SOC 105 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Carl Linnaeus, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, Scientific Racism
Document Summary
To grasp race related social problems in the usa we need to understand the history and experience of whiteness. Although as a category being white has changed over time, it confers privilege. 1500s saw the beginning of scientific racism (the attempt to categorize people based on science or predetermined characteristics) Europeans constructed a biological notion of race. Blumenbach used the word caucasian to describe the european race. Term is associated with near east and greece. White people desired to link their origins to the golden age of classical. Ignores the mixed complexion (semitic, mediterranean, and african) of. While rich white people were developing notion of caucasian (i. e. white race), shifts were taking place in colonial virginia. White is not an ethnicity but a political and legal category designating certain rights and privileges . White became pan-ethnic category to include many european populations into one race. Irish were racially stereotyped as backward and barbaric and many were sold into slavery.
