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"Race" Is a Four-Letter Word: The Genesis of the Concept
A tour de force work by a leading scholar, "Race" Is a Four-Letter Word explores the history of the concept of race in America, the reasons why the concept has no biological validity, and the ways in which it grew to become accepted as an idea that virtually everyone regards as self-evident. An ardent and eloquent opponent of typology, essentialism, and stereotyping, C. Loring Brace has based this engaging study on the "Problems of Race" course that he has taught at the University of Michigan for the past thirty-five years.
Opening with an explanation of why the concept of race is biologically indefensible, "Race" Is a Four-Letter Word shows how the major elements of human biological variation have unrelated distributions and cannot be understood if the existence of "races" is assumed as a starting point. The book then examines the course of events that created the concept of race, journeying through time from Herodotus through Marco Polo; to the Renaissance and the role of the New World; on up to the American Civil War, the curious results of the alliance switch in World War I, Arthur Jensen, The Bell Curve , J. Philippe Rushton, and the Pioneer Fund in the twenty-first century.
Ideal as a supplementary text in anthropology courses, "Race" Is a Four-Letter Word can also be used in history of science courses and sociology courses. It is captivating reading for professionals and anyone else who seeks enlightenment on the socially debatable issue of "race."
Opening with an explanation of why the concept of race is biologically indefensible, "Race" Is a Four-Letter Word shows how the major elements of human biological variation have unrelated distributions and cannot be understood if the existence of "races" is assumed as a starting point. The book then examines the course of events that created the concept of race, journeying through time from Herodotus through Marco Polo; to the Renaissance and the role of the New World; on up to the American Civil War, the curious results of the alliance switch in World War I, Arthur Jensen, The Bell Curve , J. Philippe Rushton, and the Pioneer Fund in the twenty-first century.
Ideal as a supplementary text in anthropology courses, "Race" Is a Four-Letter Word can also be used in history of science courses and sociology courses. It is captivating reading for professionals and anyone else who seeks enlightenment on the socially debatable issue of "race."
336 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2004
About the author
C. Loring Brace
23 books1 followerCharles Loring Brace IV (1930-2019) was an American anthropologist, Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan's Department of Anthropology and Curator Emeritus at the University's Museum of Anthropological Archaeology. He considered the attempt "to introduce a Darwinian outlook into biological anthropology" to be his greatest contribution to the field of anthropology.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
November 30, 2021
Excellent content, writing was a bit verbose and convoluted. Not super accessible to the average reader (which is unfortunate because there are some very important details that should be more widely acknowledged).
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July 25, 2020Good historical review of how the concept of race was derived.
August 1, 2014
Every now and then a book comes along that completely changes your worldview. I used to think along the intuitive lines that racial groups were a biological thing but this book, and the class I took with it, lay out why that's not true. It starts with the racist history of anthropology, its phrenology phase, and how a study of human evolution was used to justify racist beliefs and policies. It dominated the discourse for a long time. In looking at the DNA of different racial groups, you'll see no substantial difference. I could have more genes in common with any other black person than I do with another white person. This varies more by region than by skin color, which is very small and insignificant genetically speaking. In fact, while I might not(?) have any black ancestors, you'll find a number of blacks with mostly white ancestry. Of course the perception of race doesn't say that their mostly white ancestry makes them white, it's their dark tinged skin that makes them black.
Race is a social construct. Looking at the history helps you deconstruct why we have that view. Race started in the early days of colonialism. Prior to that, people regarded each other more on religion and nationality than by what your body looked like. This is because people rarely ventured far from their homes so even Roman soldiers sailing to Northern Africa only saw the lighter skinned blacks there. Even the most diversely exposed, Marco Polo, never viewed things in what we'd call race. As global navigation expanded and the idea of conquering other peoples with superior technology, a way to justify those stream of relatively easy victories became necessary for the colonists. They needed to save the people, spiritually, and saw their technologically "inferior" ways of living and fighting as evidence of lesser beings. Though not countenanced by Darwin, this carried on through theories of human evolution preaching that there were only five groups of people.
Where I might disagree with the book is its urging to abandon race as a concept. I agree it has no real use as a biological concept but it unfortunately is still a social one. The fact that most people are skeptical of this claim like I was is evidence of that. I used to base my perceptions of the prevalence of racism on my own perception. But there's research you can look up. Seriously, tons and tons of studies have been done that show racism is a thing. There's also epidemiological evidence, data, that you can look up. You don't need to rely on your own perception, you can simply google it.
Those are facts and frankly, conservatives like Ben Shapiro always talk about facts offending liberals but I don't see him citing these facts. Sure they'll cite ones they agree with, like an IQ study that showed blacks test lower on average but then fail to consider that IQ tests may not be the best determinant of intelligence. And might by their very nature of a test discriminate against people not taught to succeed in paper tests. It's hard for blacks to test at high IQ when they have lower funding for education and thus lower literacy rates. Said conservatives might also consider that similar studies have shown liberals have higher IQs on average. I take both with a grain of salt, i.e. not very trustworthy. But the other studies you can look at, evaluate, and either agree or point out the flaws or superior counter-research.
Neil deGrasse Tyson, awesome astrophysicist and science educator who is black was asked about racial and gender disparity in science both in representation and biological differences. He's a scientist so he doesn't want to unobjectively insist that there's no biological differences pre-emptively. He pointed to these systemic barriers to women and people of color and said: "So before we start talking about genetic differences, you gotta come up with a system where there’s equal opportunity. Then we can have that conversation."
Race is a social construct. Looking at the history helps you deconstruct why we have that view. Race started in the early days of colonialism. Prior to that, people regarded each other more on religion and nationality than by what your body looked like. This is because people rarely ventured far from their homes so even Roman soldiers sailing to Northern Africa only saw the lighter skinned blacks there. Even the most diversely exposed, Marco Polo, never viewed things in what we'd call race. As global navigation expanded and the idea of conquering other peoples with superior technology, a way to justify those stream of relatively easy victories became necessary for the colonists. They needed to save the people, spiritually, and saw their technologically "inferior" ways of living and fighting as evidence of lesser beings. Though not countenanced by Darwin, this carried on through theories of human evolution preaching that there were only five groups of people.
Where I might disagree with the book is its urging to abandon race as a concept. I agree it has no real use as a biological concept but it unfortunately is still a social one. The fact that most people are skeptical of this claim like I was is evidence of that. I used to base my perceptions of the prevalence of racism on my own perception. But there's research you can look up. Seriously, tons and tons of studies have been done that show racism is a thing. There's also epidemiological evidence, data, that you can look up. You don't need to rely on your own perception, you can simply google it.
Those are facts and frankly, conservatives like Ben Shapiro always talk about facts offending liberals but I don't see him citing these facts. Sure they'll cite ones they agree with, like an IQ study that showed blacks test lower on average but then fail to consider that IQ tests may not be the best determinant of intelligence. And might by their very nature of a test discriminate against people not taught to succeed in paper tests. It's hard for blacks to test at high IQ when they have lower funding for education and thus lower literacy rates. Said conservatives might also consider that similar studies have shown liberals have higher IQs on average. I take both with a grain of salt, i.e. not very trustworthy. But the other studies you can look at, evaluate, and either agree or point out the flaws or superior counter-research.
Neil deGrasse Tyson, awesome astrophysicist and science educator who is black was asked about racial and gender disparity in science both in representation and biological differences. He's a scientist so he doesn't want to unobjectively insist that there's no biological differences pre-emptively. He pointed to these systemic barriers to women and people of color and said: "So before we start talking about genetic differences, you gotta come up with a system where there’s equal opportunity. Then we can have that conversation."
April 18, 2014
I appreciated his enthusiastic approach and thoroughness of coverage. However, his grasp on short-term evolution was lacking and his eagerness to label anyone who discusses racial differences as "racist" is a little off-putting in a few cases (and entirely accurate in others). Overall, I enjoyed reading this book and would highly recommend it to others. For those who think that racial categories are discreet scientific categories, you should definitely read this. For those who, like myself, understand that human variation is far more subtle, complex and gradated, this is merely a nice overview of the topic and evolution of racist ideology.
November 13, 2007
A must read if you own an opinion on the topic, are searching for an opinion, never knew there was a question, or are interested in clarifying an uneasiness.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews