what most experts thought about race: that it was a fluid, social idea, and not a scientific fact. No clear genetic boundary existed between races, no biological line dividing minorities from whites. James had studied anarchist theory and read that in English the concept of “race” didn’t appear until the sixteenth century, as a way for colonialists to differentiate themselves from natives, and later for slave owners to differentiate themselves from their slaves. It was a man-made tool of oppression and exploitation.
