PART I: _From ethnocentrism to state racism - Genesis of an ideology for power, money, and pride._
Like an ideology transcending behavior, the racism that prevails today is based on the belief that humanity is divided into distinct "races," and that some of these are inherently superior or inferior to others.
Defined as the act of discriminating or wrongfully inferring traits of individuals based on phenotype (skin color and physical features), geographical origin, and cultural traditions, racism exposes humans by pseudo-scientifically classifying them into divergent groups;
thus attributing to these castes innate moral, intellectual, or physical qualities, and establishing a hierarchy among them. This gradation will be used to support illegitimate and illicit aberrations such as discrimination, domination, or exclusion.
The "race" codifies, de facto, the value and different treatment accorded to each group of individuals.
Racism as constituted has not always existed. It has built itself up in stages to essentially legitimize the desire to dominate others in order to enslave them for exploitation, which represents power; the desire for flesh and lust, materialized by money; both sharpened by the pride of the flattering ego. Three motives of interest that nourish the instinct for survival. *JHS*
Far from their home country before the 15th century, foreigners could face ethnocentrism.
Contempt for the other was based on culture, religion but not on biology.
In Greece or Rome, one who did not speak Greek or Latin was ostracized as a "Barbarian"; whereas a Romanized Gaul could be raised to senatorial dignity.
In the Middle Ages, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim monotheists opposed each other by faith and not by blood. A converted Jew or Moor could integrate into the adopting society.
The blood parameter did not obstruct the possibility of exchanging camps.
Scientific racism takes root with the slave trade during the period from 1500 to 1800. The colonization of the Americas and the transatlantic slave trade create the necessity of morally absolving the undignified exploitation of captives.
From 1492 to 1700, Europeans encountered in the colonies peoples with very different phenotypes. To corroborate the brutal expropriation of Native American lands, the indigenous people were stigmatized as: "pagans, soulless, and uncivilized."
_Hubris being the aroma that the gods instill in the perfume of mortals to intoxicate them with themselves._
*Apocryphal*
According to the Black Code of 1685-1687 in Saint-Domingue, the slave is a movable property. The law creates a legal racial hierarchy: White - Mulatto - Black - Slave.
Science establishes itself in 1758 with Carl Von Linné who classifies humans into four varieties: _Europaeus_, _Asiaticus_, _Americanus_, _Afer_.
And, Count Arthur de Gobineau in 1855, _Essay on the Inequality of Human Races_, invents stratification: "White creative race, Yellow material race, and Black emotional race."
Racism evolves from: "You do not have the right religion" *to* "You were born inferior in your genes."
This ideology reaches the golden age of state racism between 1840-1945 in politics and in the industrial sector.
The Colonialism from 1885 to 1960 is labeled "civilizing mission." Africa and Asia are children to be educated. Leopold II in the Congo serves as an extreme archetype.
Jim Crow from 1887 to 1964 excels in the USA in legal segregation. Benches, schools, and buses for Whites are separate from those of Blacks.
The racial ideology peaks in Nazism from 1933-1945. Jews, Roma, and Slavs are declared to be "sub-humans"_Untermenschen_, leading to the Holocaust with 6 million Jews gassed.
After 1804, the Republic of Haiti prohibits Whites from owning vast tracts of land. But the natives, consisting of blacks and mulattos, inherit the colony by imposing their republican laws.
From 1945 to the present, racism has become taboo. After Auschwitz, claiming that Blacks are inferior sounds illegal, morally unacceptable in the West.
In 1948, UNESCO presented the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And, in 1950, affirms that there are not many but only one race, the unique human species.
From 1960 to 1994, we witness the end of empires and the end of apartheid.
And, from 1994 to today, systematic state racism becomes systemic and institutional. Less direct insults, but more bias in hiring, housing, policing, and schooling. With the influx of cultural discourses, it is no longer about "race," but about culture that gets the brunt.
Racism continues to serve to bolster the economic exploitation of the voiceless and to create a scapegoat. When it escalates, the buffer group will be blamed to avoid questioning the elites.
Science has demonstrated that there have not been, for 20,000 years, multiple biological races as proposed by Count Arthur de Gobineau, but only one human species/race. Racism is therefore presently a social concept.
*_What has genetics revealed?_*
Only one human species, very little varied. We are 99.9% identical humans. We share 99.9% of our DNA. The difference between anyone and me, on Earth, is 0.1%.
Today,
There is only one human species on Earth: _Homo sapiens, sapiens_.
All current humans, whether from Miami, Dakar, or Tokyo, are of the same species, inter-fertile, with 99.9% identical DNA. What is called "diverse races" has had no biological value for nearly 20,000 years.
If we go back in time, we discover several other human species that coexisted, and some interbred like Sapiens, Neanderthals, Denisovans…:
._Homo habilis_: appeared about 2.4 million years ago, having a mean cranial volume of 600 to 650 cm³, the first genus to make tools.
._Homo rudolfensis:_
(appearance) 2.4 to 1.8 million years ago, (extinction).
700-830 cm³ cranial volume,
one of the first Homo,
from Kenya, Lake Turkana.
with a larger cranial volume than Homo habilis with a very australopithecine way of life, the first having a truly human face.
._Homo erectus_: ~1.9 million years ago, 800/900-1100 cm³ cranial volume, the first to leave Africa and master fire.
._Homo heidelbergensis_:
(appearance) 700,000 to 200,000 years (extinction)
1100 to 1350 cm³ cranial volume,
Direct ancestor:
Africa, Europe, Asia... the first cosmopolitan Homo species,
ancestor of *Neanderthal in Europe, Denisova in Asia, and Sapiens in Africa.*
First to organize large game hunting (wooden spears from 400,000 years ago at Schöningen),
first to build shelters, and to control fire.
._Homo neanderthalensis_ (Neanderthal): 1400-1600 cm³ average cranial volume, 400,000 to 40,000 years (extinction) Europe and the Middle East.
._Homo denisovensis_ (Denisova): discovered in 2010 in Siberia, identified by a finger bone and DNA, appeared 300,000 to 20,000 years ago, estimated cranial volume 1200 to 1400 cm³.
._Homo floresiensis_: 100,000 to 50,000 years, 1.06 m tall in Indonesia, nicknamed "the Hobbit", 380 cm³ cranial volume, but capable of making complex tools.
._Homo luzonensis: 400-600 cm³, 65,000 years and Homo naledi: 500 cm³ cranial volume, 335,000 years_, recent discoveries.
The Neanderthal, having a larger brain and a more massive body to manage, was not smarter than the Sapiens.
We, _Homo sapiens_, with a cranial volume of 1350-1500 cm³, appeared about 300,000 years ago in Africa.
For a long time, several human species lived and cohabited at the same time on Earth. You and I still carry Neanderthal DNA, between 1 and 4% if the ancestors come from outside Africa, and Denisovan DNA if the ancestors are Asian; resulting from copulations and interbreeding. The Papuans of Papua New Guinea have up to 5% Denisovan genes.
All other species have gone extinct, and for about 20,000 years, we have been the only human species (race) on Earth.
85% to 95% of all human genetic variation exists within a single group called black, white, or Asian. There is more diversity within a group than between groups. A randomly selected French person and a randomly selected Senegalese are genetically closer to each other than two randomly selected Senegalese.
No black or white gene has been discovered. Skin color results from a gradient of melanin, in its adaptation to the sun. Populations in the Sahel are very dark, in the Maghreb lighter, in Europe even lighter. A continuous color hue, and not in three stages.
*_To be continued in part two._*
