Scientific Racism and the "Colour Line"
Authors/Creators
- 1. Associate Professor, Department of English, Delhi Commerce of Arts and Commerce, University of Delhi, Delhi, India
Description
Skin colour is a visual marker of difference and has been employed to justify the enslavement of people and their exploitation to build the empires of the western world. Slave trade is an integral part of the story of ‘civilisation’ and conquest. Though the impact of racial discrimination unfolded in different ways in different parts of the world, the arguments utilised to deny their humanity and present the ‘coloured’ people of the world are very similar. This paper will analyse the development of Scientific and Biological Racism from the writings of Bernier, Linnaeus and the thinkers they influenced. It will also focus on the manner in which these arguments were used to justify the brutality of colonisation, slavery and social exclusion. The challenges to this superstructure of racial superiority through King Jr., Du Bois, Malcolm X will be studied. The Civil Rights Movement in America, the freedom movements in worldwide, and other struggles for equity, power and justice need to be seen in this light.
Files
SSJAR2025050507.pdf
Files
(267.1 kB)
| Name | Size | Download all |
|---|---|---|
|
md5:d4e6e1c3436278e77261fef08f788ed6
|
267.1 kB | Preview Download |
Additional details
References
- Bello, Walden. (2024). The lockean roots of white supremacy in America. Foreign Policy in Focus. https://fpif.org/the-lockean-roots-of-white-supremacy-in-the-u-s/. Accessed 12 Aug. 2024.
- Brennan, Tim. (2025). Classification: An overview of selected methodological issues. Crime and Justice, 9, 201–48. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1147393. Accessed 17 May 2025.
- Carr, Helen. (2022). The defeat of scientific racism: Charles King, The reinvention of humanity: A story of race, sex, gender and the discovery of culture. Women: A Cultural Review, 33(2), 247–52. https://doi.org/10.1080/09574042.2022.2072616
- Charmantier, Isabelle. (2025). Linnaeus and race. The linnean society of London. https://www.linnean.org/learning/who-was-linnaeus/linnaeus-and-race. Accessed 7 July 2025.
- Du Bois, W. E. B. (1935). Black reconstruction in America 1860–1880. Harcourt, Brace and Company.
- Harris, Kimberley Ann. (2019). 'W. E. B. Du Bois' 'Conservation of Races': A metaphorical text. Metaphilosophy, 50(5), 670–87. https://doi.org/10.1111/meta.12390
- Hörandl, Elvira. (2006). Paraphyletic versus Monophyletic Taxa—Evolutionary versus cladistic classifications. Taxon, 55(3), 564–70. JSTOR. https://doi.org/10.2307/25065631. Accessed 17 May 2025.
- Kant, Immanuel. (2007). Anthropology, history, and education. Edited by Robert B. Louden and Gunter Zoller, translated by Mary Gregor, Paul Guyer, Robert B. Louden, et al., Cambridge University Press.
- Lectures on Anthropology. (2012). Edited by Allen Wood and Robert Louden. Cambridge University Press.
- Largen, Kristin Johnston. (2020). Remembering Martin Luther King, Jr. Dialog, 59(1), 12–13. https://doi.org/10.1111/dial.12541