SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF THE NEGRO RACE BY 18TH AND 19TH CENTURY WRITERS: AMONG THE MAJOR SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF THE NEGRO RACE WRITERS OF THE 18TH CENTURY AND 19TH CENTURY THERE WERE LINNEAS CUVIER AND BLUMENBACH. THOUGH NOTE CAREFULLY THE PRIMARY CONTRIBUTION OF GEORGES CUVIER, A FRENCHMAN, AND AN ACKNOWLEDGED LEADER AND PIONEER IN THE FIELD OF ANTHROPOLOGY WHO GREATLY INFLUENCED SCIENTIFIC RACIALISM AND WHOSE FINDINGS THOUGH FOUND TO BE SPECULATIVE AND OBSOLETE, INVALID, AND NOT GENERALLY ACCEPTED, STILL EXIST AND ARE STILL BEING QUOTED TODAY . .... GEORGES CUVIER: ... Racial studies: Cuvier was a Protestant and a believer in MONOGENISM, who held THAT ALL MEN DESCENDED FROM THE BIBLICAL ADAM, however, his position usually was confused as being polygenist. Some writers who have studied his racial work have dubbed his position as quasi-polygenist, AND MOST OF HIS RACIAL STUDIES HAVE INFLUENCED SCIENTIFIC RACIALISM. CUVIER BELIEVED THERE WERE THREE DISTINCT RACES: the CAUCASIAN (white), MONGOLIAN (yellow), and the ETHIOPIAN (black). ADAM AND EVE AND SEPARATION OF THE RACES 5,000 YEARS AGO: CUVIER CLAIMED THAT ADAM AND EVE WERE CAUCASIAN, THE ORIGINAL RACE OF MANKIND. THE OTHER TWO RACES ORIGINATED BY SURVIVORS ESCAPING IN DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS AFTER A MAJOR CATASTROPHE HIT THE EARTH 5,000 YEARS AGO, WITH THOSE SURVIVORS THEN LIVING IN COMPLETE ISOLATION FROM EACH OTHER.[41][42] Cuvier categorized these divisions he identified into races ACCORDING TO HIS PERCEPTION OF THE BEAUTY OR UGLINESS OF THEIR SKULLS AND THE QUALITY OF THEIR CIVILIZATIONS. HE PLACED THE CAUCASIANS AT THE TOP with the skull shape he considered the most beautiful, AND THE ETHIOPIANS AT THE BOTTOM. 43] CAUCASIANS: Cuvier wrote regarding CAUCASIANS: The white race, with oval face, STRAIGHT HAIR AND NOSE to which the civilised people of Europe belong and which appear to us the most beautiful of all, is ALSO SUPERIOR TO OTHERS BY ITS GENIUS, COURAGE, AND ACTIVITY. [44] ETHIOPIANS: THE MONKEY TRIBE AND BARBARISM: Regarding ETHIOPIANS, he wrote that the race: ...is marked by BLACK COMPLEXION, CRISPED OR WOOLLY HAIR, compressed cranium, AND A FLAT NOSE. The projection of the lower parts of the face, AND THE THICK LIPS, evidently APPROXIMATE IT TO THE MONKEY TRIBE; THE HORDES OF WHICH IT CONSISTS HAVE ALWAYS REMAINED IN THE MOST COMPLETE STATE OF BARBARISM. [45] Cuviers racial studies held the main features of polygenism ... [NOTE: CUVIERS CONTRIBUTION TO SCIENTIFIC RACISM AND TO PRESENT DAY WHITE RACIST SUPREMACY IDEOLOGY - [NOTE: Harold L Carter, The Human Odyssey: The African Heritage in World History and Human Biological and Cultural History: From Prehistoric Times: 4.6 Billion Years Ago and the Earliest Civilizations: 5,000 Years Ago to the 21st Century (2014): Prior to the 18th century A.D. there had yet to be created “a racially identifiable human population” classified as a “Negro” or “African” or “Ethiopian” race or an “European” or “Caucasian” race, or a “white European race.” Anatomically Modern Humans” or the human species: Since the 18th and 19th century there has been introduced into anthropology a “EUROPEAN CRO-MAGNON RACE. said to exist during the Upper Paleolithic Wurm I Ice Glaciation Period though an African migration to Eurasia took place during this period of human history and the discovery was made of African fossils located in a CRO-MAGNON CAVE located in France. . THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF A “EUROPEAN RACE” or population was invented by Linneaus in1735; and used by Buffon in 1749. The term “CAUCASIAN” was created by Blumenbach in 1781 and used by Cuvier in 1790. Origin of Language: Cuvier and the Linguistic Society of Paris: The origin of language in the human species is a widely discussed topic, with little or no mainline consensus by many scholars. 1866: The Linguistic Society of Paris banned dabates on the subject. (1799: in George W. Stocking, Jr., The Société des Observateurs de lHomme, (the first anthropological society) founded in the eighth year of the first French Republic (November or early December 1799),and its purpose, objectives, and activities in Race, Culture, and Evolution: Essays in the History of Anthropology (The University of Chicago Press: Chicago and London), 1982, pp. 15-21. Its members included the biologists CUVIER, Lamarck, Jussieu, and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire; the physicians Cabanis and Pinel; the chemist Fourcroy; the explorers Bougainville and Levaillant; the linguists Destutt de Tracy and Sicard; and a number of other scholars in various fields. [Footnote: from the Magasin encyclopédique by Georges Hervé, Le premier programme, p. 521; members are listed by Bouteiller, “La Société,” p. 449, and by Reboul, Jauffret, p. 34] MARTIN BERNAL IN BLACK ATHENA: THE AFROASIATIC ROOTS OF CLASSICAL CIVILIZATION (1987, 1989), Volume I referred to GERMAN ROMANTICISM (p. 27, 204-211, 220), and referred to INDO-EUROPEAN linguistics, the ascendancy of French culture and a return of Germans to their cultural roots, referring to the German romanticist Johann Gottfried Herder, Schlegels, BLUMENBACH, GOBINEAU,(220, 236, 240-241), particularly the latter in the section WHAT COLOUR WERE THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS? and his quotes of GOBINEAU AND CUVIER! [Also note the 18th century, the attitude of white Europeans toward people of the “Negro” or “African” or Ethiopian race: 18TH CENTURY FRENCH ANTHROPOLOGIST CUVIER HAD THIS TO SAY ABOUT THE NEGRO RACE: p. 241: The Negro race ... is marked by BLACK COMPLEXION, CRISPED OR WOOLLY HAIR, compressed cranium and a FLAT NOSE.. THE PROJECTION OF ... THE MONKEY TRIBE: THE HORDES OF WHICH IT CONSISTS HAVE ALWAYS REMAINED IN THE MOST COMPLETE STATE OF BARBARISM. [G. Cuvier (1817) Le regne animal distribue dapres son organisation. Paris, trans. 1831 as The Animal Kingdom, 4 vols. New York and in P. Curtin, The Image of Africa: British Ideals and Action, 1780-1850. Madison, Wisconsin University Press) and in George W. Stocking, Jr, Race, Culture, and Evolution: Essays in the History of Anthropology (1968), p. 35: CUVIER: ... THE STUPIDITY OF NEGROES resulted from their lack of civilization, and (paradoxically) THAT THEIR VICES WERE THE GIFTS OF WHITES. PROFESSOR STOCKING: : “In 1817, however, Cuvier maintained THAT THE EGYPTIAN CIVILIZATION HAD NOT BEEN CREATED BY ANY RACE OF BLACKS BUT BY MEN OF THE SAME RACE AS OURSELVES, WHO HAD AN EQUALLY LARGE CRANIUM AND BRAIN, AND WHO OFFERED NO EXCEPTION TO THE CRUEL LAW WHICH SEEMS TO HAVE CONDEMNED TO AN ETERNAL INFERIORITY THE RACES OF DEPRESSED AND COMPRESSED SKULLS. ... There are, however, also CERTAIN INTRINSIC CAUSES which seem to arrest the progress of certain races, even in the most favorable (environmental) circumstances. PROFESSOR STOCKING INDICATED: “ In the description of three Varieties of the Human Species: African (Black), [Note here African instead of Ethiopian] White, Mongoloid) Cuvier maintained that the civilization of the MONGOLIAN RACE had remained stationary AND THAT NEGROES HAD NEVER PROGRESSED BEYOND UTTER BARBARISM [Footnote: Lettres de Georges Cuvier a C. M. Pfaff sur lhistoire naturelle, la politique et la litterature , 1788-1792 (Paris, 1858, p. 201, letter of December 31, 1790: Extrait dobservations faires sur le cadavre dune femme connue a Paris et a Londres sous le nom de Venus Hottentotte, Mems, du Museum dHistoire naturelle, III (1817), 273; Le Regne animal distribue dapres son organisation (Paris, 1836), I, 96-99] and ACCORDING TO GOBINEAU (BERNAL, 1987, 1989, 241): ... THE BLACK VARIETY IS THE LOWEST AND LIES AT THE BOTTOM OF THE LADDER. The animal character lent to its b asic form imposes its destiny from the moment of conception. It never leaves the most restricted intellectual zones ... IF ITS FACULTIES FOR THINKING ARE MEDIOCRE OR EVEN NONEXISTENT, it possesses in its desire and as a consequence in its will an intensity that is often terrible. MANY OF THE SENSES AREDEVELOPED WITH A VIGOUR UNKNOWN IN THE OTHER TWO RACES: PRINCIPALLY TASTE AND SMELL. IT IS PRECISELY IN THE GREED FOR SENSATIONS THAT THE MOST STRIKING MARK OF ITS INFERIORITY IS FOUND. Encyclopedia Wikipedia: Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric Cuvier (French: [kyvje]; August 23, 1769 – May 13, 1832), known as Georges Cuvier, was a French naturalist and zoologist. Cuvier was a major figure in natural sciences research in the early 19th century and was instrumental in establishing the fields of comparative anatomy and paleontology through his work in comparing living animals with fossils. Cuviers work is considered the foundation of vertebrate paleontology, and he expanded Linnaean taxonomy by grouping classes into phyla and incorporating both fossils and living species into the classification.[1] Cuvier also is well known for establishing extinction as a fact—at the time, extinction was considered by many of Cuviers contemporaries to be merely controversial speculation. In his Essay on the Theory of the Earth (1813) Cuvier was interpreted to have proposed that new species were created after periodic catastrophic floods. In this way, Cuvier became the most influential proponent of catastrophism in geology in the early 19th century.[2] His study of the strata of the Paris basin with Alexandre Brongniart established the basic principles of biostratigraphy. ... OPPOSITION TO EVOLUTION:: He repeatedly emphasized that his extensive experience with fossil material indicated one fossil form does not, as a rule, gradually change into a succeeding, distinct fossil form. Because of this and his understanding of animal anatomy and physiology, Cuvier strongly objected to any notion of evolution.
Posted on: Tue, 12 Aug 2014 06:35:09 +0000
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