The Myth of Race: The Troubling Persistence of an Unscientific Idea

by Robert Wald Sussman

Concerning the Alabama law, journalist Jean Damu (2012) writes: “The Nuremberg Laws … addressed economic and everyday social relations. For instance, entering into a contract with a Jew became illegal. Providing social services to Jews became illegal. Jews were relegated to their own schools.… The intent of all this naturally was to get the Jews to leave Germany.… Though the Nuremberg Laws were, we would like to think, far more extensive, invasive and racist than anything that could possibly be accepted anywhere in America in 2012, there is a disturbing overlap of key provisions of the laws; and the intent, to get the Jews in Germany and undocumented immigrants here, to ‘deport themselves,’ is the same.”