Race, particularly whiteness, is a human construct with fluidity that has changed throughout time to denote the desired and powerful from the Otherized. Whiteness or Caucasian, as a classification of desired standing, gained popularity and support following its inclusion by German scientist, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach in the 1795, and has since been adapted to include and exclude different “racial” groups over time. The concept of race, and whiteness, is therefore a creation used to justify Otherization and subjugation, creating a systematic model of exploitation based on perceived differences that denote, in the subjugators mind, the inferiority of those who are not white.
Nell Irving Painter is an American author and professor of history, …show more content…
The Celts were a complex group comprised of a widely diverse range of ethnic groups that were lumped as one by the Greeks to Otherize them. Famous philosophers and early historians of the time, such as Hecataeus and Herodotus, traveled extensively, for the time, and made maps and notes of different lands and different peoples that detailed their mores and culture. However most of their findings simply detailed differences in culture, not specifically appearance. Hippocrates, the Greek father of western medicine, wrote of differing physical attributes and appearances of groups, such as the Scythian tribes. However, he attributed the differences again to natural geographical forces such as topology and water, which determined appearance based on habitat. It is also clear in his writings that while he described differing physical attributes of different tribes, he believed that these are minimal variations and that they all, in truth, look very similar. The notion that the Greeks viewed difference in terms of whiteness and blackness or different races, is therefore a construct of more modern historians attempting to rewrite history to their advantage. The …show more content…
Painter said, “A notion of freedom lies at the core of the American idea of whiteness.” Slavery has been, by and large, presented as a construction of the last 400 years revolving around African enslavement in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, when in reality slavery was an institution for thousands of years. This is not to say that white slavery has been ignored and the at large white community is angered by this, but rather that institution of slavery was thoroughly reimagined during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade to be based upon promoting the advancement of whiteness while degrading to a sub human level those viewed as colored. This has created a false sense among many that slavery has always been based upon race, which leads to the fairly logical, albeit problematical, notion that people of color have always been enslaved for reasons of inferiority, while white people have always enslaved due to their power and
Nell Irving Painter is an American author and professor of history, …show more content…
The Celts were a complex group comprised of a widely diverse range of ethnic groups that were lumped as one by the Greeks to Otherize them. Famous philosophers and early historians of the time, such as Hecataeus and Herodotus, traveled extensively, for the time, and made maps and notes of different lands and different peoples that detailed their mores and culture. However most of their findings simply detailed differences in culture, not specifically appearance. Hippocrates, the Greek father of western medicine, wrote of differing physical attributes and appearances of groups, such as the Scythian tribes. However, he attributed the differences again to natural geographical forces such as topology and water, which determined appearance based on habitat. It is also clear in his writings that while he described differing physical attributes of different tribes, he believed that these are minimal variations and that they all, in truth, look very similar. The notion that the Greeks viewed difference in terms of whiteness and blackness or different races, is therefore a construct of more modern historians attempting to rewrite history to their advantage. The …show more content…
Painter said, “A notion of freedom lies at the core of the American idea of whiteness.” Slavery has been, by and large, presented as a construction of the last 400 years revolving around African enslavement in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, when in reality slavery was an institution for thousands of years. This is not to say that white slavery has been ignored and the at large white community is angered by this, but rather that institution of slavery was thoroughly reimagined during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade to be based upon promoting the advancement of whiteness while degrading to a sub human level those viewed as colored. This has created a false sense among many that slavery has always been based upon race, which leads to the fairly logical, albeit problematical, notion that people of color have always been enslaved for reasons of inferiority, while white people have always enslaved due to their power and