Are White Persons A Race?
Everybody knows what it means to be white, or do they? Geneticists tell us that even though there are races amongst some animal species, our species, homo sapiens, is too young for races to have developed. They have traced the origin of our species back to Africa, meaning that our distant ancestors were black. As some people began to explore the world by moving into the Middle East and what is today Europe, those with less melanin in their skin increased their ability to produce vitamin D in their skin. These were folks born with a little lighter skin who would likely have had major health challenges if they had been born further South where the incidence of ultraviolet radiation from the Sun was higher. As people moved further North, they continued to adapt to lower degrees of ultraviolet radiation by losing more and more melanin in their skin. This loss of melanin is an adaptation to living in higher latitudes that the ancestors of people of European descent experienced. Less melanin leads to less screening out of ultraviolet radiation, which is needed to produce an appropriate amount of Vitamin D generated in our skin by ultraviolet radiation from the Sun. Because of this low level of melanin, we call them “white” people today. However, they are not a race because their differences from their ancestors were small, although they outwardly appeared large. People who remained in Africa were already adapted to their environment in terms of skin color. We call their descendants black in the United States because of the melanin in their skin. They are not a race, either. They are just homo sapiens.
Thus, from a scientific standpoint, there cannot be a white, black, yellow, red, or any other race because there are no races among us.. This finding contradicts our traditional understanding of race. The lack of races among humans should be quite disconcerting to people who are trying to “save” the supposed white race. Yet, how our ancestors got their Vitamin D seems to be a ridiculous reason for us to be so divided from one another today, and it is. Nevertheless, the very potent idea of race is taken to be real by most Americans for other hidden but damaging reasons.
The Origins of the Melding of Supposed Whiteness And Race
Our ideas about race in this country were created mainly in Virginia in the early 1600s in order to divide the white slaves from the African slaves. Workers from Britain were classified as being in bondage, which usually meant they would be freed in seven years and perhaps get some land to make up for not being paid for all those years. Yet, before the 1660s, they were often listed in estate records as slaves. They were the Christian slaves, and persons from Africa were called either the heathen slaves or African slaves. Laws in Virginia were developed over forty to fifty years that favored the British slaves over the African slaves. Over time, the British bondsmen began to be referred to as servants. The Africans remained slaves but were no longer considered to be in bondage. Their slavery changed to chattel slavery and was to remain that way for the rest of their lives. This differential treatment was justified by the new idea of “race.” This idea says that the difference between the races could not be changed. The so-called heathens could convert to Christianity so all the slaves would have something in common and could join together in rebellion. However, because differences by race could never be changed, races joining together in rebellion was nearly impossible. Labeling one race as superior to the other was done to turn the races against the other. The animosity between them would ensure that they never would join forces to free themselves from their wealthy owners. The long-term result of the creation of race is that those with great power can get even more power and wealth, and it has worked that way to this day.
Laws passed by the Virginia Assembly promoting the symbol “race” were also developing the idea of white superiority. Both of these ideas were lies that improved the lot of the rich by dividing the poor into antagonistic camps. Once created, the ideas of race and white superiority put pressure on all whites to keep their ill-gotten superiority through the suppression of blacks by any means. If any whites were to stray from this false system of status, their behavior would threaten all other whites with a loss of status. For whites, in general, any deviation from enforcing their control over blacks was like becoming low-status blacks themselves. As cheap and childish as it was and still is, most whites were ready to defend their supposed superior status with their lives if necessary.
So What Does All This Mean For Whites?
Sociologists refer to the creation of race as an example of the “social construction of perceived reality.” If race is perceived to be real, then it is taken as real and acted upon as if it were real. Thus, racists today are trapped in a lie so strong as to urge them to do what otherwise would be unthinkable. They dehumanize fellow members of their species in order to maintain an unearned status while claiming to be good people, with the majority of them even claiming to be Christian.
Yet, many whites have had a change of heart to some degree, although they have not always acted in such a way as to show that change. It is understandable that most whites embraced racism in the past. However, those of us who now know that we are not genetically superior to blacks and that the very idea of race was a way of manipulating nearly everyone for economic gain need to step up to right the horrible wrong of racism.
Finally, the question, can the white race be saved is nonsense. There is no white race, and white people are not a homogenous category of people of any consequence. Like everyone else, most people who are white are dominated by a much smaller category of mostly white people who are extremely rich. The ultrarich, knowingly or not, are greatly served by the idea of race. This is because race divides the rest of the nation, greatly hampering the majority from saving themselves from the excesses of the ultrarich.