Description
This assignment asks you to synthesize the readings from this week and put them into conversation with a segment from KPBS’s Midday Edition.
https://www.kpbs.org/podcasts/kpbs-midday-edition/the-threat-of-white-christian-nationalismLinks to an external site.
In 500 words, answer the following questions. Be sure to cite readings from Week 8 with page numbers to exhibit your engagement with course materials. Please include an APA formatted reference list as well.
1. How do the guests in this segment of Midday Edition echo the history of colonialism, imperialism, and constructions of identity and subjectivity that we have discussed and read about?
2. Connect each of the guest’s segments to the following two quotes on discourse. What can you cite from their interviews that exemplifies what is being said in quotes A and B?
A. Analyzing discourses reveals how we come to take a certain phenomenon or an entire social reality for granted, and what kind of effects it has to naturalize that reality rather than another (Dunn & Neumann, 2016, p. 2).
B. Knowledge linked to power, not only assumes the authority of ‘the truth’ but has the power to make itself true. All knowledge, once applied in the real world, has effects, and in that sense at least, ‘becomes true.’ (Foucault 1977, 27).
MAKE SURE IT IS WRITTEN IN APA FORMAT
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14
dictionary Colonial American English does not include a
definition for the word “colonial,” it does define “colony” as “a government in which the governor is elected
Colonial
by the inhabitants under a charter of incorporation by
David Kazanjian
the king, in contrast to one in which the governor is appointed” (Lederer 1985, 54). Here, we can see how far
this usage strays from the word’s roots in conquest by
suggesting that “colonial” signifies a kind of democracy.
“Colonial” has very old roots. The Latin word colonia
was used during the Roman Empire to mean a
nial period,” and “colonial literature” in the US context
settlement of Roman citizens in a newly conquered
have often invoked images of plucky settlers fleeing per-
territory. Often these citizens were retired soldiers
secution in Europe, overthrowing their oppressive Eu-
who received land as a reward for their service and
ropean rulers, establishing rich new states and cultures
as a display of Roman authority to the conquered
against all odds through hard work, and founding a free,
inhabitants. For Roman writers, colonia translated the
democratic, and unified nation. The word “colonial”
Greek word apoikia, which meant a settlement away
thus oddly comes to connote resistance to the violence
from one’s home state, as opposed to the polis, meaning
and power of conquest.
one’s own city or country as well as a community of
In 1847, influential political economist Henry
citizens, or the metropolis, literally one’s mother city or
Charles Carey (1967, 345) extended this usage in a way
mother country.
Despite these etymological ties to the violence and
56
Indeed, “colonials,” “American colonists,” “the colo-
that links it to a history of American exceptionalism:
“The colonization of the United States differs from that
power of conquest, the English word “colony” was until
of the two countries we have considered [Britain and
the eighteenth century as likely to mean simply a farm
France], in the great fact that they [the United States]
or a country estate as a settlement in conquered land
desire no subjects. The colonists are equal with the peo-
subject to a parent state. The cognate “colonial” was
ple of the States from which they sprang, and hence the
not coined until the late eighteenth century (it is not
quiet and beautiful action of the system.” While Britain
in Samuel Johnson’s 1755 dictionary), when it was used
and France send their citizens to the far corners of the
as an adjective to mean “of a colony” and as a noun to
world to conquer territory and subjugate native inhab-
mean “a person from a colony,” most often referring to
itants, Carey tautologically claims, the United States
Europeans who conquered and settled in North Amer-
was founded by colonists who colonized themselves. As
ica and the West Indies.
he goes on to argue, the resulting nation is both excep-
This eighteenth-century usage acquired an impor-
tional, or unique in the history of the world, and exem-
tant and odd wrinkle in the United States, one that is
plary, or destined to be emulated by the rest of the world.
particularly relevant to US variants of cultural stud-
This US understanding of colonization expresses a
ies: “colonial” and “colonist” have often been used as
deeply nationalist mythology that continues to thrive
if they were simple descriptors for early Americans and
today: the United States was founded exclusively on
unrelated to conquest. For instance, while the popular
the just and noble principles of freedom, equality, and
democracy, and it continues to spread those principles
thus be linked with other histories of settler colonial-
around the world. This mythology has been challenged
ism across the Caribbean, Latin America, and Canada,
from a number of directions. Scholars and activists in
as well as in South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand
African American and Native American studies have
(Wolfe 2006; Black Hawk [1833] 2008; Goldstein and
shown how the “quiet and beautiful action” that Carey
Lubin 2008; Andrea Smith 2010; Byrd 2011; Morgensen
describes actually involved some of the most brutal
2011b; Goldstein 2012). The concept of settler coloniza-
systems of dispossession that the modern world has
tion has also been used to link more recent examples
known: the conquest of Native American lands, the en-
of dispossession, such as the black settler coloniza-
slavement and genocide of native peoples and Africans,
tion of Liberia and the Zionist project in Israel, to this
and the establishment of a vast transatlantic and trans-
long history of capitalism’s rise to hegemony (Massad
continental system of race-based chattel slavery. Much
2006; Afzal-Khan and Seshadri 2000; Pedersen and El-
of this scholarship has argued that these practices were
kins 2005; Kazanjian 2011, 2012). Indeed, accumulation
not simply aberrations from or exceptions to the history
by dispossession has been extended to contemporary
and culture of the United States but rather constitutive
neoliberal policies throughout the globe, policies that
of all that it was to become.
have managed waves of economic crisis from the 1970s
Forms of dispossession in which colonists take up
forward, including the privatization of public assets,
permanent residence in the territories they appro-
seizures of indigenous lands, and the rise of so-called
priate are called “settler colonialism.” As Karl Marx
financialization (Harvey 2003).
([1867] 1976) explained in the first volume of Capital,
Attention to histories of settler colonialism unsettles
such dispossession—along with the enclosure of the
the myth of the North American colonial as a “quiet
agricultural commons throughout Europe, the expro-
and beautiful,” even heroic actor. Take as an instance
priation of peasants from those expropriated lands,
of this myth the text that can be said to have founded
and the transformation of those peasants into wage
it: the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration
laborers, global migrants, and settler colonials—was a
represents North American colonials as innocent vic-
central means by which capitalists, starting in the six-
tims of British tyranny (“Such has been the patient
teenth century, accumulated the wealth they needed to
sufferance of these Colonies”) as well as harmless wit-
increase the productive efficiency of agricultural and
nesses to violence against Native Americans by blam-
industrial production and to extract ever-increasing
ing both the Crown and Native Americans themselves
rates of surplus value from peasants, the poor, and in-
for resistance to colonization (“the present king of Great
digenous and enslaved populations. Mythologized as
Britain . . . has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants
“primitive accumulation” by classical political econo-
of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages”; Jeffer-
mists, accumulation by dispossession was in fact the
son [1776] 1984, 19, 21). Even as white settlers were en-
brutal condition of possibility for modern global capi-
gaged in these battles, they paradoxically drew on their
talism and its attendant political form, the nation-state
fantasies about “Indians” to fashion their own identi-
(Emmanuel 1972). The white settler foundations of the
ties as American colonials distinct from their British
United States—in which European settler colonials vio-
brethren. Sometimes they “played Indian,” as Philip
lently expropriated lands from Native Americans—can
J. Deloria (1998) has carefully recounted, in private
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57
societies and at protests such as the Boston Tea Party.
58
the Declaration of Independence is not simply a list
At other times, they combed through Native American
of heroic rebels; it is a list of elites. Their declaration
graves to show that America had its own ancient his-
would have had no force behind it had poor people
tory to rival that of Europe (Jefferson [1787] 1984). And
throughout the colonies not been struggling for de-
increasingly after the Revolution, white US American
cades against exploitation at the hands of wealthy
writers depicted Native Americans in order to distin-
and powerful colonials as well as British authorities.
guish “American” from “English” literature. Performed
The North American colonial looks neither innocent
alongside violence against Native Americans, this fash-
nor uniform from the perspective of an early dissident
ioning of a US American identity helped generate the
such as Stephen Hopkins, who helped organize a re-
mythology of the innocent North American colonial
bellion and then a furtive utopian community after
who became a heroic rebel and eventually an excep-
a Virginia Company vessel shipwrecked on Bermuda
tional US citizen.
in 1609 (Strachey [1610] 1964); or Richard Frethhorn,
While the Declaration of Independence does not
an indentured servant who was transported to Virginia in
mention slavery directly, in an early draft, it did include
1623 and wrote back to his parents of the brutal condi-
a passage that both criticized slavery and perpetuated
tions he faced (Jehlen and Warner 1997, 123); or Anne
the mythology of North American colonials as innocent
Bonny and Mary Read, two cross-dressing women pi-
victims of conquest. The passage personified the entire
rates who worked with the predominantly male pirate
transatlantic slave trade in the king (“He has waged
population of the early eighteenth century to disrupt
cruel war against human nature itself”) and equated en-
the social and cultural norms, and the emerging impe-
slaved Africans with free white settlers as fellow victims
rial state, of the British Empire (Hogeland et al. 2004,
(“he is now exciting those very people [slaves] to rise in
98–106); or rural colonial rebels who challenged the
arms among us, and to purchase the liberty of which he
British colonial elite for control over land and politi-
has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom
cal decision-making before the American Revolution
he also obtruded them” [Jefferson (1776) 1984, 22]). By
and then took on the early social and political elite in
suppressing the alliance between Europeans and North
the Shays Rebellion of 1786 (Alfred Young 1976, 1993;
American colonials in the system of chattel slavery, this
Zinn 1980; G. Nash 1986; New Social History Project
passage transforms the latter from conquerors to con-
1989–92; Raphael 2001).
quered. Unabashedly proslavery colonials found even
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, African
this argument too threatening to their interests and
Americans and Native Americans took the lead in chal-
fought successfully for its deletion.
lenging the mythology of the North American colo-
By recovering and reinterpreting early colonial
nial. In 1829, a free black tailor and activist from Boston
and national texts that were crucial in their day but
named David Walker published a pamphlet that exco-
had long been excluded from disciplinary canons,
riated whites for their systematic racism and called on
twentieth-century scholars traced histories and prac-
blacks to claim the land that slavery had forcibly made
tices of dissent that challenged the mythological
their own, effectively recalling the etymological roots
conception of the American colonial. New social his-
of “colonial” in the violence and power of conquest
torians reminded us that the list of men who signed
as well as disrupting analogies between white settler
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colonials and slaves ([1829] 1995, 74–76). William Apess,
of thinking about the keyword “colonial” in an interna-
a Pequot born in 1798, published an 1833 essay in which
tional context.
he charged that US Christians failed to live up to the
Such international thinking took place in the early
Revolutionary ideals of freedom and equality as well as
United States as well: Walker’s Appeal, for instance, is ad-
the spirit of Christianity: “By what you read, you may
dressed to “the coloured citizens of the world.” And it
learn how deep your principles are. I should say they
continues today: in an echo of the Declaration of Inde-
were skin-deep” ([1833] 1992, 160). Even in the title of
pendence’s claim that white North American colonials
his essay (“An Indian’s Looking-Glass for the White
are victims of imperialism along with slaves and “sav-
Man”), Apess reverses the dynamic of “playing Indian”;
ages,” some contemporary scholars have suggested that
he claims a European technology, the looking glass, and
the United States should be considered a postcolonial
turns it on white men so that they may see themselves
nation (Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin 1989; Buell 1995).
not as innocent colonials but as violent colonizers.
In contrast, others have picked up on the implications
This minority tradition of challenging the mythol-
of the internal colonization thesis and insisted on the
ogy of the US American colonial was renewed after
differential relations among variously racialized mi-
the US-Mexico War of 1846–48 by Mexicanos, Tejanos,
norities and whites (Spivak 1993; Sharpe 1995; Saldaña-
and, in the twentieth century, Chicanos who insisted
Portillo 2001). The latter scholarship relies on rich his-
that it was US imperialism— not innocent, plucky
torical understandings of the differences among modes
settlers—that made them as well as the entire geogra-
of imperialism, particularly white settler colonialism,
phy of the Southwest and California part of the United
comprador capitalism, and neocolonialism.
States. Chicanos in the second half of the twentieth
Contemporary scholars have also shown how a
century collaborated with African Americans, Asian
historical understanding of these differences requires
Americans, and Native Americans to appropriate the
a close attention to gender and sexuality. Indeed, we
word “colonial” by situating their own histories in
can hear an echo of gender and sexuality in the very
the context of third world liberation movements (“Al-
word “colonial.” As noted earlier, the Latin colonia was
catraz Reclaimed” [1970] 1971; Valdez and Steiner [1969]
a translation of the Greek word apoikia (literally, “away
1972; Ho 2000). Black activists Stokely Carmichael and
from the domestic sphere”), which itself was opposed
Charles Hamilton (1967, 5–6) exemplify this mode of
in Greek to the polis and the metropolis, “the city” and
analysis in their book Black Power: The Politics of Libera
“the mother country.” This distinction survives in
tion in America: “Black people are legal citizens of the
English in the opposition between “metropole” and
United States with, for the most part, the same legal
“colony.” If the home or domestic sphere is figured as
rights as other citizens. Yet they stand as colonial sub-
maternal, then the colonial sphere is readily figured
jects in relation to the white society. Thus institutional
as public, political, and masculine, which makes the
racism has another name: colonialism. Obviously, the
word “colonial” subject to the vast feminist scholar-
analogy is not perfect.” By acknowledging the imper-
ship on the separation— or inseparability— of pub-
fections of this “internal colonization” argument at the
lic and private spheres (Kerber 1980; Isenberg 1998;
very moment of formulating it, Carmichael and Hamil-
Davidson and Hatcher 2002). One aspect of this schol-
ton foreground both the difficulty and the importance
arship is exemplified by studies of North American
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59
colonial women such as Anne Hutchinson, who chal-
The complex history of the word “colonial” indexes
lenged the male dominance of mainstream Puritan-
the equally complex politics that have characterized US
ism in seventeenth-century New England (Kerber and
imperialism. In the first decades of the twenty-first cen-
De Hart 2004, 25–120). Other studies suggest that the
tury, debates about colonialism—and settler colonial-
very concept of the domestic invokes the process of do-
ism, in particular—remain at the forefront of research in
mestication, the incorporation and subjection of that
American studies and cultural studies. As struggles over
which is not yet fully domesticated (A. Kaplan 2002).
the future of the US empire proliferate, it is all the more
It is thus not surprising to see early champions of
urgent for cultural studies to take stock of the history of
women’s work in the domestic sphere, such as Catha-
such a contested keyword.
rine Beecher (1841), imagine in imperial terms the ordering and unifying of the home as an ever-expanding
2007/2014
process destined to encompass the entire world. In
addition, black women who were enslaved in the
Americas, as well as contemporary black feminist critics, have shown how the gendering of the colonial
had deep racial implications (A. Davis 1983; H. Wilson
[1859] 1983; Hartman 1997; Prince [1831] 2000; Spillers
2003). Eighteenth-century laws that based a black person’s status as free or enslaved on that of the mother
encouraged the sexual exploitation of black women by
white men. Consequently, the black domestic sphere
became, to white men, a breeding ground for slavery.
To further complicate matters, feminist postcolonial
scholars have shown how the colony as such is often
figured as feminine in order to make it subject to the
power and authority of the metropole, while others
have complicated this general model by tracking the
uneven deployments of gender across the postcolonial
world (Mohanty, Russo, and Torres 1991; McClintock
1995; Yuval-Davis 1997; Spivak 1999). Queer studies has
also opened up the study of sexuality in the colonial
context, examining closely the ways heterosexuality
was made culturally and legally normative among early
North American colonists, and in turn revealed the
challenges that sexually dissident cultures presented
to this normativity (Jonathan Goldberg 1992; Burgett
1998).
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8 ‘Race’, racism and
representation
In this chapter I will examine the concept of ‘race’ and the historical development of
racism in England. I will then explore a particular regime of racial representation,
Edward Said’s analysis of Orientalism. I will use Hollywood’s account of America’s war
in Vietnam, and its potential impact on recruitment for the first Gulf War as an example
of Orientalism in popular culture. The chapter will conclude with a brief discussion of
cultural studies and anti-racism.
‘Race’ and racism
The first thing to insist on in discussions of ‘race’ is that there is just one human race.
Human biology does not divide people into different ‘races’; it is racism (and sometimes its counter arguments) that insists on this division. In other words, ‘race’ is a
cultural and historical category, a way of making difference signify between people of a
variety of skin tones. What is important is not difference as such, but how it is made to
signify; how it is made meaningful in terms of a social and political hierarchy (see
Chapters 4 and 6). This is not to deny that human beings come in different colours and
with different physical features, but it is to insist that these differences do not issue
meanings; they have to be made to mean. Moreover, there is no reason why skin colour
is more significant than hair colour or the colour of a person’s eyes. In other words,
racism is more about signification than it is about biology. As Paul Gilroy observes,
Accepting that skin ‘colour’, however meaningless we know it to be, has a strictly
limited basis in biology, opens up the possibility of engaging with theories of signification which can highlight the elasticity and the emptiness of ‘racial’ signifiers as
well as the ideological work which has to be done in order to turn them into signifiers
in the first place. This perspective underscores the definition of ‘race’ as an open
political category, for it is struggle that determines which definition of ‘race’ will
prevail and the conditions under which they will endure or wither away (2002: 36).
This should not be mistaken for a form of idealism. Difference exists whether it
is made to signify or not. But how it is made to signify is always a result of politics
and power, rather than a question of biology. As Gilroy points out, ‘“Race” has to be
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Chapter 8 ‘Race’, racism and representation
socially and politically constructed and elaborate ideological work is done to secure
and maintain the different forms of “racialization” which have characterized capitalist
development. Recognizing this makes it all the more important to compare and evaluate the different historical situations in which “race” has become politically pertinent’
(35). Working from this perspective, analysis of ‘race’ in popular culture would be the
exploration of the different ways in which it has and can be made to signify.
As Stuart Hall points out, there are three key moments in the history of ‘race’ and
racism in the West (Hall 1997c). These occur around slavery and the slave trade, colonialism and imperialism, and 1950s immigration following decolonization. In the
next section I will focus on how slavery and the slave trade produced the first detailed
public discussions around ‘race’ and racism. It was in these discussions that the basic
assumptions and vocabulary of ‘race’ and racism were first formulated. It is important
to understand that ‘race’ and racism are not natural or inevitable phenomena; they
have a history and are the result of human actions and interactions. But often they are
made to appear as inevitable, something grounded in nature rather than what they
really are, products of human culture. Again, as Paul Gilroy observes,
For those timid souls, it would appear that becoming resigned both to the absolute status of ‘race’ as a concept and to the intractability of racism as a permanent
perversion akin to original sin, is easier than the creative labour involved in invisioning and producing a more just world, purged of racial hierarchy . . . Rather
than accepting the power of racism as prior to politics and seeing it as an
inescapable natural force that configures human consciousness and action in ways
and forms that merely political considerations simply can never match, this ongoing work involves making ‘race’ and racism into social and political phenomena
again (xx).
According to Gilroy, there needs to be a reduction in ‘the exaggerated dimensions
of racial difference to a liberating ordinary-ness’, adding that ‘“race” is nothing special,
a virtual reality given meaning only by the fact that racism endures’ (xxii). In other
words, without racism there would be little meaning to the concept of ‘race’. It is racism
that keeps the concept alive. What needs to be recognized is ‘the banality of intermixture and the subversive ordinariness of this country’s [the United Kingdom] convivial cultures in which “race” is stripped of meaning and racism just an after-effect of
long gone imperial history’ (xxxviii).
The ideology of racism: its historical emergence
While it is possible to argue that xenophobia, deriving from ignorance and fear, has
perhaps existed as long as different ethnic groups have existed, ‘race’ and racism have
a very particular history. Racism first develops in England as a defence of slavery and
The ideology of racism: its historical emergence
the slave trade. As Peter Fryer (1984) points out, ‘Once the English slave trade, English
sugar-producing plantation slavery, and English manufacturing industry had begun to
operate as a trebly profitable interlocking system, the economic basis had been laid for
all those ancient scraps of myth and prejudice to be woven into a more or less coherent racist ideology: a mythology of race’ (134). In other words, racism first emerges as
a defensive ideology, promulgated in order to defend the economic profits of slavery
and the slave trade.
A key figure in the development of the ideology of racism is the planter and judge
Edward Long. In his book History of Jamaica (1774) he popularized the idea that black
people are inferior to white people, thus suggesting that slavery and the slave trade
were perfectly acceptable institutions. His starting position is the assertion that there is
an absolute racial division between black and white people:
I think there are extremely potent reasons for believing, that the White and the
Negroe are two distinct species. . . . When we reflect on . . . their dissimilarity to the
rest of mankind, must we not conclude, that they are a different species of the same
genus? . . . Nor do [orang-utans] seem at all inferior in the intellectual faculties to
many of the Negroe race; with some of whom, it is credible that they have the most
intimate connection and consanguinity. The amorous intercourse between them
may be frequent . . . and it is certain, that both races agree perfectly well in lasciviousness of disposition (quoted in Fryer 1984, 158–9).
Charles White, writing in 1795 made similar claims, ‘The white European . . . being
most removed from brute creation, may, on that account, be considered as the most
beautiful of the human race. No one will doubt his superiority in intellectual powers;
and I believe it will be found that his capacity is naturally superior also to that of every
other man’ (168).
Edward Long’s own racism is clearly underpinned by sexual anxieties. In a pamphlet
published in 1772, in which racism is mixed with his contempt for working-class
women, he claims that
[t]he lower class of women in England, are remarkably fond of the blacks, for
reasons too brutal to mention; they would connect themselves with horses and
asses if the law permitted them. By these ladies they generally have a numerous
brood. Thus, in the course of a few generations more, the English blood will
become so contaminated with this mixture, and from the chances, the ups and
downs of life, this alloy may spread extensively, as even to reach the middle,
and then the higher orders of the people, till the whole nation resembles the
Portuguese and Moriscos in complexion of skin and baseness of mind (157).
Similarly, in Considerations on the Negroe Cause (1772), Samuel Estwick argued that
black people should be prevented from entering the country in order to ‘preserve the
race of Britons from stain and contamination’ (156). Philip Thicknesse, writing in
1778, makes similar points:
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Chapter 8 ‘Race’, racism and representation
in the course of a few centuries they will over-run this country with a race of men
of the very worst sort under heaven. . . . London abounds with an incredible number of these black men . . . and [in] every country town, nay in almost every village
are to be seen a little race of mulattoes, mischievous as monkeys and infinitely
more dangerous. . . . A mixture of negro blood with the natives of this country is
big with great and mighty mischief (162).
Linking this concern directly to the abolition of slavery, John Scattergood, writing in
1792, argued that if slavery is allowed to end, ‘the Negroes from all parts of the world
will flock hither, mix with the natives, spoil the breed of our common people, increase
the number of crimes and criminals, and make Britain the sink of all the earth, for
mongrels, vagrants, and vagabonds’ (164).
A letter published in the London Chronicle in 1764, which finds an insidious echo in
contemporary debates on immigration, is concerned that too many black servants are
coming into Britain:
As they fill the places of so many of our own people, we are by this means depriving so many of them of the means of getting their bread, and thereby decreasing
our native population in favour of a race, whose mixture with us is disgraceful, and
whose use cannot be so various and essential as those of white people . . . They
never can be considered as a part of the people, and therefore their introduction
into the community can only serve to elbow as many out of it who are genuine
subjects, and in every point preferable. . . . It is . . . high time that some remedy be
applied for the cure of so great an evil, which may be done by totally prohibiting
the importation of any more of them (155).
Given that slavery and the slave trade were of economic benefit to many people not
directly involved with its practice, the new ideology of racism spread quickly among
those without a direct economic interest in slavery and the slave trade. Scottish
philosopher David Hulme, for example, was quite clear about the difference between
whites and non-whites. Writing in 1753, he observed,
I am apt to suspect the negroes, and in general all the other species of men (for
there are four or five different kinds) to be naturally inferior to the whites. There
never was a civilised nation of any other complexion than white. . . . Such a uniform and constant difference could not happen, in so many countries and ages, if
nature had not made an original distinction betwixt these breeds of men. . . . In
Jamaica indeed they talk of one negroe38 as a man of parts and learning; but ’tis
likely he is admired for very slender accomplishments, like a parrot, who speaks a
few words plainly (152).
By the nineteenth-century, it was widely taken for granted that the human race was
divided into superior whites and inferior others. With such natural gifts, it would seem
only right that white Europeans should establish colonies across the globe. Moreover,
Orientalism
as Fryer points out, ‘racism was not confined to a handful of cranks. Virtually every scientist and intellectual in nineteenth-century Britain took it for granted that only people
with white skin were capable of thinking and governing’ (1984: 169). In fact, it was
probably only after the Second World War that racism finally lost its scientific support.
In the nineteenth-century racism could even make colonial conquest appear as if
directed by God. According to Thomas Carlyle, writing in 1867, ‘The Almighty Maker
appointed him [“the Nigger”] to be a Servant’ (quoted in Fryer, 1984: 172). Sir Harry
Johnston (1899), who had worked as a colonial administrator in South Africa and
Uganda, claimed that ‘The negro in general is a born slave’, with the natural capacity
to ‘toil hard under the hot sun and in unhealthy climates of the torrid zone’ (173).
Even if the hot sun or the unhealthy climate proved too much, the white Europeans
should not overly concern themselves with possibilities of suffering and injustice.
Dr Robert Knox, for example, described by Philip Curtin as ‘one of the key figures in
the general Western . . . pseudo-scientific racism’ (1964: 377), was very reassuring on
this point: ‘What signify these dark races to us? . . . [T]he sooner they are put out of the
way the better. . . . Destined by the nature of their race, to run, like all other animals, a
certain limited course of existence, it matters little how their extinction is brought
about’ (quoted in Fryer, 1984: 175).
Knox is certainly extreme in his racism. A less extreme version, justifying imperialism on grounds of a supposed civilising mission, was expressed by James Hunt.
Founder of the Anthropological Society of London in 1863, Hunt argued that although
‘the Negro is inferior intellectually to the European, [he or she] becomes more humanised when in his natural subordination to the European than under any other circumstances’ (177). In fact, as he makes clear, ‘the Negro race can only be humanised and
civilised by Europeans’ (ibid.). Colonial secretary Joseph Chamberlain (1895) offers a
wonderful summary of this argument: ‘I believe that the British race is the greatest of
governing races the world has ever seen. I say this not merely as an empty boast, but as
proved and shown by the success which we have had in administering vast dominions
. . . and I believe there are no limits accordingly to its future’ (183).
Orientalism
Edward Said (1985), in one of the founding texts of post-colonial theory, shows how
a Western discourse on the Orient – ‘Orientalism’ – has constructed a ‘knowledge’ of
the East and a body of ‘power–knowledge’ relations articulated in the interests of the
‘power’ of the West. According to Said, ‘The Orient was a European invention’ (1).
‘Orientalism’ is the term he uses to describe the relationship between Europe and the
Orient, in particular, the way ‘the Orient has helped to define Europe (or the West) as
its contrasting image, idea, personality, experience’ (1–2). He ‘also tries to show that
European culture gained in strength and identity by setting itself off against the Orient
as a sort of surrogate and even underground self’ (3).
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Chapter 8 ‘Race’, racism and representation
Orientalism can be discussed and analysed as the corporate institution for dealing
with the Orient – dealing with it by making statements about i
