Black is good, white is bad. Black is bad, white is good. Which is it? Most Americans know that neither generalization is true. Individual character determines quality, not money in the bank, the neighborhood where you live, or the color of your skin.
Yet, increased racial tensions have caught Americans off guard. Headlines increasingly report people of all colors, in and out of the government, are fueling the racial discord. Issues of race emerged in the 2008 presidential primaries, at just about the time the race card neared a DOA pronouncement. Racial agitators seized the opportunity and resurfaced too once again provide it with life-support.
White House Diversity Czar Mark Lloyd suggested "...white people have held their jobs too long and should turn them over..." Is Lloyd's proposed redistribution of wealth ideology — socialism, racism or both? The President of the United States embroiled himself in a law enforcement fracas and interjected race. Americans asked when rapper Kanye West took the microphone from Taylor Swift at the VMA Awards, was it rudeness, racism, or was Kanye having a fubu moment gone awry? People have difficulty distinguishing between racism, poor judgment, or just bad behavior when tensions rise.
A warning from across the pond illustrated how the radical groups in the UK were flaming the fires of racism as the BBC reportedly indoctrinated the public to Charles Darwin's theories of evolution and survival of the fittest, in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the release of Darwin's book, On the Origin of Species, on November 24, 2009. Darwin's ideas spawned Social Darwinism, which pits people against one another based on race, class, and disability. According to former UC Berkeley Law professor, Phillip E. Johnson, the philosophy of evolution fueled German militarism and Hitlerism, which remains a subject taught today in every American public school with no disagreement allowed.
Co-author, Sharon Sebastian, raises the question of whether or not Darwin's ill conceived and personally biased theories created chasms between people of varying skin color. "Clearly, Darwin's ironclad influence in the school system, and the degenerative effect based on unfounded science, is unjustifiable when Americans from all backgrounds have worked long and hard to insure equality today for all citizens."
The authors, Sebastian and Raymond G. Bohlin, point out that this new book, Darwin's Racists — Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, reveals what most Americans don't know — that based on DNA and modern science, we are ONE RACE — THE HUMAN RACE. The book examines the dangers of teaching Darwin's race-based theory, with no scientific foundation, to children of all ages across America. Black Americans are among the loudest to decry the teaching of Darwin's theory of evolution as a "fact." Based on false scientific justification and his personal biases, Charles Darwin deemed what he called the "duskier races," to be inferior, sub-humans, and variants. Renowned Harvard evolutionist, Stephen J. Gould, a staunch Darwinian, concluded that though "...racist attitudes were common..." and increased by, "orders of magnitude" that had not previously existed until after Darwin's theory of evolution became accepted.
"Darwin's Racists addresses today's social, political, and racial divide in America. From Darwin's admirers Marx, Mao, Hitler, and Sanger, to today's flagrant persecution of those who oppose the theory of evolution, the book informs and equips the reader as never before regarding mid-1800 naturalist Charles Darwin's impact on 21st century America. The book reveals the prime impetus of much of today's class struggle, racial strife and a devaluing of life of our disabled, elderly and poor. Darwin's Racists is a book that Washington would do well to read."
For more information on the book, visit the website Darwin's Racists.
Comments
one race
Race is hardly advertised as one. It is compartmentalized into social and political agendas. If we started acknowledging everyone as one race, we would not have so much inequality. I presume, instead of classifying people and stripping them of dignity, we would begin to edify and relate to one another. Race has only accomplished segregation and the inevitable consequence of segregation is inequality. The motivating factor behind race is economic. People are imposing a heirarchical ideology and using Darwin as a scientific excuse. Meanwhile, people are being dehumanized and beaten down to a lower SES. Rich people cannot be rich unless there are poor people that are being taken advantage of. Race has allowed for and excuse to seperate class and create cultural capital. If only we could go back and proclaim the biological fact that there is only one! If only the human race could stop using one another as pedestals for greed. If only we could understand there is no biological difference between black and white, asian, and indian. Then we would begin to see equality emerge, and empathy would replace the cognitive misers we so selfishly accepted.
We are one Race... The human race
I believe that there should be more attention focused on the idea that we are one race the human race. Especially in school, I think they should start this idea at a very young age in order to try to socialize the children differently. I think that if from the first moments of education our childrens education wee were taught about our similarities and how our DNA shows no more difference between two people of opposite races then two people of the same race then they would hopefully close the racial divide once these children grow up and enter into the world some into politics and others voting to change our country for the better. The issue of Charles Darwin is that yes his theory of evolution is a great scientific breakthrough should definitely be taught in schools. But when you take this theory and apply them to individuals based on ability race and age and rank them in our society as such not be taught in schools and should not be the way our society functions. I also like the point this article makes about how when we follow the Darwin race based theory we end up devaluing the life of the disabled the elderly and the poor, which I believe we definitely do in our country. I think it's an iterating theory to say that because we look at people in the survival of the fittest mode it makes sense to me that the disabled elderly and poor would be on the bottom of the chain and in turn valued less. I hope that if we begin to change the way were educated at the youngest age possible it could help to change our country.
One race
I do not think that we should view each other as seperate races all the time. Yes there are notable features that show our differences, but we are all human beings. We have to come together and realize that we have more similarities then we do differences. If we all would just stop and think, we would be able to have a lot more equality and be at peace more with one another. Darwins theory of evoultion is a great thing, but if you use that for different individuals, that is what breaks us apart. We need to become one with one another and stop taking advantage of others. We will then be able to more accepting.
One Race
I don't think that we should view people and groups as separate races. We are indeed one race...the human race. We shouldn't completely ignore the color of one's skin or their gender, but we shouldn't make that the main focus. We should all try to relate to each other so that we can get to know more about each other and the other race. We should focus on coming together and being one. There are similarities and differences between all of us that make us who we are and we should concentrate on those factors instead of the color of skin. People should be learning at a young age that we are one race no matter what color skin you have or anything else. It will help prevent any future racial issues and it will have an everlasting effect. We as a society should start to look at everything equally and see how things really are. We should take of the blinders and see what really is going on in the world and how it is affecting everyone including our children.
The author raises and
The author raises and interesting point about who does things based on racism or just poor judgment. I never thought about this before. I believes people's poor judgment comes from racism and prejudiced thoughts. I never put much thought into the idea that Darwin started the initial idea of racism. There is a lot of tension between members of different races, even though we are all members of the human race. There is no superior color of skin. Darwin had no scientific basis for his book. He created this idea from his own beliefs. We must make good judgments and relieve our minds of prejudicial thoughts.
One Race
The author brings up a good point that is usually not brought up. That we are one race, or Human. In our society now people talk about how we should become one race or group, Americans. But when something bad happens like murder, we tend to become individuals again. Meaning we don't want to be a part of that group so we separate ourselves. Those people to me are hypocrites because they want people to become one, but when something else happens they become two. I don't think we will ever become one race because there is hate between groups and people won't ever get over that hate.
The fact that people are using Darwin to talk about the creation of race seems stupid to me. Darwin was talking about the creation of our species, Humans. I have never read his book but I have learned about him and I don't think that race was an idea that he was trying to get across. To me Darwin was just talking about how animals evolved to what we are now, and how different species of different animals survived.
Good or Bad?
I also wonder if what Kanye West did at the VMA’s was racist or just for the thrill of being an outlier in a show that is watched by millions. The notions and thoughts of white or black being good have affected many people throughout our life time, and for some it still affects them daily. The determination of character I believe runs along the lines of what you do for others. There are many factors that our contemporary society feeds off of, and establishes our character. For instance, many people probably viewed Kanye as a man with plenty of many that drives $300,000 dollar cars, but after his recent example of his true character, one can argue that material items play little too none contribution to who a person really is. I honestly wasn’t aware that Darwin’s book has been released for over 150 years now. I’m not quite sure if I agree with Darwin’s theory in which pits people against each other based on race, class and disability, none the less his theories are very interesting at the least.
One people?
I like the very first line in this article which states, "Black is good, white is bad. Black is bad, white is good. Which is it?" I mean, honestly this is the mindset that we want to get away from, but it shows just how simple thinking can turn an entire race into something negative. Thankfully, that quote is followed up by stating that individual character determines who someone is, and not money or power or any of those interconnected things. Unfortunately, yet again, these characters can be seen selectively by certain people. What i mean by that is that there may be an equal amount of "bad" Black and White people, but our society may tend to put the blame on the "bad" Black people while ignoring the Whites, therefore making the Blacks the negative stereotype, when really there's so much more that society is missing. I think the only way to get rid of these things is to deconstruct the way society thinks, and then change how information is given out to people. The media plays a huge role in how we view race, such as the example of Kanye West in this article. What may have been just bad judgement and voicing an opinion has been viewed as something racial from Kanye to Taylor Swift, and therefore from The Black community to the White community. Unfortunately things like that get read into so much and then blown out of proportion by the media that it's almost hard to tell what the original problem was.
one race
To me it is really sad to see that race is such a hard topic to discuss, now that I am taking a Latino communities class, and a race class i see that race does matter. It was not however until i took these classes that I realized it, because I live it day to day. I see it with my friends telling racist jokes, not only about Blacks, also Whites, Latinos, Spanish, and others. I yet don't see why is it funny to make jokes about someone based on stereotypes that society has developed during time. To me it is even sadder to see how this society is now being guided by color blindness. Even more with Darwin ideas, that in my opinion is used just as excuses maintaining an ideology that oppresses minorities. And a lot of people always forget, or even don't know that race is NOT biological, and that in reality there is not a biological trait that gives them the place to be at the top of social order. We should start teaching our kids this idea, the real one, so they can start understanding that there is only one race, THE HUMAN RACE!
The premise of the book seems
The premise of the book seems intriguing. However, I feel that Darwin's theories were not intended to dictate the hierarchy of race worldwide. However, many in the progressive movements of the early 20th century twisted the scientific principle to meet their own ends.
Whereas the theory can be made applicable to society (in its rawest sense), bringing race into the issues is a perversion of the scientific principle. Whereas one can see the more physically fit man getting a job requiring heavy lifting over a weaker man, the establishment of a more powerful race is twisted.
Overall, I don't believe that Darwin created racist attitudes. He may have given some, like Margaret Sanger ("Birth control must lead ultimately to a cleaner race") or Hitler, a "justification" for a supreme white race, racist attitudes indeed existed prior to the voyage of the Beagle.
However, the twisting of Darwin's work has certainly exacerbated racist idelogy. Such a theory must be left to science and is not applicable in our established society.
"white people have held their
"white people have held their jobs too long and should turn them over"- I think this is a statement of racism and socialism. It isn't right and obtaining a job should be based on skill and education not on race. No matter what color you are, if you are more fit than any other for a job you should have it.
I don't think that Kanye West did that as a racial motion but rather for attention because in the entertainment industry any attention is good attention for them.
I think schools should have more classes on learning about other cultures and less on talking about racism so much because when you learn about others cultures you learn to appreciate them more. Children shouldn't be taught about racism because then they will be more inclined to think that way also. They should be taught to be accepting and to have open minds about the different ideas, foods, languages and traditions of other cultures. If children are taught these ideas they can change things for everyone in years to come
Human Race
The truth is that we will never know whether or not people do things because of racism or just cause they feel like it. From an early age every kid is exposed to what their parents beliefs are whether they like it or not. As they grow up these beliefs usually work their way into the kids sub conscious, affecting the way they view life. When it comes to making decisions a part of the decision that is made is affected by what their sub conscious is telling them. So if a kid grew up with parents that showed blatent racism then their sub conscious will be filled with these racist actions and thoughts. When it comes to the teaching of Darwins Theories in schools, the only theory of his that I was taught was his theory of evolution. Ifind that being exposed to different beliefs in school is very beneficial for the students because they learn different beliefs to help them decide their own beliefs. I feel that nowadays people have become too offended by waht is taught or said or written. At some point in your childs life they will be exposed to some belief or something that you dont agree with. I feel that it is better to expose them to these things while they are younger so they can develop their own beliefs on things.
one race, one world
Racial tension has been an issue in our country and the world. Many people have said that tension between people being black and white colored skin will not go away. It has been an issue for ages and was supposedly resolved with Amendments being passed yet we still see racist statements and tension between people because they have different colored skin. The tension will not go away because people add to the issue with what they say and what they do. They might not do racial things on purpose but it’s what they do subconsciously that adds fuel to the fire of racial tension. Most people have been raised on the fact that white people are better than black people, which isn’t right. Even when people say they aren’t racist they might do racist things without knowing it. There has been much talk for Darwinism bias statements for scientific evolution. There have been people such as Hitler who has taken this belief into consideration and made the issue between German Nazi’s and Jewish people. People need to take into consideration racism isn’t just between people with black skin and white skin; it’s also between religious beliefs. People in the world need to take into consideration that inside all of us is the same stuff, we all have cells, and DNA and everything. The only thing that’s different is our skin color and it shouldn’t be this big of an issue. Everyone needs to realize that everyone on this world is the same; one world, one race and the difference in skin color or religious belief shouldn’t cause any issues.
Racism
Racism is like a deadly disease and will keep spreading until it stops. But will it ever stop? Racism may not be as prevalent as it was during the early 1900's but it will always be around. I think it has everything to do with your childhood. Your parents teach you your values, what's right and wrong, and what your views on the world should be. So if they teach you that no one is better than your own race, then you'll grow up being racist. Racism is never going to change or disappear until everyone can understand that we are the human race and not separated by color.
As for Kanye West and what he did at the VMA's...he did it for attention and got a bad reaction from the public. After he did that he was on the Jay Leno Show and when he questioned him about it he started crying.
One Race
Darwinian evolution was inherently a racist philosophy, teaching that different groups or “races” of people evolved at different times and rates, so some groups are more like their ancestors than others.As a result of Darwinian evolution, many people started thinking in terms of the different people groups around the world representing different “races,” but within the context of evolutionary philosophy. This has resulted in many people today, consciously or unconsciously, having prejudices against certain other groups of people. In addition, if you look to bible for answers about race or just use of it you will find that the Bible does not even use the word race in reference to people,but it does describe all human beings as being of “one blood." If all human beings are one blood than we are related and we all decesent for one common being. Regardless of your skin color we are all one race and that race is HUMAN!
Racism
Racism has been around a very long time. It has not changed since its creation and provides no signs of ever changing. We as a country will never view each other the same and this is a problem. In a land full of success and so called peace, we still have racism that affects people on a daily basis. This is a very big issue, and I feel as though it will never go away. I dont understand why people have to judge others by the skin color that God gave them. It is not right and I believe that all those that judge others will face their own judgement in the end.
Truth
I honestly do feel that people should read more into the book from Darwin. In all seriousness, if people looked at the entire population, i do believe it would relieve alot of tension. There have been mistakes made in the past that hinders the progression towards a one world one race point of view, but its exactly that. the past. So what stops people from letting it go. I believe if it happened, maybe the world would have a little easier time with crimes and jobs and everything. Instead of categorizing things by race, it would be the bad people and the good people. Not the blacks, whites, hispanics, and etc.It would be a little simpler i do believe. There would not have been such a fuss when a black man became president. There woulnt have been anything wrong with it from anyones point of view. But it all just will continue to divide. Nothing will ever change.
Using Facts When Using Science
It is important that we understand that all human beings are actually the same type of people. It does not matter where a person is from or what color a person is. It does not matter what race we define ourselves as. We are all human beings even though we may look different and come from different places. This book that the article addresses is a book about the study of evolution. Darwin was the founder of the theory of evolution and some of his writings seem to see people with darker complexions as sub-human. Many people are criticizing Darwin today for saying this. It seems that many people in Darwin’s time were racist. Darwin made this remark without any scientific fact backing it up. It is important that people use scientific fact in order to make a statement about race. There is no scientific fact about whites being superior to blacks. We need to use scientific facts in order for anything to be valid. It is important to not let our biases fog our judgement.
Identical Insides
I totally agree. We, as humans, are one race. We watched a movie in class this semester about a high school class taking DNA tests. They ran the tests, then they plugged the results in to a computer program. This program consisted of a data base of DNA taken from people across the globe. The students DNA was analyzed and the program posted the most similar matches. White students had matches with middle eastern and African people. Asians had matches with south pacific people, and so on. The students discovered that DNA is more likely to me similar to a person of a completely different race than someone of their own race. It was a perfect example how skin color really has no purpose defining who we are because everything underneath that layer of skin is nearly exactly the same person to person. We need to remove race classifications. They have not been a substantial for of measurement for centuries. Every where you look there are multiple races living within that one area. Darwin was very wrong when he claimed race or anything along those lines is what separates and classifies us.
I agree about the video. The
I agree about the video. The video suggests that skin color is not defined in genetics and classifying somebody based on their skin color is essentially pointless because it holds no basis in scientific fact. I read an anthropological article that stated race is a man made and ignorantly created title to classify people, and I would have to agree. It seems to me, that when people classify people is when we run into issues. For example, the Rodney King riot, people saw an african american man be beaten up by police officers and they went crazy. What I saw, would've probably made me riot, if I had that type of instinct inside me to do so. But this feeling has nothing to do with race, or the fact that white officers were completely acquitted. It has to do with an man was beaten by officers who were acquitted and that should be the way it is. I was raised to not see skin color, period. I didn't notice skin color until third grade. I asked my parents why some people were more "tanned" (as apparently I said) than others. My parents side stepped the question and carried on. The fact of the matter is, my third grade teacher called attention to it during some type of nationally recognized day, I can't remember if it was right after MLK day or if it was during black history month, but she asked us to name an influential black person whom we respected. I think i named my favorite baseball player, Will Clark, and she said that wasn't right and some kids laughed, but I had no idea why. She explained and I understood and from then on it's become painfully aware to me that race is institutionalized and not inherited. I think we will continue to have race related issues and inequalities as long as we recognize "race" as a determiner for classification. Race should be taken of the census, the only thing that should be placed on there (in my humble opinion) is national origin or some type of cultural trait. I think culture has more to do with defining a person or categorizing a person than does the pigment of their skin. To classify someone as white, black, brown, orange, red, green, whatever is dumb and only adds to the fact that people have different pigment shading in their skin and that's it, outside of that there is ZERO difference and to continue on the same path is to continue to keep things the way they are, better but far from good.
all created equal
I believe we were all created equal. Everyone has his or her opinions on racism, but it really all boils down to how we were raised. If as a small child we hear racial slurs we are not going to know any different. I really think that Kanye West didn’t really realize at the time of his remarks what he was really doing. It was done in poor judgment and bad behavior. If he could turn back time and really think he would change what happened. I personal don’t believe in Social Darwinisms, that on person based on sex race or disabilies can be forced or it can lead everyone to believe that one is better than another. There is not one race that is better than any other. Through history we have seen several people try to make us believe their race is more elite than others. Just like Hitler, he had the Germans thinking that they where big and better than the Jews. This was not God’s intention when he created the one race the human race.
We are ONE
Yeah so what if Black Americans are Loud, White people are trashy, Asian only do nails and Mexicans can barely speak English so what if we all have flaws in our life. Those flaws doesn't defined who you are. No title nor race defined who you are. Your character defines who you are. If you have a good character about you, you are going to be like but if not people are going to judge you as that loud, trashy, only do nails, and barely speak English person. Some of us Americans are not right, we say that we love God but we go out and judge one another. Who are we to judge someone else? We are no one. Even though there is still racism going on in our society today, what can we do about? we can start in ourselves first and fixes our flaws that we have in our life, then we can move to the city and out through the country to prevent racism. At the end of our life, when we take our last breathe on this earth and I'm a big believer in this, I feel like God is going to ask me if I did everything that I was suppose to do on this earth that he has sent me to do. I wanna say yes at the end of that question. We just need to open our eyes and look at the Human Race more than racism...
One Race
There is only one race of people in the world yet people are categorized and put into different groups based on physical features, economic status, and geographic regions. However, DNA shows that there is no biological differences between people and that they are all on race. Most of the racism today is brought on by economic means and old beliefs of social Darwinism. This is prevalent in American society especially because of our capitalist tendencies. People strive to create monopolies in their business, but in making monopolies you have to create groups that you have to exploit to keep yourself in a position of power. Because of this racism is used as something to create groups in which this is more acceptable but in reality creating groups to exploit is harmful to everyone because it creates an atmosphere of racism and encourages racism to spread.
i think that everyone is
i think that everyone is created equal, but everyone is raised in different ways, and taught to believe different things. I think that people over the years have almost made the issue of race a bigger deal than it should be. I think that if we were to stop talking about race so much and try to relate to each other on a deeper level and realize that we are all the same on the inside, we would not have as many race related issues. I think that the world that we live in is getting better about the race issues, but I also think that if we were to not make as big of a deal as we do about different races, people wouldn't think about the race "problem" as much.
One race... Human race
I thought that the article made some very interesting points about Darwinism and the history surrounding it and the people who follow it. I thought that it was rather disturbing that some of the most infamous people in human history were followers of Darwinism. I also found it disturbing that some of the ideals surrounding the theory were based on labeling certain races as "sub-human". The fact that that is a core belief of Darwism is just extremely troubling, after all as the author about said "We are all one race- The human race".
I Believe it is true that we
I Believe it is true that we are all created equal. It upsets me to see that their are still many incidents of racial hate between the people of earth. We are indeed all one race, the human race. When tensions rise, people take the smallest incidents and blow them up into a big deal. For example, that incident with Kanye was not a racist one, it was Kanye just being a child. Race is a big topic, and it is truly saddening that there is still hate and resentment towards people of other skin color. Its just skin color and that shouldn't matter. To use the old cliche, don’t judge a book by its cover. Black or white should not matter to one’s perception of who that person is or how they live their life. What really matters is inside.
I Believe it is true that we
I Believe it is true that we are all created equal. It upsets me to see that their are still many incidents of racial hate between the people of earth. We are indeed all one race, the human race. When tensions rise, people take the smallest incidents and blow them up into a big deal. For example, that incident with Kanye was not a racist one, it was Kanye just being a child. Race is a big topic, and it is truly saddening that there is still hate and resentment towards people of other skin color. Its just skin color and that shouldn't matter. To use the old cliche, don’t judge a book by its cover. Black or white should not matter to one’s perception of who that person is or how they live their life. What really matters is inside.
One Race
I found some very interesting points about Darwinism that was presented in this article. I believe that as a whole we will never be able to overcome racism because everyone will always blame events just based on race. For example the Kanye West at the VMA awards they used in this article. Some people describe it as poor judgment on his part or just plain racism. I was also surprised to hear that in Darwin's books he examines race based theories and even calling some race of humans to be inferior to other races. There were also many well-known people who followed Darwin's theories. Unfortunately these issues will keep popping up in our society because it is impossible to get everyone to change their views.
Just Stop
It is correct to say that every human being is one race on the inside, but society and people themselves don't see it that way. They view race as what is on the outside and what you actually look like. The concept of Darwinism has been known for centuries and how he is being criticized now, I believe, is unjust. The one argument used is how Darwin used the phrase "sub-human." But what people fail to see is the time period in which he said this. The amount of knowledge we have now is much more broad than it was in the 19th century. The 19th century mindset was that black people were inferior to whites, so that is of course what Darwin was thinking.
But the problem in today's society is that everyone is looking for something racial about each and every comment made or action taken. The whole Kanye West and Taylor Swift incident wasn't racial at all. Kanye just wasn't smart enough to realize he shouldn't interrupt her speech. Taylor could have been black, asian, latino, or any other race but Kanye would have done the same thing. The way we can get past this mindset of racism and people promoting it is by not looking for racism in everything. Some things are actually said without an underlying meaning.
A football is a football
If I showed any person in the world two footballs of different size and color and asked them to identify what the object is, they would tell me the object is a football. If I asked the same question but changed the different objects to cars, the individual would tell me the objects are cars. And I bet if I asked them same question again but changed the different objects with people, the individual would tell me the object is a person. This proves something very simple; a football is a football, a car is a car, and a person is a person no matter what size or color it is. Even though this proves that a person is definitely a person no matter what color or size they are, it doesn’t prove why people of different color are treated differently. This problem that society has struggled with since the beginning of time doesn’t seem to make sense. This problem was the cause of the Civil War and continues to affect the American civilian, as evidence from this website. The questions that I perversely asked shows how stupid American Society actually is. People are People and we all have two eyes and two feet, we should all be treated equally because we are all the same. If Americans realized this simple fact that people are people we would be able to make this country a hundred times greater then it already is.
Pages