phillips article (3)

CHAPTER 7
Racial Epistemology
The Myth of Blackness in
WhiteCultures
Richard Phillips
University of Windsor
Introduction
No person can avoid exposure to the powerful influence of racist ideologies. I submit, Malcolm X spoke
the truth about the Americas when he wrote, "regardless of where or when one attends school in America,
he receives along with legitimate educational experiences, a dose of pure, unadulterated racism. Since the
earliest days of this nation's history, students attending its schools have achieved competence in the
four, not three "Rs," Reading, Riting, Rithmetic, and Racism."1
This essay sets out to establish the hypothesis that social constructs of blackness are not
understood, linguistically defined, or learned solely through empirically valid means.2
The empiricist school
of thought, led by John Locke and Sir Francis Bacon, holds that color in a physical object, is not a primary
characteristic of the object, but is a secondary quality. Some theorists, George Berkeley for example, even
suggest that color is not in the object at all but exists solely in the mind of the person viewing the object.
This essay will endorse the philosophical position that qualitative differences in humans,
established along color lines, are a matter of mental perceptions that produce a false notion of social reality.3
109

2 Politics of Gender, Race, Sex, and Sexual Orientation
Historically, social concepts of blackness have led to systemic violence against innocent people.4
In re,
the subjective consciousness of black people can never be divorced from the fact that in order to surviveBlacks
need to appear servile.5
"The colored folk have much to remember and they will not forget"6
that their ancestors
received their first North-American socialization and education, on what Gordon Parks called "The Learning
Tree."7
Consider these questions posed by Parks: Why does our color make such a difference? Didn't God
know that we'd have a lot of trouble if he made us black?8
The oppressive, hegemonic institution of white
supremacist power,9
is part of history. However, it manifests itself today in different and more insidious
forms of punitive and controlling phenomena.
The epistemology of blackness relates, within the limits of this work, to social constructs as depicted by
the pedagogical institutions which tend to attach to blackness negative meaning. The mass media, as only one
of the many modes of transference, is replete with images of persons of colour as outlaws, outsiders, and
outcasts. The educational/political, and religious or aesthetic ideas which affect perception of what is the
value of blackness and the merits of whiteness in a Caucasian dominated society, appear to be immutably
entrenchedin the dialectics of humanrelations.
A Dialectic Of Racism
At the outset it is important that this paper distinguishes between radical, moderate,
accommodationalist, apologist and liberal notions of racism, while recognizing them all as racist. Emphatically,
the most harmful racist is the person who is in a powerful position socially, politically, religiously and/or
economically. This is the person who, for his or her economic benefit, has taken advantage and propagated
ideas and images of Blackness asbeneath Whiteness—this ispureracism.10
Consider a white Haligonian businessman's statement as an attestation of the institutional nature of
pure racism. "I think perhaps

Racial Epistemology 3
the first thing, it [Africville] wasn't regarded as part of the city of Halifax... and [the City] didn't regard, I
suppose, the people as people, certainly not as citizens; apathy, prejudice, fear, and discrimination
[existed]."11
This implies that the politically powerful are able to institutionalize their will and that of
their respective 'ingroup,' in such a manner as to cause all people within the social order to be affected.12
These concepts and associations are purposefully developed through exploiting the cognitive faculties of
every member within the polity. The goal of racism is to establish a firm understanding of who,
characteristically, is entitled to preferential treatment, and therefore ought to be considered worthy to
receive and control the abundance from the land.
William L. Yancey (1860), an American Caucasian Southerner, addressed a Northern U.S. audience
with the following declaration. "Your fathers and my fathers built this government on two ideas: the first
is that the white race is the citizen, and the master race, and the white man is the equal of every other
white man. The second is that the Negro is the inferior race."13
Although the economic and political
mandate was and still is a necessary condition for the entrenching of racist ideologies, it is not sufficient.14
It
is equally important, according Lothrop Stoddard15
(1921) and others of the same intellectual tradition, that
there exists a pervasive concern that white purity must be maintained for the good of humankind.16
For whites, he argued, because of the prepotency of the Black's genetic seed,17
there is the warning that
diligence is required to avoid intimate contact with Blacks, who have "inferior blood." History has
discovered that this warning was meant to extend only to white women mixing with black men.
It may be sheer myth that the African characteristics will always reemerge in offspring some
generations later. Also, the belief that the genes of people of African descent never leave the white
person's pool may not be true. Regardless of this biological debate, it is not correct, as Stoddard insisted, that
such mixing brings about a degenerate species of whites.18
Melvin Tumin19
argued convincingly that "race
is not a

scientific term, since all it means is that a group of humans possesses a distinctive gene frequency." Further,
"most definitions of who is and who is not a member of a race are socially determined."20
The myth referred to "...implie(s) an inherent inequality of races of people."21
It is argued that
there is more goodness in those people who are errantly classified as White, than in those who are
equally mislabelled as Black. Tumin points out, "racial thinking must also be viewed in this way—as a set
of unscientific and erroneous beliefs which have nevertheless had dangerous and
devastating consequences."22
Zygmunt Bauman, in an account of racist motivated institutional violence, related some
compelling particulars. Bauman asserts that "the father of 'scientific racism,' Gobineau, who did not
have to exercise much inventiveness to describe the black race as of little intelligence, yet of
overdeveloped sensuality and hence a crude, terrifying power (just as the mob on the loose),23
and the
white race as in love with freedom, honour and everything spiritual."24
The interpretation of the
meanings attached to the term 'black' race may inform later discussion.
The imprint of these distinctions are indelibly etched in North American social institutions. Despite
the negative association in the English language of the term 'black,' many persons of African descent have
embraced the reference to their being 'black' above all other previously used descriptions.25
Bridglai
Pachai, in a footnote in his book titled Blacks, writes, "historically, black people have always been referred to
as "Negroes,"26
a term now regarded as derogatory.27
Pachai is of course referring to the previously
acceptable Spanish designation, Negro or Negress, adopted by whites to describe and advance the
position that there was a distinction which made Africans different, and inferior to Europeans. The
modern objection to "Negro" is based on the defiance of those who were labelled as such by the ruling
class. Although the difference between "Black" and "Negro" is merely linguistic, for Caucasoids the
meaning is more significant. From the term "Negro" stemmed the term "Nigger," which in practical
terms

always translated, socially, to mean 'those who do not belong.' One such polygenesis of race was Dr.
Josiah C. Nott who invented a new scientific branch of biology which he named "the nigger business" or
"niggerology.”28
Labeling has played a major part in the entrenching of racist ideologies. It is important to note that
the African continent was and is known as the Dark Continent. Also, the worst plague experienced in
European history was known as the Black plague. Coincidentally this event marked the end of the
feudal era. Black Tuesday, is the euphemism used to identify the stock market crash of the 1920's and
1930's. The Windsor Star (dateline November 19, 1994) featured the headline "Black Monday" referring to
the closing of a chemical plant. The political manifestations of racist laws affecting the legal status of
Afro-American freepersons, were known as "Jim Crow" laws.29
As a final stereotypical example, Southern
Carolina had 'The Dark Codes' entrenched in its laws. One such code directed that, "in the making of
contracts, 'persons of color shall be known as servants and those with whom they contract shall be known as
masters."30
This ideological perspective is managed and propagated through
social institutions. They depict whiteness as inherently superior, and
blackness as inherently evil or vile and consequently inferior.31
It can
then be concluded that notions of racial disparity stem from science
and traditional 'folk lore.' The pervasiveness of the acceptance of
myths can be discerned from the black persons' experience who have
been motivated to regard themselves and those who are 'more black' as
less worthy. We will turn to one informed opinion of this phenomena.
Malcolm X imagined that, "most Negro parents . . . would
almost instinctively treat any lighter children better than they did the
darker ones.” He testified: "It came directly from the slavery tradition
that the 'mulatto,'32
because he was visibly nearer to white, was
therefore 'better'."33
Not only is this a troubled notion, it stands in stark
contrast to white supremacist theories of Stoddard and others. They
support the view, that the product of an interracial relationship merely
loses the benefit that appears to be present in either race. They argue

that mixed breeds do not have the physical prowess of the Black nor the intelligence of the White. The
interpretation of what a diluted blackness (miscegenation) produces is significantly different for both Whites
andBlacks.
Noteworthy is the fact that the 'black bourgeoisie,' as accounted by Blacks, and promoted by whites, are
typically light skinned people.34
They are descendants of the oldtime 'house Negro,' or, according to W.E.B.
DuBois, the 'plantation owner's harem.' The underlying rationale was that such mixing, which DuBois calls
'amalgamation of races' or 'miscegenation,' gave the product of white man to black women unions more
status as house servants and leading field hands .35
Thejustificationwasthatsuchunionsimproved"thehuman
stockofstrongand ableworkers."36
Itwas considered bymanyslave owners thattheywere,whentheypleasured a
black woman with their sexual attentions, producing a better stock of slave—they might argue that they were
merely improving their property.
James E. Blackwell writes "thus slavery produced a twofold class system among black Americans: an upper
class based almost exclusively upon colour and a lower class that consisted primarily of the sons and daughters of
field hands."37
Interpretations and the corresponding social meanings that are attached to colour are
empirically invalid. They are the outgrowth of North American folk lore—a racist mythology.
Nevertheless, the racial caste system is indelibly inculcated in the structure of North American political
economy.
The Myth Of Racial (White) Supremacy
This section will address an important historical, perceptual problem with essays of this nature. Many
well-meaning people have, and will probably continue to ask the following question. If racism is part of the
sociological, political infrastructure and contained in all of our institutions, why is it that all people do not
outwardly behave in a racist manner? We begin our response by observing that all people's cognitive faculties
are the same, but people learn through experience,

at different rates. Psychologists have developed I.Q. tests to demonstrate the quantity of
intelligence in a person. It has been argued that the results of I.Q. tests reveal unequal mean scores across
racial lines, but it is not at all clear that this is naturally or biologically determined.
There is an important distinction that must be made between psychological development, and
mental processes. In a behavioural sense, what is of interest is one's social behaviour which is a response
to some external stimulus. But not all of a person's mental processes are manifest in objective behavior.
The underdeveloped mind, which has been exposed to less socially relevant information, may not emit
behaviour like that of a person with more access to such information. In either case, I argue that the
mental images of racism do exist whether manifest in behavior or not.38
Thus a person can hold or have
been conditioned by racist doctrines or attitudes yet never act on them.
To demonstrate, we will look at the white person who is "competing" for a job with a black
person. It is a matter of social history that the white person tends to be more educated39
than the black
contemporary, he or she tends to speak a similar style of English to that used by the typically white
interviewer, and he or she knows more about the verbal cues provided by the interviewer that will assist
in appearing to fit the standards required for that job—this is understood as cultural capita1.40
Hence, the
personneednotrelyonharmfulracist attitudes in the interviewer to win this contest. If, however, the same
two people, working at the same job are perceived to be equally qualified when a promotion or an issue
of job security is at stake racist justifications for why the White ought to prevail will often emerge.41
The
more a person is considered a member of an ingroup the more he or she is empowered economically
and politically. When this enfranchisement is encroached upon the individual may feel
threatened. Hence he or she tends to place more reliance on the ingroup relationship and
consequently the ingroup is more likely to reject the outgroup member.42
Both Whites and Blacks learn institutionally racist ideas and ideals, but not all whites are
disposed towards manifesting discrimination against Blacks, and not all Blacks are given to self-loathing
because of an awareness of the concepts which depict them as a subordinate class of humans. To demonstrate
the ubiquity of racist practices, we turn to a discussion of how I.Q. tests have been used to advance a pseudo
'scientific' foundation for racist beliefs. Fred Bruning, in an article titled "Writing off the black race," expresses
amazement that a 845 page book, The Bell Curve, published in 1994, has a very provocative racist thesis. The
authors of this tome, Charles Murray and Richard Hernstein, set out to prove "that I.Q. dictates achievement,
that we are on the way to creating a 'cognitive elite,' and that those without the requisite cerebral throw-
weight had best alter their expectations."43
In Murray and Hernstein's own words, "success and failure in the
American economy, and all that goes with it, are increasingly a matter of the genes that people inherit."
These two academics have scored Blacks' I.Q. 15 points lower than Whites, with a mean score of 85.44
They
profess that "for many people, there is nothingtheycan learn that will repaythe cost of teachingthem."45
I agree with Joe Chidley, another journalist for Maclean's, that it is unfortunate that persons spend

vast amounts of energy attempting to reinvent the wheel, so to speak. In 1896, the United States Supreme Court
put its stamp on legalized school segregation for similar reasons, in a landmark case of Plessy v Ferguson
decision."46
Thus it is correct to state that there has been relatively no advancement in the knowledge of
racerelations, innearly one hundredyears.
Bruning submits that there has been a lack of nurture, and this is a major contributing factor in the
discrepancy in racial I.Q. scores. He accuses Murray and Hernstein of being pretenders to knowledge of "the hard
times, the humiliation, the endless assaults on self-esteem" experienced by blacks. Bruning concludes that
"if the Bell Curve represents the handiwork of America's 'cognitive elite,' underachievers of all
races should rejoice that they are not members of the club."47
Apparently, the club's membership does not have
the "cerebral throw-weight" to allow them to distinguish between

psychological and mental states.
It is interesting, and unfortunately deliberate, that those who create the standards are usually
people who have benefitted from the cultural, educational and social system. The privileged then set out, as
does our employment interviewer, to establish standards as to what represents qualification for benefits.
These will undeniably mirror their own experiences and qualifications." The consequences of their actions
and focus often lead to denying to others the benefit of equal exposure to cultural capital. And they deny
the need to adjust measurements to allow for such impacts as environment, authoritarianism, subjection,
and dogmatism. Consider that it "would be quite possible to construct an I.Q. test where blacks score higher.
Just start with Stanford-Binet, see which questions blacks score better on, and then make more of the
same."49
George Simpson and Milton Yinger expressed that unless one knows the individual's history, one
cannot know for sure whether the effects of certain types of influences cause deficits in measured
intelligence, or whether these deficits reflect the impact of the influences.50
It appear that unless the
people being tested are subject to an equal and level playing field, standard measurements of I.Q. are
meaningless. We again are faced with the debate that has been waged since the ancient Greeks between
nature and nurture.51
Hence, all peoples' cognitive ability varies only in development: persons learn through experience at
different rates. All people can learn something, and only the real cerebral capacity may determine the upper
limit of an individual's intellect. This limit is not racially determined. Everyone has the capacity to
progress in terms of his or her aptitude. Consequently, the response to the question posed in this discussion
is that behaviour will vary across environmental, cognitive, and educational lines.
This is not to suggest that given a set environment and a set cognitive stimulus and instruction a
person will necessarily act, for instance, in a racist manner. The most that any one can determine, a priori, is
that racism appears to manifest itself in certain situations, as responses to outside stimuli, which trigger
some perhaps unconscious

idea of what the object of discrimination represents. The public manifestation of this notion, will again be
determined by social factors, such as who the audience might be. If the ingroup is present, one's expression
would tend to be more vociferous than when only the outgroup is the audience.
Education as an Instrument of Racism
Malcolm X's observation, with which we began, about the addition of the fourth "R" into the
educational curriculum will be considered here in more depth. Institutions of higher learning, such as the
University of Windsor, where racism is not openly understood to be manifest, nevertheless exemplify
meaningful pedagogical racist influences. For example, the sociology department uses a text which reveals that
even in Canada, which has often been considered an accommodation mosaic, the best example of
disenfranchisement was a relocated black settlement. The Sociology department's introductory text displays as a
quintessential 'outgroup,' theformercommunityof Africville, Halifax, Nova Scotia.52
In the text, an ingroup is described as "a social group commanding a member's esteem and loyalty,"
and an outgroup is "a social group toward which one feels competition or opposition." In reflecting upon
Gobineau's definition, we witness a consistency where the authors reveal some very serious divisions between a
demoralized black community, which at the time of the writing of the text no longer existed, and the 'we' which
appears to be people of a higher order of socialization and humanity. They write, "many Haligonians felt
Africville was a 'blot on the face of Halifax." This sentiment was not shared by the Africville citizens, who
merely wanted to receive the utilities, and other services that were taken for granted by others who lived in
Halifax.53
"TherealityofracisminCanadaisthatblackpeople have often, and still do, find themselves cast into the
outgroup."54
I submit that such ideas derive from the political, educational and religious ideologies of a given
society. These doctrines direct the social institutions which heavily influence what it is that students and
followers can know. They have historically taught Whites to envisage blackness as vacuous, void of content,
and white as light giving, and reflecting. The insidious hierarchical, quasi-meritocratic system of education
and the Puritan work ethic are directed against persons of colour.55
It is a matter of statistical relevance that the preponderance of politicians, educators and clergy are
male Whites. These peoples' influence in itself is a form of socialized coercive brainwashing. It is not
surprising that the influence, then, shapes the minds of persons of African descent,56
and their white
contemporaries alike. All groups are subjected to the North American culture of racism. They listen to the
rhetoric espoused by the ruling class, professed by those who are within its membership ranks and
therefore fraternal patrons in the ruling
club .57
Academia, in modernity, often reflects racist messages, and it advances a racist agenda. This is
perpetrated under the guise of objective science, by using measurements of a person's competence
based on some self-styled rating scale, or by perpetuating mythical conclusions in their research.
To elucidate, I refer to a work by Robert Prus and Styllianoss Irini which sets out to advance Nott's

work in 'niggerology.' They acknowledge that
of all the relationships in the hotel community, the one we have the most difficulty coming
to terms with is the (black) pimp-hooker relationship. Not only does one face the problem
of dealing with all the sensationalism associated with these relationships, and the
difficulties piercing extensive "facades," but there are a number of other themes such as the
"black culture" and the "drug culture" that make these heterosexual involvements
particularly complex.58

accepted part of their shared subculture." As a matter of contrast the "black pimps ought to be viewed
differently than white pimps who are also rounders, because the latter tend to be less reliant on hookers
for the major source of their income."59
They have made it quite clear that there is something more morally
right about the prostitute giving her money to the white rounder-pimp who earns some of his money from
dealing drugs or committing other crimes.
The authors use terms such as 'black culture' as if it is a seedier social construct in itself than the illicit
activity of the hotel trade. They use the term 'drug trade' as if there are two sources, a white and a black
source, the former being acceptable. It is axiomatic that the black source is somehow emblematic of evil
while the white one is not. They completely accept that the drug trade is part of the hotel community
structure, and that rounders earn a great deal of their income from the sale of drugs, and only some from
their prostitutes. They admit that "the 'pimps' (or "players") spend very little time in (rounder) bars ..."
and that "not only are pimps more obvious in a predominantly White's bars, and more able to avoid
legal hassles by avoiding hooker's bars, but the management in such places tend to discourage their
presence."6
°
In conclusion, for Prus and Irini, the only persons within society who are correctly classified as pimps,
are Blacks. For them there is a quasi-innocence involved in the similar relationship between persons of
the same white race. Prus and Irini were required uncritical readings in two courses at Windsor.
This required reading presents a problem of the ideological subjection that students or followers
must experience in terms of understanding the point of view of the lecturer. When one listens to a lecture
he or she is subjected to the thoughts, interpretations, distillation of knowledge, and the belief
structure of the lecturer.61
The student is expected to understand and regurgitate the information
expressed as forming the accepted mode of understanding the subject related. Similarly, when the priest
states 'you are condemned to dwell in the darkness of your desires, unless you cast down the blackness
of
your evil soul, and hold fast to the light emanating from the Father,' he is enforcing a qualitative
difference between perceptions of colour and shades as well as a lack in the person which is associated
with darkness, blackness and evil. Education methodology, and religious dogma, are not the only sources
of racist doctrine, political and the popular media have played a major role as well.
The Media: A Racist Political Construct
There exists a social dialectic62
that reveals that each person engaged in absorbing knowledge does
so with varying degrees of intellectual subjugation. This discourse accounts for an arresting of intellectual
freedom when people must remove themselves from the discourse to emulate a tabula rasa.63
The popular
audio and visual media, distinguished from the small private media, are an instrument owned, employed
and controlled by the ruling club to implant messages which would best serve its political and social
agenda. The media is replete with images of persons of colour as outlaws, outsiders, and outcasts. When an
outstanding black is profiled, it is as if the rest are being told this could be you if only you were not so evil; if
this one could break the chains so can you. The educational, political, and religious or aesthetic ideal,
which affect perception of what is the value of blackness and the merits of whiteness in a Caucasian
dominated society appear to be immutably entrenched in the dialectics of human relations. This work has not
attempted to decide who it is that most influences the media, the political body or the corporate financial
body. The groups are not often easily distinguishable as separate ideological forces.
Noam Chomsky suggests that "when the White House decided that its friend Noriega was getting too

big for his britches and had to go, the media took their cue and launched a campaign to convert him into the
most nefarious demon since Attila the Hun, a repeat of the Quaddafi project a few years earlier."64
For
Chomsky the media reacts to the ruling ideology as a reflex. The media reflects a movement in the

political organization as the blink of the eye indicates an autonomic reflex of the body.
Ross A. Eaman considered the position of the "news as Elitist ideology."65
In his handling of this issue he
admits that with the exception of Randolf Hearst there is no real evidence that elite ownership
influences the news.66
I find this inability to assess responsibility unacceptable. Eaman cites Warren Breed who
states that "publishers establish implicit news policies which help to maintain an existing system of power
relationships."67
Since the elite owners hire thepublishersitisnotsurprisingthat"policiesusuallyprotectproperty
and class interests."68
We can clearly interpolate that not only is there class bias and generalized knowledge
propagated through the mass media, there is racial bias as well. The true positive entrenchment of the racist
messages is indicated in the few voices of dissent that are permittedto beheard or read by the'gatekeepers.' Who
nowcanclaim objectivity—airing both sides.
It can be advanced that Blacks too often see themselves depicted as outsiders, and further, that they are
labeled in a manner which tends to negate their existence not only for others but in terms of their own self-
image. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote that "the white establishment is skilled in flattering and cultivating
emerging leaders. It presses its own image on them and finally, from imitation of manners, dress and
style of living, a deeper strain of corruption develops."69
The mechanism of social construction produces tools
of dehumanization, which are then skillfully manipulated by the dominant white male power structure.
Their product is an ideal which allows for the outlawing of persons of Afro-North-American lineage, who are
now left without full and equal protection under the law.
William Conklin speaks of the 'Image of a Constitution.'70
In his discussion he reveals that constitutions are
not objective truths but rather are subject to interpretation, at all levels, by legitimate legal authorities. This is
true in general, but when the constitution is applied to the black person, the image is not at all recognizable in
termsoftheir self-protection. The arresting police officer is usually white, thedefense

lawyer is usually white, the judge is usually white, and the legislators are usually white. Chomsky cites James
Madison who stated correctly, "that a 'parchment barrier' will never suffice to prevent tyranny. Rights are not
established by words, but won and sustained by struggle."71
When Blacks struggle, historically they have
learned, first from the 'learning tree' and now as a result of their dominant presence in one social milieu: they
dominate, in terms of ratio, the prisoner rolls of state penal institutions. They are also the most apparent
standing on the unemployment lines.
Struggle for Blacks means social, legal and political alienation. The media depictions of black violent
criminals, e.g. 0. J. Simpson, Mike Tyson, and drive-by shooters, furthers the perception of Blacks as less civilized,
and as such less deserving of the good life than whites. Examples of those who are found innocent, more or less
because of their social status, are William Kennedy Smith andTedKennedy for instance.72
The real crime that Malcolm X committed was that he redefined the stereotypical racial associations
by publicly conveying the expression that the white man, who violently and unconscionably abused Blacks,
was, in fact, a 'White Devil.' This message was resounding in his speech at 'Icarus,' and may have spelled his
fate,and thatofusal1.73
Concluding Comments on Racist Constructs
Bauman cites the work of Stanley Milgram who set out to prove that inhumanity is a matter of social
relationships. As the latter are rationalized and technically perfected, so is the capacity and the
efficiency of the social production of inhumanity.74
Bauman dedicates a section of his book to the topic of 'Racism as a Form of Social Engineering.'75
He also
dedicates an entire chapter to 'Soliciting the Co-operation of the Victims.'76
To this end the media or propaganda
machine of a capitalist bureaucratic society not only systematically oppresses certain groups within the society,
butisadept

at gaining their cooperationin this most dehumanizing process.
Stuart Ewen cites Edward Bernay's position on the 'Engineering of Consent/77
He expresses that the
institutions within a society are motivated, and protected, in the United States through the First Amendment
right to freedom of expression, to manufacture the consent from all persons to agree with and buy into the
ruling ideas. In this way ideas themselves become commodities.78
The insidious nature of this process, is that
it solicits the consent of all, including those whoare depicted as mere shadow images or 'spooks/79
to identify skin
colourwithDarwinism,ormorecorrectlyHerbertSpencer's'social Darwinism.'80
The perspective which has emerged from this work is that socialization influences the way people
become accustomed to dealing with racial interaction; it is a necessary and sufficient part of the dialectic of
learning through experience,81
a posteriori. What has been discussed links the social learning approach to the
dialectics of epistemology to explain the way persons develop socially. Often what appears, prima facie, to the
social researcher as unbiased and impartial recording of knowledge claims, merely hides manifestations of
racism or other harmful practices.
Howard McGary and Bill E. Lawson write on thenature of this position related toAmerican slavery from the
slave's perspective. They argue that too often the atrocities visited on the American slaves received attention
from persons who had not taken the time to reflect on the words of the slaves, or their immediate
descendants,82
thus making the persons who were subjected to the acts virtually invisible. Thisinvisibility,Bauman
accuses, is analogous to a desired end which appears to manifest itself in a particularly sinister objective: the
eradication of the racially impure. Bauman stated that there is an "operational rather than ideological link
between the exterminatory form of anti-Semitism and modernity."83
The anti-Semitic fervor which
exemplified the German experience, is, in my opinion, similar in kind to the modern experience of the black
minorities in North America, and the poor Africanoids world-wide.

This genocidal objective is attached to those who have sought to control and dominate persons of
colour throughout the history of slavery and racial persecution world-wide. Bauman introduced this
position by providing the genus of the European as justification for dominating black persons. Bauman
provided that "he (the father of scientific taxonomy, Carolus Linnaeus) could not, and he did not,
describe the white race otherwise than 'as inventive, full of ingenuity, orderly, and governed by laws... By
contrast the Negroes were endowed with all the negative qualities which made them a counterfoil for the
superior race: they were regarded as lazy, devious, and unable to govern themselves."84
Dehumanization is part of the ideology of power assumed by the ruling club, governments and the
enfranchised public. They forward, allow, and endorse: (1) positions that justify not hiring Blacks while
holding them responsible for the welfare burden; (2) the claim that legislators must continue on a
conservative agenda, when dealing with equal rights issues and social programs; and (3) the propagation of
information showing that they are warranted in performing both (1) and (2), because Blacks are not moral
or social creatures.85
This leads, in many cases, to placing Blacks in austere institutions constructed
through ideologies which permit, in fact mandate, strong social controls and harsh punishments and
prison terms which extend into their lives in the ghetto—ghettoes themselves are social institutions of
repression.
I have suggested that American slavery, and the atmosphere which exemplified the period of
'Reconstruction in America'86
can be seen as the establishment of the 'total institution'87
of outlawing
Blacks. Michel Foucault advances that "the general form of an apparatus intended to render
individuals docile and useful, by means of precise work upon their bodies, indicated the prison
institution."88
We find that the majority of Black's experiences fit this descriptive apparatus. The
unemployed, the imprisoned, the ghettoized and the working class Black, each has discovered that his or
her colour has represented a prison of oppression and disenfranchisement: the rule

thatsubstantiatesthisandthesentenceimposedbywhitepower.
Thomas Jefferson in accounting for the tone of the continued debate about whether political racial
harmony will ever occur postulated that science will determine the relative status of the Negro in terms of
their acceptance as citizens. Notwithstanding, as accounted by McGary and Lawson, Jefferson felt that whites
and Blacks would never be able to live together in peace.89
American political history reveals that "such
techniques, property, educational, and 'character' requirements were used to keep black citizens from voting."90
McGary and Lawson then go on to engage in a historical consideration that "perhaps the most effective
means of disenfranchising blacks, however, were intimidation and violence."91
Thetoolsofrepressionarenotamyth.Theyareempirically,and historically effective in producing the type
of African that will serve the interest of the master race. This is not contestable. The myth of blackness is that it
is deserving of the images attached to it. But this work has attempted to reveal or uncover some of the false
meanings thathavebeenattachedtoBlacksandWhitesalike.Moreattentionisrequiredtothissubject.

ENDNOTES
1. Malcolm X 1965: "Malcolm X Speaks" in My Soul Looks Back, Lest I Forget—A
Collection of Quotations by People of Color; Dorothy Winbush Riley (ed.), (Harper Collins
Publishers).
2. Alexander Himelfarb, C. James Richardson 1979: People Power and Process—
Sociology for Canadians (Toronto, New York, McGraw-Hill Ryerson), pp 71-2.
3. Pierre Bourdieu 1979: Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste,
(London Routledge & Kegan Paul), pp 372-396.
4. Benjamin Quarles 1969: The Negro in the Making of America (London,
Macmillan), pp 15-82.
5. George M. Fredrickson 1971: The Black Image in the White Mind (New York,
Harper & Row), pp 43-70.
6. W.E. Burghardt DuBois, May 1915: "The African Roots of War," (Atlantic
Monthly) cited in, Lothrop Stoddard 1921: The Rising Tide of Color: Against White World-
Supremacy; Intro. by Madison Grant, NY (Charles Scribner's Sons) p 14.
7. To understand this institution of learning I recommend reading "A Novel From
Life" by Gordon Parks' The Learning Tree (A Fawcett Crest Book). Life Magazine proclaims that this is
"how it feels to be black in the white man's world...'Violent and perceptive.' The learning tree
was where disobedient Blacks were hung in various states of shredded flesh for all other Blacks to see
and learn what the results of disobedience would certainly be.
8. Gordon Parks 1963: The Learning Tree (Greenwich, Ct., Fawcett Crest Book), back
cover.
9. W. E. Burghardt Du Bois 1956: Black Reconstruction in America [An essay toward
a History of the Part which black folk played in the attempt to reconstruct democracy in America 1860-
1880] (New York, S.A. Russell Company). Note: This seminal tome took 21 years from the time that it
was copyrighted to find a publisher who was liberal enough to publish it.
1. Michael Omi & Howard Winant 1994: Racial Formation in the United States—From the 1960's to the
1990's, 2nd Ed. (New York and London Routledge), pp 25-35.
2. Donald H. Clairmont and Dennis William Magill 1987: Africville—The Life and Death of a Canadian
Black Community, revised edition, (Canadian Scholar's Press, Toronto).p 53.
3. James Baldwin 1961: "Nobody Knows My Name" in My Soul Looks Back, Less I Forget: A Collection of
Quotations By People of Color, Dorothy Winbush Riley ed. (Harper Collins Publishers).

13. George M. Fredrickson, op. cit., 1971, p 61. Extracted from a speech of Yancey in Boston, October 12, 1860,
inthe Liberator, October26,1860.
14. Michael Omi & Howard Winant, 1994: Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960/s to
the 1990's, 2nd ed. (New York and London Routledge), Ch. 1.
15. Lothrop Stoddard 1921: The Rising Tide of Colour: Against White World-Supremacy, Intro. by
Madison Grant (Charles Scribner's Sons, New York).
16. Ibid., pp 299-310.
13. Ibid., p 301.
17. Stoddard 1921: Chapter XII.
18. Melvin Tumin 1969: Comparative Perspectives on Race Relations (Little, Brown, Boston).
19. Himelfarb and Richardson 1979: pp 223-227.
20. John Porter 1965: "Ethnicity and Social Class—Charter Groups and the Mythology of Race" in The
Vertical Mosaic: An Analysis of Class and Power in Canada (University of Toronto Press) pp 60-68.
21. Melvin Tumin in Himelfarb and Richardson 1979:225.
22. Noam Chomsky 1992: Deterring Democracy (Hill and Wang, New York). In a section titled "The
Untamed Rabble" he discusses the issue of freedom and the product of same, in terms of the hoard,
from a philosophical point of view.
23. Zygmunt Bauman 1991: Modernity and the Holocaust (Cornell University Press, Ithica, New York), p
69. This reference to Bauman will also appear in the article by Richard Phillips, "Institutional
Violence—A Case of Environmental Racism" in Environmental Racism—Confronting the Global
Issue (Rowman Littlefield).
24. Benjamin Quarles 1969: The Negro in the Making of America (Collier: Macmillan, London). p
275.
25. "Negro" is Spanish for "Black." However, it is considered that the label was initially placed on
persons living south of the Sahara Desert by Caucasiod European explorers and colonizers.
26. Bridglai Pachai 1987: Blacks—Peoples of the Maritime,. Peter L. McCreath ed. (Four East Publishers); p
3.
27. Fredrickson 1971. : Letter of Josiah C. Nott to James Henry Hammond, Aug. 12, 1845,andSept.4,1845.
28. It is ironic that in this most oppressive segregative set of laws is contained the noun 'Crow'; the
undesirability of these black birds, and the knowledge that they

are easily trained, made this umbrella label most appropriate to the institutional purpose the
laws served.
30. Benjamin Quarles 1969.
31. Martin Luther King Jr. 1991: "The American Dream," in The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King Jr.,
(Harper, San Francisco). pp 208-16.
32. The word "Mulatto" is another term that is considered derogatory since it a watered downgraded
white or an improved black.
33. Malcolm X 1992: The Autobiography of Malcolm X, as told to Alex Haley (New York, Ballantine
Books), p 7.
On a personal note, I am convinced that my father rejected me because I was relatively lighter than my
older brother, and my mother, who was light herself, favoured me. They may not have been aware of
their reasons. Notwithstanding, I have come to truly believe this to be one of the primary causal factors
which brought about alienation and favouritism in my immediate family.
34. It is interesting that when you see photographs of prominent Blacks they are dressed and coifed as
Whites and their images are usually technically whitened. The opposite is often the case when the
depiction is that of a notorious Black whose image is usually blackened.
35. James E. Blackwell 1975: The Black Community Diversity and Unity (Harper and Row, New York), p
69.
36. W.E.B. DuBois, op. cit., 1956, p 35.
37. James E. Blackwell 1975: The Black Community and Unity (Harper and Row, New York), p 69.
Gunnar Myrdal 1944: An American Dilemma (Harper & Row, New York), Ch 32 and p 689.
38. George Eaton Simpson, and J. Milton Yinger 1986: Racial and Cultural Minorities An Analysis of
Prejudice and Discrimination, 5th Ed. (Plenum Press, New York, and London). p 87.
39. Simpson and Yinger op. cit 1986, pp 340-342
40. Michael Omi & Howard Winant op.cit., 1994, pp 25-29. They provide, in their attribution of the economic
factors that promote racism, an interesting and meaningful perspective on this example.
41. Simpson, and Yinger 1986: pp 79-85.
42. Studs Terkel 1992: Race: How Blacks and Whites Think and Feel About the American Obsession
(Anchor Books, Doubleday New York, London). There are five sections of interest to the reader who
wishes to understand this phenomenon from the position of those who have first hand experience.
The authors of the

reports are: Joseph Robinson, Ben Hensley, Tasha Knight, Joe Gutierrez, Frank Lumpkin.
43. Fred Bruning November 21, 1994: "An American View—Writing off the Black Race" in Maclean's
(Canada's Weekly news magazine).
44. In using the Stanford-Binet test, an I.Q. range of 90-110 is considered normal, placing the mean at 100.
This mean is the score that the average white person in the test group was said to have achieved. The
mean of 85 for the Black sample places the average Black below the normal rating of 90.
45. Fred Bruning, November 21, 1994.
46. Fredrickson, 1971: 275.
47. Fred Bruning, November 21, 1994 .
48. Joe Chidley: "The Brain Strain" [Attacking liberal notions of racial equality, The Bell Curve sets off a
fire storm of debate]. in Maclean's, November 28, 1994. pp72-3.
49. This insight was provided by Prof. Barry Adam, who read and commented on this work. Dr. Adam is a
Professor of sociology at the University of Windsor, and newly appointed head of the department of
Sociology and Anthropology.
50. George Simpson and Yinger, op. cit., 1986, p 80.
51. This position thanks to Peter Wenz's recommendation that I read Stephen Jay Gould's, The Mismeasure
of Man (New York and London: Norton c1981).
52. Howard McCurdy and Richard Phillips (1995): "Africville—Environmental Racism" in Faces of
Environmental Racism–Global Equity Issues, Laura Westra and Peter S. Wenz (eds) (Lanham,
Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.). Although there is a written agreement between the
authors which establishes them as co-authors, this credit will not appear as such in the text.
43. I b i d .
53. JohnJ.Macionis,JuanneNancarrowClarke,andLindaM.Gerber1994: Sociology: Canadian Edition (Prentice
Hall Canada Inc.: Scarborough, Ontario), p 188.
54. W.E.B. DuBois, op.cit. 1956, pp 670-728.
55. August Meier 1968: Negro Thought in America 1880-1915: Racial Ideologies in the Age of Booker T.
Washington (Ann Arbor Paperbacks: University of Michigan Press)pp121-139.
56. Karl Mannheim 1936: Ideology and Utopia (Harcourt Brace & Company, New York, London). pp 179-
185.

58. Robert C. Prus and Styllianoss Irini 1980: Hookers, Rounders and Desk Clerks, The Social
Organization of the Hotel Community (Gage Publishing Limited, Toronto, Ontario, Canada), p 31.
59. Ibid., p 223.
58. Ibid., p 30.
59. Ibid., p 178.
60. Karl Mannheim, op.cit., 1936, pp 177-182.
61. The phrase was originally employed by John Locke (1632-1704), who held that their were no innate
ideas. Innate ideas are the collective, or transpersonal, unconscious inclusive of psychic contrivances
not emerging from personal experience. Likewise, B.F. Skinner believes that a person is born like a
blank slate, all psychological development can come only from personal experience.
62. Noam Chomsky 1992: Deterring Democracy (Hill and Wang, New York), p 145.
63. Ross A. Eaman 1987: The Media Society-Basic Issues and Controversies (Buttersworths, Toronto
and Vancouver), pp 50-3.
60. Ibid., p 52.
61. I b i d .
64. Warren Breed: 1960: "Social Control in the Newsroom." In Wilbur Schramm (ed.), Mass Communications,
2nd ed. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press). Reprinted from Social Forces; in Ross A. Eaman, op. cit., p
52.
65. Martin Luther King Jr., op. cit. 1991, p 307.
66. William E. Conklin 1989: Images of a Constitution (University of Toronto Press, Toronto). Prof. Conklin
is with the faculty of Law and last year received his PhD. in "Social and Political Thought" from York
University.
67. Noam Chomsky, op. cit., 1992, p 400.
68. Stuart Ewen 1980: All Consuming Images-The Politics of Style in Contemporary Culture (Basic Books,
U.S.A.), p 35.
69. Malcolm X, op. cit., 1965:, pp 306-331.
70. Zygmunt Bauman, op. cit., 1991:152 cites, Stanley Milgram, "Obedience to Authority: An Experimental
View" (London: Tavistock, 1974), p. xi.
71. Ibid., pp 66-72.
72. Ibid., pp 117-149.

77. Edward Bemays; "The Engineering of Consent," in The Annals 250 (March 1947), pp 113-114. Reprinted
by Stuart Ewen (1988) in All Consuming Images—the Politics of Style in Contemporary Culture
(Basic Books), pp 267-8.
78. Stuart Ewen, op. cit., 1980, pp 47, 267-8.
79. This term has been and still is in use as a negative appellation affixed to persons of African heritage.
80. Martin Luther King Jr., op. cit., 1991, p 303-12.
81. David Hume 1748: "Of the Different Species of Philosophy" in An Enquiry Concerning Human
Understanding (Britannica Great Books), Vol. 35.
82. Howard McGary and Bill E. Lawson 1992: Between Slavery and Freedom [Philosophy and
American Slavery] (Indiana University Press, Bloomington.
83. Zygmunt Bauman, op. cit., 1991, p 76.
77. Ibid., p 69.
84. Richard Phillips, op. cit.
85. W.E.B. DuBois, op. cit., 1956, pp 3-16 and pp 381-486.
86. Erving Coffman 1961: Asylums: Essays on Social Situations of Mental Patients and Other Inmates
(Doubleday Books, Garden City New York), p 6.
87. Michel Foucault 1979: Discipline & Punishment—The Birth of The Prison (Random House, New
York), Alan Sheridan (Trans.).
'Discipline and Punish' lays a fitting foundation for how this becomes justified using Linnaeus'
description. Suffice to say that the scope of the presant article cannot present the full significance of this
trio of problems.
88. Howard McGary and Bill E. Lawson 1992: Between Slavery and Freedom (Indiana University Press,
Bloomington).
89. Howard McGary and Bill E. Lawson, op. cit., 1992, p 75.
90. Howard McGary and Lawson, op.cit., 1992, p 75, citing Milton D. Morris 1975: The Politics of Black
America (Harper and Row, New York), p 82.

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