as such the vast majority of them had an essentialist worldview, believing that there are certain essences possessed by an individual. While I am not here to argue this point generally, I will argue that the concept of race - which was considered to be part of this "essence" as it served a definite purpose to white-skinned Europeans and was therefore considered as such as it heavily embedded it into the mindset of these peoples - is not an aspect of this essence (if there is such a thing) as seen in the irregularities, changes over time, and subsequent arbitrary nature of the concept of race shown prior.

Despite this, many still prescribe to this mindset - even those whose hearts are in the right place and have made the issue of racial disparity their life's work. We still think of our arbitrarily prescribed race as being as essential part of our identity; our social institutions, such as our government, force us to acknowledge our arbitrarily prescribed race almost every time we interact with them; we insist that "diversity" is contingent upon our arbitrary view of race instead of that which is was originally - our ideologies and perspectives on the world - propagating the horrendously false and harmful idea that this arbitrary concept of race determines one's worldview; "progressive" legislature pushes for forced equality among racial groups that ultimately only furthers the grasp of this arbitrary perception of race by cementing our these classifications in law. We do all this not knowing that the concept of race is constructed and therefore only gains as much significance as we give it, meaning that for all our well-intentioned words and actions in recent times, the problem only gets worse.

Our fundamentally essentialist view of the world has corrupted our minds in the context of the concept of race, leading us to still partake in propagating the very ideas that were nothing more than pragmatic to the very colonials and slavers we now demonize. Maybe through the realization that if we were to have an essence that race is in no way part of it we may finally and actually begin to progress and lessen the suffering cause by this outdated, arbitrary idea. While we may still recognize our ancestry, the organization of peoples into racial classifications is unnecessary and does nothing in today's world other than cause needless harm. As for our governments, may we realize that in order to deinstitutionalize racism, we must deinstitutionalize the concept of race itself, and without the strengthening ties to our social institutions, the concept of race will slowly dissipate, and with it the suffering it causes.