Philosophical aspects of the `AAA Statement on "Race"'
Naomi Zac
University of Oregon, US
Abstract
I apply philosophical analysis to the AAA Statement on "Race"' (American Anthropological
Association, 1998) and the commentary on its earlier draft published in theAnthropology
Newsletter (1997). Racial essentialism is the theory that there are distinct and general human
biological traits that determine racial membership and cause the presence of specific racial traits
This theory is false, as is the belief that a taxonomy of human races,or race, exists. But the 1998
`AAA Statement on "Race"'fails to repudiate racial essentialism explicitly. Instead, the Statement
denies that race determines culture or psychology and thereby misses the broad logical point tha
race cannot determine anything, because it does not exist AN discussion of Kennewick
Man, which appeared to be a debate about racial essentialism, contributors spoke past one anothe
in confusing population-based measures of human diversity with race. The same confusion clouds
contemporary concerns about the relevance of common-sense racial categories to medica
diagnosis and treatment. Education is the solution to the public's ignorance about the scientifi
foundation for its ideas about race. It is an empirical question whether such education will remedy
racism or unjust treatment based on the false racial taxonomy. Although mixed-race categories
are no more real than 'pure' ones, their acceptance may help unsettle the prevailing false
taxonomy of race.
Key Words
common-sense racial categories   mixed race   race   racial essentialism   taxonomy of huma
races
INTRODUCTION
Over the 20th century, most philosophers writing about race have focused on socia
identities and racism. Anthropologists, by contrast, have focused on the biological
foundations of race. As a philosopher, I have been trying for a decade to convince othe
philosophers that race as understood in common sense has no foundation in science, and
that this fact is socially important. I am therefore encouraged that anthropologists no
substantially agree about these issues. However, I think that philosophical conceptual
analysis can still be fruitfully applied to the connections between the nonexistence of
biological race and statistical facts about populations, as well as to cultural beliefs about
race. In this article I consider several theoretical aspects of the 1998 AAA Statement on
"Race" and the commentary on the earlier draft of the Statement published in th
Anthropology Newsletter (AN) between September 1997 and September 1998.
Some philosophers will find my approach too empirical and some anthropologists wil
find it too theoretical, but I think that in this case the intersection of disciplines i
necessary, because the subject remains complex (and vexed), particularly whe
essentialism appears to be residual .
Scholars across disciplines now eschew racial essentialism. The AAA Statement
on "Race" ' is avowedly nonessentialist, as is this article. Let us therefore begin wit
some relevant aspects of essentialism as applied to race. Essentialism is a doctrine about
reality, originating with Aristotle. Different kinds or groups of things exist in nature and
an individual's membership in a group is the result of the individual having the essence or
essential properties distinctive of that group. Science, in this Aristotelian tradition,
involves the discovery of essences and their description in definitions. An essential
definition describes the necessary and sufficient conditions for group membership. By the
time John Locke came to analyze the beginnings of empirical science, in the 17thcentury,
it was evident that few things in nature had observable real essences or essential
properties, in Aristotle's sense. Rather, the empirical (i .e. scientific) classification of
existing things into groups was coming to be understood as a product of the mind,
imposed on nature. Nonetheless, it was widely believed in classical, pre-evolutionary
biology, that species had unchanging essential properties (Sober, 1997; Zack, 2000).
Since species and subspecies change over time, today human biologists do not think in
terms of essences or essential properties, either forHomo sapiens generally, or human
populations (groups) more particularly (Corcos, 1997: 141-8).
The mistaken 18th and 19th-century notion of racial essences posited the
existence of general racial essences or essential properties for each race whic
determined specific racial traits for its members. Essentialism is the theory or doctrine
built around this core notion. Sometimes the posited essences were presumed to be
biological and sometimes metaphysical or spiritual. Biological essentialism is the version
relevant to race, and it has several tenets that still linger in varied way: Each race hasa
distinct physical essence. Every individual has the physical essence of the race to whic
he or she belongs. Biological racial essences cause racially distinctive physical, cultural
and psychological traits. Essentialism presupposes a belief in the existence of race.
However, some contemporary practitioners believe that races exist, as populations, bu
that there are no racial essences. The belief that race does not exist logically entails the
belief that there are no racial essences or essential properties.
Contemporary theoretical work in the human sciences which is relevant to what i
thought about as race in common sense is now developed and presented in opposition t
essentialism. However, false essentialist beliefs are not always clearly articulated, and a
a result, positions presented in opposition to them may miss their target(s) s
this happens because essentialism, as a scientific doctrine, was often used to justifya
hierarchical model of human races, within which the white race was judged superior t
all others. Writers seeking to refute white supremacist doctrines (in the sense of that
association of hierarchy with essentialism), often assume that they are refuting
essentialism, In fact, they are refutingracism, and while that is a noble undertaking, it
may leave essentialist assumptions unexamined.
THE LOGIC OF NONESSENTIALISM
The 1998 AAA Statement on "Race' is a work of theory because it interprets pas
empirical research and, if accepted, would influence future research. At the same time,
the Statement is meant to present the facts about race 'to the public' in a way that will
increase social justice (Anthropology Newsletter,1997). Scientists in the 19th century
were insistent about imposing a socially-constructed hierarchical taxonomy of biological
race on the public, partly as a justification for slavery and segregation (Smedley, 1997)
In the 20th century scientists, including anthropologists, were less firm about disabusing
the public about false notions of biological race. There are several reasons for this
softness. Not all scientists fully recognize the biological emptiness of the idea of race.
Often, scientific ideas of race are based on population traits or geographical origins,
which are less than what the public believes is the basis of race, and scientists see no
reason to abandon their own minimal concepts (Forsey, 1997). Scientists engaged i
research and teaching are often too busy to compose popularized versions of curren
consensuses in their fields. Furthermore, popular belief in racial categories has become
associated with efforts to eliminate racial injustice, and the news that such categories d
not exist is often received as an attack on such efforts. This is a political dilemma that
empirical practitioners may be ill-equipped to resolve, because humanistic scholars an
activists have thus far failed to resolve it. Overall, since scientists are not usuall
ideologues, firmly telling the public that its beliefs about race are groundless ma
resemble activism or propaganda. Nonetheless, many anthropologists now seem to think
that the public ought to be informed by anthropologists that the 19th-century racia
taxonomy does not exist. Of course, this benighted 'public' includes politicians, teachers,
and scholars in other fields, who for one reason or another are extremely resistant to th
idea that race as they imagine it is nonexistent (Moses, 1997).
It is traditional for scientists to base their claims about the existence or
nonexistence of things on empirical data. But empirical data may confirm or disconfirm
the existence of things on different levels of generality. Human biological racial
taxonomy, orrace, is a very general construct. The lack of empirical referents for th
construct of racial taxonomy (i.e. for 'race') precludes the existence of more specific
aspects of such a taxonomy and of the interaction of elements of such a taxonomy with
things that do exist. This is simply a matter of logic. The AAA Statement on "Race"'
would have been theoretically stronger, as well as potentially more enlightening for the
public, if some of the logical truths concerning racial taxonomy had been clearly stated.
The relevant logical truths follow from two assumptions: nonexistent entities cannot be
causes, effects, or objects in relationships with things that do exist; nonexistent entities
cannot have subcategories that exist. Thus, for example, unicorns, which do not exist,
cannot have an impact on existing ecological systems, and since unicorns do not exist as
a general category, it is impossible for grey or golden unicorns to exist t
logical truths about race are as follows:
1. If there is no human biological racial taxonomy, then there is no human biological
racial hierarchy.
2. If there is no human biological racial taxonomy, then there are no specifi
biological races.
3. If there are no biological races, then there are no pure or mixed biological races.
4. If there is no human biological racial taxonomy, then there are no biological
causal connections between biological race and culture or psychology.
5. If there is no human biological racial taxonomy, then there are no biological
causal connections between biological race and other aspects of human biology.
6. If there is no human biological racial taxonomy, then there are no biological
causal connections between race and ethnicity (Moses, 1997).
To say that 1-6 are logically true is another way of saying that they area priori true.
They need no further empirical confirmation and they are immune to further empirica
findings. If the first clauses in 1-6 are true, i.e. if race does not exist, then there is no
scientific finding that could lend credence to links between race and hierarchy, purity
culture, biology or ethnicity. I will say more about what it means to say that race does not
exist, i .e. about what 'race' means, soon. First, the AAA Statement Once it was asserted
in the Statement that there are no human races, some form of the logical truths stated i
1-6 should have been recognized and relevant conclusions drawn. To see how this was
not done, let us consider the text. At the outset, a claim about the nonexistence of
biological race is set forth.
In the US both scholars and the general public have been conditioned to viewing
human races as natural and separate divisions within the human species based on
visible physical differences. With the vast expansion of scientific knowledge in this
century, however, it has become clear that human populations are not unambiguous,
clearly demarcated, biologically distinct groups. Evidence from the analysis of
genetics (e .g. DNA) indicates that there is greater variation within racial groups tha
between them. This means that most physical variation, about 94% lieswithin so-
called racial groups. Conventional geographic racial groupings differ from one
another only in about 6% of their genes. In neighboring populations there is much
over-lapping of genes and their phenotypic (physical) expressions. Throughout
history whenever different groups have come into contact, they have interbred. The
continued sharing of genetic materials has maintained all of humankind as a singl
species . . . Today scholars in many fields argue that race as it is understood in th
USA was a social mechanism invented during the 18th century to refer to thos
populations brought together in colonial America: the English and other European
settlers, the conquered Indian people, and those peoples of Africa brought in t
provide slave labor. (American Anthropological Association, 1998)
It should be noted as a factual clarification of the Statement that since it is 94% of
the human genetic difference overall, which falls within races, and that overall differenc
is 0.2%, the 6% of genetic difference due to perceived racial difference is 6% of 0.2% of
all human genetic material, which is 0 .012%, or less than 1/8000 (Appiah, 199: 68-9;
Templeton, 1998). And, as Jonathan Marks points out, the difference based on racia
difference as defined by social categories may be even less. The figures used for
difference in the Statement are based on differences in mitochondria) DNA, which occu
about 5 times more rapidly than nuclear genetic differences in the histories of species.
Marks therefore suggests that the nuclear genetic differences, based on preselected socia
racial categories, are probably 0 .0024%, or less than 1/40,000 of human genetic material
(review comments, 2000).
Following the AAA Statement claim about the nonexistence of biological race i
an explanation of how hierarchical theories of racial difference functioned historically t
justify cultural domination, by whites, of indigenous people, colonized people, Africans,
and Jews. The Statement closes with the broad anthropological tenet that human cultura
behavior is learned and all normal human beings are able to learn any culture.
Furthermore, studies of infant and childhood learning confirm the effect of culture o
human identities. Therefore, it is concluded:
. . . that present day inequalities between so-called racial groups are not consequence
of their biological inheritance but products of historical and contemporary social
economic, educational and political circumstances . (American Anthropological
Association, 1998)
In 1952, Claude Levi-Strauss wrote an essay that explained how cultural
difference s among human beings were not the result of biological or racial differences
but of history and environment (1965). During the 1950s and 1960s, this position was
developed in different ways by L.C. Dunn (1965), Michel Leiris (1965), and others. The
consensus within this group about the independence of culture and human aptitude from
biology and race was expressed in four statements onracism, or discrimination and
beliefs about the inferiority and superiority of different races, which were first published
by UNESCO (1965). Throughout these statements, the existence of biological race is not
clearly and directly contested. The liberatory force of the statements lies in the
proclamation that human cultural achievement is not determined or constrained by
biological racial identity:
The peoples of the world today appear to possess equal biological potentialities for
attaining any civilizational level. Differences in the achievements of different people
must be attributed solely to their cultural history. (UNESCO, 1965)
We have seen that the AAA Statement begins with the claim that biological race does not
exist. But the AAA Statement implies that both the nonexistence of race and th
ineffectiveness of racial difference for causing cultural difference have been empiricall
confirmed. However, as noted earlier, if race does not exist, it is logically impossible that
race biologically causes culture, so the facts concerning the universality of huma
learning, and the ways in which culture determines identities, are beside the point. That
these facts are reiterated almost 50 years after Levi-Strauss and his cohort brough
international attention to them, suggests that the authors of the AAA Statement take the
to be a confirmation of the nonexistence of race. This in turn implies that if the facts in
question were otherwise, race might have the biological reality it is now falsely assumed
to have by the public. But, the evidence for the nonexistence of race, or the lack o
evidence for the existence of race, has to be independent of 'nature vs nurture'
interpretations of human learning and development. Otherwise, it would be acceptable to
base the existence of race on empirical evidence that biology determines culture, without
first defining race. Part of the difficulty in refuting false constructions of race is that those
biological traits believed to be racial traits are in fact hereditary. However, not everything
that is biological or hereditary qualifies as racial -- not even according to the mos
extreme racists. Therefore, the general claim that biological inheritance does not
determine human capacities, abilities or cultural identities, while it may be true on many
grounds, is too broad a defense of the nonexistence of race. The breadth of this clai
makes it seem as though future empirical findings about the link between biology and
culture could confirm the existence of human biological racial taxonomy, which is not the
case.
Part of this confusion in the AAA Statement, between biology and heredit
overall and race, stems from the lack of a clear definition of what those who believe that
race is biologically real mean by race. Obviously, the cultural traits distinctive of
different so-called races on a geographical basis, as well as the stereotypical trait
attributed to subordinate racial populations, are not biologically determined. But the
nonscientific belief in biological race is more than a belief in the existence of racially-
specific culture and behavior, although that belief about culture and behavior is part of
the nonscientific belief about race. The nonscientific belief in biological race entails that
there is a biological foundation for distinct racial identity that underlies phenotypes
within any race. This assumed biological foundation resembles genealogy but it is
supposed to underlie even genealogy, at least in the United States. Consider the American
'one drop rule', which is an exaggerated form of hypodescent: A person is designated
racially black if he or she has at least one black ancestor anywhere in his or her famil
history. Today, the one drop rule may be justified by reference to either custom o
preference, but at the end of the 19th century it was justified by a belief that physical
racial essences are passed down generationally, through blood. The foundation of the
'one drop rule' was thus a belief in racial essences, a belief that still lingers despite
widespread scientific evidence that no such things have ever existed (Kinney, 1985;
Mencke, 1979; Zack, 1993: ch. 8).
It has been known since about 1900 that human blood types are not raciall
distinct (Dubinin, 1965). No other candidate for physical racial essences has ever bee
presented. A biological racial essence, did it exist, would have to be some general factor,
distinct for each race, and present in all members of each race. The biological racial
essence would have to be homological: descriptions of the essence would be used to
explain and predict more specific physical racial traits. Also, if racial essences existed,
they would have to be present in genetic material that differed according to race. As
stated earlier, this would be the 1/8,000 (or 1/40,000) of all human genetic material tha
can be assigned to racial difference. That the fraction of difference is so small does not i
itself prove its insignificance and neither does it prove the low probability of racial
essences. Rather, the low probability of the existence of racial essences lies in the natur
of what counts for racial difference, and this differs according to the race in questio
(Paredes, 1997; Zack, 1998: ch. 8). That is, the phenotypic criteria for racial differenc
are themselves different kinds of things for each of the main social racial groups: dark
skin shades determine black identity; Asian identity is determined by facial features and
ancestral national origin; white identity rests on the absence of traits for black or Asia
identity. The genealogical requirements for racial identity also differ k
ancestry; Asians have varied ancestries of different national origins ; whites have no
black or Asian ancestry (Arisaka, 2000) .
If an attempt is made to keep the criteria for racial difference of the same type, fo
instance, restricting them to differences in skin shade, hair texture and bone structure, th
empirical impossibility (or very high improbability) of discovering racial essences
remains, because the genes for even scientifically selected phenotypes do not ge
inherited together or co-vary. The recombination of racially selected phenotypes i
important because there is no one phenotype shared by all members of any one race.
Furthermore, any attempt on the part of science to rationalize social racial typolog
would be further complicated by the fact that the social phenotypical and genealogica
criteria for race have varied over history and in different places h
variation are well known: the criteria for black identity in the United States varied amon
the states during the 19th century, between and 1/32 known black ancestry, befor e
stabilizing at the 'one drop rule' at the turn of the 20th century; Brazil does not have a one
drop rule for black identity but rather a one drop rule for white identity, becaus
ascriptions of whiteness increase with economic status; people whose ancestors were
born in India may be considered black in England but white in the United States,
depending on their skin shade; Native Americans have different criteria for triba
membership from those of the US government (Jaimes, 1995 ; Wilson, 1992).
Notice, again, that this case against racial essentialism is a purely biological one,
following from the improbability of finding racial essences given broad facts about
Mendelian heredity (i.e. genetic recombination) and varied kinds of criteria for cultural
racial identity, as well as the fact that no racial essences have ever been found. The case
against biological essentialism is different from the other meaning of essentialism,
whereby stereotypical cultural traits are believed to be the effect of what people believ
to be biological race. However, the biological case logically overrides the cultural cas
(see points 4 and 6 of the list given earlier in this section), because what people believe t
be biological race in the case of cultural essentialism does not exist . (Beliefs about
culture are often themselves lacking in existent referents, but that is another matter)
In science, biological racial essences have gone the way of phlogiston. But the
notion lingers on in ordinary thinking, and the failure of the AAA Statement to address
this superstition is costly. We are told, 'Throughout history whenever different groups
have come into contact, they have interbred. The continued sharing of genetic materials
has maintained all of humankind as a single species ' (American Anthropological
Association, 1998). The implication here is that humankind might not be a single species
without continued sharing of genetic material d
breeding within groups that have common ancestors with other groups. But, if humans
never were distinct races to begin with, their maintenance as one species would not be
due to the kind of continued sharing of racial genes, as the statement implies. Rather,
there has simply been a mixing of genes in the history of humankind. The authors of the
AAA Statement are not alone in describing humanity as a whole as inextricably raciall
mixed. Many who now write about mixed-race identity fall into the confusion of thinking
that mixed race people have varied biologicalracial ancestry. This assumption is
poignantly evident in the 2000 US census forms, in which mixed-race respondents were
allowed to 'identify "more than one" category of race as a means of reporting diverse
ancestry' (Overby, 1997). But, if there are no racial essences, then there are no races i
the way the public believes and there are no things that in combination could result in
mixed race in a biological sense (see point 3 of the list given earlier on p. 448).
It would, in many cases, be a distortion to interpret the way in which the idea of
race is now used in evolutionary biology, genetics or biological anthropology as an
unspoken or unexamined assumption about the existence of literal racial essences e
scientists who use concepts that resemble common-sense racial categories, such as
mongoloid, negroid, or caucasoid, are usually referring to collections of typical traits
shared by members of groups originating in geographical areas at a certain time in the
past. In addition, most evolutionary models for group membership now rely more on
common ancestry than similarity of traits for classificatory purposes (on the genealogica
vs similarity model, see Andreasen, 1998). When scientists do currently speak of races, i
is often with qualifications and disclaimers to disassociate their views from 19th-century
biological essentialism: they are speaking of populations rather than individuals; their
conclusions about the traits shared by such groups are no more than statistical or highl
probable; the groups identified in genealogical terms, based on genetic analyses, may not
resemble common-sense racial categories, even though the names for them are similar
(Andreasen, 1998). Nevertheless, such scientific use of biological concepts of race easil
slides into a kind of typology that can be mistaken for the phlogiston kind of racial
essentialism. This is because typology itself partly relies on what the 18th-century
philosopher George Berkeley called abstract general ideas . An abstract general idea is
supposed to be a symbol for all members of a group, which characterizes each one of
them, as a whole entity, in the same way. Berkeley thought that abstract general ideas ar
tricks of the mind because there is nothing in reality to which they refer. He believed that
our idea man is an abstract general idea because all men are different, and there i
nothing that characterizes every one of them, as wholes, in the same way (1982: 9-14).
If population and genealogical concepts of race, which apply to groups, ar
applied to individual members of those groups, then they become abstract general ideas
in Berkeley's sense, because there is no one thing or set of things that all members of
such groups have in common. Usually, evolutionary biologists and population geneticists
do not speak of individuals. However, forensic anthropologists, who classify individuals
based on their skeletal remains, have no choice but to speak of individuals, and this is
where group-based scientific concepts of race may slide into essentialist concepts of race
The group-based racial term becomes a label for an individual, and by extension it sounds
as though every individual in the group to which the new individual has been assigned
shares the same defining something, in this case a racial essence. Once this assumption
becomes fixed in place, it may be very difficult to imagine that an individual could be a
member of a pre-described geographic or genealogical group if that individual lacks
typical traits of the group. However, on either the geographic or genealogical model of
human populations, there are bound to be 'atypical' members of these groups once the
similarity model is rejected and, of course, once the notion of group essences hasgone
the way of phlogiston. The question of whether a given individual is assigned to a grou
if the individual is atypical will be decided on the basis of whether the criteria for grou
membership are primarily geographical, osteological or genetic. This kind of decision
highlights the ways in which all typologies are somewhat arbitrary constructions rathe
than literal models of natural divisions.
NONESSENTIALISM AND KENNEWICK MA N
Leonard Lieberman explains how the nature of the relevantskeletal reference collection
determines how forensic anthropologists classify new skeletal remains. All of the skeletal
traits that compose the typology of skeletal reference collections exist on continua among
the different types, and they are usually referred to asclines rather than racial traits. This
means that the existence of a typology depends on more or less arbitrary decisions about
where to draw the lines between types. The criteria for inclusion in types are furthe
contingent in that bones are shaped by environmental, as well as hereditary factors
Classification therefore works best if unidentified members have ancestors who come
from the same geographic area as those in the reference collection (Lieberman
1997). This qualification poses extreme difficulties when remains that are unusual or of
unknown origin have to be classified. Given these parameters for forensic anthropology,
it is clear that care must be taken not to equivocate between meanings of labels for group
in interpreting data. For instance, if a skeletal reference collection is made up of remains
of members of groups with no living descendants, there is no basis on which to assume
that traits of the group characterize members of living groups who, according to cultural
criteria, have been assigned to a race bearing a name similar to the name of the decedent
group. Furthermore, as Lieberman points out, the forensic assignment of an individual t
any group is only going to be as valid as were the original criteria used in assembling the
skeletal reference group.
The discussion of Kennewick Man in theAnthropologyNewsletter is an
informative example of how the application of population- and genealogically-based
ideas of race to human osteological remains sounds like racial essentialism to those who
reject commonsense racial typology, while it may seem to be no more than normal
empirical science to forensic anthropologists who think they can classify given remains.
Let us begin with the facts of the case. Kennewick Man is the name given to remains
found after the flooding of the Columbia River in Kennewick, Washington in 1996. The
skeleton was examined by James Chatters, who identified a well-preserved middle-aged
man with apparent 'caucasoid' features, alive about 9300 years ago (Preston, I997a)
Chatters believes that his preliminary data support hypotheses that there was an earlier
now extinct, European group in the Americas, which predated occupation by the north
Asian groups believed to be the ancestors of contemporary Native Americans (Chatters
1998). Chatters and his colleagues anticipated further study of the remains, but the age o
the skeleton brought it under the jurisdiction of the Native American Graves Protectio
and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) of 1990. The Army Corp of Engineers removed the
skeleton to a secure vault on the assumption that it legally belonged to the Umatilla
Indians, tribes in Oregon, Washington and Idaho, who claimed Kennewick Man for
reburial. Chatters and seven colleagues initiated litigation for return of the skeleton to
them for further study (Preston, 1997a). Those were the main facts at the time of the
ANdiscussion.
The Umatilla Indians do not think that further study is desirable, because it i
against their spiritual traditions to remove the dead from original places of burial r
do they think that further study of the skeleton is necessary, because they believe that it
age alone establishes its identity as Native American. Thus, Armand Minthorn, speaking
for the Umatillas:
If this individual is truly over 9,000 years old, that only substantiates our belief that
he is Native American. From our oral histories, we know that our people have bee
part of this land since the beginning of time. We do not believe that our peopl
migrated here from another continent, as the scientists do. We also do not agree with
the notion that this individual is Caucasian. Scientists say that because the individual'
head measurements do not match ours, he is not Native American. We believe that
humans and animals change over time to adapt to their environment s
have told us that Indian people did not always look the way we look today. (partly
quoted by Preston, 1997a ; text in full at Umatilla Tribe, URL, 1999)
It should be added that Practitioners of a Norse religion in California, with ideologica
ties to white supremacist groups, have also claimed the skeleton as an ancestor o
members of their group, the Asatru Folk Assembly (Runestone,URL, 1999).
The discussion about Kennewick Man inANwas published during the same time
as another commentary that contributed to the final AAA Statement on Race. Several
issues were intertwined in exchanges about Kennewick Man, and their relation to
essentialist versus nonessentialist definitions of race is instructive. First, there is the
question o f whether the Kennewick remains ought to be made available for study by
Euro-American scientists. Then, there is the question of the race of the remains. Finally,
there is the question of what the characteristics of the remains might suggest about pre
contact populations in the Americas, and their geographical origins.
No one in the pages of AN offered strong support for reburial of the remains under
NAGPRA, and even Alan Goodman, who deplored the racialization of the remains,
stated that he would welcome an opportunity to study them without such racialization
(Goodman, 1997). Richard Jantz and Douglas Owsley claim that the Army Corp ought
not to have seized the remains without 'an orderly process' for determining their group
identity (jantz and Owsley, 1998). It is understandable that empirical scientists would be
in favor of further study no matter what' and that they might tend to dismiss obstacles
related to folk claims about identity, as 'political'. The Umatilla imperative to rebury the
remains follows from their presumed Native American identity, and scientists might not
wish to give such an imperative priority insofar as it is merely religious. But, the age of
the remains was what triggered their seizure under NAGPRA, and this is related t
historical legal principles that cannot he as easily dismissed. United States treaty law and
legislation such as NAGPRA recognize the pre-colonial sovereignty of ancestors of
contemporary Native Americans. As the only living groups likely to be descended from
those erstwhile American sovereign groups, contemporary Native Americans would seem
to have a prima facie right to claim remains that could be their ancestors e
an argument based on inheritance that by-passes race, in any sense of the term. Even if
Kennewick Man were (apparently) racially white, he could still have been the ancestor of
contemporary Native Americans. The claim by the Asatru Folk Assembly that
Kennewick Man could not have been the ancestor of contemporary Native Americans, as
well as a possible assumption by some anthropologists that belonging to a Caucasian or
caucasoid group precludes Kennewick Man having Native American descendants, woul
hold up only on the basis of false biological racial essentialism. The essentialist principle
would be that Native Americans and whites each have something biologically distinc
about them, which determines that all descendants will be of the same 'race' as their
ancestors. Furthermore, even if Kennewick Man were racially white, it is virtually certai
that he could not be the ancestor of contemporary racially white Americans, because al
of their ancestors arrived after colonial contact u
Assembly, could claim Kennewick Man as their ancestor would be through the
nonexistent referent of an abstract general idea of racial whiteness, which overrode actual
biological genealogy and made every white person a member of the same line of descent;
but even in that case, it is likely that members of the Asatru Assembly would be only
collateral kin to Kennewick Man.
What race is Kennewick Man? The question is scientifically meaningless if 'race'
means common-sense taxonomies. No one in the AN discussion, including the litigating
anthropologists, has claimed that if Kennewick Man can conclusively be determined t
be caucasoid, it will mean that he is white in common-sense racial terms. Everyone
acknowledges that the similarity of the population-based terms 'caucasoid', 'mongoloid',
and 'negroid' to the common-sense terms 'white', 'Asian', and 'black', confuses issues o f
anthropological identification. Thus, Douglas Preston, who wrote a popularized account
of the Kennewick Man case for theNew Yorker magazine, suggested in AN that
anthropologists could substitute their racial-sounding taxonomy with 'Group A', 'Group
B' and 'Group C' (Preston, 1997b). Whether or not Preston meant this suggestion to be
taken seriously, it raises an important point. The terms 'caucasoid', 'mongoloid' an d
'negroid', insofar as they are not essentialist, must refer to presumed places of ancestra l
origin, both as genealogical beginnings and as evolutionary sources, in terms of the
environmental adaptation of different skeletal traits that can be used to classify remains
Both ancestral origins and phenotypic differences in groups, which have resulted from
environmental adaptation have been racialized in essentialist constructions of race. This
does not mean, however, that the varieties that have been racialized are not in themselve
real. That is, the problem is not with words or with the traits to which words refer, but
with the essentializing aspect of racialization. If the words are changed without
addressing false beliefs and meanings that have no empirical referents, after a brie
respite the oldfalse beliefs and meanings will reattach themselves to the new words (or
letters).
Nonessentialist population-based typology, although it might have empirical
referents, is a weak form of typology for two reasons. First, as everyone acknowledges,
the traits typified are continuous over populations, rather than discretely divided. Second,
geographical-origin typology is a matter of decision. There is nothing in nature to
indicate how far back one must go to make the right cut to the branches of ancestra
groups. Over history, geographically isolated populations continually branch off, in terms
of time spans in different places, which are reflected in genetic difference. As L. Luca
Cavalli-Sforza, Paolo Menozzi and Alberto Piazza describe their own system of human
evolutionary branching in The History and Geography of Human Genes, 'The level at
which we stop our classification is completely arbitrary' (Cavalli-Sforza et al : 19).
Thus, if we accept the hypothesis that modem humans originated in Africa, then all
human skulls could be classified as 'negroid'. (Although, whether or not 'negroid' means
the same as 'black' or 'Negro', one type does not make a typology, and if all humans are
'negroid', this does not mean that they are all of one race, as race is typologicall
understood.) On what basis is it decided how many years spent in a place make the trait
of the inhabitants of that place typical of that particular origin in a defining way?
Although a full answer to this question exceeds the scope of this article, it is not highl
speculative to suggest that evolutionary geneticists make the major cuts in ways tha
correspond, albeit roughly, to contemporary common-sense racial typology. If this
speculation is correct, then scientific typology is only as good as the common-sense
typology on which it is based -- not very good at all.
Minthorn, speaking for the Umatillas, uses geographical origin to determine
human types, a method shared by the anthropologists who typed Kennewick man as
caucasoid: Kennewick Man is Indian for the Umatillas because he comes from the
Americas; Kennewick Man is caucasoid for the scientists because he resembles peopl
whose ancestors came from Europe . The main difference in method is that Minthorn
does not think the claim that Indians have always inhabited the Americas can be falsified.
The oral tradition Minthorn speaks from also posits what scientists might call ad hoc
hypotheses of micro-evolution to account for Kennewick Man 's caucasoid traits t
clear, however, whether Minthorn thinks that anyone alive over 9000 years ago in the
Americas is by definition a Native American due to geographical location at that time, or
whether Minthorn is, in effect, a polygenicist on the subject of human evolution. His
assertion of the folk belief that Native Americans have always been in the Americas
would seem to confirm the latter, unless the Umatillas believe thatHomo sapiens
originated in the Americas and migrated to other continents.
Another difference between the Umatillas and the litigating anthropologists is tha
the Umatillas use what they believe are ultimate geographic origins in order to type
remains, whereas the anthropologists use time slices in ancient history, when relative
isolation in different environments resulted in what they can identify as distinct types
There is some question about whether typing in this sense is possible. Those responding
to Goodman's assertion that Native American typing cannot be accomplished wit
accuracy suggest that some methods are more reliable than others (Goodman, 1997)
Whatever the method, the size of the sample or skeleton reference collection is crucial
Chatters claims that there is a large enough sample to classify Kennewick man asa
member of a distinct and now extinct group (Chatters, 1998). Duane Anderson, Alan
Swedlund and David Breterniz believe that the sample is small, and the Kennewick find
does not motivate them to change their classification of a 9700 year old female skeleton,
found in Gordon Creek in 1963, as Native American, despite her possession of what
others identify as caucasoid traits (Anderson et al .
The population-based identification of Kennewick Man is thus inconclusive,
partly due to disagreement about the existence of criteria for classification. And there is
one further question, namely whether or not a caucasoid Native American typology i
even possible. Goodman claims it is not possible because ancient remains often have
varied typological traits (Goodman, 1997) . Owsley and Jantz insist that the variety
within early groups is only apparent, and that in cases where it is known that whites and
Native Americans were present in the same location, after details of where the remains
have been found are taken into account, classification can reliably be carried out (Jantz
and Owsley, 1998). Jonathan Marks, commenting on the disagreement, emphasizes the
possibility of what appears to be racial diversity among ancient Native Americans, and
reports that mitochondrial DNA that is characteristic of Native Americans has been foun
in one very old, apparently caucasoid skull (Marks, 1998). What is interesting about the
entire discussion among Goodman, Owsley and Jantz, and Marks is that the disagreement
stems from two incompatible premises: groups are osteologically distinct; groups are not
osteologically distinct. Assuming that the claim about group distinctions is limited to
nonessentialist variations that are not racial, it would seem to be an empirical matte
whether remains can be classified in any given context, given accepted criteria fo
classification. But disagreement about appropriate osteological criteria for classification
would need to be resolved on the basis of additional information from archeology and
generics.
How the ancient Americas were settled, when, by which groups - as minimall
defined by where they came from - are empirical questions. The completion of this story
would be of broad narrative human interest, but without essentialist ideas of race, it i
difficult to see how the story could have non-metaphorical (and non-rhetorical), political
or even identity implications in the present. Kennewick Man and members of his
historical-geographical cohort might have been caucasoid. Caucasoid or not, they might
have been ancestors of contemporary Native Americans, or unrelated to them. As
Chatters himself states, the history of the ancient Americas is turning out to be far mor
complex than was previously believed (Chatters, 1998). This is hardly surprising, because
ancient human history is generally an incomplete inquiry at this time. While writing this
section, I read about a BBC program that presented evidence for a hypothesis that th
earliest inhabitants of Brazil were a negroid group that originated i
Australia (an archeological site at Serra De Capivara in north-east Brazil yielded roc
paintings believed to be 50,000 years old and a 12,000-year-old skull with apparent
negroid features according to forensic reconstruction [BBC 2, 1999]).
TheAN discussion about Kennewick Man makes clear the importance of not
essentializing geographically-based osteological typology. Such typology may be useful
to track human migrations historically, and it is intelligible to the public because it seems
to correspond to popular ideas about race. The latter is part of the essentialist problem,
because the popular ideas of race are based on genetic variation that is dramatic in terms
of appearance and in terms of political and economic history, colonialism especially. In
terms of biological reality, as Jonathan Friedlaender points out, more reliable population
markers can be found in genetic variations of mitochondria) DNA. The groups picked out
by those markers provide a different taxonomy than caucasoid-mongoloid-negroid
divisions. Still, the mtDNA markers are not present in all members of those populations
in which they occur, so typology based on them is also a fabrication beyond 'nature'
(Friedlaender, 1997). What all of the post-essentialist scientific categories of huma
'racial' groups share, epistemologically, is a certain circularity. Any criterion used to
classify members of a group at the same time defines membership in a group. This is
because there is no consistent, objective determinant of racial, geographical, osteological
or genetic, human group membership, for any group.
ESSENTIALISM AND MEDICINE
In the case of Kennewick Man, a distinction between population-based and racialized
skeletal traits would seem to have the effect of making empirical inquiry less fraught
even though it does not mean that all human remains can or should be objects of
scientific study. In the fields of medicine and public health, the essentialist racialization
of people identified as Hispanic, Asian, African-American or white may block useful
research into the causes of disease-and illness by falsely implying that statistical
associations of some debilities with social racial identities has explanatory force ona
biological level. If racial distinctions do not exist in human biology then, purely asa
matter of logic, biological race cannot be causally linked to physical predispositions for
diseases or disabilities. When socially identified racial groups are found to have differen
diseases or types of illness, which are believed to be directly inherited or the result of
inherited 'predispositions ', this should be the beginning of demographically-based
medical research and not the end of it l
nomological value when it is linked to disease or illness. If such apparent links come t
be generally accepted as signals of the necessity for further research, then, eventually, i
could be possible to do more than offer treatment for disease (although sometimes the
availability of treatment is in itself 'racially' unequal). Unequal social conditions that
cause different rates of disease could be addressed as a key toward the prevention o
certain diseases. Thus for example, HIV-AIDS has recently been increasing in the
African-American community, while decreasing among other groups. This is a problem
that at once requires medical treatment, demographically-based research about why
blacks are now at greatest risk for AIDS, and social justice remedies, should it be the case
that specific (and immediately correctable) discrimination against blacks is a factor i
these figures (Harrison, 1998).
Among anthropologists and other scientists in human biology, there are now two
different approaches to the combination of the facts about human diversity in disease an
recognition of the lack of a biological foundation for race. Both approaches require that
physiological, genetic and genealogical data be collected directly from individuals.
The first approach accepts a population-based notion of race, but questions whether it i
possible to determine what populations individuals belong to as a reliable diagnostic tool.
For example, when, in 1991, a policy committee of the American Medical Association
recommended that all infants be tested for sickle cell anemia, the reasoning was tha
although sickle cell anemia does occur most frequently among people wit
Mediterranean and African ancestry, there is no reliable way independently to determine
such ancestry Uarret, 1991). A second example of the association of population typology
with disease concerns research on bone marrow compatibility in terms of huma
leucocyte antigens (HLAs). Bone marrow compatibility depends on a match in HLAs
and recent studies have confirmed that African Americans and Asian Americans havea
large number of HLAs specific to their 'racial' groups, while Caucasians, Latin
Americans and Native Americans share a number of common HLAs (National Marrow
Donor Program Registry and Motomi Mori et al., 1997). The registry of African
American donors is disproportionately small. But African Americans are the most varied
in HLAs, so even if the registry for African American donors were very large, some
researchers are not confident that transplantation compatibility would increase y
therefore suggest that future resources be concentrated on working with partia
compatibilities for hard-to match recipients (Beatty et al . Also, it should be noted
that when donors are tested for bone marrow compatibility and population membership i
used to screen applicants, there has to be individual testing to determine a match for th
HLAs in question.
The use of population-based typology for medical research was also assumed i
places during the discussion attendant to the AAA Statement on Race inAN. Thus,
Robert Halberstein, writing about research on hypertension, sickle cell anemia an
forensic photography in the Caribbean, argues that phenotypical markers of social race
are 'unreliable criteria for classifying breeding populations' (Halberstein, 1997).
Halberstein's assumption would seem to be that breeding populations are themselves
reliable criteria for the presence of certain diseases. Similarly, Jonathan Friedlaender
suggests that the concept of isolated breeding populations, subject torandom genetic
drift, will in the future provide useful explanations for research findings about genetic
diversity, particularly in matters of disease (Friedlaender, 1997).
None of the scientists using populations as units for genetic research on disease
suggests that all members of the populations in question have a gene for the disease i
question (e .g. sickle cell anemia among Africans, Tay Sachs disease among Askenazi
Jews) or that no members of other populations may have a particular population-based
disease. This means that population membership is neither a sufficient nor a necessar
condition for the presence of diseases associated with specific populations. This logical
truth means that in terms of individual treatment and diagnosis for population-associate
diseases, individuals have to be treated by medical practitioners as though they do no
have a particular population membership. Man Goodman underscores this conclusion by
relating how in the 1970s some researchers suggested that because blacks have lowe
mean hemoglobin concentrations than whites, the standard for the diagnosis of anemi
should differ according to race. Goodman notes the danger in this kind of thinking, which
was confirmed for the case of hemoglobin by a 1991 discovery that the black-whit
'racial ' difference in hemoglobin concentration was entirely the result of environment
(Goodman, 1998).
Goodman's dire caution about the use of population-based categories in medical
science is related to his more broad criticism against anything that resembles racia
typology in science (Goodman, 1998) . In medicine, this is the second approach
mentioned at the beginning of this section, an approach to human disease that is not only
race-blind concerning a false essentialist notion of race as applied to individuals, but
population race-blind, also. As already noted, state-of-the-art medical diagnosis woul
have to be population race-blind in this sense. The broader issue raised by Goodman is
whether all human medical research should be population race-blind. An issue broader
still, also raised by Goodman, is whether all human evolutionary history, which is
constructed on the basis of models of populations who lived in particular places a
particular times, can be constructed without typology that resembles false essentialis
typologies of race. Goodman thinks it ought to be constructed without such typologies
because of the dangers of retaining false essentialist notions of race, scientifically and
socially. I think this brings us back to the end of the previous section: the problem is not
with human genetic or geographical variety, but with the racialization of that variety i
false essentialist ways. The question is whether scientists can be 'trusted' to work with
population-based typologies in terms of medical research and, more broadly, evolutionary
biology, without falling into what Goodman calls 'the race pit' (Goodman, 1998) . I do not
think that there is a real choice here because there is truth on the side o f population
statistics and truth on the side of the nonexistence of essentialist racial typologies r
all, it was scientists who, in addition to having posited false essentialist typologies,
collected and interpreted the data about human diversity that proves the impossibilities o
such typologies. Scientists are not the only ones who must be trusted not to think i
murky ways with false ideas about race. The public needs to be trusted as well.
ESSENTIALISM AND WHAT TOTELL THE PUBLI C
As noted in the first section of this article, the 1998 AAA Statement on "Race" ' wa
intended to be a document that would make the views of anthropologists known to the
public. I explained how the Statement failed to develop thoroughly a position agains
false ideas of the existence of race. It is in lacking distinct essences that human races fai
to exist in the kind of typology commonly assumed; and the absence of nomological
force for race, as an explanation of more specific human characteristics, renders rac
useless for biological theory. Evolutionary biologists, geneticists, medical researchers and
forensic anthropologists continue to work with population typologies, while at the same
time repudiating racial essentialism. Members of the public believe that essentialist racial
typology exists, and for the most part they also believe that biological scientists have
factual information that grounds this typology or gives it an objective and real
foundation. And the public functions within private and public social hierarchies that
advantage some groups, which it believes are races, at the expense of others.
Members of both advantaged and disadvantaged racialized groups have settled
identities and they make both private and public identifications on the basis of the
essentialist racial typology that they falsely assume to be grounded in science. To some
extent, members of disadvantaged groups, as well as members of advantaged groups,
believe that they benefit from having the racial identities they do. One form of such
benefit is affirmative action, but there are other liberatory entitlements for non-whites
such as the right to develop minority identities in a pluralistic society, which are though
to be endangered by the news from science that race is unreal s
biological racial typology, is unreal in the way in which most people think it is real,
racism is often real in precisely the ways it is thought to be. Members of some non-white
groups, and whites who advocate for them, fear that without the established racia
categories, racism will continue on the basis of phenotypic discrimination, but there wil
then be no grounds on which to criticize it formally or remedy it (Gutman, 1996). This
fear ought to be addressed by those who would tell the public about the nonexistence of
race in essentialist and nomological ways.
The AAA Statement on Race does not consider the conflict between
nonessentialism and apparently liberatory uses of racial categories, because it does no
precisely repudiate racial taxonomy or firmly close the door on essentialism. However,
many of the salient points of that conflict were debated inAN in an article by Geoffrey
Clark and responses to it, as well as Clark's reply. I will conclude this article with a
consideration of that exchange and some brief remarks about the importance o
recognized mixed-race identity as a cultural trend that unravels received ideas abou
essentialist racial typology.
Clark claims that the public is ignorant of the facts about human genetics and the
ways in which these facts undermine racial typology. He associates racial typology with
racism and claims that because race is biologically unreal, preferential treatment fo
nonwhites in affirmative action programs is unjust . Clark suggests that the solution to
racism, which is based on false ideas about the reality of race, is massive education on al
levels (Clark, 1997, 1998).
Most important of all, we need to become absolutely indifferent to race and ethnicit
-- not glorify or celebrate what are, from a scientific point of view, utterly trivia
differences. As the world becomes choked with countless millions of humans, we can
ill afford to indulge these pernicious vanities. The orderly conduct of public life
depends on eliminating race and ethnicity as categories in the discussion of publi
policy. (Clark, 1997)
Clark's critics emphasize thesocial reality of racial typology and the injustice based
on it. Overall, they do not directly take up Clark's advocacy of broad education about th
biological unreality of race. Peter Whiteley asserts that the debate over affirmative action
is not a simple case of mistaken ontologies, in an intellectual sense, but of exclusion and
discrimination, of practices of racism (Whiteley, 1997). Michael Winkelman claims that
the use of scientifically accurate terminology will not 'eliminate historically produce d
intergroup social inequalities ' (Winkelman, 1998). Lee Baker cautions, 'If we continue to
tell the fed. to eliminate race we may be usurping a powerful tool to combat racial
inequality' (Baker, 1998). John Studstill states that people have a right to identify as they
choose, and he would include mixed-race identities under that freedom (Studstill, 1998).
Mica Pollock sums up the impasses in these disagreements by stressing the complexity of
the relationship between science and what the public now believes:
An anti-racist anthropology must loudly theorize a complicated contradiction: racial
categories made insidiously relevant throughout history, are neither essential nor
outdated. (Pollock, 1998)
To some extent, the disagreement between Clark and his critics is semantic. When Clark
claims that race is unreal, he means that it is unreal in science. This is not a denial of the
social reality of racism or of the common belief in racial essentialism. By the same token,
Clark's critics do not dispute the lack of a scientific basis for racial essentialism. But,
there is a real disagreement concerning appropriate remedies for racism. Clark thinks that
racism presupposes an essentialist belief in racial typology and that education about th
scientific facts will end racism, while his critics believe that the false typology has
already effected a kind of damage that cannot be fixed by widespread knowledge o f th
truth alone. It is difficult to believe that Clark 's critics think that education about the trut
should be withheld from the public, and difficult to believe that Clark thinks that racism,
as social practice, is simply a matter of cognitive error or ignorance. However,
widespread education about the scientific facts does not yet exist l
question whether or not such education would minimize or in some cases eliminate
racism. It is possible that without an underlying assumption about the reality of
essentialist racial typology, discriminatory and exclusionary treatment based on tha
assumption would be much more difficult to justify, and that could lead to greater
equality. It is also possible that widespread education could be absorbed and that peopl
would continue with racist practices on an admittedly religious basis, or on a simpl
'cultural' basis. Whether it will end racism or not, such education seems just, because it is
a matter of specialists presenting their best information to the public. It is morally right,
as a matter of principle, to let the truth be known.
However, an answer to the question of whether the public should be told the trut
about race does not imply what to do about existing effects of racism, one way or the
other. The required education program could be in effect and people who are falsel
racialized might still be perceived to be in need of assistance against structura
discrimination. The question of whether racial categories should be retained for public
record keeping is also a separate issue from telling the public the truth, provided that on
credits the public (and its politicians and media) with a modicum of sophistication. Policy
makers could design forms that contained the old racial terms, but with disclaimers, or
slight variations in their names. Racial terms could be mentioned without being used,
which is easily done by the use of quotation marks around racial terms.
The elimination of essentialist racial ideology is not a question of changing words
but of changing meanings. The 'fed' could eliminate the words 'race' and 'ethnicity' an d
all the types subsumed under them, and things might not change at all if people still use
the concepts underlying the race words. Alternatively, the usage of the words could
continue unchanged but their meanings could change, with very broad progress toward
social justice. Two things are important as Pollock states: educate against essentialis
and take action against racism.
For those who do not think that a modicum of sophistication is possible in matters
of race, the growing cultural phenomenon of mixed-race identity recognition should be
encouraging. This is a cultural matter, because insofar as race is unreal, so is mixed rac
unreal. But the old essentialist racialist paradigm presupposes a certain amount of 'purity'
within races, as well as three or four major racial groups that are socially intelligible
based on phenotypes (Zack, 1999) . Mixed-race identity recognition results in at least 15
possibilities, allowing for combinations among the four recognized racial groups. That
kind of acknowledged diversity makes common-sense racial typing extremely difficult -
even for the politically correct (Zack, 1998: ch . 8). Although some claims for mixed -
race identity recognition seem to reify essentialist notions of race, in reality the
deconstruct many social ideas and practices based on essentialism, such as phenotypi
stereotypes, taboos against out-marriage, residential segregation, monolithic cultura
heritages, the one drop rule for black identity, the assumption that parents and children
must have the same racial identity and uncritical loyalty to custom .
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Stephen Reyna for editorial guidance and to Jonathan Marks for revie
comments.
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