Martin LeFevre: The Roots of Racism

Looking over the books on a friend’s bookshelf, I spotted a thick tome on evolution, replete with pictures of various fauna and flora. “You can have that one, I don’t believe in evolution anymore.” Dumbfounded, I replied, “Oh, and did you stop believing in gravity as well?”

Not very distant on the tree of ignorance that the “I don’t believe in evolution” people embody, are the studied absurdities of the racialists, who maintain that the different races of man grew from different species of apes.

Racialism is a belief in the significance of racial categories. It is an underlying philosophical orientation necessary to sustain racism, the belief that racial traits and capacities determine an inherent hierarchy of races.

Given the history of slavery, colonialism, and genocide flowing from racism and ideologies of ‘social Darwinism,’ the motives of those who maintain that race is of primary importance must be strenuously questioned.

An example of racialism is an essay by celebrity photographer Akhil Bakshi, who believes that the races of man evolved from different apes. In 2006 Bakshi led an expedition, supported by India’s prime minister, and claimed afterward that “Negroid”, “Caucasian” and “Mongoloid” peoples are separate species, which evolved on different continents.

Bakshi’s essay, with the highfalutin title “Continental Drift and Concurrent Evolution of Human Species, A Critique of the African-origin Theory”, contains such gems as this: “One branch of an orang utan (sic) could have evolved into an Asiatic Ape-man who also eventually stood upright and developed Mongoloid features (Java Man, Peking Man) – today’s yellow race of Chinese, Japanese, etc.”

Until recently, there was a legitimate debate between paleoanthropologists regarding whether modern humans in Africa, Asia, and Europe evolved independently from an ancient Homo erectus lineage (‘multiregionalism’); or whether ancient humans in Asia and Europe were replaced by a new species of human (the ‘Out of Africa model’). But it is patently absurd to suggest that different species of apes gave rise to different races of humans. And it plays right into the hands of racists.

A google search of Bakshi’s essay indicates that it has struck a chord amongst people who promote blogs like: “White people save blacks again;” and “Niggers, Whites, and Asians have different ape ancestors.”

Such filth attests to the fact that racialism and racism are two sides of the same coin. Indeed, in the etymology of the word, racialism originally meant what is now defined as racism—the belief in the innate superiority of particular races.

The idea that the races evolved from different species of ancient humans cannot be dismissed just because it plays into racists’ hands. But the overwhelming evidence, and scientific consensus is that racial differences represent relatively recent and superficial evolutionary developments.

Bakshi, who is not a scientist much less paleoanthropologist, trumpets his racialism with red meat rhetoric such as: “Are we to believe that in only 40,000 – 50,000 years the Negroid race evolved into Caucasian and Mongoloid races with vastly different physical characteristics?”

Yes, we are to believe it, because genetic and DNA evidence proves that all humans are very closely related. As Chris Stringer, one of the world’s foremost paleoanthropologists says in “The Evolution of Modern Humans” , “Despite distinctive external features such as skin colour, nose shape and eye form, modern humans are surprisingly similar in their overall genetic makeup.”

The illusion of innate separateness is a powerful tendency in human consciousness. But as we have seen in the United States, there is no such thing as “separate but equal.”

It’s not surprising that peoples that have dominated other peoples need a justification for their brutality and suppression. Nor is it surprising that peoples who have been dominated want to preserve their distinctness in the face of the onslaught of globalization. But embracing harebrained racialist theories does not preserve diversity; it further divides people.

As Dr. Stringer has said, “Africa was our genetic, physical and behavioural homeland, and Africa today may well contain as much genetic diversity as the rest of the world put together. All of us are indeed 'Africans under the skin'.”

- Martin LeFevre is a contemplative, and non-academic religious and political philosopher. He has been publishing in North America, Latin America, Africa, and Europe (and now New Zealand) for 20 years. Email: martinlefevre@sbcglobal.net. The author welcomes comments.

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