Caoimhin O’Muraile ☭ What exactly is race? This is a good question and not so simple to answer. 

We regularly hear the word “race” used to describe people usually on the grounds of skin colour and other phenotypical traits but is this the correct or only definition? Or are these artificial racial profiles based on skin colour and other phenotypical appearances which has not always, certainly in Britain and Ireland, been the case incorrect and “racist?” 

In the United States, race has always had colour as its descriptive barometer, particularly in the days of slavery and even well beyond Abrahams Lincoln's partial abolition of slavery in January 1863 during the American Civil War this racial stereotyping continued. Even today there are those in the US who use “race” based on colour to describe groups of people, usually in a derogative way. Organisations like the Ku Klux Klan still exist in the US deep south as do other Klan splinter groups. Black people in the USA, Afro-Americans today, were often described in the deep south and other areas during the days of slavery and long after as being three-fifths of a human. In some areas black people still are referred to in this derogatory way where the once popular and legal, since 1965 no longer enforceable, “Jim Crow” laws still apply in the minds of some. There have also been black activists who fuel these groups with their alternative forms of racism who claim to be fighting for black emancipation. One such person was Marcus Garvey who envisioned a unified Africa as a one-party state, governed by himself, that would enact laws to ensure “black racial purity,” even though he had never even visited the continent. Garvey’s black separatist views, and his courting of the white racist Ku Klux Klan in the interest of advancing their shared goal of “racial separatism” divided him hugely from other prominent African American civil right activists, such as W.E.B. Du Bois who promoted racial integration.

In Britain and Ireland, the colour chart has not always been the only descriptive method of defining race, that is if there is such a thing as more than one race. The rules for defining “race” tend to be made by society, they are not natural. The Irish themselves were then, even though they were “white,” considered by the English to be of an inferior “race” to their supposed masters. From the outset of the Industrial Revolution, mid eighteenth century, race began more and more to be a class issue as well as phenotypical. People from the working-class were described as coming from a different “race” to those of the employing classes. The aspiring bourgeoisie and the aristocracy saw themselves as a different superior “race” to both. Within the working-class there were sub-divisions of race as racialisation of “the other” was prominent between skilled and unskilled workers. The Amalgamated Society of Engineers (ASE) saw themselves as been in the same “race” and nearer the same class as the employers and had a motto “Defence Not Defiance.” In other words, defend what we have against the unskilled workers, and do not unnecessarily defy the bosses, do not allow the unskilled workers into our trade union. This was prevalent among most skilled workers organisations who saw themselves as a different “race” to their unskilled counterparts, an “aristocracy of labour.”

Women were also considered in many respects a different “race” to men through until the late nineteenth-century. Then, with the gradual rise of what became known as “New Unionism” things began to change. In 1888 the women workers at the Bryant and May match works factory in Bow, East London, went on strike. After a three-week struggle against horrendous working conditions the women were victorious over their employer which gave huge impetus to the unskilled workers, particularly women, as the following year 100,00 male London Dockers went on strike and, like their female predecessors, won out against the employers. The idea of the working-class belonging to a different “race” and women workers a lower order of that “race” was now being successfully challenged. However, challenging these retarded ideas was one thing, defeating them out of sight was another. 

The concept of unskilled workers belonging to a different “race” was slowly completely (as class had always been present) replaced by the word “class,” prevailed into the twentieth century. This racial myth was upheld and promoted by the bosses as it reduced any possibility of working-class solidarity between skilled and unskilled workers, an idea already highly unlikely anyway. During the 1913/14 Dublin Lockout the Irish Transport and General Workers Union (ITGWU) received very little support from the skilled workers organisations, many whom supported William Martin Murphy and the employers being of the same “race” as themselves! One exception to this rule was Richard O’Carroll and the Ancient Guild of Incorporated Brick and Stone-layers Trade Union who gave unconditional support to their unskilled working-class brethren and the concept of them belonging to a different “race” did not enter the equation, these were workers in struggle. 

So, in the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, certainly in Britain and Ireland, class was an equally regular barometer as skin colour used to define “race.” Much of this was due in no small part to the rapid rate of industrialisation in Britain, lesser in Ireland outside Belfast and its hinterland, which created two predominant classes. The owners of the new machinery, the means of production, namely the middle-class or, as Marx termed them, the bourgeoisie, and the operators of the said means of production, the working-class or proletariat. At this early stage of what became known as the Industrial Revolution Britain flew into an early lead which is how the class concept of race developed in that country, whereas in other countries, such as the USA, colour remained the only description of race. Even when industrialisation developed, slightly later, in the US a person’s skin colour remained the defining factor, of which “race” a person belonged to. This was predominant in the southern states where black people were enslaved long after such practices had been abolished in Britain. The British industrialists found “wage slavery” in their factories more productive and profitable than chattel slavery.

Colour was becoming the predominant measure of a person’s “race” as slavery was confined to those of a black pigmentation. Contrary to popular belief no so-called white people were slaves, they were the not much better off Indentured Servants. There was little difference except an Indentured Servant could, and did on rare occasions, take their master to court. They had certain minimal legal rights, slaves as property had none. This added to the colour culture of defining a person “race” and their inferiority.

When in 1933 Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany, he and his Nazi party took the concept of phenotypes, the observable characteristics of a person like skin colour, hair type, sharp features, to describe a person’s “race” to new and dangerous heights. Using bastardised science and historical revisionism (and that is being kind) he and his gang of crooks set out to prove that the German people were a “master race” and Jewish people in particular, though not exclusively, were inferior and unworthy of life. The racialisation of groups began in earnest during the years of the Third Reich with murderous consequences. Hitler used appearances to define a person’s “race” even though there are no biological differences between those of the various so-called “races.” There are biological differences between individuals, like blood groups, liver and organ compatibility but that has nothing to do with which pigeonholed groups, “race,” in society a person belongs to. It may be true that a compatible liver, for example, may be more likely found for a transplant between two peoples of the same “racial” group but that does not mean it is impossible for a transplant between a Caucasian and a Negro person to take place if the organ is compatible. The same applies to blood transfusions. The likelihood of compatibility is slightly more likely within certain groups to a person of that group which is why that particular collective would be perused first for compatible organs. Generally speaking, there are no biological differences between what are described as “races.” We all bleed red blood, have two kidneys and lungs, a heart and liver and we breath the same air. Certain diseases may be common to a particular group, sickle cell among black and dark people, the common cold among Caucasian peoples, particularly Europeans, unknown to the peoples of sub-Saharan Africa or the natives of the Americas until the Europeans arrived. It was the common cold and other diseases specific to Europeans at the time which allowed to a great extent the Spanish to conquer the Peruvian and Mexican natives, not military might as they would have us believe.

Skin colour today appears to be the acceptable means of defining race, but is it correct? If that is the case, how do we get an Irish or German race distinctive from the English or French? After all, if we use skin colour as the barometer all four of these ethnic groups are of the Caucasian groupings, often referred to misleadingly as the “white race.” This must make skin colour an unreliable barometer of racial definition. That would make the Irish not a race but an ethnic group so what then are the English? Is there an English “race?” No, in fact the English are not a race, even in society's distorted language, because they belong to the Germanic, as opposed to German, “race” which, again if skin colour is the barometer does not make any sense because they are all part of the “white race!” 

All very confusing as it is supposed to be, create enough confusion and divisions will naturally occur which suits capitalism down to the ground. The same rule could equally apply to those of the black skin colour. For example, is there a Kenyan race distinctive from the Ugandan? Or are these just grouped together as the “black race?” If that is the case, then how can we have an Irish “race” but not a Ugandan “race?” If we lump people together, categorise them, on the grounds of skin colour the same rule as those applicable to “black” and “white” groups must also apply to Orientals, middle eastern, and near eastern peoples. Even if we accept that black and white “races” exist as groups then within these groups there are many ethnicities, just as within the Human Race there are likewise many ethnicities.

The far-right, a hidden tool of the capitalist class should the system hit the point of no return or communism, use skin colour and ethnicity to create divisions. They do not do it blatantly but try, not very convincingly, to hide what they are saying. Their media, for example, in a not very subliminal way report incidents with more than a hint of racism based on skin colour and ethnicity about them. In Rochdale, Greater Manchester, back in 2012 nine men were convicted of sex trafficking and other offences which included rape of young girls. The media in their ever balanced (I think not) report of this dreadful incident made a great issue of the fact the men were “British Pakistanis” and of the Islamic religion, Muslims, and all the girls were “White British.” Was this fact the men were Pakistani and the girls white relevant? Could it have been to create an anti-Muslim backlash from the indigenous population? The far-right, understandably from their bitter hate filled point of view, jumped on this incident immediately which was the intention. Attacks throughout Britain against Pakistani and Indian people increased. The question must be asked, if these terrible offences had been committed by “White Englishmen” would that fact have been reported as headline news? Would the reporters have written, White English men members of the Church of England groom and rape teenagers? Would they fuck, no milage in such reporting. What happened to those girls was wrong and throwing the key away would have been understood, but not because the men were of Pakistani origin and Muslims but because of the horrific crimes they had committed, a point which appears to be lost in the reporting of men’s racial or ethnic origins.

Around Britain, really meaning England, assaults on Pakistani and Indian people continued, and continue, prompting many in towns like Bradford to declare no go areas for whites. This followed a series of assaults by white supremacists and are to a certain extent understandable, these “racial minorities” must defend themselves. The problem here is, these areas are no go for all whites which then, as was intended by the bourgeois media, makes people hitherto opposed to racism and groups like the BNP, Britain First and, Combat 18 to start thinking they may have a point. Being told they cannot walk down a street of their native town, many white people take great offence to, even those, the majority, who hitherto sympathised with the victims of racial abuse and assaults. No go areas are not the way to combat racism and fascism. As history tells us mass mobilisation such as Cable Street 1936, the Anti-Nazi League of the nineteen-seventies and early eighties and the actions of Anti-Fascist Action (AFA) to this day combining all anti-racists of all skin colours is the way to deal with this scourge. Combatting both physically and ideologically both on the streets and in elected chambers are the way to deal with these people and ideas. Creating no go areas only alienates those who are expelled from such areas, people who would normally be allies.

The title of this blog piece is “The Definition of Race - Do Races Exist?” is not simple to answer, certainly in a blog. The definition of race is complex, as I have tried to point out, but also easy. The only “race” on this planet is the Human Race, all inclusive of all peoples. Races do not exist, outside the bourgeois mindset, there is only the singular not the plural of. Within the Human Race there are many ethnic and cultural groups which are not on the whole antagonistic to each other. There are exceptions where certain cultures have been bastardised, elements within Orangeism in the six counties (not so much in the 26 counties) springs to mind. The Human Race is also multicoloured as black, brown, pink, and tanned peoples make up this unity of peoples. The pink people are always misleadingly described as white which, unless they are suffering from serious Anemia, is, as far as colour description goes, wrong. This is why the bourgeois state and their weapon of last resort, fascism, try to create antagonisms within society while, at the same time condemning such antagonisms, tensions which they have started in the first place.

Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent 
Socialist Republican and Marxist

The Definition Of Race ✑ Do Races Exist?

Caoimhin O’Muraile ☭ What exactly is race? This is a good question and not so simple to answer. 

We regularly hear the word “race” used to describe people usually on the grounds of skin colour and other phenotypical traits but is this the correct or only definition? Or are these artificial racial profiles based on skin colour and other phenotypical appearances which has not always, certainly in Britain and Ireland, been the case incorrect and “racist?” 

In the United States, race has always had colour as its descriptive barometer, particularly in the days of slavery and even well beyond Abrahams Lincoln's partial abolition of slavery in January 1863 during the American Civil War this racial stereotyping continued. Even today there are those in the US who use “race” based on colour to describe groups of people, usually in a derogative way. Organisations like the Ku Klux Klan still exist in the US deep south as do other Klan splinter groups. Black people in the USA, Afro-Americans today, were often described in the deep south and other areas during the days of slavery and long after as being three-fifths of a human. In some areas black people still are referred to in this derogatory way where the once popular and legal, since 1965 no longer enforceable, “Jim Crow” laws still apply in the minds of some. There have also been black activists who fuel these groups with their alternative forms of racism who claim to be fighting for black emancipation. One such person was Marcus Garvey who envisioned a unified Africa as a one-party state, governed by himself, that would enact laws to ensure “black racial purity,” even though he had never even visited the continent. Garvey’s black separatist views, and his courting of the white racist Ku Klux Klan in the interest of advancing their shared goal of “racial separatism” divided him hugely from other prominent African American civil right activists, such as W.E.B. Du Bois who promoted racial integration.

In Britain and Ireland, the colour chart has not always been the only descriptive method of defining race, that is if there is such a thing as more than one race. The rules for defining “race” tend to be made by society, they are not natural. The Irish themselves were then, even though they were “white,” considered by the English to be of an inferior “race” to their supposed masters. From the outset of the Industrial Revolution, mid eighteenth century, race began more and more to be a class issue as well as phenotypical. People from the working-class were described as coming from a different “race” to those of the employing classes. The aspiring bourgeoisie and the aristocracy saw themselves as a different superior “race” to both. Within the working-class there were sub-divisions of race as racialisation of “the other” was prominent between skilled and unskilled workers. The Amalgamated Society of Engineers (ASE) saw themselves as been in the same “race” and nearer the same class as the employers and had a motto “Defence Not Defiance.” In other words, defend what we have against the unskilled workers, and do not unnecessarily defy the bosses, do not allow the unskilled workers into our trade union. This was prevalent among most skilled workers organisations who saw themselves as a different “race” to their unskilled counterparts, an “aristocracy of labour.”

Women were also considered in many respects a different “race” to men through until the late nineteenth-century. Then, with the gradual rise of what became known as “New Unionism” things began to change. In 1888 the women workers at the Bryant and May match works factory in Bow, East London, went on strike. After a three-week struggle against horrendous working conditions the women were victorious over their employer which gave huge impetus to the unskilled workers, particularly women, as the following year 100,00 male London Dockers went on strike and, like their female predecessors, won out against the employers. The idea of the working-class belonging to a different “race” and women workers a lower order of that “race” was now being successfully challenged. However, challenging these retarded ideas was one thing, defeating them out of sight was another. 

The concept of unskilled workers belonging to a different “race” was slowly completely (as class had always been present) replaced by the word “class,” prevailed into the twentieth century. This racial myth was upheld and promoted by the bosses as it reduced any possibility of working-class solidarity between skilled and unskilled workers, an idea already highly unlikely anyway. During the 1913/14 Dublin Lockout the Irish Transport and General Workers Union (ITGWU) received very little support from the skilled workers organisations, many whom supported William Martin Murphy and the employers being of the same “race” as themselves! One exception to this rule was Richard O’Carroll and the Ancient Guild of Incorporated Brick and Stone-layers Trade Union who gave unconditional support to their unskilled working-class brethren and the concept of them belonging to a different “race” did not enter the equation, these were workers in struggle. 

So, in the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, certainly in Britain and Ireland, class was an equally regular barometer as skin colour used to define “race.” Much of this was due in no small part to the rapid rate of industrialisation in Britain, lesser in Ireland outside Belfast and its hinterland, which created two predominant classes. The owners of the new machinery, the means of production, namely the middle-class or, as Marx termed them, the bourgeoisie, and the operators of the said means of production, the working-class or proletariat. At this early stage of what became known as the Industrial Revolution Britain flew into an early lead which is how the class concept of race developed in that country, whereas in other countries, such as the USA, colour remained the only description of race. Even when industrialisation developed, slightly later, in the US a person’s skin colour remained the defining factor, of which “race” a person belonged to. This was predominant in the southern states where black people were enslaved long after such practices had been abolished in Britain. The British industrialists found “wage slavery” in their factories more productive and profitable than chattel slavery.

Colour was becoming the predominant measure of a person’s “race” as slavery was confined to those of a black pigmentation. Contrary to popular belief no so-called white people were slaves, they were the not much better off Indentured Servants. There was little difference except an Indentured Servant could, and did on rare occasions, take their master to court. They had certain minimal legal rights, slaves as property had none. This added to the colour culture of defining a person “race” and their inferiority.

When in 1933 Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany, he and his Nazi party took the concept of phenotypes, the observable characteristics of a person like skin colour, hair type, sharp features, to describe a person’s “race” to new and dangerous heights. Using bastardised science and historical revisionism (and that is being kind) he and his gang of crooks set out to prove that the German people were a “master race” and Jewish people in particular, though not exclusively, were inferior and unworthy of life. The racialisation of groups began in earnest during the years of the Third Reich with murderous consequences. Hitler used appearances to define a person’s “race” even though there are no biological differences between those of the various so-called “races.” There are biological differences between individuals, like blood groups, liver and organ compatibility but that has nothing to do with which pigeonholed groups, “race,” in society a person belongs to. It may be true that a compatible liver, for example, may be more likely found for a transplant between two peoples of the same “racial” group but that does not mean it is impossible for a transplant between a Caucasian and a Negro person to take place if the organ is compatible. The same applies to blood transfusions. The likelihood of compatibility is slightly more likely within certain groups to a person of that group which is why that particular collective would be perused first for compatible organs. Generally speaking, there are no biological differences between what are described as “races.” We all bleed red blood, have two kidneys and lungs, a heart and liver and we breath the same air. Certain diseases may be common to a particular group, sickle cell among black and dark people, the common cold among Caucasian peoples, particularly Europeans, unknown to the peoples of sub-Saharan Africa or the natives of the Americas until the Europeans arrived. It was the common cold and other diseases specific to Europeans at the time which allowed to a great extent the Spanish to conquer the Peruvian and Mexican natives, not military might as they would have us believe.

Skin colour today appears to be the acceptable means of defining race, but is it correct? If that is the case, how do we get an Irish or German race distinctive from the English or French? After all, if we use skin colour as the barometer all four of these ethnic groups are of the Caucasian groupings, often referred to misleadingly as the “white race.” This must make skin colour an unreliable barometer of racial definition. That would make the Irish not a race but an ethnic group so what then are the English? Is there an English “race?” No, in fact the English are not a race, even in society's distorted language, because they belong to the Germanic, as opposed to German, “race” which, again if skin colour is the barometer does not make any sense because they are all part of the “white race!” 

All very confusing as it is supposed to be, create enough confusion and divisions will naturally occur which suits capitalism down to the ground. The same rule could equally apply to those of the black skin colour. For example, is there a Kenyan race distinctive from the Ugandan? Or are these just grouped together as the “black race?” If that is the case, then how can we have an Irish “race” but not a Ugandan “race?” If we lump people together, categorise them, on the grounds of skin colour the same rule as those applicable to “black” and “white” groups must also apply to Orientals, middle eastern, and near eastern peoples. Even if we accept that black and white “races” exist as groups then within these groups there are many ethnicities, just as within the Human Race there are likewise many ethnicities.

The far-right, a hidden tool of the capitalist class should the system hit the point of no return or communism, use skin colour and ethnicity to create divisions. They do not do it blatantly but try, not very convincingly, to hide what they are saying. Their media, for example, in a not very subliminal way report incidents with more than a hint of racism based on skin colour and ethnicity about them. In Rochdale, Greater Manchester, back in 2012 nine men were convicted of sex trafficking and other offences which included rape of young girls. The media in their ever balanced (I think not) report of this dreadful incident made a great issue of the fact the men were “British Pakistanis” and of the Islamic religion, Muslims, and all the girls were “White British.” Was this fact the men were Pakistani and the girls white relevant? Could it have been to create an anti-Muslim backlash from the indigenous population? The far-right, understandably from their bitter hate filled point of view, jumped on this incident immediately which was the intention. Attacks throughout Britain against Pakistani and Indian people increased. The question must be asked, if these terrible offences had been committed by “White Englishmen” would that fact have been reported as headline news? Would the reporters have written, White English men members of the Church of England groom and rape teenagers? Would they fuck, no milage in such reporting. What happened to those girls was wrong and throwing the key away would have been understood, but not because the men were of Pakistani origin and Muslims but because of the horrific crimes they had committed, a point which appears to be lost in the reporting of men’s racial or ethnic origins.

Around Britain, really meaning England, assaults on Pakistani and Indian people continued, and continue, prompting many in towns like Bradford to declare no go areas for whites. This followed a series of assaults by white supremacists and are to a certain extent understandable, these “racial minorities” must defend themselves. The problem here is, these areas are no go for all whites which then, as was intended by the bourgeois media, makes people hitherto opposed to racism and groups like the BNP, Britain First and, Combat 18 to start thinking they may have a point. Being told they cannot walk down a street of their native town, many white people take great offence to, even those, the majority, who hitherto sympathised with the victims of racial abuse and assaults. No go areas are not the way to combat racism and fascism. As history tells us mass mobilisation such as Cable Street 1936, the Anti-Nazi League of the nineteen-seventies and early eighties and the actions of Anti-Fascist Action (AFA) to this day combining all anti-racists of all skin colours is the way to deal with this scourge. Combatting both physically and ideologically both on the streets and in elected chambers are the way to deal with these people and ideas. Creating no go areas only alienates those who are expelled from such areas, people who would normally be allies.

The title of this blog piece is “The Definition of Race - Do Races Exist?” is not simple to answer, certainly in a blog. The definition of race is complex, as I have tried to point out, but also easy. The only “race” on this planet is the Human Race, all inclusive of all peoples. Races do not exist, outside the bourgeois mindset, there is only the singular not the plural of. Within the Human Race there are many ethnic and cultural groups which are not on the whole antagonistic to each other. There are exceptions where certain cultures have been bastardised, elements within Orangeism in the six counties (not so much in the 26 counties) springs to mind. The Human Race is also multicoloured as black, brown, pink, and tanned peoples make up this unity of peoples. The pink people are always misleadingly described as white which, unless they are suffering from serious Anemia, is, as far as colour description goes, wrong. This is why the bourgeois state and their weapon of last resort, fascism, try to create antagonisms within society while, at the same time condemning such antagonisms, tensions which they have started in the first place.

Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent 
Socialist Republican and Marxist

6 comments:

  1. "that does not mean it is impossible for a transplant between a Caucasian and a Negro person to take place if the organ is compatible..."

    I'll give you the benefit of the doubt over this racist comment...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. what is racist about the comment? The idea suggested? The language?
      Hard to see the author as racist or making a conscious racist comment given both his history and the overall article. To some ears your comment might sound more woke than his does racist, and I happen to think you are not Woke nor he racist.

      Delete
    2. I'm taking the piss regarding the word 'Negro', it has been loaded with negative connotations for as far back as I can remember. I've no doubt Caoimhin is not a racist whatsoever.

      Delete
  2. Do Races Exist?

    No but the human race does. What is happening is 'the powers that be' want everyone to believe we are all different, keep us apart fighting each other while they secretly work towards what Pete Seger sang about in 'Little boxes looking the same'.....

    At the end of the day we are all the same, want the same things for our families only difference is some have a better suntan than others.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Matt Treacy comments

    The concept of race is no more a ridiculous "scientific" concept than the concept of "class."

    Marx had far more in common with the Victorian racial obsessives such as Chamberlain than is often realised.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Matt Treacy is wrong. "Class" is an objective, verified sociological concept, whereas "race" is a pure socially constructed myth. As a professional anthropologist, I can state with certainty that "classes" are objectively real and there are no human races. Science has conclusively proven this. "Race" is humankind's most dangerous myth. It's as simple as that. Everything beyond that is racism.

    ReplyDelete