Latest news with #TheShapeofPower:StoriesofRaceandAmericanSculpture
Yahoo
13-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Scientists agree that race is purely a human invention
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. In the recent flurry of executive orders from President Donald Trump, one warned of "a distorted narrative" about race "driven by ideology rather than truth." It singled out a current exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum titled "The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture" as an example. The exhibit displays over two centuries of sculptures that show how art has produced and reproduced racial attitudes and ideologies. The executive order condemns the exhibition because it "promotes the view that race is not a biological reality but a social construct, stating 'Race is a human invention.'" The executive order apparently objects to sentiments such as this: "Although a person's genetics influences their phenotypic characteristics, and self-identified race might be influenced by physical appearance, race itself is a social construct." But those words are not from the Smithsonian; they are from the American Society of Human Genetics. Scientists reject the idea that race is biologically real. The claim that race is a "biological reality" cuts against modern scientific knowledge. I'm a historian who specializes in the scientific study of race. The executive order places "social construct" in opposition to "biological reality." The history of both concepts reveals how modern science landed at the idea that race was invented by people, not nature. Related: What's the difference between race and ethnicity? At the turn of the 20th century, scientists believed humans could be divided into distinct races based on physical features. According to this idea, a scientist could identify physical differences in groups of people, and if those differences were passed on to succeeding generations, the scientist had correctly identified a racial "type." The results of this "typological" method were chaotic. A frustrated Charles Darwin in 1871 listed 13 scientists who identified anywhere between two and 63 races, a confusion that persisted for the next six decades. There were almost as many racial classifications as racial classifiers because no two scientists could seem to agree on what physical characteristics were best to measure, or how to measure them. One intractable problem with racial classifications was that the differences in human physical traits were tiny, so scientists struggled to use them to differentiate between groups. The pioneering African American scholar W.E.B. Du Bois noted in 1906, "It is impossible to draw a color line between black and other races … in all physical characteristics the Negro race cannot be set off by itself." But scientists tried. In an 1899 anthropological study, William Ripley classified people using head shape, hair type, pigmentation and stature. In 1926, Harvard anthropologist Earnest Hooton, the leading racial typologist in the world, listed 24 anatomical traits, such as "the presence or absence of a postglenoid tubercle and a pharyngeal fossa or tubercle" and "the degree of bowing of the radius and ulna" while admitting "this list is not, of course, exhaustive." All this confusion was the opposite of how science should operate: As the tools improved and as measurements became more precise, the object of study − race − became more and more muddled. When sculptor Malvina Hoffman's "Races of Mankind" exhibit opened at Chicago's Field Museum in 1933, it characterized race as a biological reality, despite its elusive definition. World-renowned anthropologist Sir Arthur Keith wrote the introduction to the exhibition's catalog. Keith dismissed science as the surest method to distinguish race; one knows a person's race because "a single glance, picks out the racial features more certainly than could a band of trained anthropologists." Keith's view perfectly captured the view that race must be real, for he saw it all around him, even though science could never establish that reality. In the scientific study of race, however, things were about to change. By 1933, the rise of Nazism had added urgency to the scientific study of race. As anthropologist Sherwood Washburn wrote in 1944, "If we are to discuss racial matters with the Nazis, we had better be right." In the late 1930s and early 1940s, two new scientific ideas came to fruition. First, scientists began looking to culture rather than biology as the driver of differences among groups of people. Second, the rise of population genetics challenged the biological reality of race. In 1943, anthropologists Ruth Benedict and Gene Weltfish wrote a short work also titled The Races of Mankind. Writing for a popular audience, they argued that people are far more alike than different, and our differences owe to culture and learning, not biology. An animated cartoon short later gave these ideas wider circulation. Benedict and Weltfish argued that while people did, indeed, differ physically, those differences were meaningless in that all races could learn and all were capable. "Progress in civilization is not the monopoly of one race or subrace," they wrote. "Negroes made iron tools and wove fine cloth for their clothing when fair-skinned Europeans wore skins and knew nothing of iron." The cultural explanation for different human lifestyles was more robust than confused appeals to an elusive biological race. The turn to culture was consistent with a deep change in biological knowledge. Theodosius Dobzhansky was a preeminent biologist of the 20th century. He and other biologists were interested in evolutionary changes. Races, which supposedly didn't change over time, were therefore useless for understanding how organisms evolved. A new tool, what scientists called a "genetic population," was much more valuable. The geneticist, Dobzhansky held, identified a population based on the genes it shared in order to study change in organisms. Over time natural selection would shape how the population evolved. But if that population didn't shed light on natural selection, the geneticist must abandon it and work with a new population based on a different set of shared genes. The important point is that, whatever population the geneticist chose, it was changing over time. No population was a fixed and stable entity, as human races were supposed to be. Sherwood Washburn, who happened to be Dobzhansky's close friend, brought those ideas into anthropology. He recognized that the point of genetics was not classifying people into fixed groups. The point was to understand the process of human evolution. This change reversed everything taught by Hooton, his old teacher. Writing in 1951, Washburn argued, "There is no way to justify the division of a … population into a series of racial types" because doing so would be pointless. Presuming any group to be unchanging stood in the way of understanding evolutionary changes. A genetic population was not "real"; it was an invention of the scientist using it as a lens to understand organic change. A good way to understand this profound difference relates to roller coasters. Anyone who's been to an amusement park has seen signs that precisely define who is tall enough to ride a given roller coaster. But no one would say they define a "real" category of "tall" or "short" people, as another roller coaster might have a different height requirement. The signs define who is tall enough only for riding this particular roller coaster, and that's all. It's a tool for keeping people safe, not a category defining who is "really" tall. Similarly, geneticists use genetic populations as "an important tool for inferring the evolutionary history of modern humans" or because they have "fundamental implications for understanding the genetic basis of diseases." RELATED STORIES —Scientific research is the lifeblood of our economy. Now, a wrecking ball has come. —'It is a dangerous strategy, and one for which we all may pay dearly': Dismantling USAID leaves the US more exposed to pandemics than ever —Trump executive order calls mental health prescriptions a 'threat' — why? Anyone trying to pound a nail with a screwdriver soon realizes that tools are good for tasks they were designed for and useless for anything else. Genetic populations are tools for specific biological uses, not for classifying people into "real" groups by race. Whoever wanted to classify people, Washburn argued, must give the "important reasons for subdividing our whole species." The Smithsonian's exhibit shows how racialized sculpture was "both a tool of oppression and domination and one of liberation and empowerment." Science agrees with its claim that race is a human invention and not a biological reality. The Conversation U.S. receives funding from the Smithsonian Institution. This edited article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Yahoo
10-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Race isn't a ‘biological reality,' contrary to recent political claims − here's how scientific consensus on race developed in the 20th century
In the recent flurry of executive orders from President Donald Trump, one warned of 'a distorted narrative' about race 'driven by ideology rather than truth.' It singled out a current exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum titled 'The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture' as an example. The exhibit displays over two centuries of sculptures that show how art has produced and reproduced racial attitudes and ideologies. The executive order condemns the exhibition because it 'promotes the view that race is not a biological reality but a social construct, stating 'Race is a human invention.'' The executive order apparently objects to sentiments such as this: 'Although a person's genetics influences their phenotypic characteristics, and self-identified race might be influenced by physical appearance, race itself is a social construct.' But those words are not from the Smithsonian; they are from the American Society of Human Genetics. Scientists reject the idea that race is biologically real. The claim that race is a 'biological reality' cuts against modern scientific knowledge. I'm a historian who specializes in the scientific study of race. The executive order places 'social construct' in opposition to 'biological reality.' The history of both concepts reveals how modern science landed at the idea that race was invented by people, not nature. At the turn of the 20th century, scientists believed humans could be divided into distinct races based on physical features. According to this idea, a scientist could identify physical differences in groups of people, and if those differences were passed on to succeeding generations, the scientist had correctly identified a racial 'type.' The results of this 'typological' method were chaotic. A frustrated Charles Darwin in 1871 listed 13 scientists who identified anywhere between two and 63 races, a confusion that persisted for the next six decades. There were almost as many racial classifications as racial classifiers because no two scientists could seem to agree on what physical characteristics were best to measure, or how to measure them. One intractable problem with racial classifications was that the differences in human physical traits were tiny, so scientists struggled to use them to differentiate between groups. The pioneering African American scholar W.E.B. Du Bois noted in 1906, 'It is impossible to draw a color line between black and other races … in all physical characteristics the Negro race cannot be set off by itself.' But scientists tried. In an 1899 anthropological study, William Ripley classified people using head shape, hair type, pigmentation and stature. In 1926, Harvard anthropologist Earnest Hooton, the leading racial typologist in the world, listed 24 anatomical traits, such as 'the presence or absence of a postglenoid tubercle and a pharyngeal fossa or tubercle' and 'the degree of bowing of the radius and ulna' while admitting 'this list is not, of course, exhaustive.' All this confusion was the opposite of how science should operate: As the tools improved and as measurements became more precise, the object of study − race − became more and more muddled. When sculptor Malvina Hoffman's 'Races of Mankind' exhibit opened at Chicago's Field Museum in 1933, it characterized race as a biological reality, despite its elusive definition. World-renowned anthropologist Sir Arthur Keith wrote the introduction to the exhibition's catalog. Keith dismissed science as the surest method to distinguish race; one knows a person's race because 'a single glance, picks out the racial features more certainly than could a band of trained anthropologists.' Keith's view perfectly captured the view that race must be real, for he saw it all around him, even though science could never establish that reality. In the scientific study of race, however, things were about to change. By 1933, the rise of Nazism had added urgency to the scientific study of race. As anthropologist Sherwood Washburn wrote in 1944, 'If we are to discuss racial matters with the Nazis, we had better be right.' In the late 1930s and early 1940s, two new scientific ideas came to fruition. First, scientists began looking to culture rather than biology as the driver of differences among groups of people. Second, the rise of population genetics challenged the biological reality of race. In 1943, anthropologists Ruth Benedict and Gene Weltfish wrote a short work also titled The Races of Mankind. Writing for a popular audience, they argued that people are far more alike than different, and our differences owe to culture and learning, not biology. An animated cartoon short later gave these ideas wider circulation. Benedict and Weltfish argued that while people did, indeed, differ physically, those differences were meaningless in that all races could learn and all were capable. 'Progress in civilization is not the monopoly of one race or subrace,' they wrote. 'Negroes made iron tools and wove fine cloth for their clothing when fair-skinned Europeans wore skins and knew nothing of iron.' The cultural explanation for different human lifestyles was more robust than confused appeals to an elusive biological race. The turn to culture was consistent with a deep change in biological knowledge. Theodosius Dobzhansky was a preeminent biologist of the 20th century. He and other biologists were interested in evolutionary changes. Races, which supposedly didn't change over time, were therefore useless for understanding how organisms evolved. A new tool, what scientists called a 'genetic population,' was much more valuable. The geneticist, Dobzhansky held, identified a population based on the genes it shared in order to study change in organisms. Over time natural selection would shape how the population evolved. But if that population didn't shed light on natural selection, the geneticist must abandon it and work with a new population based on a different set of shared genes. The important point is that, whatever population the geneticist chose, it was changing over time. No population was a fixed and stable entity, as human races were supposed to be. Sherwood Washburn, who happened to be Dobzhansky's close friend, brought those ideas into anthropology. He recognized that the point of genetics was not classifying people into fixed groups. The point was to understand the process of human evolution. This change reversed everything taught by Hooton, his old teacher. Writing in 1951, Washburn argued, 'There is no way to justify the division of a … population into a series of racial types' because doing so would be pointless. Presuming any group to be unchanging stood in the way of understanding evolutionary changes. A genetic population was not 'real'; it was an invention of the scientist using it as a lens to understand organic change. A good way to understand this profound difference relates to roller coasters. Anyone who's been to an amusement park has seen signs that precisely define who is tall enough to ride a given roller coaster. But no one would say they define a 'real' category of 'tall' or 'short' people, as another roller coaster might have a different height requirement. The signs define who is tall enough only for riding this particular roller coaster, and that's all. It's a tool for keeping people safe, not a category defining who is 'really' tall. Similarly, geneticists use genetic populations as 'an important tool for inferring the evolutionary history of modern humans' or because they have 'fundamental implications for understanding the genetic basis of diseases.' Anyone trying to pound a nail with a screwdriver soon realizes that tools are good for tasks they were designed for and useless for anything else. Genetic populations are tools for specific biological uses, not for classifying people into 'real' groups by race. Whoever wanted to classify people, Washburn argued, must give the 'important reasons for subdividing our whole species.' The Smithsonian's exhibit shows how racialized sculpture was 'both a tool of oppression and domination and one of liberation and empowerment.' Science agrees with its claim that race is a human invention and not a biological reality. The Conversation U.S. receives funding from the Smithsonian Institution. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: John P. Jackson, Jr., Michigan State University Read more: With its executive order targeting the Smithsonian, the Trump administration opens up a new front in the history wars Hundreds of 19th-century skulls collected in the name of medical science tell a story of who mattered and who didn't W.E.B. Du Bois embraced science to fight racism as editor of NAACP's magazine The Crisis John P. Jackson, Jr. does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Washington Post
02-04-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
An art museum for all Americans
You're reading the Today's Opinions newsletter. Sign up to get it in your inbox. In today's edition: When Monica Hesse learned of President Donald Trump's executive order to eradicate 'corrosive ideology' at the Smithsonian museums, she planned to pen a full-throated rejection of his decree. You know, something along the lines of 'this order is asinine, this president is terrible, blah blah blah.' But as she wandered through the American Art Museum in search of the exhibition the president takes particular issue with — 'The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture' — it dawned on her that 'what I wanted to share more than anything else wasn't a screed about Donald Trump, but instead what I saw at the museum.' What follows this realization is a beautifully woven ode to some of the artworks that drew her admiration, from 'John Singer Sargent's society ladies, reclined in their finery' to portraits of the Sioux and Cherokees displaced by European settlers to an evocative painting by Hisako Hibi, a Japanese American who was incarcerated in an internment camp before moving to New York. If Trump and his administration ever repeat Monica's museum tour — with open eyes and minds — they might pick up at least one of the lessons she learned from her visit, chief among them that 'the Smithsonian is not filled with hatred toward our busted, struggling, awesome country; it is filled with the deepest love.' From Karen Tumulty's commentary on the billionaire's exorbitant spending on the losing candidate in Tuesday's race. Though Musk went all-out for the conservative Schimel, Karen propounds that the Tesla CEO and SpaceX founder 'might as well have been on the ballot himself.' The liberal candidate's 'easy, double-digit victory' suggested Wisconsin voters' 'revulsion at Musk's premise that democracy is for sale' — and presented a warning sign to Republicans that their sweep of the swing states in November might be much harder to replicate 'when Trump himself is not on the ballot.' Karen resolves that Wisconsin's rejection of vote-buying was 'heartening for democracy' but that the record spending on 'an ostensibly nonpartisan' election spells trouble for the health of impartial courts. Just after 8 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday, Sen. Cory Booker (D-New Jersey) concluded the longest speech ever delivered on the Senate floor, lasting 25 hours and five minutes. Booker's oratorical marathon denouncing 'the Trump administration's countless abuses of power, misdeeds and catastrophic policy decisions' was a 'powerful act of protest,' writes Perry Bacon. He commends Booker for having a stronger spine (figuratively and literally) than most other congressional Democrats, who have only 'meekly dissented' from the president's actions thus far. Perry adds that this public censure of Trump was particularly inspiriting coming from an 'establishment figure such as Booker' who is 'unusually nonconfrontational' and has historically expressed 'fairly standard center-left policy views on most issues.' Perry hopes that Booker's peers will follow in his footsteps — though they should consider wearing shoe inserts before attempting their own record-breaking speeches. It's a goodbye. It's a haiku. It's … The Bye-Ku. Strength, fortune, pain and Love – these pigment the canvas Of our storied land *** Have your own newsy haiku? Email it to me, along with any questions/comments/ambiguities. See you tomorrow!
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump executive order targets Smithsonian over 'divisive ideology'
US President Donald Trump accuses the Smithsonian Institution of propagating "divisive, race-based ideology" and issued an executive order demanding an end to federal funding for exhibitions and programs based on racial themes that "divide Americans." The Smithsonian group of museums, education and research centers was created by the US government for the increase and diffusion of knowledge. The order, titled "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History," directs Vice President JD Vance to remove "improper ideology" from the Smithsonian's 19 museums and the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Trump's order, issued last month, also seeks to restore Department of the Interior public monuments and statues that were removed or changed "to perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history, inappropriately minimize the value of certain historical events or figures, or include any other improper partisan ideology." Interior Secretary Doug Burgum is directed to look at all "monuments, memorials, statues and markers" that were removed or changed since January 1, 2020. The bulk of public monuments in question honored Confederate leaders and were seen as offensive celebrations of the nation's racist past. They were taken down after the racial justice protests following the murder of George Floyd by a Minnesota police officer. The beginning of Trump's order claims "a concerted and widespread effort" to rewrite American history, "replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth." Several current exhibitions are listed in the order as evidence of the narrative the order seeks to eradicate, including a current show at the Smithsonian American Art Museum titled "The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture," which, according to the museum's website, "examines for the first time the ways in which sculpture has shaped and reflected attitudes and understandings about race in the United States." It's unclear whether the Trump administration intends on censoring, for example, the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture's exhibitions related to the history of slavery in America or the accomplishments of Mary McLeod Bethune, who established a school for Black girls during an era when they were not allowed to attend the same campuses as white children. The executive order also cited an upcoming exhibit at the Smithsonian American Women's History Museum, which the order said will celebrate "the exploits of male athletes participating in women's sports" — an apparent attempt to frame the inclusion of people who are nonbinary or transgender. The Smithsonian Institution, American Art Museum and American Women's History Museum have not yet responded to The Times' requests for comment. The order said Vance would work with Russell Vought, Trump's director of the Office of Management and Budget, to make sure that future appropriations made through Congress "prohibit expenditure on exhibits or programs that degrade shared American values, divide Americans based on race, or promote programs or ideologies inconsistent with federal law and policy." This is not the first time a Trump executive order has affected the Smithsonian. In January, one of Trump's first executive orders effectively banned any mention of diversity, equity and inclusion, prompting the Smithsonian to shutter its diversity offices. In mid-February, Trump engineered the takeover of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts by dismissing board members appointed by former President Biden and getting himself named chairman.
Yahoo
01-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Spokane County set to vote on housing, climate policies in line with state law but at odds with feds
Mar. 31—As President Donald Trump and Republican leaders continue their bid to eradicate efforts to combat climate change and historic inequities, the GOP-majority Spokane County Board of Commissioners is set to enact new state-mandated planning guidelines that embrace change. . The county commissioners will vote Tuesday on new language to be added to the county's comprehensive plan, the guiding document that sets goals and standards for the local government and the municipalities within its boundaries for just about everything that falls under the umbrella of potential growth. Washington's Growth Management Act of 1990 requires counties to update plans every seven years. The 20-year planning adjustments come after Trump has issued several executive orders seeking to end programs that acknowledge historic wrongs and racial disparities at the federal level, including a recent threat to revoke federal funding to museums and cultural institutions promoting what he considers "divisive, race-centered ideology." He pointed to a current sculpture display at the Smithsonian American Art Museum entitled "The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture," an exhibit that explores "the ways in which sculpture has shaped and reflected attitudes and understandings about race in the United States," according to the museum's website. Trump's order signed Thursday rebukes the notion proffered in the exhibit that "[s]ocieties including the United States have used race to establish and maintain systems of power, privilege, and disenfranchisement, while reiterating a long debunked claim popular among eugenicists and the white supremacy movement that race is a biological reality and not a social construct. If approved, the new guidelines are intended to address climate change and past policies that have disproportionately affected people of color, and to encourage affordable housing development. Most of the new language and changes in the comprehensive plan bring the county in line with recently enacted Washington laws intended to boost the state's housing stock, address climate change and ensure that environmental risk to that housing is mitigated as much as possible, Spokane County Planning Director Scott Chesney said at a commissioners meeting last week. "The board updated the countywide planning policies in a significant way in 2022, leaving out housing because the Legislature was taking action to change that," Chesney said. Chesney told the commissioners the updates to the housing and climate resiliency portions of the plan were brought forward after several community discussions and public comment opportunities, and on the recommendation of the Spokane County Planning Technical Advisory Committee and a regional steering committee of elected officials. The affordable housing updates were spurred by House Bill 1220 enacted in 2021, which required communities to "plan for and accommodate" housing affordable to all income levels and establish anti-displacement policies. The same bill also required jurisdictions to identify policies and regulations with racially disparate impacts, and to implement policies that may undo some of those impacts within the housing market. If approved, the proposal would ask jurisdictions within Spokane County to include plans for projected housing needs by economic segments in their own comprehensive plans, in which they are encouraged to avoid concentrations of low-income housing, increase opportunities for housing in areas where it's lacking and support a variety of housing types in single-family neighborhoods. Diversifying and increasing housing stock across the county to include duplexes, triplexes, quadplexes, condos and more is another overarching goal, according to a draft of the proposal included in Tuesday's meeting agenda. Towns, cities and the county itself would also seek to increase avenues to home ownership for that variety of housing under the proposed policy changes. "It's additional guidance for implementation, and then regional strategies for housing affordability, and then the PTAC focused on adapting that state legislation to housing policy," Chesney said. The other slate of policy changes being considered Tuesday are to the county's climate change and resiliency section of the comprehensive plan, a segment required to be in every comprehensive plan statewide . If approved, two new goals will be added to the Spokane County comprehensive plan and those of most jurisdictions within the county. The first, calling for the statewide goal of net-zero emissions by 2050, only applies to towns larger than 6,000 residents. Those jurisdictions will need to plan for the reduction of greenhouse gases and are encouraged to expand use of renewable energy resources, green building practices, public transit and the protection of wild lands, according to a draft proposal. The second would call on all jurisdictions to support efforts to adapt to and mitigate the impacts of "climate hazards," according to county meeting materials. That would mean identifying what common hazards are, like wildfires or floods, creating goals to mitigate their effects and establishing development regulations that use best practices in reducing risk to the home and homeowner.
