essay ideas of race

Race & Ethnicity—Definition and Differences [+48 Race Essay Topics]

Race and ethnicity are among the features that make people different. Unlike character traits, attitudes, and habits, race and ethnicity can’t be changed or chosen. It fully depends on the ancestry.

But why do we separate these two concepts and what are their core differences? How do people classify different races and types of ethnicity?

To find answers to these questions, keep reading the article.

Also, if you have a writing assignment on the same topic due soon and looking for inspiration, you’ll find plenty of race, racism, and ethnic group essay examples. At IvyPanda , we’ve gathered over 45 samples to help you with your writing, so you don’t have to torture yourself looking for awesome essay ideas.

Race and Ethnicity Definitions

It’s important to learn what race and ethnicity really are before trying to compare them and explore their classification.

Race is a group of people that belong to the same distinct category based on their physical and social qualities.

At the very beginning of the term usage, it only referred to people speaking a common language. Later, the term started to denote certain national affiliations. A reference to physical traits was added to the term race in the 17th century.

In a modern world, race is considered to be a social construct. In other words, it’s a distinguishable identity with a cultural meaning behind. Race is not usually seen as exclusively biological or physical quality, even though it’s partially based on common physical features among group members.

Ethnicity (also known as ethnic group) is a category of people who have similarities like common language, ancestry, history, culture, society, and nation.

Basically, people inherit ethnicity depending on the society they live in. Other factors that define a person’s ethnicity include symbolic systems like religion, cuisine, art, dressing style, and even physical appearance.

Sometimes, the term ethnicity is used as a synonym to people or nation. It’s also fair to mention that it’s sometimes possible for an individual to leave one ethnic group and shift to another. It’s usually done through acculturation, language shift, or religious conversion.

Though, most of the times, representatives of a certain ethnic group continue to speak their common language and share some other typical traits even if derived from their founder population.

Differences Between Race and Ethnicity

Now that we know what race and ethnicity are all about, let’s highlight some of the major differences between these two terms.

• It divides people into groups or populations based mainly on physical appearance
• The main accent is on genetic or biological traits
• Because of geographical isolation, racial categories were a result of a shared genealogy. In modern world, this isolation is practically nonexistent, which lead to mixing of races
• The distinguishing factors can include type of face or skin color. Other genetic differences are considered to be weak

• Members of an ethnic group identify themselves based on nationality, culture, and traditions
• The emphasis is on group history, culture, and sometimes on religion and language
• Definition of ethnicity is based on shared genealogy. It can be either actual or presumed
• Distinguishing factors of ethnic groups keep changing depending on time period. Sometimes, they get defined by stereotypes that dominant groups have

It’s also worth mentioning that the border between two terms is quite vague . As a result, the choice of using either of them can be very subjective.

In the majority of cases, race is considered to be unitary, which means that one person belongs to one race. However, ethnically, this same person can identify themselves as a member of multiple ethnic groups. And it won’t be wrong if a person have lived enough time within those groups.

Race and Ethnicity Classification

It’s time to look at possible ways to classify racial and ethnical groups.

One of the most common classifications for race into four categories: Caucasoid, Mongoloid, Negroid, and Australoid. Three of them have subcategories.

Let’s look at them more closely.

– Caucasoid. White race with light skin color. Hair ranges from brown to black. They have medium to high structure. The subcategories are as follows:

• Alpine. Live in Central Asia
• Nordic . Baltic, British, and Scandinavian inhabitants
• Mediterranean. Hail from France, Italy, Portugal, and Spain

– Mongoloid. The race’s majority is found in Asia. Characterized by black hair, yellow skin tone, and medium height.

• Asian mongol. Found in japan, China, and East-India
• Micronesian. Inhabitants of Malenesia

– Negroid. A race found in Africa. They have black skin, wooly hair, and medium to high structure.

• Negro. African inhabitants
• Far Eastern Pygmy. Found in the south Pacific islands
• Bushman and Hottentot. Live in Kala-Hari desert of Africa

– Australoid. Found in Australia. They have wavy hair, light skin, and medium to tall height.

It’s fair to mention yet again that it’s practically impossible to find pure race representatives because of how mixed they all got.

Speaking of ethnicity classification, one of the most common ways to do that is by continent. And each of continent’s ethnic groups will have their own subcategory.

So, we can roughly divide ethnic groups into following categories:

• North American
• South American

Race Essay Ideas

If all the information above was not enough and you’re looking for race essay topics, or even straight up essay examples for your writing assignment—today’s your lucky day. Because experts at IvyPanda have gathered plenty of those.

Check out the list of race and ethnic group essay samples below. Use them for inspiration, or try to develop one of the suggested topics even further.

Whatever option you’ll choose, we’re sure that you’ll end up with great results!

• The Anatomy of Scientific Racism: Racialist Responses to Black Athletic Achievement
• Race, Ethnicity and Crime
• Representation of Race in Disney Films
• What is the relationship between Race, Poverty and Prison?
• Race in a Southern Community
• African American Women and the Struggle for Racial Equality
• American Ethnic Studies
• Institutionalized Racism from John Brown Raid to Jim Crow Laws
• The Veil and Muslim
• Race and the Body: How Culture Both Shapes and Mirrors Broader Societal Attitudes Towards Race and the Body
• Latinos and African Americans: Friends or Foes?
• Historical US Relationships with Native American
• The experiences of the Aborigines
• Contemporary Racism in Australia: the Experience of Aborigines
• No Reparations for Blacks for the Injustice of Slavery
• Racism (another variant)
• Hispanic Americans
• Racism in the Penitentiary
• How the development of my racial/ethnic identity has been impacted
• My father’s black pride
• African American Ethnic Group
• Ethnic Group Conflicts
• How the Movie Crash Presents the African Americans
• Ethnic Groups and discrimination
• Race and Ethnicity
• Racial and ethnic inequality
• Ethnic Groups and Conflicts
• Ethnics Studies
• Ethnic studies and emigration
• Ethnicity Influence
• Immigration and Ethnic Relations
• A comparison Between Asian Americans and Latinos
• Analysis of the Chinese Experience in “A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America” by Ronald Takaki
• Wedding in the UAE
• Social and Cultural Diversity
• The White Dilemma in South Africa
• Ethnocentrism and its Effects on Individuals, Societies, and Multinationals
• Reduction of ethnocentrism and promotion of cultural relativism
• Racial and Ethnic Groups
• Gender and Race
• Child Marriages in Modern India
• Race and Ethnicity (another variant)
• Racial Relations and Color Blindness
• Multiculturalism and “White Anxiety”
• Cultural and racial inequality in Health Care
• The impact of colonialism on cultural transformations in North and South America
• African American Studies
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Home — Blog — Topic Ideas — Essay Topics on Racism: 150 Ideas for Analysis and Discussion

Essay Topics on Racism: 150 Ideas for Analysis and Discussion

Here’s a list of 150 essay ideas on racism to help you ace a perfect paper. The subjects are divided based on what you require!

Before we continue with the list of essay topics on racism, let's remember the definition of racism. In brief, it's a complex prejudice and a form of discrimination based on race. It can be done by an individual, a group, or an institution. If you belong to a racial or ethnic group, you are facing being in the minority. As it's usually caused by the group in power, there are many types of racism, including socio-cultural racism, internal racism, legal racism, systematic racism, interpersonal racism, institutional racism, and historical racism. You can also find educational or economic racism as there are many sub-sections that one can encounter.

150 Essay Topics on Racism to Help You Ace a Perfect Essay

General Recommendations

The subject of racism is one of the most popular among college students today because you can discuss it regardless of your academic discipline. Even though we are dealing with technical progress and the Internet, the problem of racism is still there. The world may go further and talk about philosophical matters, yet we still have to face them and explore the challenges. It makes it even more difficult to find a good topic that would be unique and inspiring. As a way to help you out, we have collected 150 racism essay topics that have been chosen by our experts. We recommend you choose something that motivates you and narrow things down a little bit to make your writing easier.

Why Choose a Topic on Racial Issues? 

When we explore racial issues, we are not only seeking the most efficient solutions but also reminding ourselves about the past and the mistakes that we should never make again. It is an inspirational type of work as we all can change the world. If you cannot choose a topic that inspires you, think about recent events, talk about your friend, or discuss something that has happened in your local area. Just take your time and think about how you can make the world a safer and better place.

The Secrets of a Good Essay About Racism 

The secret to writing a good essay on racism is not only stating that racism is bad but by exploring the origins and finding a solution. You can choose a discipline and start from there. For example, if you are a nursing student, talk about the medical principles and responsibilities where every person is the same. Talk about how it has not always been this way and discuss the methods and the famous theorists who have done their best to bring equality to our society. Keep your tone inspiring, explore, and tell a story with a moral lesson in the end. Now let’s explore the topic ideas on racism!

General Essay Topics On Racism 

As we know, no person is born a racist since we are not born this way and it cannot be considered a biological phenomenon. Since it is a practice that is learned and a social issue, the general topics related to racism may include socio-cultural, philosophical, and political aspects as you can see below. Here are the ideas that you should consider as you plan to write an essay on racial issues:

• Are we born with racial prejudice? 
• Can racism be unlearned? 
• The political constituent of the racial prejudice and the colonial past? 
• The humiliation of the African continent and the control of power. 
• The heritage of the Black Lives Matter movement and its historical origins. 
• The skin color issue and the cultural perceptions of the African Americans vs Mexican Americans. 
• The role of social media in the prevention of racial conflicts in 2022 . 
• Martin Luther King Jr. and his role in modern education. 
• Konrad Lorenz and the biological perception of the human race. 
• The relation of racial issues to nazism and chauvinism.

The Best Racism Essay Topics 

School and college learners often ask about what can be considered the best essay subject when asked to write on racial issues. Essentially, you have to talk about the origins of racism and provide a moral lesson with a solution as every person can be a solid contribution to the prevention of hatred and racial discrimination.

• The schoolchildren's example and the attitude to the racial conflicts. 
• Perception of racism in the United States versus Germany. 
• The role of the scouting movement as a way to promote equality in our society. 
•  Social justice and the range of opportunities that African American individuals could receive during the 1960s.
•  The workplace equality and the negative perception of the race when the documents are being filed. 
•  The institutional racism and the sources of the legislation that has paved the way for injustice. 
•  Why should we talk to the children about racial prejudice and set good examples ? 
•  The role of anthropology in racial research during the 1990s in the USA. 
•  The Black Poverty phenomenon and the origins of the Black Culture across the globe. 
•  The controversy of Malcolm X’s personality and his transition from anger to peacemaking.

Shocking Racism Essay Ideas 

Unfortunately, there are many subjects that are not easy to deal with when you are talking about the most horrible sides of racism. Since these subjects are sensitive, dealing with the shocking aspects of this problem should be approached with a warning in your introduction part so your readers know what to expect. As a rule, many medical and forensic students will dive into the issue, so these topic ideas are still relevant:

• The prejudice against wearing a hoodie. 
•  The racial violence in Western Africa and the crimes by the Belgian government. 
•  The comparison of homophobic beliefs and the link to racial prejudice. 
•  Domestic violence and the bias towards the cases based on race. 
•  Racial discrimination in the field of the sex industry. 
•  Slavery in the Middle East and the modern cultural perceptions. 
•  Internal racism in the United States: why the black communities keep silent. 
•  Racism in the American schools: the bias among the teachers. 
•  Cyberbullying and the distorted image of the typical racists . 
•  The prisons of Apartheid in South Africa.

Light and Simple Ideas Regarding Racism

If you are a high-school learner or a first-year college student, your essay on racism may not have to represent complex research with a dozen of sources. Here are some good ideas that are light and simple enough to provide you with inspiration and the basic points to follow:

• My first encounter with racial prejudice. 
•  Why do college students are always in the vanguard of social campaigns? 
•  How are the racial issues addressed by my school? 
•  The promotion of the African-American culture is a method to challenge prejudice and stereotypes. 
• The history of blues music and the Black culture of the blues in the United States.
• The role of slavery in the Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. 
•  School segregation in the United States during the 1960s. 
•  The negative effect of racism on the mental health of a person. 
•  The advocacy of racism in modern society . 
•  The heritage of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and the modern perception of the historical issues.

Interesting Topics on Racism For an Essay 

Contrary to the popular belief, when you have to talk about the cases of racial prejudice, you will also encounter many interesting essay topic ideas. As long as these are related to your main academic course, you can explore them. Here are some great ideas to consider:

• Has the perception of Michael Jackson changed because of his skin transition? 
•  The perception of racial problems by the British Broadcasting Corporation. 
•  The role of the African American influencers on Instagram. 
•  The comparison between the Asian students and the Mexican learners in the USA. 
•  Latin culture and the similarities when compared to the Black culture with its peculiarities. 
•  The racial impact in the “Boy In The Stripped Pajamas”. 
•  Can we eliminate racism completely and how exactly, considering the answer is “Yes”? 
•  Scientific research of modern racism and social media campaigns. 
•  Why do some people believe that the Black Lives Matter movement is controversial? 
• Male vs female challenges in relation to racial attitudes.

Argumentative Essay Topics About Race 

An argumentative type of writing requires making a clear statement or posing an assumption that will deal with a particular question. As we are dealing with racial prejudice or theories, it is essential to support your writing with at least one piece of evidence to make sure that you can support your opinion and stand for it as you write. Here are some good African American argumentative essay examples of topics and other ideas to consider:

•  Racism is a mental disorder and cannot be treated with words alone. 
•  Analysis of the traumatic experiences based on racial prejudice. 
•  African-American communities and the sense of being inferior are caused by poverty. 
•  Reading the memoirs of famous people that describe racial issues often provides a distorted image through the lens of a single person. 
•  There is no academic explanation of racism since every case is different and is often based on personal perceptions. 
•  The negatives of the post-racial perception as the latent system that advocates racism. 
•  The link of racial origins to the concept of feminism and gender inequality. 
•  The military bias and the merits that are earned by the African-American soldiers. 
•  The media causes a negative image of the Latin and Mexican youth in the United States. 
•  Does racism exist in kindergarten and why the youngsters do not think about racial prejudice?

Racism Research Paper Topics 

Dealing with The Black Lives Matter essay , you should focus on those aspects of racism that are not often discussed or researched by the media. You can take a particular case study or talk about the reasons why the BLM social campaign has started and whether the timing has been right. Here are some interesting racism topics for research paper that you should consider:

• The link of criminal offenses to race is an example of the primary injustice .  
• The socio-emotional burdens of slavery that one can trace among the representatives of the African-American population. 
• Study of the cardio-vascular diseases among the American youth: a comparison of the Caucasian and Latin representatives. 
• The race and the politics: dealing with the racial issues and the Trump administration analysis. 
• The best methods to achieve medical equality for all people: where race has no place to be. 
• The perception of racism by the young children: the negative side of trying to educate the youngsters. 
• Racial prejudice in the UK vs the United States: analysis of the core differences. 
• The prisons in the United States: why do the Blacks constitute the majority? 
• The culture of Voodoo and the slavery: the link between the occult practices.
• The native American people and the African Americans: the common woes they share.

Racism in Culture Topics 

Racism topics for essay in culture are always upon the surface because we can encounter them in books, popular political shows, movies, social media, and more. The majority of college students often ignore this aspect because things easily become confusing since one has to take a stand and explain the point. As a way to help you a little bit, we have collected several cultural racism topic ideas to help you start:

• The perception of wealth by the Black community: why it differs when researched through the lens of past poverty?  
• The rap music and the cultural constituent of the African-American community. 
• The moral constituent of the political shows where racial jargon is being used. 
• Why the racial jokes on television are against the freedom of speech?  
• The ways how the modern media promotes racism by stirring up the conflict and actually doing harm. 
• The isolated cases of racism and police violence in the United States as portrayed by the movies. 
• Playing with the Black musicians: the history of jazz in the United States. 
• The social distancing and the perception of isolation by the different races. 
• The cultural multitude in the cartoons by the Disney Corporations: the pros and cons.
• From assimilation to genocide: can the African American child make it big without living through the cultural bias?

Racism Essay Ideas in Literature 

One of the best ways to study racism is by reading the books by those who have been through it on their own or by studying the explorations by those who can write emotionally and fight for racial equality where racism has no place to be. Keeping all of these challenges in mind, our experts suggest turning to the books as you can explore racism in the literature by focusing on those who are against it and discussing the cases in the classic literature that are quite controversial.

• The racial controversy of Ernest Hemingway's writing.  
• The personal attitude of Mark Twain towards slavery and the cultural peculiarities of the times. 
• The reasons why "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee book has been banned in libraries. 
• The "Hate You Give" by Angie Thomas and the analysis of the justified and "legit" racism. 
• Is the poetry by the gangsta rap an example of hidden racism? 
• Maya Angelou and her timeless poetry. 
• The portrayal of xenophobia in modern English language literature. 
• What can we learn from the "Schilder's List" screenplay as we discuss the subject of genocide? 
• Are there racial elements in "Othello" or Shakespeare's creation is beyond the subject?
• Kate Chopin's perception of inequality in "Desiree's Baby".

Racism in Science Essay Ideas 

Racism is often studied by scientists because it's not only a cultural point or a social agenda that is driven by personal inferiority and similar factors of mental distortion. Since we can talk about police violence and social campaigns, it is also possible to discuss things through different disciplines. Think over these racism thesis statement ideas by taking a scientific approach and getting a common idea explained:

• Can physical trauma become a cause for a different perception of race? 
• Do we inherit racial intolerance from our family members and friends? 
• Can a white person assimilate and become a part of the primarily Black community? 
• The people behind the concept of Apartheid: analysis of the critical factors. 
• Can one prove the fact of the physical damage of the racial injustice that lasted through the years? 
• The bond between mental diseases and the slavery heritage among the Black people. 
• Should people carry the blame for the years of social injustice? 
• How can we explain the metaphysics of race? 
• What do the different religions tell us about race and the best ways to deal with it? 
• Ethnic prejudices based on age, gender, and social status vs general racism.

Cinema and Race Topics to Write About 

As a rule, the movies are also a great source for writing an essay on racial issues. Remember to provide the basic information about the movie or include examples with the quotations to help your readers understand all the major points that you make. Here are some ideas that are worth your attention:

• The negative aspect of the portrayal of racial issues by Hollywood.  
• Should the disturbing facts and the graphic violence be included in the movies about slavery? 
• Analysis of the "Green Mile" movie and the perception of equality in our society.  
• The role of music and culture in the "Django Unchained" movie. 
• The "Ghosts of Mississippi" and the social aspect of the American South compared to how we perceive it today. 
• What can we learn from the "Malcolm X" movie created by Spike Lee? 
• "I am Not Your Negro" movie and the role of education through the movies. 
• "And the Children Shall Lead" the movie as an example that we are not born racist. 
• Do we really have the "Black Hollywood" concept in reality? 
• Do the movies about racial issues only cause even more racial prejudice?

Race and Ethnic Relations 

Another challenging problem is the internal racism and race and ethnicity essay topics that we can observe not only in the United States but all over the world as well. For example, the Black people in the United States and the representatives of the rap music culture will divide themselves between the East Coast and the West Coast where far more than cultural differences exist. The same can be encountered in Afghanistan or in Belgium. Here are some essay topics on race and ethnicity idea samples to consider:

• The racial or the ethnic conflict? What can we learn from Afghan society? 
• Religious beliefs divide us based on ethnicity . 
• What are the major differences between ethnic and racial conflicts? 
• Why we are able to identify the European Black person and the Black coming from the United States? 
• Racism and ethnicity's role in sports. 
• How can an ethnic conflict be resolved with the help of anti-racial methods? 
• The medical aspect of being an Asian in the United States. 
• The challenges of learning as an African American person during the 1950s. 
• The role of the African American people in the Vietnam war and their perception by the locals. 
• Ethnicity's role in South Africa as the concept of Apartheid has been formed.

Biology and Racial Issues 

If you are majoring in Biology or would like to research this side of the general issue of race, it is essential to think about how we can fight racism in practice by turning to healthcare or the concepts that are historical in their nature. Although we cannot explain slavery per se other than by turning to economics and the rule of power that has no justification, biologists believe that racial challenges can be approached by their core beliefs as well.

• Can we create an isolated non-racist society in 2022? 
• If we assume that a social group has never heard of racism, can it occur? 
• The physical versus cultural differences in the racial inequality cases? 
• The biological peculiarities of the different races? 
• Do we carry the cultural heritage of our race? 
• Interracial marriage through the lens of Biology. 
• The origins of the racial concept and its evolution. 
• The core ways how slavery has changed the African-American population. 
• The linguistic peculiarities of the Latin people. 
• The resistance of the different races towards vaccination.

Modern Racism Topics to Consider 

In case you would like to deal with a modern subject that deals with racism, you can go beyond the famous Black Lives Matter movement by focusing on the cases of racism in sports or talking about the peacemakers or the famous celebrities who have made a solid difference in the elimination of racism.

• The Global Citizen campaign is a way to eliminate racial differences. 
• The heritage of Aretha Franklin and her take on the racial challenges. 
• The role of the Black Stars in modern society: the pros and cons. 
• Martin Luther King Day in the modern schools. 
• How can Instagram help to eliminate racism? 
• The personality of Michelle Obama as a fighter for peace. 
• Is a society without racism a utopian idea? 
• How can comic books help youngsters understand equality? 
• The controversy in the death of George Floyd. 
• How can we break down the stereotypes about Mexicans in the United States?

Racial Discrimination Essay Ideas 

If your essay should focus on racial discrimination, you should think about the environment and the type of prejudice that you are facing. For example, it can be in school or at the workplace, at the hospital, or in a movie that you have attended. Here are some discrimination topics research paper ideas that will help you to get started:

• How can a schoolchild report the case of racism while being a minor?  
• The discrimination against women's rights during the 1960s. 
• The employment problem and the chances of the Latin, Asian, and African American applicants. 
• Do colleges implement a certain selection process against different races? 
• How can discrimination be eliminated via education? 
• African-American challenges in sports. 
• The perception of discrimination, based on racial principles and the laws in the United States. 
• How can one report racial comments on social media? 
• Is there discrimination against white people in our society? 
• Covid-19 and racial discrimination: the lessons we have learned.

Find Even More Essay Topics On Racism by Visiting Our Site 

If you are unsure about what to write about, you can always find an essay on racism by visiting our website. Offering over 150 topic ideas, you can always get in touch with our experts and find another one!

5 Tips to Make Your Essay Perfect

• Start your essay on racial issues by narrowing things down after you choose the general topic. 
• Get your facts straight by checking the dates, the names, opinions from both sides of an issue, etc. 
• Provide examples if you are talking about the general aspects of racism. 
• Do not use profanity and show due respect even if you are talking about shocking things. The same relates to race and ethnic relations essay topics that are based on religious conflicts. Stay respectful! 
• Provide references and citations to avoid plagiarism and to keep your ideas supported by at least one piece of evidence.

Recommendations to Help You Get Inspired

Speaking of recommended books and articles to help you start with this subject, you should check " The Ideology of Racism: Misusing Science to Justify Racial Discrimination " by William H. Tucker who is a professor of social sciences at Rutgers University. Once you read this great article, think about the poetry by Maya Angelou as one of the best examples to see the practical side of things.

The other recommendations worth checking include:

- How to be Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi . - White Fragility by Robin Diangelo . - So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo .

The Final Word 

We sincerely believe that our article has helped you to choose the perfect essay subject to stir your writing skills. If you are still feeling stuck and need additional help, our team of writers can assist you in the creation of any essay based on what you would like to explore. You can get in touch with our skilled experts anytime by contacting our essay service for any race and ethnicity topics. Always confidential and plagiarism-free, we can assist you and help you get over the stress!

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40+ Argumentative Essay Topics on Racism Worth Exploring

by  Antony W

April 21, 2023

The first step to write an essay on racism is to select the right topic to explore.

You then have to take a stance based on your research and use evidence to defend your position.

Even in a sensitive issue of racial discrimination, you have to consider the counterarguments highly likely to arise and address them accordingly. 

The goal of this list post is to give you some topic ideas that you can consider and explore.   We’ve put together 30+ topic ideas, so it should be easy to find an interesting issue to explore.

What is Racism?  

Racism is the conviction that we can credit capacities and qualities to individuals based on their race, color, ethnicity, or national origin. It can take the form of prejudice, hatred, and discrimination, and it can happen in any place and at any time.

Racism goes beyond the act of harassment and abuse. It stretches further to violence, intimidation, and exclusion from important group activities.

This act of judgment, prejudice, and discrimination easily reveal itself in the way we interact with people and our attitude towards them.

Some forms of racism , like looking at a person’s place of origin through a list of job applications, may not be obvious, but they play a part in preventing people or particular group from enjoying the dignity and equality of the benefits of life simply because they are different.

Argumentative Essay Topics on Racism  

• Is racism a type of mental illness in the modern society?
• Barrack Obama’s legacy hasn’t helped to improve the situation of racism in the United States of America
• The women’s movement of the 1960s did NOT unite black and white women
• Will racism eventually disappear on its own?
• Is there a cure for racism?
• There’s no sufficient evidence to prove that Mexicans are racists
• Is the difference in skin color the cause of racism in the western world?
• Racism isn’t in everyone’s heart
• Racism is a toxic global disease
• Will the human race ever overcome racial prejudice and discrimination?
• Can a racist be equally cruel?
• Should racism be a criminal offense punishable by death without the possibility of parole?
• Are racists more principled than those who are not?
• Can poor upbringing cause a person to become a racist?
• Is it a crime if you’re a racist?
• Can racism lead to another World War?
• The government can’t stop people from being racists
• Cultural diversity can cure racism
• All racists in the world have psychological problems and therefore need medical attention
• Can the government put effective measures in place to stop its citizens from promoting racism?
• Can a racist president rule a country better than a president who is not a racist?
• Should white and black people have equal rights?
• Can cultural diversity breed racism?
• Is racism a bigger threat to the human race?
• Racism is common among adults than it is among children
• Should white people enjoy more human rights than black people should?
• Is the disparity in the healthcare system a form of racial discrimination?
• Racial discrimination is a common thing in the United States of America
• Film industries should be regulated to help mitigate racism
• Disney movies should be banned for promoting racism
• Should schools teach students to stand against racism?
• Should parents punish their children for manifesting racist traits?
• Is racism the root of all evil?
• Can dialogue resolve the issue of racism?
• Is the seed of racism sown in our children during childhood?
• Do anti-racist movements help to unite people of different colors and race to fight racism?
• Do religious doctrines promote racism?
• There are no psychological health risks associated with racism
• Can movements such as Black Lives Matter stop racism in America?
• Do anti-racist movements help people to improve their self-esteem?
• Racism is against religious beliefs
• Can teaching children to treat each other equally help to promote an anti-racist world?

We understand that racism is such a controversial topic. However, it’s equally an interesting area to explore. If you wish to write an essay on racism but you have no idea where to start, you can pay for argumentative essay from Help for Assessment to do some custom writing for you.

If you hire Help for Assessment, our team will choose the most suitable topic based on your preference. In addition to conducting extensive research, we’ll choose a stance we can defend, and use strong evidence to demonstrate why your view on the subject is right. Get up to 15% discount here .

Is it Easy to Write an Argumentative Essay on Racism?

Racism is traumatic and a bad idea, and there must never be an excuse for it.

As controversial as the issue is, you can write an essay that explores this aspect and bring out a clear picture on why racism is such a bad idea altogether.

With that said, here’s a list of some argumentative essay topics on racism that you might want to consider for your next essay assignment.

How to Make Your Argumentative Essay on Racism Great 

The following are some useful writing tips that you can use to make your argumentative essay on racism stand out:

Examine the Historical Causes of Racism 

Try to dig deeper into the topic of racism by looking at historical causes of racial discrimination and prejudices.

Look at a number of credible sources to explore the connection between racism and salve trade, social developments, and politics.

Include these highlights in your essay to demonstrate that you researched widely on the topic before making your conclusion.

Demonstrate Critical Thinking 

Go the extra mile and talk about the things you believe people often leave out when writing argumentative essays on racism.

Consider why racial discrimination and prejudices are common in the society, their negative effects, and who benefits the most from racial policies.

Adding such information not only shows your instructor that you did your research but also understand the topic better.

Show the Relationship between Racism and Social Issues 

There’s no denying that racism has a strong connection with many types of social issues, including homophobia, slavery, and sexism.

Including these links, where necessary, and explaining them in details can make your essay more comprehensive and therefore worth reading.

related resources

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About the author 

Antony W is a professional writer and coach at Help for Assessment. He spends countless hours every day researching and writing great content filled with expert advice on how to write engaging essays, research papers, and assignments.

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List of great argumentative essay topics on racism [updated], bob cardens.

• August 1, 2022
• Essay Topics and Ideas , Samples

The social issues that we face today are more complex and multifaceted than ever before. And, as a result, there are a lot of great argumentative essay topics on racism. Here are just a few examples:

What You'll Learn

Argumentative Essay Topics on Racism

• How has institutional Racism affected the history of minority groups in the US? –
• Should we consider Islamophobia racism?
• Racism: Can we refer to it as a mental disorder?
• Race: Does it serve any purpose in modern society?
• How Racism impact the way Chinese American has been viewed.
• Irishness: Should it be considered a show of racism?
• Comic books: Can we consider it racist against black people?
• How does Racism impact the way we view immigration? Description: In recent years, views of immigration in the United States have shifted with many Americans perceiving immigrants as a source of national prosperity, rather than an eminent burden
• Racism Against Hispanics in America Description: One of the main challenges facing American society is racism. While the country is a multicultural society comprising of individuals from different cultures around the world, minority groups often face discrimination in the form hate crimes and racist comments. Although the issue of racism affects all minorities.
• African American males are 10 times more likely to resist arrest than Caucasian males, is this due to them essentially resisting police brutality, or are other factors at play?
• What is the driving force of racial police brutality?
• Is defunding the police an effective way to end racial police brutality?
• Racism. Discrimination and racial inequality. Essay Description: Today, everyone wants to reap the benefits of a diverse workforce. However, racism continues to be a major challenge to achieving this goal.
• Prejudice towards ladies in hijab: Is it baseless?
• Racism: Is it rooted in fear?

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Argumentative Essay Ideas on Racism

• Does police brutality exist for other ethnicities other than African Americans?
• Do prisons treat Caucasians differently than other ethnic groups?
• Should prisons be segregated by race?
• Educational Institutions take to Address Systemic Racism Description: Racism is a social issue that has existed for a long time, causing chaos among people from various races. It refers to discriminating against a person based on skin colour and ethnicity. Systematic racism, sometimes called institutional racism, refers to racism embedded in the regulations.
• What countries are the most racist in the EU?
• Do you agree with the statement, “there will always be color racism?”
• Prejudice and racism: Are they the same thing?
• What can be done to create pathways for more minority judges to take the bench?
• Does Islamophobia separate minority populations in prison?
• Is enough being done in the legal system to deter and punish hate crimes?
• Should there be a zero-tolerance policy for racially biased police brutality?
• Racial Discrimination: How We Can Face Racism Description: One of the most effective approaches to face racism and defeat it is through teaching the people its detrimental effects and how each one of us can be an agent of change. (Argumentative Essay Topics on Racism)

Theories of race and racism in an Administration of Justice, Criminal Justice race, gender and Class

These are just a few examples – there are literally endless possibilities when it comes to racism that you can write about in an argumentative essay . So, if you’re looking for some inspiration, don’t hesitate to check out these Research Paper Ideas on Racism with prompts!

Research Paper Ideas on Racism with prompts

• Xenophobia, Racism and Alien Representation in District 9 Prompt: The term alien has many connotations for different people, from the scientific theory and sci-fi representations of extra-terrestrial life to the resurgence in modern society of legal uses regarding immigration. In popular culture these uses can often coincide whether metaphorical, allegorical, or explicit.
• White and Black Team in Remember the Titans Prompt: Reducing prejudice essentially entails changing the values and beliefs by which people live. For many reasons, this is difficult. The first is that the ideals and expectations of individuals are also a long-standing pillar of their psychological stability.
• Transformation of the American Government and “Tradition of Exclusion” Prompt: The United States of America is a country known for its pride in its democratic government, where the American Dream encourages everyone to strive for the very best. That rhetoric is deeply rooted in every aspect of life in this country from its conception until…
• This is America: Oppression in America in Glover’s Music Video Prompt: A common topic we see in our society is the debate of gun control in America. It has been an ongoing argument due to the mass of shootings in schools, churches, nightclubs, etc. The number of shootings has only been increasing over the years.
• Theory of Slavery as a Kind of Social Death Prompt: The Orlando theory of slavery as a social death is among the first and major type of full-scale comparative study that is attached to different slavery aspects.
• The Review of the Glory Road Prompt: Glory Road is an American sports drama film directed by James Gartner, in view of a genuine story encompassing the occasions of the 1966 NCAA University Division Basketball Championship. It was released on 13th January 2006.
• The Relationship Between Racism and the Ideology of Progress Prompt: Through the years, as a result of the two world wars and the Great Depression, the term progress and the meaning attached to it greatly suffered.
• The Racial Discrimination in Bob Dylan’s Song Prompt: President John F. Kennedy delivered a powerful message to the American People on June 11th of 1963, calling Congress to view civil rights as a moral obligation instead of a legal issue.
• The People Segregation by Society in Divergent Prompt: It is clear that the society in Divergent places unrealistic limits on its members identities from the beginning of the book. Segregating different personality types into different factions not only has consequences on society but on the individual.
• The Influence of Racial Or Ethnic Discrimination a Person’s Self-concept Prompt: Discrimination and prejudiced attitudes are assumed to be damaging aspects of society. The research presents the cognitive, emotional, and social damages related to experiencing discrimination. This research proposal focuses on determining the impacts of prejudice and how it negatively affects an individual. (Argumentative Essay Topics on Racism)
• Find out more on  Argumentative Essay Topics About Social Media [Updated]

Racism research paper  outline

Research Questions on Racism

• Have you seen the video of George Floyd’s death? What was your reaction to it? How did it make you feel?
• How would you define racism?
• How have you experienced racism towards yourself or others? How did it make you feel?
• Has anyone ever assumed something about you because of the color or your skin? If so, explain.
• Have you ever assumed something about someone else because of the color of their skin? If so, explain.
• Has anyone ever called you the “N” word or referred to others in that way while you were present? If so, please share what happened.
• Why do you think racism exists in today’s society? How do you think it will affect your future?
• How has the police brutality and the protests/demonstrations impacted you on a personal level?
• Do you feel your relationship with God makes you better equipped to handle all that is going within society concerning race? Why or why not?
• Do you think it is important to celebrate the differences in people? Why or why not?
• Is it important to have oneness in Christ or sameness in Christ? Explain. Do you think there is a difference between the two? Explain.
• How do you think we can move forward and carry out racial reconciliation as a society?

Great Racism Research Paper Topics

• What are the effects of racism on society?
• How can we stop racism from spreading in contemporary society?
• The mental underpinnings of racism
• How does racism impact a person’s brain?
• Amounts of racism in various social groups
• The importance of socialization in racial and ethnic groups
• How does racial tension affect social interactions?
• The following are some ideas for essays on racism and ethnicity in America.
• Interethnic conflict in the United States and other countries
• Systematic racism exists in America.
• Racism is prevalent in American cities.
• The rise of nationalism and xenophobia in America.
• Postcolonial psychology essay topics for Native Americans
• Latin American musical ethnography issues.
• Legacy of Mesoamerican Civilizations
• Endangered Native American languages
• What steps are American businesses taking to combat racism?
• The role of traditionalism in contemporary Latin American society
• Ethnopolitical conflicts and their resolutions are good topics for African American research papers.
• The prevalence of racism in hate crimes in the US.
• Latin America Today: Religion, Celebration, and Identity
• National politics of African Americans in contemporary America.

Good racism essay topics:

• Why Should We Consider Race to Understand Fascism?
• The Racial Problem in America
• Postwar Race and Gender Histories: The Color of Sex
• The Relevance of Race in Fascism Understanding
• Cases of Racial Discrimination in the Workplace in the United States
• Problems with Gender, Race, and Sexuality in Modern Society
• “Frankie and Alice”: Race and Mental Health
• The history of immigration, race, and labor in America
• Power and racial symbolism in Coetzee’s “Disgrace.”
• In America, race and educational attainment are related.
• Race to the Top: The Early Learning Challenge
• Social learning, critical racial theory, and feminist theories
• Minority Crime and Race in the United States
• Racial, ethnic, and gender diversity in society
• Documentary series “Race: The Power of an Illusion.”

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Doing Race: 21 Essays for the 21st Century

Doing Race focuses on race and ethnicity in everyday life: what they are, how they work, and why they matter. Going to school and work, renting an apartment or buying a house, watching television, voting, listening to music, reading books and newspapers, attending religious services, and going to the doctor are all everyday activities that are influenced by assumptions about who counts, whom to trust, whom to care about, whom to include, and why. Race and ethnicity are powerful precisely because they organize modern society and play a large role in fueling violence around the globe. Doing Race is targeted to undergraduates; it begins with an introductory essay and includes original essays by well-known scholars. Drawing on the latest science and scholarship, the collected essays emphasize that race and ethnicity are not things that people or groups have or are, but rather sets of actions that people do. Doing Race provides compelling evidence that we are not yet in a “post-race” world and that race and ethnicity matter for everyone. Since race and ethnicity are the products of human actions, we can do them differently. Like studying the human genome or the laws of economics, understanding race and ethnicity is a necessary part of a twenty first century education.

About the Author

PAULA M. L. MOYA, is the Danily C. and Laura Louise Bell Professor of the Humanities and Professor of English at Stanford University. She is the Burton J. and Deedee McMurtry University Fellow in Undergraduate Education and a 2019-20 Fellow at the Center for the Study of Behavioral Sciences.

Moya’s teaching and research focus on twentieth-century and early twenty-first century literary studies, feminist theory, critical theory, narrative theory, American cultural studies, interdisciplinary approaches to race and ethnicity, and Chicanx and U.S. Latinx studies.

She is the author of  The Social Imperative: Race, Close Reading, and Contemporary Literary Criticism  (Stanford UP 2016) and  Learning From Experience: Minority Identities, Multicultural Struggles  (UC Press 2002) and has co-edited three collections of original essays,  Doing Race: 21 Essays for the 21st Century  (W.W. Norton, Inc. 2010),  Identity Politics Reconsidered  (Palgrave 2006) and  Reclaiming Identity: Realist Theory and the Predicament of Postmodernism  (UC Press 2000). 

Previously Moya served as the Director of the Program of Modern Thought and Literature, Vice Chair of the Department of English, Director of the Research Institute of Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, and also the Director of the Undergraduate Program of the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity. 

She is a recipient of the Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching, a Ford Foundation postdoctoral fellowship, the Outstanding Chicana/o Faculty Member award. She has been a Brown Faculty Fellow, a Clayman Institute Fellow, a CCSRE Faculty Research Fellow, and a Clayman Beyond Bias Fellow. 

Essays and Commentary

Reflections and analysis inspired by the killing of George Floyd and the nationwide wave of protests that followed.

My Mother’s Dreams for Her Son, and All Black Children

She longed for black people in America not to be forever refugees—confined by borders that they did not create and by a penal system that killed them before they died.

By Hilton Als

June 21, 2020

How do we change america.

The quest to transform this country cannot be limited to challenging its brutal police alone.

By Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

June 8, 2020

The purpose of a house.

For my daughters, the pandemic was a relief from race-related stress at school. Then George Floyd was killed.

By Emily Bernard

June 25, 2020

The players’ revolt against racism, inequality, and police terror.

A group of athletes across various American professional sports have communicated the fear, frustration, and anger of most of Black America.

September 9, 2020, until black women are free, none of us will be free.

Barbara Smith and the Black feminist visionaries of the Combahee River Collective.

July 20, 2020, john lewis’s legacy and america’s redemption.

The civil-rights leader, who died Friday, acknowledged the darkest chapters of the country’s history, yet insisted that change was always possible.

By David Remnick

July 18, 2020

Europe in 1989, america in 2020, and the death of the lost cause.

A whole vision of history seems to be leaving the stage.

By David W. Blight

July 1, 2020

The messy politics of black voices—and “black voice”—in american animation.

Cartoons have often been considered exempt from the country’s prejudices. In fact, they form a genre built on the marble and mud of racial signification.

By Lauren Michele Jackson

June 30, 2020

After george floyd and juneteenth.

What’s ahead for the movement, the election, and the protesters?

June 20, 2020, juneteenth and the meaning of freedom.

Emancipation is a marker of progress for white Americans, not black ones.

By Jelani Cobb

June 19, 2020

A memory of solidarity day, on juneteenth, 1968.

The public outpouring over racism that has been taking place in America since George Floyd’s murder feels like a long-postponed renewal of the reckoning that shook the nation more than half a century ago.

By Jon Lee Anderson

June 18, 2020

Seeing police brutality then and now.

We still haven’t fully recognized the art made by twentieth-century black artists.

By Nell Painter

The History of the “Riot” Report

How government commissions became alibis for inaction.

By Jill Lepore

June 15, 2020

The trayvon generation.

For Solo, Simon, Robel, Maurice, Cameron, and Sekou.

By Elizabeth Alexander

So Brutal a Death

Nationwide outrage over George Floyd’s brutal killing by police officers resonates with immigrants, and with people around the world.

By Edwidge Danticat

An American Spring of Reckoning

In death, George Floyd’s name has become a metaphor for the stacked inequities of the society that produced them.

June 14, 2020, the mimetic power of d.c.’s black lives matter mural.

The pavement itself has become part of the protest.

By Kyle Chayka

June 9, 2020

Donald trump’s fascist performance.

To the President, power sounds like gunfire and helicopters; it sounds like the silence of men in uniform when they are asked who they are.

By Masha Gessen

June 3, 2020

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Ideas of Race and Racism in History

About this episode, youtube video.

• Nicholas Breyfogle

Guests Alice L. Conklin Hasan Kwame Jeffries Robin Judd Deondre Smiles

The issues of race and racism remain as urgent as ever to our national conversation. Four scholars discuss such questions as: Since Race does not exist as a biological reality, what then is race and where did the idea develop from? What is racism? How have race and racism been used by societies to justify discrimination, oppression, and social exclusion? How did racism manifest in different national and historical contexts? How have American and World history in the modern eras been defined by ideas of race and the power hierarchies embedded in racism?

• Nicholas Breyfogle | Associate Professor, Department of History; Director, Goldberg Center, The Ohio State University
• Alice Conklin | Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor, Department of History, The Ohio State University
• Robin Judd | Associate Professor, Department of History, The Ohio State University
• Hasan Jeffries | Associate Professor, Department of History, The Ohio State University
• Deondre Smiles | Ph.D. Geography '20; Assistant Professor of Geography, University of Victoria, Canada

This content is made possible, in part, by Ohio Humanities, a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this content do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Cite this Site

Dr. Nicholas Breyfogle 

Hello, and welcome to Ideas of Race and Racism in History brought to you by the history department Clio Society, the College of Arts and Sciences at The Ohio State University and by the Bexley Public Library. My name is Nick Breyfogle. I'm an associate professor of history and director of the Goldberg Center for Excellence in Teaching, and I'll be your host and moderator today. Thank you for joining us. The issues of race and racism have a long history in the United States and around the world, and they remain as urgent as ever to our national conversation. Today we'll take part in the discussion among four scholars, Alice Conklin, Hasan Kwame Jeffries, Deondre Smiles, and Robin Judd. We'll explore the ways in which understanding the history of race and racism can help us as we navigate these issues today. They'll discuss such questions as, since race doesn't exist as a biological reality, what is race? And where did the idea develop from? And when, for that matter also? How have race and racism been used by societies to justify discrimination, oppression and social exclusion? And how does racism manifest in different national historical contexts? However, American and world history in the modern era has been defined by ideas of race and the power hierarchies embedded in racism. With that introduction, let me lay out the plan. Each of our panelists will speak for a few minutes on questions of race and racism, historically, each exploring a different topic. And I'll introduce them before they speak. Then, they will take your questions, and we'll open things up for discussion. If you're interested in asking a question, please write it in the Q&A function just at the bottom of your screen at any time. We received several questions in advance when people signed up and registered, and we'll do our best to answer as many questions as we can in the time we have. Now, let's begin with Dr. Alice Conklin, who will discuss the science of race and how race developed as a scientific concept. Dr. Conklin is a professor of history at The Ohio State University, and a cultural, political and intellectual historian of modern France and its empire with the focus on the 20th century. She's currently working on a transnational history of French anti-racism between 1945 and 1965. Let me hand the microphone over to you, Alice.

Dr. Alice Conklin 

Thank you, Nick. First, a big thanks to the Origins team who came up with the idea of having this webinar. I will briefly speak about the modern history of the idea of race in the West, and particularly the role that colonialism and science together played in creating and perpetuating what we can agree is a bad, but powerful idea. And race is not just a bad but powerful idea. It is also in the long sweep of history, a relatively recent invention. Those in a nutshell will be my themes today, in these brief remarks, that the very idea of race was invented in the West quite recently, that it is pernicious, and that it remains powerful. When we understand how the very idea of different races came into existence. We understand, in part, why racism remains so difficult to dislodge. The history of the idea of race in the West is a huge topic. To tackle it in the five minutes I have, I want to make three main points.

These are first, the idea of race as something biologically real came into existence first as a folk idea and then as a scientific one. This idea was arguably the greatest error modern Western science ever made. Second, the scientific idea of race was an error because it was based on three false premises. These were one that biologically distinct races existed in nature. Two that some races were more intelligent than others. And three, these races could be classified and ranked from superior to inferior, according to the typical brain shape, weight, or size for each so-called race. In these scientific classifications, white Caucasians were always on top, black groups on the bottom. My third point today will be that many reputable scientists clung to these flawed premises and kept trying to classify and rank peoples long after their own best evidence began showing that their hypotheses were wrong. In so doing, these experts gave the backing, the prestige, the authority of science, to the most vicious prejudices circulating in society. Let me begin with a few facts. Traditionally, we answer the question of how did the race idea begin by looking at the history of colonial expansion into the Americas. When Europeans first crossed the Atlantic, they viewed Indigenous peoples as nations, not races. By the mid-17th Century, however, colonial leaders had relegated Africans alone to a status of permanent slavery. In order to justify this new colonial form of slavery, planters in places like Virginia helped to pioneer informally a new idea, that of race. Colonial leaders began to homogenize all Europeans, regardless of ethnicity, or status or social class, into a single novel category. White people of African descent were similarly homogenized into the category of black. In this system, physical features became markers of social status. Historians call this informal idea of race, a folk idea of race. There was nothing scientific about it. Yet of race ideology developed as a folk idea, it was soon imported into science, or to be more precise, it was imported into the scientific outlook, known as the enlightenment. In other words, the first modern scientists did not invent the race concept. Slave-based colonialism had already done that. But by the end of the 18th century, enlightened naturalist turned to science to rationalize the inhumanity of slavery that had developed in the Americas. These thinkers began arguing that nature itself provided a justification for this new social order that granted privileges to all whites, and relegated Africans to perpetual servitude.

Enlightenment scientists soon eagerly took up a whole series of questions with race at their center. They asked questions like, are all races fully human? Are all races equal? They also gave themselves the task of ranking the races of humankind on the basis of intelligence. Since classification was considered the basis of all good science. None of them questioned the biological reality of races or the superiority of white Europeans as establishing these rankings became the basis of a new professional discipline, anthropology where the science of humanity, the 19th century, saw the full flowering of the science. And it was science in the sense that it met the best scientific standards of the day. The science, moreover, leached out into society. Thanks to the invention of photography, of museums, of the penny press, and the violent colonization of Africa and large parts of Asia that took place over the course of the 19th century, the race classifications that appeared in scientific journals became fatally easy to disseminate visually to a wider public. People became used to seeing images of beauty and intelligence that correlated with whiteness, other so-called races of the world might be presented as noble, or romantic. Certainly, they were exotic, but they were always presented as inferior, a view that the best science of the day endorsed. Alas, many of these images are still with us.

Let me now fast forward. By the end of World War II, for complex reasons, science began to correct itself and abandon the belief that race was biologically real, and that races could be placed in a fairly firm racial hierarchy. Scientists today of course, recognize that there is no gene or cluster of genes common to all blacks, or all whites. To conclude, science in the West managed for a long time to convince ordinary people that race was biologically real, when it wasn't and isn't. human races are not biological units. Races are social constructs. Human race exists solely because we humans created them, and only in the forms in which we perpetuate them. Historically, race has never been just a matter of creating categories of people. It has always been a matter of creating hierarchies. And when it came to creating racial hierarchies, Western colonialism and Western science have a lot to answer for. Thank you.

Thank you, Alice very much for those great introductory remarks and really fascinating inspiration of the kind of origins of the modern ideas of race and racism. Our next panelist is Dr. Hasan Kwame Jeffries who will speak to us today about race and the black experience in American history. Dr. Jeffries is an associate professor of history in the Department of History at The Ohio State University, where he teaches courses on the African American freedom struggle. He's the editor of the award-winning collection of essays, Understanding and Teaching the Civil Rights Movement  He earned his B.A. from Morehouse College, his Ph.D. from Duke University. I'll pass you over to Hasan now. Thank you.

Dr. Hasan Jeffries 

Well, thank you very much, Nick. It is a real delight and pleasure to be able to be a part of this conversation, especially at this particular moment in time, I just want to go ahead and jump right into my remarks. I'm so glad that we left off with Dr. Conklin laying out the basic groundwork that this idea of race just simply isn't real. It is not real  in a biological sense. But at the same time, as she pointed out, it is socially meaningful, so biologically meaningless, but socially meaningful, because it has structured global society for the last 500, 600 years. And it all, it is also culturally relevant. Because we use race today and have used it certainly in the American context, as a stand in for cultural heritage, and for cultural ancestry. Which is why we cannot pretend as though race itself isn't a meaningful, impactful construct in the lives of all people, and certainly all Americans.

But while race isn't biologically real, racism is absolutely real. And it has deep roots in the American experience, and has shaped the lives of all Americans dating back to the founding of this nation, and the original colonial endeavor. 1619. We've heard so much about 1619 over the last year or so, last two years. 1619 marks the year in which the first group of enslaved Africans were brought to British North America, brought to Virginia and that really is an important moment in what would become the American journey. Because a decision is made or choices made to embrace the enslavement of people based on, for economic necessity, for economical, rather economic advantage, exploitation based on this idea of race. And so we see at this moment in 1619, that literally embedded in our DNA as what will become a nation, or is racism, intertwined with capitalism. I mean, that is literally in our DNA, because it serves as a justification for the enslavement of this critical labor force. It also serves as justification for the taking of land for those who were already present here. It is the justification for what would be the institution of slavery that would last for two-and-a-half centuries.

In America, we also see that racism is embedded in our founding documents, the 1776 Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson, who absolutely says all men are created equal. But that's because he does not have to qualify it with a racial qualifier. He does not have to say all white people, because he knows, everyone knows he's just talking about white men. He doesn't have to say all white men, because everyone knows he's not talking about women. Thomas Jefferson has a very rich history with the colorline and is one of the people in America who really lays the groundwork for a scientific rationalization of what racism was. So we see it embedded in our founding documents.

Same way with the Constitution, the father of it is James Madison, a person who, like Jefferson, enslaved 100 or so people over the course of his lifetime and never freed a single soul. So we see it embedded in our founding documents. Now there are times such as here in Ohio, it comes into the union, that we think we are on the right side of history. Ohio comes into the union and 1803 and rejects the institution of slavery, but not because it rejected the idea of racism, not because the those white men who were in the, who brought Ohio into the union, rejected white supremacy. They just didn't want black people here. So there are times when we see we are on the right side of history as a nation. But for the wrong reasons, racism and white supremacy specifically, was something that really impacted the entire nation. When we get to the Civil War, which was absolutely fought about maintaining the institution of slavery in the states where it existed, and having the opportunity to expand it in the places where it wasn't. For the West, we see that once that battle is over, racism doesn't end. In fact, the principal legacy of the institution of slavery, North and South was the persistence in the belief in of white supremacy.

And so we see that white supremacy as a shared national ideology would go on into the late 19th Century, early 20th Century, serving as the justification for the for new systems of labor, exploitation of African Americans, that being Jim Crow, and all of it is enforced by violence. And so we also see in this moment of the 20th century, just as violence was a cornerstone of the institution of slavery, violence was the cornerstone of the new freedom. And so this becomes the era of lynching. And all of it is justified by these myths connected to race, whether it's black criminality, or black brutality, right? It all connects to this idea that somehow dark skin, darker skin, non-European ancestry leads to this inherent danger among African Americans or by African Americans. We also see as we move into the 20th century, during the era of Jim Crow, and just one more to two more quick comments, that we see how racism becomes embedded in our broader society. Whether we're talking about the criminal justice system and convict leasing, whether we're talking about homeownership in the New Deal, whether we're talking about segregated schools, these aren't just personal decisions that are being made by white folk in America. These are systems that are put in place, that are designed to disadvantage African Americans for the purpose of providing basic privileges for white Americans.

In 1965 1964, the Civil Rights Movement does not end racism in America. It certainly does outlaw and end legal racial discrimination. But just as white supremacy continued after slavery, a belief in white supremacy, a belief in racism continued after the Civil Rights era. Now the language that we use certainly changes by individuals, and we move into this era of colorblind legislation, but we still see purposeful actions and intent in legislation and business decisions and the like. But we also see the legacy of racism being the implicit biases that we harbor. And so even if we were to eliminate thoughtful or purposeful racial discrimination on the part of some, we still internalize this legacy of racist beliefs, not because we were born, anyone in this world was born racist, or harboring racist views, but because we were born in a society that normalizes racism and racist views. That is the problem. We haven't fundamentally changed that. So I'll just end simply by saying we are in the midst of a national conversation and national debate which we think we need to be having about whether or not we should be talking about race or racism. And the answer to that is a simple absolutely, because both race and racism continue to shape the contours of the lives of every single person. And you cannot understand the problems that we face as a society today, unless we take seriously race and racism, just as we can't understand the problems of yesterday, unless we understand race and racism, and the role of race and racism. And we certainly can't solve the problems that our children are going to be facing in the future unless we take seriously the role of race and racism in society. So thank you very much, and I turn it back over to Nick.

Thank you very much, Hasan. Our next speaker is Dr. Deondre Smiles, who'll discuss issues of race and racism in the context of Native Americans and Indigenous peoples. Dr. Smiles is a member of the Lekwungen Band of Ojibwe. He is an assistant professor of geography at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. Smiles' research centers around conversations of the political role of the Indigenous deceased in relationships between Indigenous communities and the state. Smiles also has broader interests in critical Indigenous geographies, political ecology, science and technology studies and tribal cultural resource preservation. Smiles earned his Ph.D. in geography from the Ohio State University, where he also spent a year as a President's Postdoctoral Scholar in the history department. I'll pass the floor over to Deondre.

Dr. Deondre Smiles 

I'm muted. There we go. Thank you so much, Nick. I, in a typical academic fashion, I have made a short PowerPoint that I will share for you all, very quick. I'll make sure to keep myself within five minutes. So I'll share that. Alright, and we'll turn the subtitles off. There we go. So hello, everyone. As Dr. Breyfogle mentioned, my name is Dr. Deondre Smiles. I'm a citizen of the  Lekwungen Band of Ojibwe, which is a tribal nation located in north central Minnesota, about 200 miles north northwest of Minneapolis. I'm an assistant professor, newly minted assistant professor, here in the Department of Geography up in, we call it beautiful British Columbia right now. As I look out my living room window, it's a little cloudy as it is fall here. As you mentioned, I did a Ph.D. from 2016 to 2020 in geography at OSU and then I stayed for a year as a postdoc before moving to Canada. I'm so, I'm pleased to be with you all today. And as usually is the custom whenever we do anything up here in Victoria academically, I want to just briefly acknowledge and respect the Lekwungen peoples, whose traditional territory I'm presenting from today, as well as Esquimalt and W̱SÁNEĆ, seen as peoples whose historical relationships with this land continue to the state. So in order to give this justice, we probably wouldn't need several hours. But in five minutes, I'll briefly talk about the ways that indigenous histories oftentimes get obscured in the ways that we teach it and the ways that we learn about it. And so I start off by showing this map, or this is a popular map that I always show in my lectures whenever I give guest lectures on this topic. And I usually ask, you know, are people familiar with the ways that the land, in the ways that land is controlled and is occupied? How has that changed in the United States? How has this gone all the way up to where we're looking at in the present day, we'll go through this one more time. But as you see, the green represents Native lands, white represents settler-controlled land. And this is what it looks like today. And one more time, a very, very good map by Sam Hiller down at LSU.

So there's a variety of different explanations as to how land in histories have been obscured. And we'll go through a couple here, but first, I want to highlight a term called settler colonialism, which I'll use in my answers today and also refer to in this talk. So settler colonialism is distinct from more what we would call maybe more traditional extractive colonialism where the idea that a colonizing power comes in and extracts resources out of a territory to bring back to the colonized country. Settler colonialism works a little differently. It's a form of colonialism that is built upon the settlement and enduring occupation of land by a colonizing power at the expense of indigenous presence upon the land. So to put that into more lay terms, settlers would come from say, England from the United Kingdom, and they would come to North America and they would occupy land and they would come into friction and conflict with Indigenous peoples and they would gradually push them off of the lands in order to build up white Anglo European cities and villages and structures of inhabitants. The late scholar Patrick Wolf, who in settler colonial studies is one of the fore runners of the modern field, famously said that settler colonialism is a structure, not an event. He said that because there is, while there is a beginning to colonization, there is no point in settler colonial logics where colonization is meant to end. There is no point where that settler colony says, okay, we've gotten what we need, we can pack up and go back to Europe. Settler colonialism is instead built in, is structurally constructed, in order to endure and to permanently occupy the space. It does so by eliminating in the pursuit of replacements, and it relies on the myth of terra nullius to proceed.

So the next question that probably pops up is well, what is terra nullius? That's right, it's a Latin term that stands for nobody's land. And I'll again put this into kind of more general terms. So terra nullius, is this logic where the land was believed to be empty. Europeans would come and say, well, look at all of this, look at all this open land for us to be able to settle into, farm into, make industrial use out of. Generally speaking, that wasn't exactly the case. They would find Indigenous peoples on that land. And that would be waved away by saying, well, if you take a look at these, quote, savage people, right, they don't farm like we do. They don't really make use of the land like we do. They're not making productive use of the land at all. And they're so bad at trying to make use of it productively per our standards that it might as well be empty and unused.

 Terra nullius is a is oftentimes a very colloquial term when we study this sort of thing. In the Australian context, it's actually a legal term. There's a series of court cases in the 1990s that talked about whether the British Crown, whether the British Crown could recognize terra nullius as a legal framework through which settlers occupied the continents that Australia. But in American and Canadian settler colonialism, which are the two forms of colonialism that I work with, there are similar concepts. Probably the most well-known ones, the idea of Manifest Destiny is represented here by the famous picture Manifest Destiny, as you see here, settlers moving from the right or from the east, across to the left of the West are bringing progress and light and driving away Indigenous peoples and their and wild animals and trying to tame them and trying to build a country, right? This is one of the most enduring images of the way that we've constructed American history is through the building of a country out of nothing, that there was nothing here and hardworking pioneers constructed a country and built up a continent. So of course, as we talked about this is accomplished through elimination and destruction.

So on one hand, you have the destruction of indigenous identity, right? The policy of assimilation. And again, I use it here and quote, "savage indigenous peoples" were to be brought into quote "modern European society." Of course, there was no guarantee of full political rights. But the idea was that, you know, maybe, it may not be humane to just brutally genocide them, so let's try to find ways to try to make them into better human beings. It's probably, for those of you that follow the news, especially indigenous news articles, residential schools, or boarding schools have been in the news quite recently. Boarding schools and residential schools were just one such technique, right? In these schools, they were, Indigenous children were discouraged from practicing their language, practicing their culture, their religion, and they were generally trained in manual labor. They were trained to fill in kind of the lower rungs of settler colonial economic society.

We talk about destruction of the land. So for those of you that may be calling in from the upper Midwest, you probably recognize that the picture on the first slide is a picture of Paul Bunyan and his blue ox Babe. A well-known story from where I'm from in Minnesota. And the story was that, for those of you that don't know, the Cliff notes version is Paul is this legend of this giant Lumberjack and together with his blue ox, who he oftentimes tied a plow to, they basically reshaped the geographies of the Midwest in the northwest. They cut down trees. Their footsteps are so big that they filled up with water and became Minnesota's 10,000 Lakes. They rough housed and created the Grand Tetons and Yosemite. This is a form of kind of whitewashing the destruction of the land, right?

In actuality, there was widespread over hunting and destruction of animals and plants important to Indigenous peoples. The over hunting of bison on the Great Plains was one such example. Another example is as covered by scholars such as Nick Estes, the flooding of Indigenous territories in the name of flood control and irrigation. That picture here on the right is during the 1930s, when the Indigenous Chief pictured here on the left-hand side here is signing away his land to authorities in the Dakotas for a flood control project called the Pick-Sloan Act. And you can see he's not very happy about that, right? He's signing that knowing that he really doesn't have a choice and that his people will be monetarily compensated. But hundreds of 1000s of acres of their land would subsequently be underwater, as well as something that is, well, as other forms of destruction of the land and energy production initiatives such as pipelines have been very prominent in news media and public consciousness today, such as the Dakota Access Pipeline on Keystone XL, etc.

So what does this all have to do with teaching about indigenous peoples in history, right, in K through 12 education and even beyond. I talk about how, you know, people oftentimes don't know these histories. And then I teach about these things in college. And a lot of times my students say, I didn't know that this happened. Why did I not know this happened? This makes me angry that I didn't know and I say, well, it's not really your fault, right? It's how education about Indigenous peoples have proceeded. Or there's a lack of Indigenous histories and presences in social studies, education in K through 12, in college curriculum beyond elective coursework. And then if you're lucky enough at the college level, your school might have an Indigenous Studies Program, right? We have American Indian Studies at OSU. Up here at UVic, we have Indigenous Studies. Things are getting better. I was fortunate enough when I grew up in the Twin Cities that I went to a school that actually had a Native education program. But we still have a lot of work to go. And a lot of times this kind of comes out of kind of a broader view that, well Native Americans and indigenous people are part of the past and have either assimilated or disappeared completely. Then I say, well, what I taught earlier this summer in the workshop is well that's not the case, right? That there are, there oftentimes you are more than likely to have an Indigenous student in your classroom. And recognizing that we are a part of contemporary American society, and that we are still here is an important juncture point and beginning point to beginning to uncover the ways that Indigenous histories have been obscured in this country.

So in the interest of time, I will leave you with a question to think about, right? What was it? When was the first time you learned about Indigenous peoples, either in the United States or if you're not from the US in your home country, right? Was it in grade school or college? What did you first learn about them? And did you ever spend a lot of time on this topic. I can say in K through 12, we probably spent maybe a grand total of maybe like five or six classroom days on it and a lot of the things that I learned were in extracurricular things such as our Native education program. So I will leave it at that. Thank you. I don't know if this information is made available. But if you want to talk to me outside of this webinar today, there's my contact information, and I can make that available later on, too. Thank you all very much.

Thanks so much, Deondre. And last, but not least, let me introduce you to Dr. Robin Judd, who will talk today about race and Nazi Germany. Dr. Judd is associate professor of history at The Ohio State University. She is the author of Contested Rituals, Circumcision, Kosher Butchering, and the Making of German Jewish Political Life. And she's completing her newest book, Love, Liberation and Loss: Jewish Military Marriages After the Holocaust. She currently directs the history department's Hoffman Leaders and Leadership in History Fellowship Program and is the Vice President for Programming of the Association for Jewish Studies, the leading Jewish Studies organization worldwide. at OSU, she teaches classes in Holocaust studies, Jewish history, and immigration history, and has received seven teaching awards. Over to you, Robin.

Dr. Robin Judd 

Wonderful, and I am just going to share my screen and go from there. I thank you so much, Nick, and the Origins team for inviting me and for organizing this session. So to jump in, and to take advantage of the five minutes or so that I have to speak. When I talk with my students about considering race and racism and Nazi policy, I often want them to come away from my courses with three important points.

And the first is the recognition of how tempting it is to back shadow and how very important it is for us as historians not to take the information that we have about what happens next and to place it on the past. But to really wrestle with the past and the past actors and what they knew and what was available to them. And that allows us to move to our next two points, right.

The second point is the constant interplay of ideology and action and behavior that today I'll be talking a bit more about, sort of the place of race and racism and Nazi thought. But it almost means nothing unless we also connect that with action, and also to be thinking about place in time that even in as short of a period of the study of Nazism from its formation of the German Workers Party in 1919, until the end of the war, and the sort of the post war years. Even though that's a pretty short period, even there, we see how place in time can really shape the ways in which people understood race and racism. So if we were to think about this teleology, if we were to think about this arc of different periods of time, what are some of the major points that I hope students understand? Well, first, I want them to understand the foundation. How before 1933, even before the Nazis are coming into power, and then consolidating power, there's first an understanding of racial purity, that there's a belief that there's something that can allow for a pure race, and something that can allow for an impure race. And that there are, there is a hierarchy of racism, races, and there's a superiority of one particular race. There's an uber mentioned race, and that is the Germanic race for the Aryan master race. There's a belief that not only is there a hierarchy of races, but at the very top of the race, the Aryan Germanic people, and the very bottom of the races, the Jews are locked in a struggle. And that struggle is almost going to be never-ending until the Jews are eliminated, that the Jews themselves are a racial category. They're not a national category. They're not a religious category. But to speak to what Deondre and Hasan and Alice set out, right, this is an imagined category, a sense that Jews live off of other races and weaken them, that they're parasitic, that they use their sexuality and sex for that to happen, that there's something in physically the act of reproduction that can sort of shift the genetic makeup and a person not using that language at this time, right to make these races and pure. That there're these deviant dangerous characteristics that are racial in nature. That they can't be removed. That there's, that even if a Jew converts, that this Jew will be forever deviant in some way. And that the family is absolutely central to race. That the nation is talked about in terms of a genealogical term, it's the volksgemeinschaft that the family is the source of reproduction, and that nonAryans have to be extirpated. They have to be taken from the national family tree, root and branch until if that's our foundation, then between '33 and '39 we see it built upon, right? In '33 to '39 we see the notion of living space, lebensraum, around being intricately connected to race. There's an explicit linkage of race with citizenship, that one can only be a citizen if one is of Germanic, or kindred blood, that there are certain groups that pose a racial threat to this revitalized state, and those include Jews and Roma Sinti, but they also include those who identified with hereditary and cognitively inherited diseases.

And as early as 1933, the Nazi state enforces sterilization and in 1939, it begins the so-called euthanasia program, or the T4 Program. And in this period of '33 to '39, there's a lot of attention on the United States. There's fascination with the so-called unruly racism of the US and there're questions as to how to separate the unruly racism of the United States with the very sort of organized racism of Nazi Germany. When we move to '39 to '41, we see that next layer being built upon right here, race and lebensraum, race and living space go hand in hand. There is the T4 program that gets introduced where we have the so-called euthanasia program. We have this focus on Slavs and the introduction of Slavs and Roma Sinti as slave laborers. We have the creation of ghettoisation for Jews in Poland, and we have the forcible movement of ethnic Germans. There's a supposed linkage between Jews and the war, between Jews and disease and that gets built upon one more time in 1941 to 1945 with the final solution. When we not only have an explicit link of Jews with the Soviet state, but we also have this racial threat that we imagine and all kinds of lands the Nazis claim for themselves, and an articulation of a need for the final solution, a need to eliminate racial threats through killing. So for my students, it's very important for them to understand the way in which the narrative gets built upon, and the ways in which Nazi Germany does not operate alone. That there's sort of a constant gaze to other racialized societies and how they are playing, how they play, that play out, and enact racial ideologies there. And with that, I'll end and hand the floor back over to you, Nick. Thank you.

Thank you so much to all four of you for these, these great opening remarks. I mean, it's so helpful to have a moment where we can sort of lay out some basic kind of aspects of the history that are important for us to think about and to walk away with. While you guys have all been talking, there have been an incredibly large number of questions that have come in. We will do our best to answer as many of them as we can. And I apologize in advance to the people who have asked if we don't get to your question. It's not because we didn't love it, just that there's really so many that have come in. But let's start here. Alice, I'm going to throw a question your way. Just to begin with, we've had several questions about really sort of the difference between perhaps modern racism and the premodern world. And in the sense that, you get the sense that racism in some ways began with the last few 100 years, or race or ideas of race began, our last few 100 years. What's different about kind of modern ideas of race and racism? What might we have seen in earlier societies? People have asked about the Greeks and Romans. People have asked about the kind of early Islamic civilizations. I'm hoping you could talk a little bit about what, yeah, what makes modern ideas of modern race modern?

Well, I could answer that in one word, which is science. In many ways, race and racism, though always linked, they're not the same thing. So you can have what we call racism, or we might call it ethnocentrism. I mean, that's existed historically forever, outsiders and insiders. So I very consciously use the word modern, because the modern way of sort of being in the world, modern rationality, we trace, typically back to the scientific revolution, or what's called the new science, if you don't like the word revolution. So in that sense, there is, it's very important to hold on to that concept when listening to me, because what I'm talking about is we live in a kind of post, but we live in the world that the scientific revolution created in every sense. And our modern lifestyle is linked to the development of modern science with its norms, its pursuit of a certain kind of truth, and the ways of ascertaining that truth. So when I say that the best science of the day accepted this concept of race, I'm talking about people who actually put their ideas through the scientific processes, we understand, that peer review, publish articles in scientific journals, debates. And it's through that process that they ultimately recognize their errors, too. So I want to, I hope that clarifies what is modern about the idea, our idea of race. I'm not sure it's the only genealogy for our modern idea of race, but it's an important one.

Do you think too, Alice, that there's something about the state and citizenship that informs modern kinds of modern notions of race, but also the implications of those notions?

Absolutely. I think that the next step, and the argument you might take, is whatever scientists thought they were doing in their laboratory got politicized, always gets politicized, more dangerously in some moments than others. We know that living through a moment in which science is being contested. So the whole development of the modern nation state made it really almost impossible that the race concept did not somehow get politicized, I would say weaponized even, as nations began to think of themselves as perhaps needing to correspond to a specific race. And of course, the Nazi state is the ultimate expression of that horrific kind of politicization and weaponization.

So, excuse me, Hasan, let me throw a question your way because there were a couple of questions that came out of your initial comments about the relationship between kind of race and racism on one hand, and capitalism on the other, or capitalism and class on the other. With a question in particular, is capitalism somehow implicit in American racism and kind of vice versa?

I would say that racism is implicit in American capitalism, and it has always been. Capitalism, racism gave us slavery. Capitalism and racism gave us Jim Crow. Capitalism and racism have given us mass incarceration. Now, we also, there's nothing inherently, I mean, that's just a critique of the economic system in which we live. And sometimes it's the way that capital operates, the way that sometimes you know, African Americans have been excluded from participating in particular capitalist endeavors from employment to homeownership. But also the way in which racism as an ideology is used to justify the flight of capital, the flight of jobs more recently, in the modern American context. A multinational corporation closes a factory in Cleveland, Ohio, and moves to Mexico or to China. And white workers who are now unemployed are blaming Mexican workers and Chinese workers, as opposed to the multinational corporation that has chosen to flee this country for tax breaks and for lower wages. I mean, that's racism and capitalism being played out on a global scale. So I would say yes, they're intimately connected, and have always been so, which means that if we want to seriously do away with racism, we have to reimagine how our economic system operates in American society. Thank you.

I'm curious, Robin and Alice, do you see similar kinds of connections between kind of race and capitalism in the European context?

Certainly, I mean, one of the things that we talk a lot about in my courses is how the Nazis manipulated and used the economy toward their benefit, which was, by definition, a racialized economy. The Aryanization of Jewish businesses allowed for the Nazi state to recover the forced labor of Roma Senti, of Slavs, of Jews, that allows for the Nazi war machine to succeed for as long as it does. And, indeed, that there's a way in which the economies of small towns where internment camps or prison camps were located would become revitalized because of the work that was required. So there's so many ways in which the economies become intertwined and economic revival becomes intertwined with racial ideologies.

And if I may just add, I mean, the parallel to what we've seen since the 1980s in rural white communities being revitalized following deindustrialization by the placement of a prison and the warehousing of mainly black and brown people there. And you see exactly I mean, the way in which that is sort of racism and capitalism intertwined.

Absolutely. I mean, and it, you know, one begins to sort of break down, okay, well, what's needed, right? What's needed to build the present. Now what do we need in terms of workers? What do we need in terms of the profiting of the products? You know, what do we need? Do we need wood? Do we need steel? You know, who's going to be bringing it in and out? You know, who's going to be serving the meals and all of these kinds of questions. And then when we break it down to the local level, I think it allows students to really see how often racism can be intertwined with our economy.

I would just add that obviously, the whole history of European Colonialism in Africa and Asia is premised and in a very similar way on how to get, and you mentioned this, Deondre, too because settler colonialism worked the same way in America, as it did in South Africa, or Algeria, in places where the Europeans settled. But if you go to other parts of Africa, where they practice extractive colonialism, the whole idea was to integrate these economies in such a way that you had a cheap, docile labor force in the global south, and you had the wealth skimmed off and headed back to what they called the metropoles, or Europe itself. And Europeans are, you know, have long, there's long been a criticism within Europe, obviously, of these racist colonial economics. But it's really actually only in the last 20 years, that the same kind of reckonings going on there that has a much earlier history in the US.

Marvelous, thank you. I have a question that I wanted to send to Deondre, which has to do with sort of how do we differentiate between ethnicity, nationality and race? And in particular, how do those categories, what do those categories mean in the case of Native Americans and Indigenous peoples?

And so that's a great question. And that's a very, very complex one, when it comes to Indigenous peoples, especially in the American in the Canadian context is because a lot of times, sometimes people will refer to Indigenous peoples as a race and you'll if you ask many Indigenous peoples, they'll oftentimes say, well, we're not a race, right? We're a nation. You know, I can speak for like my own people where, you know, the Ojibwe, we have a long, long history of using our tribal identity, as viewing it in political and kinship sort of frameworks, rather than racial or biological constructs. I mean, there's well known examples of black Americans becoming adopted into the tribe and becoming well-respected members of the tribal community. And so, a lot of times when I get asked that sort of question, I always say, well, in terms of Indigenous peoples, you know, we get placed into racial categories and ethnic categories for the ease of demographics and things like that. But I always say, try to think about nationhood and kind of like, kind of national sort of frameworks above everything, right? Because we are not only peoples, but we're also political entities that many times predate the United States or predate Canada. And so that's generally a good entry way to think through such a thing such as that.

There's a series of thank you, Deondre, sorry, I was just reading all the different questions and trying to get them all in some form or other. Robin, there's a series of questions for you. And I guess I'll take two of them in particular. One about which was asked so why was being a Jew not considered a religion? And then also, are there similarities between the ideas of the volksgemeinschaft and of citizenship in Nazi Germany with modern perceptions of who is deemed American in our society?

That's, they're both such good questions. So one of the reasons why then Nazis were hesitant to think about the Jews as a religion was because Germany, when the Nazis come to power and then seize and consolidate power, Germany is a highly integrated mixed society. Jews intermarried at a very high rate, converted to Christianity, at a very high rate, in which you, they're no longer considered Jews, by themselves or by the Jewish community. But they are considered Jews by the Nazis, right. And so part of the part of what happens is that the Nazis don't want to work with Judaism and Jewishness as a religious category, because then it would allow for conversion to be meaningful. And instead, the Nazis want to use this imaginary category of race as a way of thinking, this biological race as thinking of that there's something quite inherent to the Jews that can't be converted out. I think the question about the volksgemeinschaft is a wonderful one. And certainly, this sort of the thinking about this messy, weird category of the nation state as being part of a family unit, right, and nationalist family unit is resonant to all of us, because we've been hearing a lot about that, right, over the last several years. And certainly, I think there's rhetoric, exclusionary rhetoric, in the nation now that imagines the US as this family, but it's not, but it's a particular family. It's a family of certain like individuals that excludes all the others and I think that's been quite resonant today.

Fabulous, thank you. A question that I'll send to Hasan. Can you talk a little bit, you know, in less than 20 hours about the current debate regarding critical race theory? We've had several people asking about this particular debate, so I think we'd love to hear your thoughts on that.

Well, if you didn't know what critical race theory, we'd have heard, if you never heard about critical race theory before the start of this year, then there's a good chance what you think it is, it ain't. Critical race theory is simply a legal construct that, in its most simplest terms, says you have to take seriously the role of race and racism in society in order to understand the American past. And in order to understand the American present, that's it, or everything else is just political mumbo jumbo. It's not about sort of white people, you know, creating white guilt and white shame and that and all this other. That's just silly. I think what we're in the midst of is a politically manufactured hysteria that unfortunately we cannot dismiss because it is now impacting what we can and should and could and cannot actually teach in our classrooms. And so we have to take it very seriously. But it is really just saying that the idea and what people are advocating, they're saying you've got to take race and racism seriously in the classroom. And that we need to teach historical facts. We need to focus on honesty, and we have to lean into difficult conversations, and that which makes us uncomfortable, which is one of the things that we're doing right now. And look at that, we're having this conversation. And guess what, no white children blew up in the process, right? I mean it's totally possible for us to do this, and learn something and take it away and take something away.

Nick may have blown up. You still there, Nick?

I'm still there. Sorry. You know, it's the problem of Zoom. I click mute, the unmute, and I don't unmute. But there you go. But now I'm here. I have a sort of larger question here. That what I'll throw to Deondre to start, but I think everybody will want to talk about, which is, are recent racism kind of unit directional issues, meaning, should we only study racial dynamics relative to a normative pattern, that of white Europeans maintaining power or do the speakers believe racial systems should be studied as dynamic systems in which power can shift among racial groups?

So I guess I can start with that. So that's a really, really good question. I would probably say that if that would presuppose a system where you could have, you can presuppose a possibility where Indigenous peoples and Black Americans and Latinx peoples and Asian Americans could have, be allowed to occupy positions in power, where there could be a radical shifting of that dynamic. And I think that in current political discourse that that in itself creates so much kind of pushback, right? The Indigenous circles, the idea of the Land Back Movement, the idea that Indigenous people should be allowed to have ongoing relationships with the land and that land should be returned to Indigenous peoples. I mean, just that in itself. I see about every two months on Twitter, I see somebody going on there saying, oh, well Land Back as ethno-nationalism, right? Well, Indigenous peoples, if they get control of the land are just going to kick white people off of it. And I say, well, that's, I don't think that's exactly what that is. But I think that because of that kind of fear, right? The fear that well, what happens if they get power and they do the same thing to us that day that we did to them? I think that you have to think about how do we construct those kinds of discourses? And how do we make it so that, you know, it's truly, you know, a, quote, multiracial society, multiethnic society? It doesn't carry that Boogeyman with it, where it's like, oh, well, if we lose power, right? Isn't that like the, I'll probably get this wrong, but like the replacement theory, right? Isn't that kind of based on the idea that, oh, you know, other nonwhite Americans are going to, are gaining demographic strength compared to white Americans? And, you know, what are they going to do when that happens? And so I think that deconstructing that would be the first step to even kind of, I think, even approaching the kind of conversation of like, kind of shifting power dynamics or racial dynamics. I mean, I think there's other kinds of, there's other ones that can be described. You know, in Indigenous circles, a lot of times we talk about sometimes a rampant anti Blackness, right, that runs within those circles in the ways that Black Natives are treated, you know. But a lot of it kind of comes after people kind of point to well, that comes from kind of these colonial dynamics rights, where colonial or settler, settler colonial powers, oftentimes positioned Indigenous peoples, as you know, you're racially superior to African Americans and Black slaves, and therefore, you know, you occupy a higher rung in society. And unfortunately, I think some of our, some people kind of carry that colonized mindset with them into the present day, in very destructive and very racist ways. So I'll leave it at that and turn it over to other folks and see if they want to take a stab at this.

I might jump in here and just say, I think for someone who tries to teach European and colonialism to you know what are mostly white students, I try to tell students, what we're really doing is probing sort of the blind spots in liberalism. Not, you know, trying to understand, because there is a lot, not that we only have to study European, white Europeans, and that responsibility, though I think that's very important because a lot of them haven't understood the responsibility, and the complicity that white liberalism historically has played in constructing and perpetuating racism. But I also like to complicate the story by saying, you know, there's always resistance to these sort of white Europeans' privilege, and that white allies have been important to the struggle too and understanding how different sort of power dynamics developed within particular historical situations is critical to trying to change things. So I don't, I'm just sort of getting people to be comfortable with acknowledging that things, that awful things happened in the past, but that they, that we can hope that they can be corrected, if they learn about why it happened. So, you know, to get people past the sort of guilt, you know, guilting of white, anybody who is white, and trying to make them understand that talking about race is actually the first step to some kind of understanding and accountability.

You know, if we have a second, I would just say this is kind of a version of the reverse racism question, right? Like is reverse racism real? I know it's not real because you have to have the power in addition to the prejudice, right? Like it, you can always have prejudice, but that you don't have the historical examples of people of color of African Americans being in significant of positions of power to exert the kind of racial discrimination against white people that white people want to claim. Those who say reverse racism exists in some significant way. It's quite interesting that systemic racism against black people doesn't exist, but apparently systemic racism against white people does exist. It's always the same thing like on a theoretical kind, on a theoretical level. Certainly, right, anybody can harbor a kind of prejudice. But when we actually deal with it on concrete terms and historical reality, and say, well, who has had the power to exercise the prejudice over people, then historically, we're talking about certainly in the American context, and even globally, people of European descent, people of American descent. So we got to deal with the facts, and not deal with the myths centered around sort of the theoretical possibilities, that kind of ain't real, right? I mean, we deal with America.

Or the fear, I mean, you know, to just tap onto what Hasan just said, I think quite brilliantly, right. So much of it is about being afraid. And I think for our students, there's kind of a moment where we encourage them to recognize that that's real, and that it's really important there in the classroom and here and able to have those conversations and we work with them to figure out how to get beyond the fear to being able to see this, these historical patterns. So they understand that there can't be reverse racism in the world in which we exist, because the power just isn't there.

Marvelous. I think this is maybe a good place for us to unfortunately call it a day. We've gone over the hour that we're supposed to have set aside for this. And my apologies, there were so many great questions that I had hoped we might get to. And thank you all for posing those questions and hopefully, to some degree they've been answered through the conversations today. Let me say a very big thank you to Doctors Conklin, Jeffrey, Smiles, and Judd, for sharing their expertise today and their passion for history. Please join me in giving them a kind of virtual round of applause for what they've done today. I'd also like to thank the College of Arts and Sciences, especially Clara Davison, Jake Lac and Maddie Kurma. And also the history department, the Harvey Goldberg Center for Excellence in Teaching, the Clio Society, Bexley Public Library, and the magazine Origins, Current Events in Historical Perspective for their sponsorship. And once again, thank you, our audience for your excellent questions and for your ongoing connection to Ohio State. Stay safe and healthy, and we'll see you next time. Thank you all so much.

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5.3: Writing about Race, Ethnic, and Cultural Identity: A Process Approach

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To review, race, ethnic, and cultural identity theory provides us with a particular lens to use when we read and interpret works of literature. Such reading and interpreting, however, never happens after just a first reading; in fact, all critics reread works multiple times before venturing an interpretation. You can see, then, the connection between reading and writing: as Chapter 1 indicates, writers create multiple drafts before settling for a finished product. The writing process, in turn, is dependent on the multiple rereadings you have performed to gather evidence for your essay. It’s important that you integrate the reading and writing process together. As a model, use the following ten-step plan as you write using race, ethnic, and cultural identity theory:

• Carefully read the work you will analyze.
• Formulate a general question after your initial reading that identifies a problem—a tension—related to a historical or cultural issue.
• Reread the work , paying particular attention to the question you posed. Take notes, which should be focused on your central question. Write an exploratory journal entry or blog post that allows you to play with ideas.
• What does the work mean?
• How does the work demonstrate the theme you’ve identified using a new historical approach?
• “So what” is significant about the work? That is, why is it important for you to write about this work? What will readers learn from reading your interpretation? How does the theory you apply illuminate the work’s meaning?
• Reread the text to gather textual evidence for support.
• Construct an informal outline that demonstrates how you will support your interpretation.
• Write a first draft.
• Receive feedback from peers and your instructor via peer review and conferencing with your instructor (if possible).
• Revise the paper , which will include revising your original thesis statement and restructuring your paper to best support the thesis. Note: You probably will revise many times, so it is important to receive feedback at every draft stage if possible.
• Edit and proofread for correctness, clarity, and style.

We recommend that you follow this process for every paper that you write from this textbook. Of course, these steps can be modified to fit your writing process, but the plan does ensure that you will engage in a thorough reading of the text as you work through the writing process, which demands that you allow plenty of time for reading, reflecting, writing, reviewing, and revising.

Peer Reviewing

A central stage in the writing process is the feedback stage, in which you receive revision suggestions from classmates and your instructor. By receiving feedback on your paper, you will be able to make more intelligent revision decisions. Furthermore, by reading and responding to your peers’ papers, you become a more astute reader, which will help when you revise your own papers. In Chapter 10, you will find peer-review sheets for each chapter.

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The concept of race has historically signified the division of humanity into a small number of groups based upon five criteria: (1) Races reflect some type of biological foundation, be it Aristotelian essences or modern genes; (2) This biological foundation generates discrete racial groupings, such that all and only all members of one race share a set of biological characteristics that are not shared by members of other races; (3) This biological foundation is inherited from generation to generation, allowing observers to identify an individual’s race through her ancestry or genealogy; (4) Genealogical investigation should identify each race’s geographic origin, typically in Africa, Europe, Asia, or North and South America; and (5) This inherited racial biological foundation manifests itself primarily in physical phenotypes, such as skin color, eye shape, hair texture, and bone structure, and perhaps also behavioral phenotypes, such as intelligence or delinquency.

This historical concept of race has faced substantial scientific and philosophical challenge, with some important thinkers denying both the logical coherence of the concept and the very existence of races. Others defend the concept of race, albeit with substantial changes to the foundations of racial identity, which they depict as either socially constructed or, if biologically grounded, neither discrete nor essentialist, as the historical concept would have it.

Both in the past and today, determining the boundaries of discrete races has proven to be most vexing and has led to great variations in the number of human races believed to be in existence. Thus, some thinkers categorized humans into only four distinct races (typically white or Caucasian, Black or African, yellow or Asian, and red or Native American), and downplayed any biological or phenotypical distinctions within racial groups (such as those between Scandinavians and Spaniards within the white or Caucasian race). Other thinkers classified humans into many more racial categories, for instance arguing that those humans “indigenous” to Europe could be distinguished into discrete Nordic, Alpine, and Mediterranean races.

The ambiguities and confusion associated with determining the boundaries of racial categories have led to the widespread position that discrete or essentialist races are socially constructed, not biologically real. However, significant scholarly debate persists regarding whether reproductive isolation, either during human evolution or through modern practices barring miscegenation, may have generated sufficient genetic isolation as to justify using the term race to signify the existence of non-discrete human groups that share not only physical phenotypes but also clusters of genetic material. In addition, scholarly debate exists concerning the formation and character of socially constructed, discrete racial categories. For instance, some scholars suggest that race is inconceivable without racialized social hierarchies, while others argue that egalitarian race relations are possible. Finally, substantial controversy surrounds the moral status of racial identity and solidarity and the justice and legitimacy of policies or institutions aimed at undermining racial inequality.

This entry focuses primarily on contemporary scholarship regarding the conceptual, ontological, epistemological, and normative questions pertaining to race, with an introductory section on the history of the concept of race in the West and in Western philosophy. Aside from some discussion in Section 5, it does not focus in depth on authors such as Frederick Douglass , W.E.B. Du Bois , or Frantz Fanon , or movements, such as Négritude , Critical Philosophy of Race , or Philosophy of Liberation . Interested readers should consult these relevant entries for insight into these and other topics important to the study of race in philosophy.

In Section 1, we trace the historical origins and development of the concept of race. Section 2 covers contemporary philosophical debates over whether races actually exist. Thereafter, in Section 3 we examine the differences between race and ethnicity. Section 4 surveys debates among moral, political and legal philosophers over the validity of racial identity, racial solidarity, and race-specific policies such as affirmative action and race-based representation. Section 5 outlines engagement with the concept of race within Continental philosophy.

1. History of the Concept of Race

2. do races exist contemporary philosophical debates, 3. race versus ethnicity, 4. race in moral, political and legal philosophy, 5. race in continental philosophy, other internet resources, related entries.

The dominant scholarly position is that the concept of race is a modern phenomenon, at least in Europe and the Americas. However, there is less agreement regarding whether racism , even absent a developed race concept, may have existed in the ancient Greek and Roman worlds. The influential work of classicist Frank Snowden (1970; 1983), who emphasized the lack of antiblack prejudice in the ancient world, led many scholars of race to conclude that racism did not exist in that epoch. However, later classicists have responded that Snowden’s work unnecessarily reduced all forms of racism to its peculiarly American version based on skin color and other markers of non-white identity. Benjamin Isaac (2004) and Denise McCoskey (2012) contend that the ancient Greeks and Romans did hold proto-racist views that applied to other groups which today might be considered white. Isaac persuasively argues that these views must be considered proto-racist : although they were formed without the aid of a modern race concept grounded in ideas of deterministic biology (2004, 5), they nevertheless resembled modern racism by attributing “to groups of people common characteristics considered to be unalterable because they are determined by external factors or heredity” (2004, 38). More importantly, both Isaac and McCoskey contend that ancient proto-racism influenced the development of modern racism.

Perhaps the first, unconscious stirrings of the concept of race arose within the Iberian Peninsula. Following the Moorish conquest of Andalusia in the eighth century C.E., the Iberian Peninsula became the site of the greatest intermingling between Jewish, Christian, and Muslim believers. During and after their reconquista (reconquest) of the Muslim principalities in the peninsula, the Catholic Monarchs Isabel and Ferdinand sought to establish a uniformly Christian state by expelling first the Jews (in 1492) and then the Muslims (in 1502). But because large numbers of both groups converted to Christianity to avoid expulsion (and before this to avoid persecution), the monarchs distrusted the authenticity of these Jewish and Muslim conversos (converts). To ensure that only truly faithful Christians remained within the realm, the grand inquisitor Torquemada reformulated the Inquisition to inquire not just into defendants’ religious faith and practices but into their lineage. Only those who could demonstrate their ancestry to those Christians who resisted the Moorish invasion were secure in their status in the realm. Thus, the idea of purity of blood was born ( limpieza de sangre ), not fully the biological concept of race but perhaps the first occidental use of blood heritage as a category of religio-political membership (Bernasconi and Lott 2000, vii; Hannaford 1996, 122–126; Frederickson 2002, 31–35).

The Iberian Peninsula may also have witnessed the first stirrings of antiblack and anti-Native-American racism. Since this region was the first in Europe to utilize African slavery while gradually rejecting the enslavement of fellow European Christians, Iberian Christians may have come to associate Black people as physically and mentally suitable only for menial labor. In this they were influenced by Arab slave merchants, who assigned the worst tasks to their dark-skinned slaves while assigning more complex labor to light or tawny-skinned slaves (Frederickson 2002, 29). The “discovery” of the New World by Iberian explorers also brought European Christians into contact with indigenous Americans for the first time. This resulted in the heated debate in Valladolid in 1550 between Bartolomé Las Casas and Gines de Sepúlveda over whether the Indians were by nature inferior and thus worthy of enslavement and conquest. Whether due to Las Casas’ victory over Sepúlveda, or due to the hierarchical character of Spanish Catholicism which did not require the dehumanization of other races in order to justify slavery, the Spanish empire did avoid the racialization of its conquered peoples and African slaves. Indeed, arguably it was the conflict between the Enlightenment ideals of universal freedom and equality versus the fact of the European enslavement of Africans and indigenous Americans that fostered the development of the idea of race (Blum 2002, 111–112; Hannaford 1996, 149–150).

While events in the Iberian Peninsula may have provided the initial stirrings of modern racial sentiments, the concept of race, with its close links to ideas of deterministic biology, emerged with the rise of modern natural philosophy and its concern with taxonomy (Smith 2015). The first important articulation of the race concept came with the 1684 publication of “A New Division of the Earth” by Francois Bernier (1625–1688) (Bernasconi and Lott 2000, viii; Hannaford 1996, 191, 203). Based on his travels through Egypt, India, and Persia, this essay presented a division of humanity into “four or five species or races of men in particular whose difference is so remarkable that it may be properly made use of as the foundation for a new division of the earth” (Bernasconi and Lott 2000, 1–2). First were the peoples inhabiting most of Europe and North Africa, extending eastward through Persia, northern and central India, and right up to parts of contemporary Indonesia. Despite their differing skin tones, these peoples nevertheless shared common physical characteristics, such as hair texture and bone structure. The second race was constituted by the people of Africa south of the Sahara Desert, who notably possessed smooth Black skin, thick noses and lips, thin beards, and wooly hair. The peoples inhabiting lands from east Asia, through China, today’s central Asian states such as Uzbekistan, and westward into Siberia and eastern Russia represented the third race, marked by their “truly white” skin, broad shoulders, flat faces, flat noses, thin beards, and long, thin eyes, while the short and squat Lapps of northern Scandinavia constituted the fourth race. Bernier considered whether the indigenous peoples of the Americas were a fifth race, but he ultimately assigned them to the first (Bernasconi and Lott 2000, 2–3).

But while Bernier initiated the use of the term “race” to distinguish different groups of humans based on physical traits, his failure to reflect on the relationship between racial division and the human race in general mitigated the scientific rigor of his definition (Bernasconi and Lott 2000, viii). Central to a scientific concept of race would be a resolution of the question of monogenesis versus polygenesis. Monogenesis adhered to the Biblical creation story in asserting that all humans descended from a common ancestor, perhaps Adam of the Book of Genesis; polygenesis, on the other hand, asserted that different human races descended from different ancestral roots. Thus, the former position contended that all races are nevertheless members of a common human species, whereas the latter saw races as distinct species.

David Hume’s position on the debate between polygenesis versus monogenesis is the subject of some scholarly debate. The bone of contention is his essay “Of National Characters,” where he contends that differences among European nations are attributable not to natural differences but to cultural and political influences. Amidst this argument against crude naturalism, Hume inserts a footnote in the 1754 edition, wherein he writes: “I am apt to suspect the negroes and in general all the other species of men (for there are four or five different kinds) to be naturally inferior to whites. There never was a civilized nation of any other complexion than white, nor even any individual eminent either in action or speculation” (Zack 2002, 15; emphasis added). Whereas even the most barbarous white nations such as the Germans “have something eminent about them,” the “uniform and constant difference” in accomplishment between whites and non-whites could not occur “if nature had not made an original distinction betwixt these breeds of men” (Zack 2002, 15). Responding to criticism, he softens this position in the 1776 edition, restricting his claims to natural inferiority only to “negroes,” stating that “ scarcely ever was a civilized nation of that complexion, not even of individual eminent in action or speculation” (Zack 2002, 17; Hume 1776 [1987], 208; emphasis added). Richard Popkin (1977) and Naomi Zack (2002, 13–18) contend that the 1754 version of the essay assumes, without demonstration, an original, polygenetic difference between white and non-white races. Andrew Valls (2005, 132) denies that either version of the footnote espouses polygenesis.

A strong and clear defense of monogenesis was provided by Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) in his essay “Of the Different Human Races,” first published in 1775 and revised in 1777. Kant argued that all humans descend from a common human “lineal root genus” in Europe, which contained the biological “seeds” and “dispositions” that can generate the distinct physical traits of race when triggered by divergent environmental factors, especially combinations of heat and humidity. This, combined with patterns of migration, geographic isolation, and in-breeding, led to the differentiation of four distinct, pure races: the “noble blond” of northern Europe; the “copper red” of America (and east Asia); the “black” of Senegambia in Africa; and the “olive-yellow” of Asian-India. Once these discrete racial groups were developed over many generations, further climatic changes will not alter racial phenotypes (Bernasconi and Lott 2000, 8–22).

Yet despite the distinction generated between different races, Kant’s monogenetic account led him to maintain that the different races were part of a common human species. As evidence, he adduced the fact that individuals from different races were able to breed together, and their offspring tended to exhibit blended physical traits inherited from both parents. Not only did blending indicate that the parents were part of a common species; it also indicated that they are of distinct races. For the physical traits of parents of the same race are not blended but often passed on exclusively: a blond white man and a brunette white woman may have four blond children, without any blending of this physical trait; whereas a Black man and a white woman will bear children who blend white and Black traits (Bernasconi and Lott 2000, 9–10). Such inter-racial mixtures accounted for the existence of liminal individuals, whose physical traits seem to lie between the discrete boundaries of one of the four races; peoples who do not fit neatly into one or another race are explained away as groups whose seeds have not been fully triggered by the appropriate environmental stimuli (Bernasconi and Lott 2000, 11).

The “science” of race was furthered by the man sometimes considered to be the father of modern anthropology, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752–1840). In his doctoral dissertation, “On the Natural Variety of Mankind,” first published in 1775, Blumenbach identified four “varieties” of mankind: the peoples of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. His essay was revised and republished both in 1781, wherein he introduced a fifth variety of mankind, that inhabiting the South Pacific islands, and in 1795, wherein he first coined the term “Caucasian” to describe the variety of people inhabiting Europe, West Asia, and Northern India. This term reflected his claim that this variety originated in the Caucuses mountains, in Georgia, justifying this etiology through reference to the superior beauty of the Georgians. The 1795 version also included the terms Mongolian to describe the non-Caucasian peoples of Asia, Ethiopian to signify Black Africans, American to denote the indigenous peoples of the New World, and Malay to identify the South Pacific Islanders (Bernasconi and Lott 2000, 27–33; Hannaford 1996, 207).

While noting differences in skin tone, he based his varieties upon the structures of the cranium, which supposedly gave his distinctions a stronger scientific foundation than the more superficial characteristic of color (Hannaford 1996, 206). In addition, he strongly denied polygenetic accounts of racial difference, noting the ability of members of different varieties to breed with each other, something that humans were incapable of doing with other species. Indeed, he took great pains to dismiss as spurious accounts of Africans mating with apes or of monstrous creatures formed through the union of humans with other animals (Hannaford 1996, 208–209). In final support of his more scientific, monogenist approach, Blumenbach posited the internal, biological force which generated racial difference, the “nisus formativus,” which when triggered by specific environmental stimuli generated the variations found within the varieties of humans (Hannaford 1996, 212).

Despite the strong monogenist arguments provided by Kant and Blumenbach, polygenesis remained a viable intellectual strain within race theory, particularly in the “American School of Anthropology,” embodied by Louis Agassiz, Robins Gliddon, and Josiah Clark Nott. Agassiz was born in Switzerland, received an M.D. in Munich and later studied zoology, geology, and paleontology in various German universities under the influence of Romantic scientific theories. His orthodox Christian background initially imbued him with a strong monogenist commitment, but upon visiting America and seeing an African American for the first time, Agassiz experienced a type of conversion experience, which led him to question whether these remarkably different people could share the same blood as Europeans. Eventually staying on and making his career in America, and continually struck by the physical character of African Americans, Agassiz officially announced his turn to polygenesis at the 1850 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Charleston, South Carolina. Nott, a South Carolina physician, attended the same AAAS meeting and, along with Gliddon, joined Agassiz in the promulgation of the American School’s defense of polygenesis (Brace 2005, 93–103).

Along with Agassiz, Nott was also influenced by the French romantic race theorist Arthur de Gobineau (1816–1882), whose “Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races” (1853–1855) Nott partially translated into English and published for the American audience. Although the Catholic Gobineau initially espoused monogenesis, he later leaned towards polygenesis and ended up ambivalent on this issue (Hannaford 1996, 268–269). Nevertheless, Gobineau lent credence to the white racial supremacy that Nott supported (Brace 2005, 120–121). Gobineau posited two impulses among humans, that of attraction and repulsion. Civilization emerges when humans obey the law of attraction and intermingle with peoples of different racial stocks. According the Gobineau, the white race was created through such intermingling, which allowed it alone to generate civilization, unlike the other races, which were governed only by the law of repulsion. Once civilization is established, however, further race mixing leads to the degeneration of the race through a decline in the quality of its blood. Consequently, when the white race conquers other Black or yellow races, any further intermingling will lead it to decline. Thus, Gobineau claimed that the white race would never die so long as its blood remains composed of its initial mixture of peoples. Notably, Nott strategically excised those sections discussing the law of attraction when translating Gobineau’s essay for an American audience (Bernasconi and Lott 2000, 45–51).

Eventually, polygenesis declined through the intellectual success of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution (Brace 2005, 124). Darwin himself weighed in on this debate in the chapter “On the Races of Man” in his book The Descent of Man (1871), arguing that as the theory of evolution gains wider acceptance, “the dispute between the monogenists and the polygenists will die a silent and unobserved death” (Bernasconi and Lott 2000, 68), with the former winning out. The rest of the essay entertained both sides of the debate regarding whether or not different races constitute different species or sub-species of humans. Although Darwin did not explicitly take sides in this debate, the preponderance of his argument gives little support to the idea of races being different species. For instance, he noted that couples from different races produce fertile offspring, and that individuals from different races seem to share many mental similarities. That said, while Darwinian evolution may have killed off polygenesis and the related idea that the races constituted distinct species, it hardly killed off race itself. Darwin himself did not think natural selection would by itself generate racial distinctions, since the physical traits associated with racial differences did not seem sufficiently beneficial to favor their retention; he did, however, leave open a role for sexual selection in the creation of races, through repeated mating among individuals with similar traits (Bernasconi and Lott 2000, 77–78). Consequently, later race thinkers would replace polygenesis with natural selection and sexual selection as scientific mechanisms whereby racial differentiation could slowly, unintentionally, but nevertheless inevitably proceed (Hannaford 1996, 273).

Sexual selection became a central focus for race-thinking with the introduction of the term “eugenics” in 1883 by Francis Galton (1822–1911) in his essay “Inquiries into Human Faculty and Development” (Hannaford 1996, 290). Focusing on physical as opposed to “moral” qualities, Galton advocated selective breeding to improve the “health, energy, ability, manliness, and courteous disposition” of the human species in his later essay “Eugenics: Its Definition, Scope, and Aims” (Bernasconi and Lott 2000, 80). Following the same currents of “Social Darwinism” that advocated the evolutionary improvement of the human condition through active human intervention, Galton proposed making eugenics not only an element in popular culture or “a new religion” (Bernasconi and Lott 2000, 82) but even a policy enforced by the American government. While positive eugenics, or the enforced breeding of higher types, never became law, negative eugenics, or the sterilization of the feebleminded or infirm, did become public policy enforced by a number of American states and upheld by the United States Supreme Court in an eight-to-one decision in Buck v. Bell (274 U.S. 200, 1927). The widespread acceptance of negative eugenics can be inferred by the fact that the Court Opinion justifying the decision was authored by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, a figure usually associated with progressive and civil libertarian positions, and whose doctrine of “clear and present danger” sought to expand the protection of free speech.

The apogee of post-Darwinian race-thinking was arguably reached in the book The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century by Houston Stewart Chamberlain (1855–1927), the son-in-law of German opera composer Richard Wagner. Chamberlain argued in the evolutionary terms of sexual selection that distinct races emerged through geographical and historical conditions which create inbreeding among certain individuals with similar traits (Hannaford 1996, 351). Moving from this initial specification, Chamberlain then argued that the key strands of western civilization—Christianity and ancient Greek philosophy and art—emerged from the Aryan race. Jesus, for instance, was held to be of Aryan stock, despite his Jewish religion, since the territory of Galilee was populated by peoples descended from Aryan Phonecians as well as by Semitic Jews. Similarly, Aristotle’s distinction between Greeks and Barbarians was reinterpreted as a racial distinction between Aryans and non-Aryans. These Greek and Christian strands became united in Europe, particularly during the Reformation, which allowed the highest, Teutonic strain of the Aryan race to be freed from constraining Roman Catholic cultural fetters. But while Roman institutions and practices may have constrained the Teutonic Germans, their diametric opposite was the Jew, the highest manifestation of the Semitic Race. The European religious tensions between Christian and Jew were thus transformed into racial conflicts, for which conversion or ecumenical tolerance would have no healing effect. Chamberlain’s writings, not surprisingly, have come to be seen as some of the key intellectual foundations for twentieth century German anti-Semitism, of which Adolf Hitler was simply its most extreme manifestation.

If Chamberlain’s writings served as intellectual fodder for German racial prejudice, Madison Grant (1865–1937) provided similar foundations for American race prejudice against Black people and Native Americans in his popular book The Passing of the Great Race (1916). Rejecting political or educational means of ameliorating the destitution of the subordinate racial groups in America, Grant instead advocated strict segregation and the prohibition of miscegenation, or the interbreeding of members of different races (Hannaford 1996, 358). Like Galton, Grant had similar success in influencing American public policy, both through the imposition of racist restrictions on immigration at the federal level and through the enforcement of anti-miscegenation laws in thirty states, until such prohibitions were finally overturned by the United States Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia (388 U.S. 1 [1967]).

If the apogee of biological race was reached in the early twentieth century, its decline began at about the same time. While writers such as Chamberlain and Grant popularized and politicized biological conceptions of race hierarchy, academic anthropologists since Blumenbach gave the concept of race its scientific validity. But academic anthropology also provided the first challenge to biological race in the person of Columbia University professor Franz Boas (1858–1942), a German-born Jewish immigrant to the United States. Boas challenged the fixed character of racial groups by taking on one of the key fundaments to racial typology, cranium size. Boas showed that this characteristic was profoundly affected by environmental factors, noting that American-born members of various “racial” types, such as Semitic Jews, tended to have larger crania than their European-born parents, a result of differences in nourishment. From this he concluded that claims about racially differential mental capacities could similarly be reduced to such environmental factors. In so doing, Boas undermined one measure of racial distinction, and although he did not go so far as to reject entirely the concept of biological race itself, he strongly influenced anthropologists to shift their focus from putatively fixed biological characteristics to apparently mutable cultural factors in order to understand differences among human groups (Bernasconi and Lott 2000, 84–88; Brace 2005, 167–169; Cornell and Hartmann 1998, 42–43).

A stronger anthropological rejection of the biological conception of race was leveled by Ashley Montagu (1905–1999). Drawing on insights from modern, experimental genetics, Montagu forcefully argued that the anthropological conception of race relied on grouping together various perceptible physical characteristics, whereas the real building blocks of evolution were genes, which dictated biological changes among populations at a much finer level. The morphological traits associated with race, thus, were gross aggregates of a variety of genetic changes, some of which resulted in physically perceptible characteristics, many others of which resulted in imperceptible changes. Moreover, since genetic evolution can occur through both the mixture of different genes and the mutation of the same gene over generations, the traits associated with races cannot be attributed to discrete lines of genetic descent, since the dark skin and curly hair of one individual may result from genetic mixture while the same traits in another individual may result from genetic mutation (Bernasconi and Lott 2000, 100–107). Montagu’s efforts eventually resulted in the publication of an official statement denying the biological foundations of race by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 1950, although it would take until 1996 for the American Association of Physical Anthropologists (AAPA) to publish a similar document (Brace 2005, 239).

Ron Mallon (2004, 2006, 2007) provides a nice sketch of the contemporary philosophical terrain regarding the status of the concept of race, dividing it into three valid competing schools of thought regarding the ontological status of race, along with the discarded biological conception. Racial naturalism signifies the old, biological conception of race, which depicts races as bearing “biobehavioral essences: underlying natural (and perhaps genetic) properties that (1) are heritable, biological features, (2) are shared by all and only the members of a race, and (3) explain behavioral, characterological, and cultural predispositions of individual persons and racial groups” (2006, 528–529). While philosophers and scientists have reached the consensus against racial naturalism, philosophers nevertheless disagree on the possible ontological status of a different conception of race. Mallon divides such disagreements into three metaphysical camps ( racial skepticism , racial constructivism , and racial population naturalism ) and two normative camps ( eliminativism and conservationism ). We have used ‘constructivism’ throughout for the sake of consistency but it should be read as interchangeable with ‘constructionism.’

Racial skepticism holds that because racial naturalism is false, races of any type do not exist. Racial skeptics, such as Anthony Appiah (1995, 1996) and Naomi Zack (1993, 2002) contend that the term race cannot refer to anything real in the world, since the one thing in the world to which the term could uniquely refer—discrete, essentialist, biological races—have been proven not to exist. Zack (2002, 87–88) provides an accessible summary of the racial skeptic’s argument against the biological foundations for race, sequentially summarizing the scientific rejection of essences, geography, phenotypes, post-Mendelian transmission genetics, and genealogies as possible foundations for races. Aristotelian essences , thought to ground the common characteristics of distinct species, were correctly rejected by early modern philosophers. If essences cannot even ground differences among species, then they clearly cannot ground the differences among races, which even nineteenth century racial science still understood as members of the same species. Whereas folk theories rely on geography to divide humanity into African, European, Asian, and Amerindian races, contemporary population genetics reveal the vacuity of this foundation for two reasons. First, geographically based environmental stimuli lead to continuous physical adaptations in skin, hair and bone rather than the discrete differences associated with race; and second, although mitochondrial DNA mutations provide evidence of the geographical origins of populations, these mutations do not correlate with the physical traits associated with racial groups. Similarly, phenotypes cannot ground folk theories of race: for instance, differences in skin tone are gradual, not discrete; and blood-type variations occur independently of the more visible phenotypes associated with race, such as skin color and hair texture. Race cannot be founded upon transmission genetics , since the genes transmitted from one generation to the next lead to very specific physical traits, not general racial characteristics shared by all members of a putatively racial group. And finally, genealogy cannot ground race, since clades (populations descended from a common ancestor) may have common genetic characteristics, but these need not correlate with the visible traits associated with races. Zack concludes: “Essences, geography, phenotypes, genotypes, and genealogy are the only known candidates for physical scientific bases of race. Each fails. Therefore, there is no physical scientific basis for the social racial taxonomy” (Zack 2002, 88).

Racial skeptics like Appiah and Zack adopt normative racial eliminativism , which recommends discarding the concept of race entirely, according to the following argument. Because of its historical genealogy, the term race can only refer to one or more discrete groups of people who alone share biologically significant genetic features. Such a monopoly on certain genetic features could only emerge within a group that practices such a high level of inbreeding that it is effectively genetically isolated. Such genetic isolation might refer to the Amish in America (Appiah 1996, 73) or to Irish Protestants (Zack 2002, 69), but they clearly cannot refer to those groupings of people presently subsumed under American racial census categories. Because the concept “race” can only apply to groups not typically deemed races (Amish, Irish Protestants), and because this concept cannot apply to groups typically deemed races (African Americans, Whites, Asians, Native Americans), a mismatch occurs between the concept and its typical referent. Thus, the concept of race must be eliminated due to its logical incoherence (Mallon 2006, 526, 533).

Appiah has since modified his skepticism in such a way that softens the eliminitivist element of his position. Appiah has come to argue for racial nominalism by admitting the importance of “human folk races,” namely, that they are forms of social identity that do in fact exist (2006, 367). The way in which they are social identities, however, is a problem because we treat them as if there were some biological underpinning to them (2006, 367). The folk theory of race, then, is false because it is based on mistaken beliefs, yet it is nonetheless true that we continue to categorize people along its lines. Appiah’s nominalist view of race aims to reveal how these social identities work by analyzing the labels we use for them. According to Appiah there are three ways that we categorize using folk racial labels: ascription, identification, and treatment, and it takes all three for a given label to be a functioning social identity (2006, 368–370). As a result, we come to live as these identities and look to them as a central resource for constructing our lives. Furthermore, norms of identification and authenticity arise around them (2006, 372). Since there is no biological story that can be told to ground these labels then race is not real (2006, 372). For a critique of Appiah’s modified view that focuses on Appiah (1996) see Ronald R. Sundstrom (2002).

Racial constructivism refers to the argument that, even if biological race is false, races have come into existence and continue to exist through “human culture and human decisions” (Mallon 2007, 94). Race constructivists accept the skeptics’ dismissal of biological race but argue that the term still meaningfully refers to the widespread grouping of individuals into certain categories by society, indeed often by the very members of such racial ascriptions. Normatively, race constructivists argue that since society labels people according to racial categories, and since such labeling often leads to race-based differences in resources, opportunities, and well-being, the concept of race must be conserved, in order to facilitate race-based social movements or policies, such as affirmative action, that compensate for socially constructed but socially relevant racial differences. While sharing this normative commitment to race conservationism , racial constructivists can be subdivided into three groups with slightly different accounts of the ontology of race. As we will see below, however, Sally Haslanger’s eliminitivist constructivism illustrates how these commitments can come apart.

Thin constructivism depicts race as a grouping of humans according to ancestry and genetically insignificant, “superficial properties that are prototypically linked with race,” such as skin tone, hair color and hair texture (Mallon 2006, 534). In this way, thin constructivists such as Robert Gooding-Williams (1998), Lucius Outlaw (1990, 1996) and Charles Mills (1998) rely on the widespread folk theory of race while rejecting its scientific foundation upon racial naturalism. Interactive kind constructivism goes further, in arguing that being ascribed to a certain racial category causes the individuals so labeled to have certain common experiences (Mallon 2006, 535; Piper 1992). For instance, if society ascribes you as black, you are likely to experience difficulty hailing cabs in New York or are more likely to be apprehended without cause by the police (James 2004, 17). Finally, institutional constructivism emphasizes race as a social institution, whose character is specific to the society in which it is embedded and thus cannot be applied across cultures or historical epochs (Mallon 2006, 536). Michael Root (2000, 632) notes that a person ascribed as Black in the United States would likely not be considered Black in Brazil, since each country has very different social institutions regarding the division of humanity into distinct races. Similarly, Paul Taylor (2000) responds to Appiah’s racial skepticism by holding that races, even if biologically unreal, remain real social objects (Mallon 2006, 536–537). Indeed, in a later work Taylor (2004) argues that the term “race” has a perfectly clear referent, that being those people socially ascribed to certain racial categories within the United States, regardless of the widespread social rejection of biological racial naturalism.

Sally Haslanger’s constructivism (2000, 2010, 2019) is not, however, conservationist. She understands races as racialized groups, whose membership requires three criteria. One, members are those who are “observed or imagined” to have certain bodily features that are evidence of certain ancestry from certain geographical locations; two, “having (or being imagined to have)” those features marks members as occupying either a subordinate or privileged social position, thereby justifying that position; and three, the satisfaction of the first two criteria plays a role in members’ systemic subordination or privilege (2019, 25–26). Racial identity in such contexts need not focus exclusively on subordination or privilege, as “many forms of racial identity are important, valuable, and in some cases even inevitable responses to racial hierarchy” (2019, 29–30). She worries, however, that even though we should embrace “cultural groups marked by ancestry and appearance” in the short term to fight for justice, she worries about embracing them for the long term (2019, 30).

Constructivism also cleaves along political and cultural dimensions, a distinction owed to Chike Jeffers (Jeffers, 2013, 2019). Haslanger’s view is paradigmatic of political constructivism by understanding the meaning of race as determined by hierarchical relations of power by definition : “race is made real wholly or most importantly by hierarchical relations of power” (Jeffers 2019, 48). Jeffers’ cultural constructivism corrects for political constructivism’s inability to account for race existing after racism, including the idea of racial equality (2013, 421; 2019, 71). Cultural constructivism rejects “the idea that cultural difference is less important than differences in power relations for understanding racial phenomena in the present” (2019, 65). At the extreme, political constructivism argues for, one, differential power relations bring racial difference into existence; two, differential power relations are fundamental for understanding the present reality of race; and three, differential power relations are essential to race, so race will cease to exist in an egalitarian society where appearance and ancestry do not correlate to certain hierarchical positions (2019, 56–57). Jeffers concedes race’s political origin while rejecting the two other ways that power relations define race (2013, 419; 2019, 57–58). The cultural significance of race can be seen in three ways. First, even the emergence of racial categories counts as a cultural shift, insofar as new social contexts are created in which those viewed as being of different races are also viewed as having different cultures. Second, there are “novel forms of cultural difference” that emerge in the wake of racial difference. And third, racial groups are shaped culturally by happenings prior to racial formation (2019, 62–63). Jeffers thus writes of Blackness, “What it means to be a Black person, for many of us, including myself, can never be exhausted through reference to problems of stigmatization, discrimination, marginalization, and disadvantage, as real and as large-looming as these factors are in the racial landscape as we know it. There is also joy in blackness, a joy shaped by culturally distinctive situations” (2013, 422).

There are also views that challenge the broad strokes of constructivism while avoiding racial skepticism: Lionel K. McPherson’s deflationary pluralism (2015), Joshua Glasgow’s basic racial realism (2015, with Jonathan M. Woodward, 2019), and Michael O. Hardimon’s deflationary realism (2003, 2014, 2017). McPherson argues that “race” should be replaced with his concept of socioancestry, since “‘race’ talk overall is too ambiguous and contested to be salvaged in the search for a dominant understanding” (2015, 676). He aims to sidestep Appiah’s eliminativism by claiming that deflationary pluralism “does not maintain that ‘race’ talk is necessarily an error and does not take a hard line about whether races exist” (2015, 675). Socioancestry retains the possibility of “color-conscious social identity” without the burdens of assumptions or confusions about race and racial nature (2015, 686). This is because it is “visible continental ancestry,” rather than race, which is the root of color-consciousness (2015, 690). Socioancestry, then, focuses on visible continental ancestry alone to explain social group formation. Accordingly, socioancestral identities develop “when persons accept (or are ascribed) a social identity because they share a component of continental ancestry that distinctively shapes color-conscious social reality” (2015, 690).

Glasgow’s basic racial realism aims to capture our operative meaning of race: “the meaning that governs our use of the term, even when we are unaware of it” (2019, 115). Glasgow defines his position in the following way: “Races, by definition, are relatively large groups of people who are distinguished from other groups of people by having certain visible biological traits (such as skin color) to a disproportionate extent.” The position is therefore anti-realist, since it claims that races are neither biologically nor socially real (2019, 117). Glasgow’s position is grounded in judgments about our commitments, believing that we are more willing to give up on the biological basis for race than we are to give up on the idea that there are certain “core features and identities” connected to the idea of race” (2019, 127). In other words, disbelieving in the biological reality of race doesn’t lead to eliminativism. Glasgow holds, however, that it also doesn’t lead to social constructivism. Race is not socially made because, “no matter which social facts we attend to, we can always imagine them disappearing while race stays. And if race is conceptually able to persist across all social practices, then by definition it is not a social phenomenon” (2019, 133). This intuition is based in his focus on our ordinary usage of the term “race,” which is fully captured by visible traits.

Hardimon’s deflationary realism argues that we need four interrelated race concepts to coherently answer the question of what race is to human beings: the racialist concept of race, the minimalist concept of race, the populationist concept of race, and the concept of socialrace (2017, 2–3, 7). The racialist concept of race is the view that there are fixed patterns of race-based moral, intellectual, and cultural characteristics that are heritable, based in an underlying biological essence, correlate to physical characteristics, and form a distinct racial hierarchy (2017, 15–16). Minimalist race “says that people differ in shape and color in ways that correspond to differences in their geographical ancestry. Essentially that is all it says” (2017, 6; see also 2003). It aims to capture in “a nonmalefic way” what the racialist concept of race says that it captures. In other words, it admits of the nonsocial and biological reality of race but in a value-neutral way (2017, 7). Populationist race aims to do the same thing in a more robust and specific way by giving a genetic underpinning to the minimalist conception based on a “geographically separated and reproductively isolated founding population” (2017, 99). This concept is distinguished from cladistic race because it does not require monophyly (2017, 110). Finally, socialrace captures race in terms of its social relations and practices. It refers to “the social groups in racist societies that appear to be racialist races as social groups that falsely appear to be biological groups” (2017, 10; see also 2014). Hardimon argues that it is only through using all four concepts, with the rejection of the first being the basis for the construction of the latter three, that we can actually understand our concept of race.

The third school of thought regarding the ontology of race is racial population naturalism . This camp suggests that, although racial naturalism falsely attributed cultural, mental, and physical characters to discrete racial groups, it is possible that genetically significant biological groupings could exist that would merit the term races. Importantly, these biological racial groupings would not be essentialist or discrete: there is no set of genetic or other biological traits that all and only all members of a racial group share that would then provide a natural biological boundary between racial groups. Thus, these thinkers confirm the strong scientific consensus that discrete, essentialist races do not exist. However, the criteria of discreteness and essentialism would also invalidate distinctions between non-human species, such as lions and tigers. As Philip Kitcher puts it, “there is no…genetic feature…that separates one species of mosquito or mushroom from another” (Kitcher 2007, 294–296; Cf. Mallon 2007, 146–168). Rather, biological species are differentiated by reproductive isolation, which is relative, not absolute (since hybrids sometimes appear in nature); which may have non-genetic causes (e.g., geographic separation and incompatible reproduction periods or rituals); which may generate statistically significant if not uniform genetic differences; and which may express distinct phenotypes. In effect, if the failure to satisfy the condition of discreteness and essentialism requires jettisoning the concept of race, then it also requires jettisoning the concept of biological species. But because the biological species concept remains epistemologically useful, some biologists and philosophers use it to defend a racial ontology that is “biologically informed but non-essentialist,” one that is vague, non-discrete, and related to genetics, genealogy, geography, and phenotype (Sesardic 2010, 146).

There are three versions of racial population naturalism: cladistic race; socially isolated race; and genetically clustered race. Cladistic races are “ancestor-descendant sequences of breeding populations that share a common origin” (Andreasen 2004, 425). They emerged during human evolution, as different groups of humans became geographically isolated from each other, and may be dying out, if they have not already, due to more recent human reproductive intermingling (Andreasen 1998, 214–216; Cf. Andreasen 2000, S653–S666). Socially isolated race refers to the fact that legal sanctions against miscegenation might have created a genetically isolated African American race in the USA (Kitcher 1999). Finally, defenders of genetically clustered race argue that although only 7% of the differences between any two individuals regarding any one specific gene can be attributed to their membership in one of the commonly recognized racial categories, the aggregation of several genes is statistically related to a small number of racial categories associated with major geographic regions and phenotypes (Sesardic 2010; Kitcher 2007, 304).

The question is whether these new biological ontologies of race avoid the conceptual mismatches that ground eliminativism. The short answer is that they can, but only through human intervention. Socially isolated race faces no mismatch when applied to African Americans, defined as the descendants of African slaves brought to the United States. However, this racial category would not encompass Black Africans. Moreover, because African American race originated in legally enforced sexual segregation, it is “both biologically real and socially constructed” (Kitcher 2007, 298). Genetic clustering would seem to provide an objective, biological foundation for a broader racial taxonomy, but differences in clustered genes are continuous, not discrete, and thus scientists must decide where to draw the line between one genetically clustered race and another. If they program their computers to distinguish four genetic clusters, then European, Asian, Amerindian, and African groups will emerge; if only two clusters are sought, then only the African and Amerindian “races” remain (Kitcher 2007, 304). Thus, genetic clustering avoids racial mismatch only through the decisions of the scientist analyzing the data. The same problem also confronts cladistic race, since the number of races will vary from nine, at the most recent period of evolutionary reproductive isolation, to just one, if we go back to the very beginning, since all humans were originally Africans. But in addition, cladistic race faces a stronger mismatch by “cross-classifying” groups that we typically think of as part of the same race, for example by linking northeast Asians more closely with Europeans than with more phenotypically similar southeast Asians. Robin Andreasen defends the cladistic race concept by correctly arguing that folk theories of race have themselves generated counter-intuitive cross-classifications, particularly with respect to the Census’ Asian category, which previously excluded Asian Indians and now excludes native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders. (Andreasen 2005, 100–101; Andreasen 2004, 430–431; Cf. Glasgow 2003, 456–474; Glasgow 2009, 91–108). But this hardly saves her argument, since the US Census’s history of shifting racial categories and past use of ethnic and religious terms (e.g., Filipino, Hindu, and Korean) to signify races is typically taken as evidence of the social , rather than biological, foundations of race (Espiritu 1992, Chapter 5).

Quayshawn Spencer (2012, 2014, 2019) is resistant to arguments that cladistic subspecies are a viable biological candidate for race (2012, 203). Instead, he defends a version of biological racial realism that understands “biologically real” as capturing “all of the entities that are used in empirically successful biology…and that adequately rules out all of the entities that are not” (2019, 77; see also 95). Spencer argues that such an entity exists and can be found in the US government’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and its racial classifications. The basis for this claim is that population genetics has identified five distinctive “human continental populations” that satisfy the criteria for biological reality (2019, 98; 95). The OMB classifications map onto these continental populations. The importance of the OMB is that its ubiquity in our lives means that one of the primary ways that we talk about race is through its categories. Spencer highlights this centrality when he points out the ways that Americans self-report their races correspond to the parameters of the OMB classifications (2019, 83–85). Spencer is pluralist about race talk, however, meaning that OMB race is just one dominant meaning of race, while there is no single dominant meaning among users of the term (2019, 213).

In each case, racial population naturalism encounters problems in trying to demarcate discrete boundaries between different biological populations. If discreteness is indispensable to a human racial taxonomy, then mismatches can only be avoided, if at all, through human intervention. But as noted above, biological species are also not genetically discrete, and thus boundaries between non-human species must also be imposed through human intervention. And just as the demarcation of non-human species is justified through its scientific usefulness, so too are human racial categories justified. For instance, Andreason contends that a cladistic race concept that divides northeastern from southeastern Asians is scientifically useful for evolutionary research, even if it conflicts with the folk concept of a unified Asian race. In turn, the concepts of genetically clustered and socially isolated race may remain useful for detecting and treating some health problems. Ian Hacking provides a careful argument in favor of the provisional use of American racial categories in medicine. Noting that racial categories do not reflect essentialist, uniform differences, he reiterates the finding that there are statistically significant genetic differences among different racial groups. As a result, an African American is more likely to find a bone marrow match from a pool of African American donors than from a pool of white donors. Thus, he defends the practice of soliciting African American bone marrow donors, even though this may provide fodder to racist groups who defend an essentialist and hierarchical conception of biological race (Hacking 2005, 102–116; Cf. Kitcher 2007, 312–316). Conversely, Dorothy Roberts emphasizes the dangers of using racial categories within medicine, suggesting that it not only validates egregious ideas of biological racial hierarchy but also contributes to conservative justifications for limiting race-based affirmative action and even social welfare funding, which supposedly would be wasted on genetically inferior minority populations. In effect, race-based medicine raises the specter of a new political synthesis of colorblind conservatism with biological racialism (Roberts 2008, 537–545). However, Roberts’ critique fails to engage the literature on the statistical significance of racial categories for genetic differences. Moreover, she herself acknowledges that many versions of colorblind conservatism do not rely at all on biological justifications.

Stephen Cornell and Douglas Hartmann (1998) provide a helpful discussion of the differences between the concepts of race and ethnicity. Relying on social constructivism, they define race as “a human group defined by itself or others as distinct by virtue of perceived common physical characteristics that are held to be inherent…Determining which characteristics constitute the race…is a choice human beings make. Neither markers nor categories are predetermined by any biological factors” (Cornell and Hartmann 1998, 24). Ethnicity, conversely, is defined as a sense of common ancestry based on cultural attachments, past linguistic heritage, religious affiliations, claimed kinship, or some physical traits (1998, 19). Racial identities are typically thought of as encompassing multiple ethnic identities (Cornell and Hartmann 1998, 26). Thus, people who are racially categorized as black may possess a variety of ethnic identities based either on African national or cultural markers (e.g., Kenyan, Igbo, Zulu) or the newer national, sub-national, or trans-national identities created through the mixing of enslaved populations in the Americas (e.g., African American, Haitian, West Indian).

Cornell and Hartmann outline five additional characteristics that distinguish race from ethnicity: racial identity is typically externally imposed by outsiders, as when whites created the Negro race to homogenize the multiple ethnic groups they conquered in Africa or brought as slaves to America; race is a result of early globalization, when European explorers “discovered” and then conquered peoples with radically different phenotypical traits; race typically involves power relations, from the basic power to define the race of others to the more expansive power to deprive certain racial groups of social, economic, or political benefits; racial identities are typically hierarchical, with certain races being perceived as superior to others; and racial identity is perceived as inherent, something individuals are born with (1998, 27–29).

Race and ethnicity differ strongly in the level of agency that individuals exercise in choosing their identity. Individuals rarely have any choice over their racial identity, due to the immediate visual impact of the physical traits associated with race. Individuals are thought to exercise more choice over ethnic identification, since the physical differences between ethnic groups are typically less striking, and since individuals can choose whether or not to express the cultural practices associated with ethnicity. So an individual who phenotypically appears white with ancestors from Ireland can more readily choose whether to assert their Irish identity (by celebrating St. Patrick’s Day) than whether to choose their white identity (Cornell and Hartmann 1998, 29–30). Moreover, Mary Waters (1990) argues that the high level of intermarriage among white Americans from various national ancestries grants their children significant “ethnic options” in choosing with which of their multiple heritages to identify. Waters (1999) and Philip Kasinitz (1992) document how phenotypically black West Indian immigrants exercise agency in asserting their ethnic identity in order to differentiate themselves from native-born African Americans, but discrimination and violence aimed at all Black people, regardless of ethnicity, strongly constrains such agency.The greater constraints on racial identity stem from the role of informal perceptions, discriminatory social action, and formal laws imposing racial identity, such as Census categorization (Nobles 2000), the infamous “hypodescent” laws, which defined people as black if they had one drop of African blood (Davis 1991), and judicial decisions such as the “prerequisite cases,” which determined whether specific immigrants could be classified as white and thus eligible for naturalized citizenship (Lopez 1996).

The line between race and ethnicity gets blurred in the case of Asians and Latinos in the United States. Yen Le Espiritu (1992) notes that Asian American racial identity, which of course encompasses a remarkable level of ethnic diversity, results from a combination of external assignment and agency, as when Asians actively respond to anti-Asian discrimination or violence through political action and a sense of shared fate. Consequently, Espiritu uses the term “panethnicity” to describe Asian American identity, a concept which has racial connotations, given the role of “racial lumping” together of members of diverse Asian ethnicities into a single racial group defined by phenotypical traits. Thus, she declares that “African Americans [are] the earliest and most developed pan-ethnic group in the United States” (1992, 174). Hispanic or Latino identity exhibits traits similar to pan-ethnicity. Indeed, unlike Asian identity, Hispanic identity is not even a formal racial identity under the Census. However, informal perceptions, formal laws, and discrimination based on physical appearance nevertheless tend to lump together various nationalities and ethnicities that share some connection to Latin America (Rodriquez 2000). Moreover, scholars have noted that Jews (Brodkin 1998) and the Irish (Ignatiev 1995) were once were considered distinct, non-white races but are now considered to be racially white ethnic groups, partly by exercising agency in distancing themselves from African Americans exercising political power. Thus, it is conceivable that groups today considered to be sociological racial groups could transform into something more like an ethnic group. For this reason, Blum describes Hispanics and Asians as incompletely racialized groups (Blum 2002, 149–155).

A robust philosophical debate has emerged regarding the status of Hispanic or Latino identity. Jorge Gracia (2000) defends the utility of Hispanic ethnic identity as grounded primarily in the shared, linguistic culture that can be traced to the Iberian Peninsula. Jorge Garcia (2001, 2006) challenges this approach, arguing that the diversity of individual experiences undermines the use of Hispanic ethnicity as a meaningful form of collective identity. Linda Martin Alcoff (2006) develops a “realist” defense of Latino identity against charges of essentialism and views it as a category of solidarity that develops in reaction to white privilege. Christina Beltran (2010), on the other hand, does not try to paper over the diversity within Latinidad , which she instead portrays as a pluralistic, fragmented, and agonistic form of political action.

Two strands in moral, political, and legal philosophy are pertinent to the concept of race. One strand examines the broader conceptual and methodological questions regarding the moral status of race and how to theorize racial justice; the other strand normatively assesses specific policies or institutional forms that seek to redress racial inequality, such as affirmative action, racially descriptive representation, the general question of colorblindness in law and policy, residential racial segregation, and racism in the criminal justice system and policing.

Lawrence Blum, Anthony Appiah, and Tommie Shelby articulate indispensable positions in addressing the moral status of the concept of race. Blum (2002) examines both the concept of race and the problem of racism. He argues that “racism” be restricted to two referents: inferiorization , or the denigration of a group due to its putative biological inferiority; and antipathy , or the “bigotry, hostility, and hatred” towards another group defined by its putatively inherited physical traits (2002, 8). These two moral sins deserve this heightened level of condemnation associated with the term racism, because they violate moral norms of “respect, equality, and dignity” and because they are historically connected to extreme and overt forms of racial oppression (2002, 27). But because these connections make “racism” so morally loaded a term, it should not be applied to “lesser racial ills and infractions” that suggest mere ignorance, insensitivity or discomfort regarding members of different groups (28), since doing so will apply a disproportionate judgment against the person so named, closing off possible avenues for fruitful moral dialogue.

Due to the historical connection between racism and extreme oppression, Blum argues against using the term race, since he rejects its biological foundation. Instead, he advocates using the term “racialized group” to denote those socially constructed identities whose supposedly inherited common physical traits are used to impose social, political, and economic costs. To Blum, “racialized group” creates distance from the biological conception of race and it admits of degrees, as in the case of Latinos, whom Blum describes as an “incompletely racialized group” (2002, 151). This terminological shift, and its supposed revelation of the socially constructed character of physiognomically defined identities, need not require the rejection of group-specific policies such as affirmative action. Members of sociologically constructed racialized identities suffer real harms, and laws might have to distinguish individuals according to their racialized identities in order to compensate for such harms. Nevertheless, Blum remains ambivalent about such measures, arguing that even when necessary they remain morally suspect (2002, 97).

Similar ambivalence is also expressed by Anthony Appiah, earlier discussed regarding the metaphysics of race. While his metaphysical racial skepticism was cited as grounding his normative position of eliminativism , Appiah is “against races” but “for racial identities” (1996). Because of a wide social consensus that races exist, individuals are ascribed to races regardless of their individual choices or desires. Moreover, racial identity remains far more salient and costly than ethnic identity (1996, 80–81). As a result, mobilization along racial lines is justifiable, in order to combat racism. But even at this point, Appiah still fears that racial identification may constrain individual autonomy by requiring members of racial groups to behave according to certain cultural norms or “scripts” that have become dominant within a specific racial group. Appiah thus concludes, “Racial identity can be the basis of resistance to racism; but even as we struggle against racism…let us not let our racial identities subject us to new tyrannies” (1996, 104). This residual ambivalence, to recall the metaphysical discussions of the last section, perhaps ground Mallon’s contention that Appiah remains an eliminativist rather than a racial constructivist , since ideally Appiah would prefer to be free of all residual constraints entailed by even socially constructed races.

Tommie Shelby responds to the ambivalence of Appiah and Blum by distinguishing classical black nationalism , which rested upon an organic black identity, with pragmatic black nationalism , based on an instrumental concern with combating antiblack racism (2005, 38–52; 2003, 666–668). Pragmatic nationalism allows Black people to generate solidarity across class or cultural lines, not just through the modus vivendi of shared interests but upon a principled commitment to racial equality and justice (2005, 150–154). As a result, black solidarity is grounded upon a principled response to common oppression, rather than some putative shared identity (2002), thus mitigating the dangers of biological essentialism and tyrannical cultural conformity that Appiah associates with race and racial identities. Anna Stubblefield (2005) provides an alternative defense of Black solidarity by comparing it to familial commitments.

Shelby (2005, 7) briefly mentions that his pragmatic, political version of black solidarity is compatible with John Rawls’s Political Liberalism , but his more detailed defense of the ideal social contract method of Rawls’s A Theory of Justice for theorizing racial justice has drawn substantial controversy (Shelby 2004). Elizabeth Anderson eschews ideal theory for analyzing racial justice because it assumes motivational and cognitive capacities beyond those of ordinary humans; it risks promoting ideal norms (like colorblindness) under unjust conditions that require race-specific policies; and its idealizing assumptions, like an original position in which parties do not know relevant personal and social racial facts, precludes recognition of historical and present racial injustice. She instead uses a normative framework of democratic equality to ground her moral imperative of integration.

Charles Mills, extending his critique of how early modern social contract thinking obfuscates racial injustice (1997), fears that Rawls’s ideal theory can similarly serve as an ideology that whitewashes non-white oppression (Mills 2013). But rather than jettisoning a contractarian approach entirely, Mills instead develops a model of a non-ideal contract, in which the parties do not know their own racial identities but are aware of their society’s history of racial exploitation and its effects. Because the parties know of racial hierarchy but do not know if they will be its beneficiaries or victims, Mills hypothesizes that they will rationally agree to racial reparations as a form of corrective or rectificatory justice (Pateman and Mills 2007, Chapters 3, 4, 8).

Shelby responds that, while Rawls’s ideal theory of justice excludes a theory of rectification because it is not comprehensive, rectificatory justice is not only complementary but in fact presupposes an ideal theory that can clarify when injustices have occurred and need to be rectified. More importantly, Shelby suggests that complying with rectificatory justice through racial reparations could well leave Black people living in a society that nevertheless remains racially unjust in other ways. For this reason, Shelby concludes that ideal theory remains indispensable (2013).

Christopher Lebron (2013, 28–42) also suggests that the approaches of Rawls and Mills are complementary, but in a very different way. He argues that Rawls’s focus on the basic structure of society provides explanatory mechanisms through which white supremacy persists, something unspecified in earlier work by Mills (2003). And in sharp contrast to Shelby (2013), Lebron criticizes Mills for rehabilitating Rawlsian contract thinking, since even a non-ideal form eliminates the epistemological advantage of a non-white perspective on white supremacy. Instead of reformulating contractarian thinking to fit the needs of racial justice, Lebron instead focuses on analyzing how “historically evolved power” and “socially embedded power” perpetuate racial injustice.

Turning to the second strand of practical philosophy devoted to race, various scholars have addressed policies such as affirmative action, race-conscious electoral districting, and colorblindness in policy and law. The literature on affirmative action is immense, and may be divided into approaches that focus on compensatory justice, distributive justice, critiques of the concept of merit, and diversity of perspective. Alan Goldman (1979) generally argues against affirmative action, since jobs or educational opportunities as a rule should go to those most qualified. Only when a specific individual has been victimized by racial or other discrimination can the otherwise irrelevant factor of race be used as a compensatory measure to award a position or a seat at a university. Ronald Fiscus (1992) rejects the compensatory scheme in favor of a distributive justice argument. He claims that absent the insidious and invidious effects of a racist society, success in achieving admissions to selective universities or attractive jobs would be randomly distributed across racial lines. Thus, he concludes that distributive justice requires the racially proportional distribution of jobs and university seats. Of course, Fiscus’s argument displaces the role of merit in the awarding of jobs or university admissions, but this point is addressed by Iris Young (1990, Chapter 7), who argues that contemporary criteria of merit, such as standardized testing and educational achievement, are biased against disadvantaged racial and other groups, and rarely are functionally related to job performance or academic potential. Finally, Michel Rosenfeld (1991) turns away from substantive theories of justice in favor of a conception of justice as reversibility, a position influenced by the “Discourse Ethics” of Jürgen Habermas (1990), which defines justice not by the proper substantive awarding of goods but as the result of a fair discursive procedure that includes all relevant viewpoints and is free of coercive power relations. Thus, affirmative action is justified as an attempt to include racially diverse viewpoints. All of these positions are summarily discussed in a useful debate format in Cohen and Sterba (2003).

The issues of race-conscious electoral districting and descriptive racial representation have also garnered substantial attention. Race-conscious districting is the practice of drawing geographically based electoral districts in which the majority of voters are Black. Descriptive racial representation holds that Black populations are best represented by Black politicians. Iris Marion Young (1990, 183–191) provides a spirited defense of descriptive representation for racial minorities, grounded in their experiences of “oppression, the institutional constraint on self-determination”, and domination “the institutional constraint on self-determination” (1990, 37). Anne Phillips (1995) furthers this position, arguing that representatives who are members of minority racial groups can enhance legislative deliberation. Melissa Williams (1998) also defends the deliberative contribution of descriptive racial representation, but adds that minority constituents are more likely to trust minority representatives, since both will be affected by laws that overtly or covertly discriminate against minority racial groups. Finally, Jane Mansbridge (1999) carefully demonstrates why a critical mass of minority representatives is needed, in order to adequately advocate for common minority interests as well as to convey the internal diversity within the group. In a later work, Young (2000) addresses critics who argue that descriptive representation relies upon group essentialism, since members of a racial group need not all share the same interests or opinions. In response, Young suggests that members of the same racial group do share the same “social perspective” grounded in common experiences, similar to the interactive kind variant of racial constructivism discussed earlier. But because it is unclear that Black individuals are more likely to share common experiences than common interests or opinions, Michael James prioritizes using race-conscious districting to create Black racial constituencies which can hold Black or non-Black representatives accountable to Black interests (James 2011). Abigail Thernstrom (1987) condemns race-conscious districting for violating the original principles behind the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the 15 th Amendment, by promoting the election of black representatives rather than simply guaranteeing black voters the right to cast ballots. J. Morgan Kousser (1999) responds that race-conscious districting simply reflects the right to cast a “meaningful” vote, as implied by the 15 th Amendment protection against not only the denial but also the “abridgment” of the right to vote. Lani Guinier (1994) compellingly suggests that instead of drawing majority black districts, we should adopt more proportional electoral system that facilitate the electoral strength of racial and other minorities. Michael James (2004) suggests that alternative electoral systems facilitate not only descriptive racial representation but also democratic deliberation across racial lines.

A general advantage of using alternative electoral systems to enhance minority racial representation is that they are technically colorblind, not requiring lawmakers or judges to group citizens according to their racial identities. The general value of colorblindness is an ongoing topic of debate within legal philosophy. Drawing on Justice John Marshall Harlan’s famous dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson , and a not-uncontroversial interpretation of the origins of the equal protection clause, Andrew Kull (1992) argues that contemporary American statutory and constitutional law should strive to be colorblind and combat racial inequality without dividing citizens into different racial groups. Ian Haney Lopez (2006, 143–162), on the other hand, fears “colorblind white dominance,” whereby facially race-neutral laws leave untouched the race-based inequality that operates within American political, legal, and economic structures. Elizabeth Anderson (2010) provides a trenchant critique of colorblindness as a normative standard for law, policy, or ethics. Racial segregation and the potential for integration have garnered much less philosophical attention than affirmative action and racially descriptive representation. Bernard Boxill (1992) offers a treatment of busing and self-segregation, while Howard McGary (1999) offers a clarification of integration and separation. Iris Young (2002, chapter 6) treats residential segregation in the context of regional democracy, while Owen Fiss (2003) analyzes it in the context of the legacy of racism. Anderson herself (2010) argues for the moral imperative of integration, with Tommie Shelby (2014) and Ronald Sundstrom (2013) offering critical responses to Anderson’s argument. More recently, Andrew Valls (2018, chapter 6) has written on the subject.

In recent years, the problem of racism within policing and criminal justice in the United States has attracted intense popular and scholarly attention. Mathias Risse and Richard Zeckhauser (2004) offer a qualified defense of racial profiling that engages both utilitarian and non-consequentialist reasoning. Annabelle Lever’s (2005) objection and response prompted a subsequent round of debate (Risse 2007, Lever 2007). Michelle Alexander (2010) famously depicted the contemporary American criminal justice system as the “New Jim Crow,” for its intense racial disparities. Naomi Zack (2015) provides a trenchant critique of racial profiling and police homicide. David Boonin (2011), on the other hand, reluctantly defends racial profiling on pragmatic grounds. Finally, Adam Hosein (2018) argues against it for reasons of political equality. Shelby (2016) offers a justification of Black resistance based in the unjust legacy of racial segregation while deepening his earlier critique of Anderson’s view.

While the debates in contemporary philosophy of race within the analytic tradition have largely revolved around whether or not races exist along with criteria for determining realness or existence, philosophers working in the Continental traditions have taken up the concept of race along other dimensions (see Bernasconi and Cook 2003 for an overview). First, those working within the traditions of Existentialism and Phenomenology have called on Fanon, Merleau-Ponty, and Sartre, among others, to understand how race and functions within our lived, bodily experiences of everyday life. This strand of scholarship focuses on the materiality of race. As Emily S. Lee puts it, “both the social structural and the individual subconscious levels of analysis rely on perceiving the embodiment of race” (2014, 1). Second, philosophers building on the work of Michel Foucault have articulated genealogical understandings of race that focus on its historical emergence as a concept and the ways that it has functioned within discourses of knowledge and power.

Frantz Fanon has been the primary influence for those understanding race and racism within Existentialism and Phenomenology. In Black Skin, White Masks Fanon writes, “I came into this world anxious to uncover the meaning of things, my soul desirous to be at the origin of the world, and here I am an object among other objects” (2008/1952, 89). Furthermore, this “inferiority is determined by the Other,” by the “white gaze” (2008/1952, 90). Such a position is understood through the schema of the body: “In a white world, the man of color encounters difficulties in elaborating his body schema. The image of one’s body is solely negating. It’s an image in the third person” (2008/1952, 90). Rather than being at home in his own body, and moving “out of habit,” Fanon understands his body as existing primarily as an object for others, requiring him to move “by implicit knowledge” of the rules and norms of that white world (2008/1952, 91).

Fanon critiques Sartre’s understanding of race and racism by pointing out that Sartre understands antiracism as a negative movement that will be overcome (2008/1952, 111–112). Sartre treats antiracism as the transition toward something else and not as an end in itself. Against this view Fanon writes, “ Sartre forgets that the Black man suffers in his body quite differently from the white man” (2008/1952, 117). He is trapped by his body schema, “a toy in the hands of the white man” (2008/1952, 119).

Lewis Gordon draws on both Fanon and Sartre in articulating his Africana existentialism. He distinguishes between Existentialism as a specific historical European movement and philosophies of existence, or existential philosophies, which are preoccupied with “freedom, anguish, responsibility, embodied agency, sociality, and liberation.” These concerns yield a focus on the “lived context of concern” (2000, 10). For Gordon, due to the history of racial oppression of Black peoples, an Africana existential philosophy revolves around the questions, “what does it mean to be a problem, and what is to be understood by Black suffering?” (2000, 8).

According to Gordon, what is sometimes referred to as the “race question” is really a question about the status of Blackness, for “race has emerged, throughout its history, as the question fundamentally of ‘the blacks’ as it has for no other group” (2000, 12). Rather than a denial that other groups have been racialized, the claim instead is that such other racializations have been conditioned on a scale of European personhood to Black subpersonhood (see also Mills 1998, 6–10). Blackness itself has been characterized as “the breakdown of reason” and “an existential enigma” in such a way that to ask after race and racialization is to ask after Blackness in the first instance.

Both Gordon and Zack use Sartre’s notion of bad faith to understand race. We can understand bad faith as the evasion of responsibility and fidelity to human freedom, and an understanding of the human being as a for-itself. Bad faith falsely turns the human being into an object without agency, into an in-itself. For Gordon, antiblack racism conceives of Blackness itself as a problem so as to avoid having to understand Black problems. As a result, actual Black people disappear along with any responsibility to them (1997, 74). Gordon gives the example of The Philadelphia Negro , Du Bois’ sociological study of the residents of Philadelphia’s Seventh Ward. Gordon recounts how those commissioning the study set Du Bois up to fail so that he would only perpetuate the pathologizing of the Black population, presenting Blackness itself as a problem rather than attempt to understand the problems of Black people and communities (2000, 69).

Whereas Gordon uses bad faith to understand antiblack racism, Zack does so to deepen her eliminativism. For Sartre, authenticity is the antidote to bad faith – to live authentically is to understand and embrace human freedom rather than evade it. Zack’s eliminativism attributes bad faith to those who affirm that racial designations describe human beings when in fact they do not (1993, 3–4). If racial identifications lack adequate support because races do not exist, then identification as mixed race is also done in bad faith. Instead, Zack understands her position of “anti-race” as true authenticity that looks to the future in the name of freedom and resistance to oppression in the name of racelessness (1993, 164).

Embodiment and visibility are central to these views. Gordon understands the body as “our perspective in the world,” which occurs along (at least) three matrices: seeing, being seen, and being conscious of being seen (1997, 71). In an antiblack world this means that the Black body is a form of absence, going unseen in the same manner as Ralph Ellison’s protagonist in Invisible Man (1997, 72–3). George Yancy tells us that he writes from his “lived embodied experience,” which is a “site of exposure” (2008, 65). Black embodiment here is the lens used to critique whiteness and its normative gaze. For Yancy, Black resistance itself decodes and recodes Black embodied existence, affirming the value of the Black body in the face of centuries of white denial (2008, 112–3).

Linda Martín Alcoff offers a phenomenological account of race that highlights a “visual registry,” which is socially and historically constructed and that is “determinant over individual experience” (2006, 194). Like Yancy, Alcoff locates race in embodied lived experience. Drawing on Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s work, Alcoff notes how the way that our perceptual practices are organized affects the way we come to know the world (2006, 188). When race operates through visibility, these ways of normalized perceptual knowing become racialized. As she notes, “racial consciousness works through learned practices and habits of visual discrimination and visual marks on the body…race exists there on the body itself” (2006, 196).

Lee argues that racial meaning fits squarely within the space that a phenomenological framework seeks to explore, namely, the space between the natural and the cultural, the objective and the subjective, and thinking and nonthinking (Lee 2014, 8). Furthermore, a phenomenological approach can illuminate how, even when race is understood as a social construction, it can nonetheless become naturalized through “the sedimentation of racial meaning into the very structures and practices of society” (Lee 2019, xi).

A second line of thought runs through the work of Michel Foucault. In his 1975–1976 lectures at the Collège de France , published as Society Must Be Defended , Foucault details the emergence of a discourse on race beginning in early 17th Century England. According to Foucault, race war discourse emerges through claims of illegitimacy against the Stuart monarchy. These claims were couched in the language of injustice as well as foreign invasion, in which an indigenous race is pitted against in invading outsider (2003, 60). Race, at this point, is not a biological concept, instead referring to lineage, custom, and tradition (2003, 77). Only later does this cultural notion of race transform into the scientific notion of race.

Cornel West employs a Foucaultian methodology to produce a genealogy of modern racism (1982). West analyzes how the discourse of modernity came into being to show how central white supremacy is to its practices of knowledge and meaning making (47). By modern discourse he means, “The controlling metaphors, notions, categories, and norms that shape the predominant conception of truth and knowledge in the modern West,” which are driven by the scientific revolution, the Cartesian transformation of philosophy, and the classical revival (50). It is a discourse comprising certain forms of rationality, scientificity, objectivity, and aesthetic and cultural ideals, the parameters of which exclude Black equality from the outset, marking it as unintelligible and illegitimate within the prevailing norms of discourse and knowledge (47–48). Notions of truth and knowledge produced by these three forces are governed by a value-free subject that observes, compares, orders, and measures in order to obtain evidence and make inferences that verify the true representations of reality.

Ladelle McWhorter uses Foucault’s lectures to conduct a genealogy of racism and sexual oppression of a more proximate time and place. According to McWhorter, “racism in twentieth-century Anglo-America [has] to be understood in light of Foucault’s work on normalization,” where racism exists as a crusade against deviance, abnormality, and pathology (2009, 12). Building on Foucault’s analysis of race war discourse McWhorter carries out a genealogy of race, ultimately arguing that race and sexuality “are historically codependent and mutually determinative” (2009, 14). Anglo-American discourse on race is therefore linked to discourses on eugenics, the family, sexual predation, normality, and population management, all of which function within the networks of power that Foucault referred to biopower (2009, 15). Ann Laura Stoler (1995) offers an extended reconstruction and critique of Foucault’s treatment of race in light of colonialism and empire. Joy James goes even further, arguing that Foucault is not useful for thinking about race at all (1996, chapter 1).

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How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

• Race: Are we so different? , educational website project of the American Anthropological Association
• Race: The Power of an Illusion , PBS website associated with the California Newsreel documentary
• Facts about Race/Color Discrimination , from the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
• Race, Racism, and the Law , edited by Vernellia Randall at the University of Dayton Law School

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Library of Congress Catalog Data: ISSN 1095-5054

Scientific Racism

In 1619, when the first enslaved people were brought to what would become the United States, justifications for their enslavement were brought here too. In the 400 years since then, as those enslaved and their descendants have continued to call this country home, the justifications for their abuse and mistreatment have stayed with us as well.

One of the most effective tactics used to justify anti-Black racism and white supremacy has been scientific racism. Through the years, scientific racism has taken many forms, all with the goal of co-opting the authority of science as objective knowledge to justify racial inequality.

Some 19th-century scientists, like Harvard’s Louis Agassiz, were proponents of “polygenism,” which posited that human races were distinct species. This theory was supported by pseudoscientific methods like craniometry, the measurement of human skulls, which supposedly proved that white people were biologically superior to Blacks. Early statistical health data was weaponized against Black Americans in the late 1800s, as it was used to claim they were predisposed to disease and destined for extinction.

By the early to mid-20th century, polygenism and biology-based racism were widely disproven, and racism in social science had gained popularity. Studies showing high rates of imprisonment among Black Americans were used as proof of innate criminality, while pseudoscientific intelligence testing claimed the mental superiority of white people. These flawed, biased studies failed to account for political and social factors such as poor housing, poverty, lack of healthcare, and virulent racial oppression. But they provided the so-called evidence needed to fuel systemic forms of anti-Black racism, like segregation. And, for many Americans looking for objective reasons to justify racist beliefs and behaviors, studies like these were more than enough. 

Contemporary scientific consensus agrees that race has no biological basis, but scientific racism still exists. While it’s now more subtle than craniometry, its long history demonstrates the influence social ideas about race can have on supposedly unbiased research.

Sources for the information above are cited at the bottom of this page.

Explore a curated sample of Harvard research and resources related to scientific racism below.

Louis agassiz correspondence and other papers.

Louis Agassiz was a zoologist, geologist, and professor who served at Harvard University’s Lawrence Scientific School (1847-73). He founded Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology. Agassiz was a strong supporter of polygenism, the discredited theory that humans of different races are different species. This archival collection offers insight into the scientific, often racist, discourse of Agassiz’s time.

A Troublesome Recurrence: Racialized Realities and Racist Reasoning Today

Developments in biological science and mapping the human genome created a new wave of racist reasoning. This essay presents the work of scholars who critique and speak out against contemporary scientific racism.

The Nature of Difference: Sciences of Race in the United States from Jefferson to Genomics (HarvardKey Only)

This collection of contextualized primary source materials tracks the shifting relationships between race and science in America through the 19th and 20th centuries. It offers a historical foundation for understanding contemporary developments in racial science.

The Enduring Legacy of Slavery and Racism in the North || Radcliffe Institute

In this panel experts discuss the role and impact of slavery in the Northern United States, Louis Agassiz, and Black abolitionist responses to scientific racism.

Citations for Section Overview

• Cohen, Adam S. 2016. “ Harvard’s Eugenics Era. ” Harvard Magazine. February 19, 2016. https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2016/03/harvards-eugenics-era.
• Muhammad, Khalil Gibran. 2019. The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America, with a New Preface . Cambridge: Harvard University Press. http://id.lib.harvard.edu/alma/990120310410203941/catalog.
• Smedley, Audrey. 2007. Race in North America: Origin and Evolution of a Worldview . 3rd ed. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press. http://id.lib.harvard.edu/alma/990101351520203941/catalog
• Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. 2020. The Enduring Legacy of Slavery and Racism in the North | Radcliffe Institute. https://youtu.be/jfohQVAiaP0.

Citations for Page Images

• Phrenology sketch of skull, 1807 | Gall, F. J., and Karl August Blöde. Dr. F.J. Galls Neue Entdeckungen in Der Gehirn-, Schedel-, Und Organenlehre : Mit Vorzüglicher Benutzung Der Blöde'schen Schrift über Diese Gegenstände, Ganz Umgearbeitet Und Nach Den Neuesten Gall'schen Unterredungen Bereichert .. Zweyte Verbesserte Und Vermehrte Auflage. ed. Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine--Medical Heritage Library Digitization Project. Carlsruhe: In Der C.F. Müllerschen Verlagshandlung, 1807. http://id.lib.harvard.edu/alma/990066870370203941/catalog
• Drawing by Louis Agassiz illustrating his disproven theory of “polygenism” | Agassiz, Louis, 1807-1873., “"Tableau to accompany Prof. Agassiz's 'Sketch", Nott & Gliddon's Types of Mankind, 1854.",” OnView: Digital Collections & Exhibits , accessed February 10, 2021, https://collections.countway.harvard.edu/onview/items/show/18032

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History Classroom Grade 11 Topic 3: Ideas of Race in the 19th and 20th Centuries

By COLLIN BINKLEY, ANNIE MA and NOREEN NASIR Associated Press

CHICAGO (AP) — When she started writing her college essay, Hillary Amofa told the story she thought admissions offices wanted to hear. About being the daughter of immigrants from Ghana and growing up in a small apartment in Chicago. About hardship and struggle.

Then she deleted it all.

“I would just find myself kind of trauma-dumping,” said the 18-year-old senior at Lincoln Park High School in Chicago. “And I’m just like, this doesn’t really say anything about me as a person.”

When the Supreme Court ended affirmative action in higher education, it left the college essay as one of few places where race can play a role in admissions decisions. For many students of color, instantly more was riding on the already high-stakes writing assignment. Some say they felt pressure to exploit their hardships as they competed for a spot on campus.

Amofa was just starting to think about her essay when the court issued its decision, and it left her with a wave of questions. Could she still write about her race? Could she be penalized for it? She wanted to tell colleges about her heritage but she didn’t want to be defined by it.

In English class, Amofa and her classmates read sample essays that all seemed to focus on some trauma or hardship. It left her with the impression she had to write about her life’s hardest moments to show how far she’d come. But she and some of her classmates wondered if their lives had been hard enough to catch the attention of admissions offices.

“For a lot of students, there’s a feeling of, like, having to go through something so horrible to feel worthy of going to school, which is kind of sad,” said Amofa, the daughter of a hospital technician and an Uber driver.

This year’s senior class is the first in decades to navigate college admissions without affirmative action . The Supreme Court upheld the practice in decisions going back to the 1970s, but this court’s conservative supermajority found it is unconstitutional for colleges to give students extra weight because of their race alone.

Still, the decision left room for race to play an indirect role: Chief Justice John Roberts wrote universities can still consider how an applicant’s life was shaped by their race, “so long as that discussion is concretely tied to a quality of character or unique ability.”

“A benefit to a student who overcame racial discrimination, for example, must be tied to that student’s courage and determination,” he wrote.

Scores of colleges responded with new essay prompts asking about students’ backgrounds. Brown University asked applicants how “an aspect of your growing up has inspired or challenged you.” Rice University asked students how their perspectives were shaped by their “background, experiences, upbringing, and/or racial identity.”

WONDERING IF SCHOOLS ‘EXPECT A SOB STORY’

When Darrian Merritt started writing his essay, he knew the stakes were higher than ever because of the court’s decision. His first instinct was to write about events that led to him going to live with his grandmother as a child.

Those were painful memories, but he thought they might play well at schools like Yale, Stanford and Vanderbilt.

“I feel like the admissions committee might expect a sob story or a tragic story,” said Merritt, a senior in Cleveland. “And if you don’t provide that, then maybe they’re not going to feel like you went through enough to deserve having a spot at the university. I wrestled with that a lot.”

He wrote drafts focusing on his childhood, but it never amounted to more than a collection of memories. Eventually he abandoned the idea and aimed for an essay that would stand out for its positivity.

Merritt wrote about a summer camp where he started to feel more comfortable in his own skin. He described embracing his personality and defying his tendency to please others. The essay had humor — it centered on a water gun fight where he had victory in sight but, in a comedic twist, slipped and fell. But the essay also reflects on his feelings of not being “Black enough” and getting made fun of for listening to “white people music.”

“I was like, ‘OK, I’m going to write this for me, and we’re just going to see how it goes,’” he said. “It just felt real, and it felt like an honest story.”

The essay describes a breakthrough as he learned “to take ownership of myself and my future by sharing my true personality with the people I encounter. … I realized that the first chapter of my own story had just been written.”

A RULING PROMPTS PIVOTS ON ESSAY TOPICS

Like many students, Max Decker of Portland, Oregon, had drafted a college essay on one topic, only to change direction after the Supreme Court ruling in June.

Decker initially wrote about his love for video games. In a childhood surrounded by constant change, navigating his parents’ divorce, the games he took from place to place on his Nintendo DS were a source of comfort.

But the essay he submitted to colleges focused on the community he found through Word is Bond, a leadership group for young Black men in Portland.

As the only biracial, Jewish kid with divorced parents in a predominantly white, Christian community, Decker wrote he constantly felt like the odd one out. On a trip with Word is Bond to Capitol Hill, he and friends who looked just like him shook hands with lawmakers. The experience, he wrote, changed how he saw himself.

“It’s because I’m different that I provide something precious to the world, not the other way around,” he wrote.

As a first-generation college student, Decker thought about the subtle ways his peers seemed to know more about navigating the admissions process . They made sure to get into advanced classes at the start of high school, and they knew how to secure glowing letters of recommendation.

If writing about race would give him a slight edge and show admissions officers a fuller picture of his achievements, he wanted to take that small advantage.

His first memory about race, Decker said, was when he went to get a haircut in elementary school and the barber made rude comments about his curly hair. Until recently, the insecurity that moment created led him to keep his hair buzzed short.

Through Word is Bond, Decker said he found a space to explore his identity as a Black man. It was one of the first times he was surrounded by Black peers and saw Black role models. It filled him with a sense of pride in his identity. No more buzzcut.

The pressure to write about race involved a tradeoff with other important things in his life, Decker said. That included his passion for journalism, like the piece he wrote on efforts to revive a once-thriving Black neighborhood in Portland. In the end, he squeezed in 100 characters about his journalism under the application’s activities section.

“My final essay, it felt true to myself. But the difference between that and my other essay was the fact that it wasn’t the truth that I necessarily wanted to share,” said Decker, whose top college choice is Tulane, in New Orleans, because of the region’s diversity. “It felt like I just had to limit the truth I was sharing to what I feel like the world is expecting of me.”

SPELLING OUT THE IMPACT OF RACE

Before the Supreme Court ruling, it seemed a given to Imani Laird that colleges would consider the ways that race had touched her life. But now, she felt like she had to spell it out.

As she started her essay, she reflected on how she had faced bias or felt overlooked as a Black student in predominantly white spaces.

There was the year in math class when the teacher kept calling her by the name of another Black student. There were the comments that she’d have an easier time getting into college because she was Black .

“I didn’t have it easier because of my race,” said Laird, a senior at Newton South High School in the Boston suburbs who was accepted at Wellesley and Howard University, and is waiting to hear from several Ivy League colleges. “I had stuff I had to overcome.”

In her final essays, she wrote about her grandfather, who served in the military but was denied access to GI Bill benefits because of his race.

She described how discrimination fueled her ambition to excel and pursue a career in public policy.

“So, I never settled for mediocrity,” she wrote. “Regardless of the subject, my goal in class was not just to participate but to excel. Beyond academics, I wanted to excel while remembering what started this motivation in the first place.”

WILL SCHOOLS LOSE RACIAL DIVERSITY?

Amofa used to think affirmative action was only a factor at schools like Harvard and Yale. After the court’s ruling, she was surprised to find that race was taken into account even at some public universities she was applying to.

Now, without affirmative action, she wondered if mostly white schools will become even whiter.

It’s been on her mind as she chooses between Indiana University and the University of Dayton, both of which have relatively few Black students. When she was one of the only Black students in her grade school, she could fall back on her family and Ghanaian friends at church. At college, she worries about loneliness.

“That’s what I’m nervous about,” she said. “Going and just feeling so isolated, even though I’m constantly around people.”

The first drafts of her essay focused on growing up in a low-income family, sharing a bedroom with her brother and grandmother. But it didn’t tell colleges about who she is now, she said.

Her final essay tells how she came to embrace her natural hair . She wrote about going to a mostly white grade school where classmates made jokes about her afro. When her grandmother sent her back with braids or cornrows, they made fun of those too.

Over time, she ignored their insults and found beauty in the styles worn by women in her life. She now runs a business doing braids and other hairstyles in her neighborhood.

“I stopped seeing myself through the lens of the European traditional beauty standards and started seeing myself through the lens that I created,” Amofa wrote.

“Criticism will persist, but it loses its power when you know there’s a crown on your head!”

Ma reported from Portland, Oregon.

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org .

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The Hardships and Dreams of Asian Americans Living in Poverty

Illustrations by Jing Li

Asian Americans are often portrayed as economically and educationally successful.

In reality, about one-in-ten Asian Americans live in poverty. Asian Americans also have the most income inequality of any major racial or ethnic group in the United States.

Without closely examining the diversity of Asian American experiences, it’s easy to miss the distinct stories of Asian Americans living with economic hardship.

To understand more about this population, Pew Research Center conducted 18 focus groups in 12 languages to explore the stories and experiences of Asian Americans living in poverty.

Table of Contents

Of the 24 million Asians living in the United States, about 2.3 million live in poverty . Many are working to overcome the economic hardships they encounter and achieve their American dream. But they face challenges along the way, from Asian immigrants grappling with language barriers to U.S.-born Asians navigating pathways to success.

In February 2023, Pew Research Center conducted 18 focus groups with adult participants from 11 Asian origin groups in different regions across the U.S. These are among the most likely Asian origin groups to experience economic hardship in the U.S. Focus groups included those whose approximate family income is at or below 140%-250% of the 2022 federal poverty line, depending on their location. Accompanying these focus group findings are results from a Pew Research Center survey about the hardships and dreams of Asians living in poverty, conducted from July 2022 to January 2023.

Some common themes that focus group participants shared include day-to-day financial difficulties, assumptions by others that they do not need help because they are Asian, and the importance of financial security in achieving the American dream.

Related:   1 in 10: Redefining the Asian American Dream (Short Film)

Focus groups also reveal that Asian Americans’ experiences with economic hardship differ by whether they were born in the U.S. or outside the country. Some immigrants not only experience difficulties making ends meet, but also face challenges that come with living in a new, unfamiliar country. These include learning English, navigating daily life in a new place and finding a stable job.

Even though U.S.-born Asians grew up in this country and speak English, they talk about the challenges of understanding what it takes to succeed in America. This includes getting the “right” education, getting access to the “right” knowledge and knowing the “right” people to succeed.

The findings in this data essay reveal what participants shared about their experiences with economic hardship, overcoming challenges, and their views of the American dream and social mobility in America.

The terms Asians and Asian Americans are used interchangeably throughout this data essay to refer to those who self-identify as Asian, either alone or in combination with other races or Hispanic identity.

The terms living in poverty, living near or below the federal poverty line and living with economic hardship are used interchangeably throughout this essay to refer to adults whose family income is close to or below the 2022 federal poverty line.

• For results on Asian adults from the focus groups, this refers to adults whose approximate family income is at or below 140%-250% of the federal poverty line. Thresholds varied by focus group recruitment locations to account for differences in the cost of living.
• For results on Asian adults from the survey , this refers to adults whose approximate family income falls at or below 100% of the federal poverty line.
• For data on the total U.S. Asian population from the U.S. Census Bureau , this refers to all Asian Americans whose family income is at or below 100% of the federal poverty line.

The terms federal poverty line and poverty line are used interchangeably to refer to the federal poverty guidelines published yearly by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The term U.S. born refers to people born in 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico or other U.S. territories.

The term immigrant refers to people who were born outside the 50 U.S. states or the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico or other U.S. territories.

Asian Americans and financial struggles

Financial difficulties are part of many Asian Americans’ day-to-day lives, according to the 2022-23 survey. Asian adults were asked if they had experienced any of the following financial challenges in the past 12 months: gotten food from a food bank or a charitable organization, lost their health insurance, had problems paying for their rent or mortgage, had trouble paying for medical care for themselves or their family, had trouble paying their bills, or been unable to save money for emergencies.

“It got really bad to the point where a simple bowl of rice, we weren’t even able to afford that. So there were times where a bowl of rice would be a meal for all three meals, or we just simply did not eat.” NOLAN , FILM PARTICIPANT

The most common financial difficulty experienced is being unable to save for emergencies. More than half of Asian adults living in poverty (57%) said this had happened to them. By comparison, fewer Asian adults living above the poverty line (40%) said this.

Note: “Asian adults living in poverty” refers to survey respondents whose approximate family income is at or below 100% of the federal poverty line. Share of respondents who didn’t offer an answer or answered “no” not shown.

Source: Survey of Asian American adults conducted July 5, 2022-Jan. 27, 2023. “The Hardships and Dreams of Asian Americans Living in Poverty”

Some focus group participants shared how challenging it was for them to save because of their earnings and their family needs. Participants also talked about the urgency they feel to save for their children and retirement:

“I feel a bit helpless [about my financial situation]. … I don’t want to be in debt. I have to save money to raise my kids, but I don’t have money to save.”

–Immigrant man of Korean origin in early 30s (translated from Korean)

“[I save money] to go to Pakistan. Because I have four children … I needed five or six tickets, in case my husband traveled with us, and it required a lot of money. We used to save for one whole year, and when we were back from Pakistan, we were usually empty-handed. Then the cycle started again.”

–Immigrant woman of Pakistani origin in late 40s (translated from Urdu)

“You’re not going to work forever. No one is going to work forever. You want to have savings … for your rent [or] in case of medical bills [if] something happens. [You] might as well [save for] some trips down the while when you [can] travel still. But you’re not going to be working at 80 years old, are you?”

–U.S.-born man of Chinese origin in early 40s

“We were all four of us in one apartment, four siblings, plus the parents, so that’s six people in a house, which was very, very cramped.” SABA , FILM PARTICIPANT

Other common difficulties for Asian Americans living near or below the poverty line include having trouble paying their bills (42%), needing to get food from a food bank or a charitable organization (38%) and having problems paying their rent or mortgage (33%), the survey found. Smaller shares of Asian adults living above the poverty line say they experienced difficulties paying their bills (17%), got food from a food bank or a charity (6%) or had trouble paying their rent or mortgage (11%).

These findings were echoed in our focus groups, where participants recalled the stress and tension their families felt when things like this happened to them:

“My dad lost his car a couple of times. There was this one time where I remember it was nighttime. All of a sudden, a cop comes over to our home [with another person]. … And my dad was forced to give up his car to this stranger … because, I don’t know, he wasn’t paying off the car or something. And it was very humiliating, and my brothers wanted to get physical with that person because he was acting very arrogantly. My dad was able to eventually pay back the car and somehow get it back. But there were many times when we might not have had a roof over our heads.”

–U.S.-born man of Pakistani origin in late 20s

Asian immigrants face challenges navigating life and employment in the U.S.

Immigrant and U.S.-born Asians experience economic hardship in different ways. Asian immigrants in the focus groups discussed how a lack of English proficiency, navigating transportation and getting a good job all shape their experiences with economic hardship.

“I felt sad about life, didn’t know the language, didn’t know the roads. I had no friends, so I felt very sad.” PHONG , FILM PARTICIPANT (TRANSLATED FROM VIETNAMESE)

For example, not knowing English when they first arrived in the country created extra challenges when using local transportation systems and meeting basic daily life needs such as shopping for groceries:

“When we were very young, the most difficult thing we faced [after coming to the U.S.] was not being able to speak the language. Unless you lived in those times, you wouldn’t know. We didn’t know how to buy food. … We didn’t know the language and there was no interpreter available. … I didn’t know how to take the bus, I didn’t know where to go, or to which place they were taking me to school. When we were asked to go to the classroom, we didn’t know where to go. … There was no other way, because there was no communication.”

–Immigrant woman of Hmong origin in late 50s (translated from Hmong)

Language barriers also brought extra hurdles for Asian immigrants in the job market. Some focus group participants said it was hard to explain their skills to potential employers in English effectively, even if they had the relevant education or skills for the job and had learned English before they immigrated:

“After coming [to the U.S.], there were many problems to face, first … the language problem. We have read English … but we are not used to speaking. … We also had education … but since we can’t explain ourselves in English – what we can do, what we know … we are getting rejected [from jobs] as we cannot speak. … Another problem was that I had a child. My child was small. I could not go to work leaving him. At that time, my husband was working. He also had the same thing – he had education, but he could not get a good job because of the language. [As another participant] said, we had to work below the minimum wage.”

–Immigrant woman of Bangladeshi origin in late 30s (translated from Bengali)

Not wanting to be a burden influenced life choices of many U.S.-born participants

For many U.S.-born focus group participants, concerns about being a burden to their families shaped their childhoods and many of their life decisions:

“It’s difficult to talk to [my parents] because you grew up here and it’s just totally different from them growing up in Vietnam. … It’s the same like what [another participant] was saying, when you take off the burden to your parents, right? So I dropped out of college, just because I didn’t want them paying anymore. I just didn’t think that I was going to do or be anything in college, right? So I would rather work. So I started taking responsibility of my own and you start working really hard and you getting out of the house and helping them pay for bills.”

–U.S.-born man of Vietnamese origin in mid-40s

“My family’s struggling. Is education more important, [or] is working more important? I really felt that growing up because a lot of my friends, education – going to college and going to a techno school – wasn’t really on their radar, it wasn’t really something on their plan. I think talking to a lot of the folks and a lot of my friends during their time, they felt like they had to grow up to provide for their family or for you to find some type of income to kind of help their family. And so that really drove the direction of at least one of my friends, or a lot of my friends.”

–U.S.-born man of Hmong origin in mid-30s

Some U.S.-born focus group participants said that when reflecting on their childhoods, they could see the financial burden they had on their families in a way they did not realize as a child:

“At a certain point you become very aware of how much of a financial burden you are. You don’t ask for anything you want. Like, you don’t ask for prom. You don’t ask to join clubs. You don’t ask to go on field trips, things like that. You just know that it’s going to cause so much drain on your parents.”

–U.S.-born woman of Vietnamese origin in mid-20s

“[My parents] had like a lot of responsibilities, like … giving money back to their father, and then their sisters and brothers, helping them out back [in Pakistan]. … [My father] had to support us and then send money back constantly there. I didn’t know that until now, basically. … We would hardly see him. Maybe like on Sunday, we would see him a couple of hours. But it was on the weekdays, we would hardly see our father. He was always working.”

–U.S.-born woman of Pakistani origin in early 30s

Overcoming economic challenges

The survey found that when Asian adults living in poverty have needed help with bills, housing, food or seeking a job, about six-in-ten (61%) say they’ve turned to family or friends.

Some focus group participants mentioned that families and friends in their ethnic community were a great source of financial help. For others, the limited size of their ethnic community in the U.S. posed obstacles in obtaining assistance.

“My dad arrived in the U.S. when he was 26 years old, and I’m now 29 years old. … I have seven siblings and my parents who support me. And my parents didn’t have that, they didn’t have their parents to support them.” TANG , FILM PARTICIPANT

“It was very difficult during [my] study [at university]. … I had a scholarship, most of the part was scholarship; however, I had to pay something between $10,000 and $15,000 per semester. And I had to eat, I had to pay rent, I had to do everything. At the same time, there are many other things too, aren’t there? And there was always a stress about money. This semester is over now, how do I pay for the next? I had no clarity about what to do and not to do. In that situation, I approached those friends studying there or who came there a little earlier and were working to borrow money. … I [was] offered help by some friends and in finding a job and being helped for my needs.”

–Immigrant man of Nepalese origin in early 40s (translated from Nepali)

“We didn’t have a large Burmese community to ask for such help. It was not yet present. As we had no such community, when we had just arrived, we told close friends, got directions and went to ask for help.”

–Immigrant woman of Burmese origin in late 40s (translated from Burmese)

However, not all Asians living with economic hardship have asked for or received help. In the focus groups, participants shared why they or their families sometimes did not do so or felt hesitant. Fear of gossip and shame were mentioned multiple times:

“[I experienced financial difficulties after I first arrived in the U.S.] because I came here as a student. … It’s because I had to pay monthly rent and I paid for living expenses. I felt a little pressured when the monthly payment date approached. I had no choice but to ask my parents in Korea for money even as an adult, so I felt a sense of shame.”

–Immigrant woman of Korean origin in early 40s (translated from Korean)

“My cousin will [help me financially] without judgment. But, like, my aunt and elders – if it gets back to them [that I asked for help], it’s going to for sure come with judgment. And if I could figure it out myself, I will take the way without judgment.”

“To add on to what [another participant] said, if you go to the community [for help] or whatever, you know, by tomorrow everybody’s going to know it’s your problem.”

–U.S.-born woman of Pakistani origin in early 40s

Immigrants who came to the U.S. because of conflict are more familiar with government aid programs

Asian immigrants come to this country for a variety of reasons. In the focus groups, immigrant participants who came to the U.S. due to conflict or war in their origin countries referenced government assistance programs more often than those who came for other reasons.

This reflects a broader pattern among Asian immigrants overall: Those who came because of conflict or persecution have turned to federal, state or local governments for help with living expenses or employment more often than immigrants who came for economic or educational opportunities, according to the survey.

Focus group participants reflected on differences in the amount of government help available. Sometimes, they expressed a sense of unequal treatment:

“Vietnamese have this program where people got sponsored because of the war. So for other Asians, they feel that we are more privileged. Because from what I know, the Koreans and the Japanese, they must have money in order to come to America. As for us, we can come here through the refugee program, we can come here through the political program. They feel that we got more preferential treatment than other Asians in that regard.”

–Immigrant man of Vietnamese origin in early 40s (translated from Vietnamese)

“During the pandemic, I had to go through housing assistance and everything [to pay my rent]. Something like that with EBT [Electronic Benefits Transfer], how they send you stimulus checks. Korea doesn’t have any of that stuff.”

–U.S.-born woman of Korean origin in late 40s

“I think my community is relatively traditional. Because 20 years ago, we went straight to Chinatown fresh off the plane [after immigrating]. I still remember being in [the local] hospital, lots of social workers were there to help out, including with a medical insurance card, and applying for service, most importantly medical insurance. We all went to [the same] street. We relied on other Chinese people.”

–Immigrant man of Chinese origin in late 30s (translated from Mandarin)

Family ties contribute to increased awareness of government programs. For example, when asked how they learned about using government programs for help, some U.S.-born participants said:

“[I learned about the government programs from] my parents. I had to translate for them.”

–U.S.-born woman of Cambodian origin in mid-30s

“I was working at [a smoothie shop], and I was 17 and a half. … My college loan was like $50,000 [and I was] making $12.50 [an hour], how the hell am I supposed to be paying that month to month? Because my month-to-month was damn near $300, $500. My $12.50 an hour does not even cover for it, any of it, whatsoever. And, you know, me [having] been kicked out of home … I was living with my aunt. … I don’t want to burden her. So I had to go and ask her. She told me, ‘Hey, you should go and apply for food stamps.’”

–U.S.-born woman of Laotian origin in mid-30s

U.S.-born and immigrant focus group participants hold different views on education’s role in achieving a better future

“My friend, he started out at internship … I was too naive. I was laughing at the time, like, ‘Man you spend your time? You took buses there every day? No pay?’ … I just didn’t know the big picture behind [it]. I wish I could plan for [it] just like how they did.” PHUOC , FILM PARTICIPANT

Reflecting on what could lead to success and achieving the American dream, focus group participants who were born in or grew up in the U.S. emphasized the value of getting connected to the “right” opportunities:

“[You don’t have] to go to school to be successful. I mean, they say there are people who are book smart and just people who are street smart, you know. [As long as you] grow up and you know the right people … networking on the right people to get into things. Or, you know, the right people to do the right things to get to where you want to be in life.”

–U.S.-born man of Hmong origin in late 20s

Other participants said it would have helped if their families had a deeper understanding of how the education system prepares them for good careers:

“I feel if my parents were educated and they could have guided me in the right direction [for college] – although, they tried their best. I’m not blaming them. But, you know, if I had someone of a more academic background who knew the system … I will try my best to help my daughter out in college or help her choose what her major is going to be. [My parents couldn’t provide] that kind of help that really helped me in choosing my major. … And so I think just the background that we come from was not the best – or not having the full grasp of this system. … Versus someone who’s had parents here for multiple years, and their parents are now telling them, like, ‘Hey, this is not the right decision for you. Try doing this. This will be better in the long run.’”

–U.S.-born man of Pakistani origin in early 30s

Some also said firsthand knowledge of how to invest and how the U.S. financial system works would have helped:

“[In] the newer generation, we have access to learn all the things we need to, right? [I watch videos] that talk about, like, ‘These are the things you need to do in order to be financially successful. You need to invest your money, get into stocks,’ and stuff like that. And I know that not even 1% of my Hmong community knows anything about that stuff. … So I think we can be more financially successful, including myself, if we were to look more deeply into those things.”

–U.S.-born woman of Hmong origin in late 20s

“If you’re educated and know how, like, let’s say investments work, if you know how that’s done and then you apply it actually going through [someone] like investors or even stockbrokers, then you’ll see the fruits of your labor, or at least experience that, as opposed to not even having the knowledge or even the experience to begin with.”

–U.S.-born man of Cambodian origin in mid-30s

Some participants shared that even when they have some knowledge of financial institutions, they feel the system is working against them:

“I think systematic racism [is a barrier to achieving the American dream]. … I mean, if you own a car, you got to get the bank to approve you. … And they charge people with, like, no credit the highest fee, the most percentage, which are a lot of the folks [like] us trying to achieve the American dream. And then we go to neighborhoods that have the highest crime rate, we also have the most premiums. … And so I think that, one, we’re paying a lot more with much less … the system [was] set up well before minorities, and I think we’re pretty much going to fall behind.”

Many focus group participants also see the value of education, especially a college one, in leading toward a better future and achieving the American dream:

“[When I think of the American dream, it means] if you work hard enough, you can succeed. … You can get an education or a higher education. Then you have so many choices here and exposure to so many ideas and concepts that you wouldn’t otherwise.”

“The bachelor’s degree was important to me in the sense that I needed it so that I could apply for the jobs I wanted. … I guess it made things a bit easier.” THET , FILM PARTICIPANT (TRANSLATED FROM BURMESE)

But this sentiment resonated more with immigrant participants than those born in the U.S.:

“It is the education and the relevant knowledge I think that our Hmong people must have. We’ve been living in this country for the last 45 years. I think that to live in this country, it is very important for some people. I do not think everyone has a ‘lawyer’ or a ‘doctor’ in their house. If it happens, maybe we will reach our goal and the poverty will gradually disappear from our lives.”

–Immigrant woman of Hmong origin in mid-30s (translated from Hmong)

“I think if I obtain any degree, I would perhaps be able to do something.”

Assumptions about Asians hurt their chances of overcoming challenges

Participants shared that other people’s assumptions about Asians complicate their experience of living with economic hardship. Asians are often characterized as a “model minority” and portrayed as educationally and financially successful when compared with other groups.

Some participants shared how the assumption that all Asians are doing well hurt their ability to seek help:

“I have a daughter … she’s the only Asian in class. … Everybody tends to think, ‘She’s Asian; she’s so smart; her mommy has money. So you got to invite her to your birthday party because her mom is rich. [Her] mom will buy you a present.’ … I’m not rich, but because we’re Asian … she’s invited to all these parties.”

–U.S.-born woman of Hmong origin in early 30s

“What I can assume is that outside of our community, especially at the government level, [including] state level and central federal level here, we are missing out or not eligible for benefits. In their opinion, we are rich, no matter if we are working or not. [They may think] our stories may not be genuine. They may think we are making up a story [if we apply for benefits].”

Striving for the American dream

Freedom was a recurring theme in how focus group participants define their American dream. Two aspects were mentioned. The first was freedom from debt and stress over making ends meet, such as paying for everyday basic needs including rent and food. The second was the ability to make life choices freely without financial constraints, enabling them to live the life they aspire to.

Reaching the American dream

Half of Asians living near or below the federal poverty line say they believe they have achieved the American dream or are on their way to achieving it, the survey found. This includes 15% who say they have achieved it and 36% who say they are on their way. By comparison, among those living above the poverty line, 27% say they’ve achieved the American dream, and another 46% say they are on their way.

“Before I came to America, I had never heard of the American dream. … But because I was able to at least bring my son along, not only my life but also his education has improved significantly.” THEIN , FILM PARTICIPANT (TRANSLATED FROM BURMESE)

Among focus group participants, many were optimistic about reaching the American dream for themselves:

“[To me, the American dream is] the opportunity to come to America. I’ve learned a lot after reaching here. And I’ve been able to help my parents and relatives. Despite facing some troubles here, I’ve [provided them a] little financial assistance. I would’ve been unable to help them if I had been in Bhutan.”

–Immigrant woman of Bhutanese origin in late 40s (translated from Dzongkha)

Some participants were also hopeful that the next generation can achieve their American dream, even when they themselves are not there yet:

“When I think about the American dream, I look back at myself, because I belong to the first generation that came to this country. We all started very late. I know that this country will help you, but really it will not be easy for us. … What I think will help me to be happy is to ‘reach the American dream.’ If I can’t achieve it, then I will support my children so that they can reach the dream and I will be happy with them. I will give my children money to help them study.”

“If I can’t get [the American dream] for myself, it is okay. No matter how I am, I’ve already reached half of my life. But I’ve done as much as I can do for [my children], so my responsibility is done. If it’s their turn, I believe they will be able to do all that I couldn’t. I believe it.”

“I would like to own a home one day. And at this rate, and like many of my peers, that’s not a reachable goal right now. I don’t see it being a reachable goal for me for a very, very, very long time.” TANG , FILM PARTICIPANT

Still, the survey found that 47% of Asian adults living in poverty say the American dream is out of reach for them, higher than the share among those living above the poverty line (26%). Not all Asians living in poverty feel the same way about achieving the American dream, with U.S.-born Asians in the focus groups being less optimistic about reaching the American dream than immigrant Asians.

“In a certain era with the U.S. and the immigrants coming, the American dream [was] you come, you study, you do this, you can climb up the ladder, etc., etc. That was the big American dream. And I think there was a period where that was possible. Not any longer.”

Others also shared worries about their prospects of reaching the American dream because of different immigration histories and economic concerns such as inflation:

“I think I was conditioned to think too small to have the American dream. … Vietnamese Americans came over here at a very specific time. … There were Chinese Americans that came here like centuries ago, and they had the time to build generational wealth. We know that Vietnamese people came here in the ’70s. That’s not enough time to grow generational wealth.”

–U.S.-born woman of Vietnamese origin in late 20s

“I have kids. … They’re spoiled. … Now with inflation, houses are more expensive now [than 10, 20 years ago], right? Let’s say 20 years from now, when they buy a house, [the American dream] is going to be unachievable, you know what I mean? Like, unless they are a TikTok star or an entertainer or some kind. … [It’s] going to be tough.”

–U.S.-born man of Chinese origin in late 30s

Freedom from debt

For many participants, being debt-free is important to their vision of the American dream and promotes a life with more financial stability and independence:

“[If I could choose one dream in America, it would be to have] no debt. … When buying something, they always say, ‘Be careful, or you’ll be in debt.’ … And that is what got stuck in my throat.”

–Immigrant woman of Laotian origin in mid-30s (translated from Lao)

“[I haven’t achieved the American dream because I’m not] debt-free, you know, just trying to have extra money, instead of living paycheck to paycheck.”

“[My dream in America is] to be independent, for example, we always lived with the money of mom and dad. One is to be independent when you come here. Let me earn so much money that if I go to the store and buy something, I don’t even have to look at the price tag. That [is] my dream.”

–Immigrant woman of Nepalese origin in early 40s (translated from Nepali)

Participants shared that being debt-free also means having less stress and worry about making ends meet so that they can have extra resources and bandwidth to help their families:

“[The most important thing to achieving the American dream is] being debt-free and having real estate and income steadiness. … If you have rent income, you’re not trading in your time for money, so you have real estate. … You’re not stressing, you have time for your kids more, and your family. You’re probably a little bit happier.”

–Immigrant man of Cambodian origin in mid-20s

“The main thing is that I want to fully support my father and mother, and that I don’t have to worry about [how] I will support myself, or how I will pay my house rent. This is my number one.”

–Immigrant woman of Bangladeshi origin in late 20s (translated from Bengali)

For others, having a stable job is an important step to reaching the American dream:

“I want to have a job, and if I have a job, I’ll have money. I’m only working three and a half days a week right now, and I want to work more. I want more jobs the most, right now. I don’t need anything in America. Just a job.”

Freedom to dream

Focus group participants mentioned having the financial ability to not only meet their basic needs, but also pursue their dreams. Asians born in the U.S. mentioned the freedom to chase one’s aspirations without financial constraints more often than immigrants. Regardless of nativity, the ability to live the life they want is fundamental to many focus group participants’ definitions of the American dream:

“[When] everyone around you is immigrants and you’re all just trying to survive, the only thing you’re trained to think about is survival. But you’re not thinking about investment. Like, when you grow older and you start thinking, ‘Okay, I need to spend money to make money,’ that’s when you start thinking bigger. Yeah, I’m not just thinking about like having one home, I want 10 homes.”

“[Financial] stability is you have nothing but you could survive. [Financial] freedom is you have enough that you can do anything you want. That’s my financial freedom.”

“As it was so hard at that time … what motivated you to keep going and work so hard?” “My strength, my mindset was I wanted to earn money so that my children could have a bright future.” PHUOC AND PHONG , FILM PARTICIPANTS (TRANSLATED FROM VIETNAMESE)

The American dream, to some focus group participants, is about more than financial achievements. Finding happiness and helping others, ultimately leading them to live the life they desire, are key parts of their American dream.

“I want to thank [another participant] for saying ‘self-actualization,’ because personally I think it’s really powerful to be able to know what you want. Because then you’ll know what kind of job you want, what kind of house you want, whether you want to be in politics or not. Like, loving yourself and understanding yourself to your core, then that will be the [deciding factor].”

–Immigrant man of Cambodian origin in early 40s

“I think for me [the American dream] is that there is a house for me, with no interest, I do not owe any loan, my parents could live there comfortably, their struggle is over, and also I have enough … to be able to do something for Pakistan later [in life], God willing.”

–Immigrant woman of Pakistani origin in mid-20s (translated from Urdu)

“[Some people define success as having] lots of money, kids, cars, right? But that’s not really … what I would consider success. Success is something that – does it make you happy? … Are you happy every day going to work? Does it make you happy? When you come home, are you happy?”

About this project

Pew Research Center designed these focus groups and survey questions to better understand the experiences of Asian Americans living with economic hardship. By including participants who are among the Asian origin groups most likely to experience poverty, the focus groups aimed to capture, in their own words, their experiences and challenges in America today. The discussions in these groups may or may not resonate with all Asians living in poverty in the United States.

The project is part of a broader research portfolio studying the diverse experiences of Asians living in the U.S.

Survey and demographic analysis of Asians living in poverty

For a comprehensive examination of Asian adults’ experiences with economic hardship from Pew Research Center’s 2022-23 survey of Asian Americans, as well as a demographic analysis of the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2022 American Community Survey, read “Key facts about Asian Americans living in poverty.”

Videos throughout this data essay illustrate what focus group participants discussed. Individuals recorded in these video clips did not participate in the focus groups but were selected based on similar demographic characteristics and thematically relevant stories.

Watch the short film related to the themes in the data essay.

Methodological note

This multi-method research project examines the many facets of living with economic hardship among Asian Americans today.

The qualitative analysis is based on 18 focus groups conducted in February 2023 in 12 languages with 144 participants across four locations. Recruited participants had an approximate family income that is at or below 140%-250% of the federal poverty line, depending on the location. More information about the focus group methodology and analysis can be found in the focus group methodology .

The survey analysis included in this data essay is based on 561 Asian adults living near or below the poverty line from Pew Research Center’s 2022-23 survey of Asian Americans, the largest nationally representative survey of Asian American adults of its kind to date, conducted in six languages. For more details, refer to the survey methodology . For questions used in this analysis, refer to the topline questionnaire .

Acknowledgments

Pew Research Center is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts, its primary funder. The Center’s Asian American portfolio was funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts, with generous support from The Asian American Foundation; Chan Zuckerberg Initiative DAF, an advised fund of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation; the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; the Henry Luce Foundation; the Doris Duke Foundation; The Wallace H. Coulter Foundation; The Dirk and Charlene Kabcenell Foundation; The Long Family Foundation; Lu-Hebert Fund; Gee Family Foundation; Joseph Cotchett; the Julian Abdey and Sabrina Moyle Charitable Fund; and Nanci Nishimura.

We would also like to thank the Leaders Forum for its thought leadership and valuable assistance in helping make this survey possible.

The strategic communications campaign used to promote the research was made possible with generous support from the Doris Duke Foundation.

This is a collaborative effort based on the input and analysis of a number of individuals and experts at Pew Research Center and outside experts.

• In this data essay, definitions of “living near or below the poverty line” and related terms differ between survey respondents and focus group participants. Refer to the terminology box for details. ↩

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About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts .

• Open access
• Published: 05 December 2023

A scoping review to identify and organize literature trends of bias research within medical student and resident education

• Brianne E. Lewis 1 &
• Akshata R. Naik 2  

BMC Medical Education volume  23 , Article number:  919 ( 2023 ) Cite this article

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Metrics details

Physician bias refers to the unconscious negative perceptions that physicians have of patients or their conditions. Medical schools and residency programs often incorporate training to reduce biases among their trainees. In order to assess trends and organize available literature, we conducted a scoping review with a goal to categorize different biases that are studied within medical student (MS), resident (Res) and mixed populations (MS and Res). We also characterized these studies based on their research goal as either documenting evidence of bias (EOB), bias intervention (BI) or both. These findings will provide data which can be used to identify gaps and inform future work across these criteria.

Online databases (PubMed, PsycINFO, WebofScience) were searched for articles published between 1980 and 2021. All references were imported into Covidence for independent screening against inclusion criteria. Conflicts were resolved by deliberation. Studies were sorted by goal: ‘evidence of bias’ and/or ‘bias intervention’, and by population (MS or Res or mixed) andinto descriptive categories of bias.

Of the initial 806 unique papers identified, a total of 139 articles fit the inclusion criteria for data extraction. The included studies were sorted into 11 categories of bias and showed that bias against race/ethnicity, specific diseases/conditions, and weight were the most researched topics. Of the studies included, there was a higher ratio of EOB:BI studies at the MS level. While at the Res level, a lower ratio of EOB:BI was found.

Conclusions

This study will be of interest to institutions, program directors and medical educators who wish to specifically address a category of bias and identify where there is a dearth of research. This study also underscores the need to introduce bias interventions at the MS level.

Peer Review reports

Physician bias ultimately impacts patient care by eroding the physician–patient relationship [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ]. To overcome this issue, certain states require physicians to report a varying number of hours of implicit bias training as part of their recurring licensing requirement [ 5 , 6 ]. Research efforts on the influence of implicit bias on clinical decision-making gained traction after the “Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care” report published in 2003 [ 7 ]. This report sparked a conversation about the impact of bias against women, people of color, and other marginalized groups within healthcare. Bias from a healthcare provider has been shown to affect provider-patient communication and may also influence treatment decisions [ 8 , 9 ]. Nevertheless, opportunities within medical education curriculum are created to evaluate biases at an earlier stage of physician-training and provide instruction to intervene them [ 10 , 11 , 12 ]. We aimed to identify trends and organize literature on bias training provided during medical school and residency programs since the meaning of ‘bias’ is broad and encompasses several types of attitudes and predispositions [ 13 ].

Several reviews, narrative or systematic in nature, have been published in the field of bias research in medicine and healthcare [ 14 , 15 , 16 ]. Many of these reviews have a broad focus on implicit bias and they often fail to define the patient’s specific attributes- such as age, weight, disease, or condition against which physicians hold their biases. However, two recently published reviews categorized implicit biases into various descriptive characteristics albeit with research goals different than this study [ 17 , 18 ]. The study by Fitzgerald et al. reviewed literature focused on bias among physicians and nurses to highlight its role in healthcare disparities [ 17 ]. While the study by Gonzalez et al. focused on bias curricular interventions across professions related to social determinants of health such as education, law, medicine and social work [ 18 ]. Our research goal was to identify the various bias characteristics that are studied within medical student and/or resident populations and categorize them. Further, we were interested in whether biases were merely identified or if they were intervened. To address these deficits in the field and provide clarity, we utilized a scoping review approach to categorize the literature based on a) the bias addressed and b) the study goal within medical students (MS), residents (Res) and a mixed population (MS and Res).

To date no literature review has organized bias research by specific categories held solely by medical trainees (medical students and/or residents) and quantified intervention studies. We did not perform a quality assessment or outcome evaluation of the bias intervention strategies, as it was not the goal of this work and is standard with a scoping review methodology [ 19 , 20 ]. By generating a comprehensive list of bias categories researched among medical trainee population, we highlight areas of opportunity for future implicit bias research specifically within the undergraduate and graduate medical education curriculum. We anticipate that the results from this scoping review will be useful for educators, administrators, and stakeholders seeking to implement active programs or workshops that intervene specific biases in pre-clinical medical education and prepare physicians-in-training for patient encounters. Additionally, behavioral scientists who seek to support clinicians, and develop debiasing theories [ 21 ] and models may also find our results informative.

We conducted an exhaustive and focused scoping review and followed the methodological framework for scoping reviews as previously described in the literature [ 20 , 22 ]. This study aligned with the four goals of a scoping review [ 20 ]. We followed the first five out of the six steps outlined by Arksey and O’Malley’s to ensure our review’s validity 1) identifying the research question 2) identifying relevant studies 3) selecting the studies 4) charting the data and 5) collating, summarizing and reporting the results [ 22 ]. We did not follow the optional sixth step of undertaking consultation with key stakeholders as it was not needed to address our research question it [ 23 ]. Furthermore, we used Covidence systematic review software (Veritas Health Innovation, Melbourne, Australia) that aided in managing steps 2–5 presented above.

Research question, search strategy and inclusion criteria

The purpose of this study was to identify trends in bias research at the medical school and residency level. Prior to conducting our literature search we developed our research question and detailed the inclusion criteria, and generated the search syntax with the assistance from a medical librarian. Search syntax was adjusted to the requirements of the database. We searched PubMed, Web of Science, and PsycINFO using MeSH terms shown below.

Bias* [ti] OR prejudice*[ti] OR racism[ti] OR homophobia[ti] OR mistreatment[ti] OR sexism[ti] OR ageism[ti]) AND (prejudice [mh] OR "Bias"[Mesh:NoExp]) AND (Education, Medical [mh] OR Schools, Medical [mh] OR students, medical [mh] OR Internship and Residency [mh] OR “undergraduate medical education” OR “graduate medical education” OR “medical resident” OR “medical residents” OR “medical residency” OR “medical residencies” OR “medical schools” OR “medical school” OR “medical students” OR “medical student”) AND (curriculum [mh] OR program evaluation [mh] OR program development [mh] OR language* OR teaching OR material* OR instruction* OR train* OR program* OR curricul* OR workshop*

Our inclusion criteria incorporated studies which were either original research articles, or review articles that synthesized new data. We excluded publications that were not peer-reviewed or supported with data such as narrative reviews, opinion pieces, editorials, perspectives and commentaries. We included studies outside of the U.S. since the purpose of this work was to generate a comprehensive list of biases. Physicians, regardless of their country of origin, can hold biases against specific patient attributes [ 17 ]. Furthermore, physicians may practice in a different country than where they trained [ 24 ]. Manuscripts were included if they were published in the English language for which full-texts were available. Since the goal of this scoping review was to assess trends, we accepted studies published from 1980–2021.

Our inclusion criteria also considered the goal and the population of the study. We defined the study goal as either that documented evidence of bias or a program directed bias intervention. Evidence of bias (EOB) had to originate from the medical trainee regarding a patient attribute. Bias intervention (BI) studies involved strategies to counter biases such as activities, workshops, seminars or curricular innovations. The population studied had to include medical students (MS) or residents (Res) or mixed. We defined the study population as ‘mixed’ when it consisted of both MS and Res. Studies conducted on other healthcare professionals were included if MS or Res were also studied. Our search criteria excluded studies that documented bias against medical professionals (students, residents and clinicians) either by patients, medical schools, healthcare administrators or others, and was focused on studies where the biases were solely held by medical trainees (MS and Res).

Data extraction and analysis

Following the initial database search, references were downloaded and bulk uploaded into Covidence and duplicates were removed. After the initial screening of title and abstracts, full-texts were reviewed. Authors independently completed title and abstract screening, and full text reviews. Any conflicts at the stage of abstract screening were moved to full-text screening. Conflicts during full-text screening were resolved by deliberation and referring to the inclusion and exclusion criteria detailed in the research protocol. The level of agreement between the two authors for full text reviews as measured by inter-rater reliability was 0.72 (Cohen’s Kappa).

A data extraction template was created in Covidence to extract data from included full texts. Data extraction template included the following variables; country in which the study was conducted, year of publication, goal of the study (EOB, BI or both), population of the study (MS, Res or mixed) and the type of bias studied. Final data was exported to Microsoft Excel for quantification. For charting our data and categorizing the included studies, we followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews(PRISMA-ScR) guidelines [ 25 ]. Results from this scoping review study are meant to provide a visual synthesis of existing bias research and identify gaps in knowledge.

Study selection

Our search strategy yielded a total of 892 unique abstracts which were imported into ‘Covidence’ for screening. A total of 86 duplicate references were removed. Then, 806 titles and abstracts were screened for relevance independently by the authors and 519 studies were excluded at this stage. Any conflicts among the reviewers at this stage were resolved by discussion and referring to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Then a full text review of the remaining 287 papers was completed by the authors against the inclusion criteria for eligibility. Full text review was also conducted independently by the authors and any conflicts were resolved upon discussion. Finally, we included 139 studies which were used for data extraction (Fig.  1 ).

PRISMA diagram of the study selection process used in our scoping review to identify the bias categories that have been reported within medical education literature. Study took place from 2021–2022. Abbreviation: PRISMA, Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses

Publication trends in bias research

First, we charted the studies to demonstrate the timeline of research focused on bias within the study population of our interest (MS or Res or mixed). Our analysis revealed an increase in publications with respect to time (Fig.  2 ). Of the 139 included studies, fewer studies were published prior to 2001, with a total of only eight papers being published from the years 1985–2000. A substantial increase in publications occurred after 2004, with 2019 being the peak year where most of the studies pertaining to bias were published (Fig.  2 ).

Studies matching inclusion criteria mapped by year of publication. Search criteria included studies addressing bias from 1980–2021 within medical students (MS) or residents (Res) or mixed (MS + Res) populations. * Publication in 2022 was published online ahead of print

Overview of included studies

We present a descriptive analysis of the 139 included studies in Table 1 based on the following parameters: study location, goal of the study, population of the study and the category of bias studied. All of the above parameters except the category of bias included a denominator of 139 studies. Several studies addressed more than one bias characteristic; therefore, we documented 163 biases sorted in 11 categories over the 139 papers. The bias categories that we generated and their respective occurrences are listed in Table 1 . Of the 139 studies that were included, most studies originated in the United States ( n  = 89/139, 64%) and Europe ( n  = 20/139, 20%).

Sorting of included research by bias category

We grouped the 139 included studies depending on the patient attribute or the descriptive characteristic against which the bias was studied (Table 1 ). By sorting the studies into different bias categories, we aimed to not only quantitate the amount of research addressing a particular topic of bias, but also reveal the biases that are understudied.

Through our analysis, we generated 11 descriptive categories against which bias was studied: Age, physical disability, education level, biological sex, disease or condition, LGBTQ + , non-specified, race/ethnicity, rural/urban, socio-economic status, and weight (Table 1 ). “Age” and “weight” categories included papers that studied bias against older population and higher weight individuals, respectively. The categories “education level” and “socio-economic status” included papers that studied bias against individuals with low education level and individuals belonging to low socioeconomic status, respectively. Within the bias category named ‘biological sex’, we included papers that studied bias against individuals perceived as women/females. Papers that studied bias against gender-identity or sexual orientation were included in its own category named, ‘LGBTQ + ’. The bias category, ‘disease or condition’ was broad and included research on bias against any patient with a specific disease, condition or lifestyle. Studies included in this category researched bias against any physical illnesses, mental illnesses, or sexually transmitted infections. It also included studies that addressed bias against a treatment such as transplant or pain management. It was not significant to report these as individual categories but rather as a whole with a common underlying theme. Rural/urban bias referred to bias that was held against a person based on their place of residence. Studies grouped together in the ‘non-specified bias’ category explored bias without specifying any descriptive characteristic in their methods. These studies did not address any specific bias characteristic in particular but consisted of a study population of our interest (MS or Res or mixed). Based on our analysis, the top five most studied bias categories in our included population within medical education literature were: racial or ethnic bias ( n  = 39/163, 24%), disease or condition bias ( n  = 29/163, 18%), weight bias ( n  = 22/163, 13%), LGBTQ + bias ( n  = 21/163, 13%), and age bias ( n  = 16/163, 10%) which are presented in Table 1 .

Sorting of included research by population

In order to understand the distribution of bias research based on their populations examined, we sorted the included studies in one of the following: medical students (MS), residents (Res) or mixed (Table 1 ). The following distributions were observed: medical students only ( n  = 105/139, 76%), residents only ( n  = 19/139, 14%) or mixed which consisted of both medical students and residents ( n  = 15/139, 11%). In combination, these results demonstrate that medical educators have focused bias research efforts primarily on medical student populations.

Sorting of included research by goal

A critical component of this scoping review was to quantify the research goal of the included studies within each of the bias categories. We defined the research goal as either to document evidence of bias (EOB) or to evaluate a bias intervention (BI) (see Fig.  1 for inclusion criteria). Some of the included studies focused on both, documenting evidence in addition to intervening biases and those studies were grouped separately. The analysis revealed that 69/139 (50%) of the included studies focused exclusively on documenting evidence of bias (EOB). There were fewer studies ( n  = 51/139, 37%) which solely focused on bias interventions such as programs, seminars or curricular innovations. A small minority of the included studies were more comprehensive in that they documented EOB followed by an intervention strategy ( n  = 19/139, 11%). These results demonstrate that most bias research is dedicated to documenting evidence of bias among these groups rather than evaluating a bias intervention strategy.

Research goal distribution

Our next objective was to calculate the distribution of studies with respect to the study goal (EOB, BI or both), within the 163 biases studied across the 139 papers as calculated in Table 1 . In general, the goal of the studies favors documenting evidence of bias with the exception of race/ethnic bias which is more focused on bias intervention (Fig.  3 ). Fewer studies were aimed at both, documenting evidence then providing an intervention, across all bias categories.

Sorting of total biases ( n  = 163) within medical students or residents or a mixed population based on the bias category . Dark grey indicates studies with a dual goal, to document evidence of bias and to intervene bias. Medium grey bars indicate studies which focused on documenting evidence of bias. Light grey bars indicate studies focused on bias intervention within these populations. Numbers inside the bars indicate the total number of biases for the respective study goal. * Non-specified bias includes studies which focused on implicit bias but did not mention the type of bias investigated

Furthermore, we also calculated the ratio of EOB, BI and both (EOB + BI) within each of our population of interest (MS; n  = 122, Res; n  = 26 and mixed; n  = 15) for the 163 biases observed in our included studies. Over half ( n  = 64/122, 52%) of the total bias occurrences in MS were focused on documenting EOB (Fig.  4 ). Contrastingly, a shift was observed within resident populations where most biases addressed were aimed at intervention ( n  = 12/26, 41%) rather than EOB ( n  = 4/26, 14%) (Fig.  4 ). Studies which included both MS and Res (mixed) were primarily focused on documenting EOB ( n  = 9/15, 60%), with 33% ( n  = 5/15) aimed at bias intervention and 7% ( n  = 1/15) which did both (Fig.  4 ). Although far fewer studies were documented in the Res population it is important to highlight that most of these studies were focused on bias intervention when compared to MS population where we documented a majority of studies focused on evidence of bias.

A ratio of the study goal for the total biases ( n  = 163) mapped within each of the study population (MS, Res and Mixed). A study goal with a) documenting evidence of bias (EOB) is depicted in dotted grey, b) bias intervention (BI) in medium grey, and c) a dual focus (EOB + BI) is depicted in dark grey. * N  = 122 for medical student studies. b N  = 26 for residents. c N  = 15 for mixed

Addressing biases at an earlier stage of medical career is critical for future physicians engaging with diverse patients, since it is established that bias negatively influences provider-patient interactions [ 171 ], clinical decision-making [ 172 ] and reduces favorable treatment outcomes [ 2 ]. We set out with an intention to explore how bias is addressed within the medical curriculum. Our research question was: how has the trend in bias research changed over time, more specifically a) what is the timeline of papers published? b) what bias characteristics have been studied in the physician-trainee population and c) how are these biases addressed? With the introduction of ‘standards of diversity’ by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, along with the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) and the American Medical Association (AMA) [ 173 , 174 ], we certainly expected and observed a sustained uptick in research pertaining to bias. As shown here, research addressing bias in the target population (MS and Res) is on the rise, however only 139 papers fit our inclusion criteria. Of these studies, nearly 90% have been published since 2005 after the “Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care” report was published in 2003 [ 7 ]. However, given the well documented effects of physician held bias, we anticipated significantly more number of studies focused on bias at the medical student or resident level.

A key component from this study was that we generated descriptive categories of biases. Sorting the biases into descriptive categories helps to identify a more targeted approach for a specific bias intervention, rather than to broadly intervene bias as a whole. In fact, our analysis found a number of publications (labeled “non-specified bias” in Table 1 ) which studied implicit bias without specifying the patient attribute or the characteristic that the bias was against. In total, we generated 11 descriptive categories of bias from our scoping review which are shown in Table 1 and Fig.  3 . Furthermore, our bias descriptors grouped similar kinds of biases within a single category. For example, the category, “disease or condition” included papers that studied bias against any type of disease (Mental illness, HIV stigma, diabetes), condition (Pain management), or lifestyle. We neither performed a qualitative assessment of the studies nor did we test the efficacy of the bias intervention studies and consider it a future direction of this work.

Evidence suggests that medical educators and healthcare professionals are struggling to find the appropriate approach to intervene biases [ 175 , 176 , 177 ] So far, bias reduction, bias reflection and bias management approaches have been proposed [ 26 , 27 , 178 ]. Previous implicit bias intervention strategies have been shown to be ineffective when biased attitudes of participants were assessed after a lag [ 179 ]. Understanding the descriptive categories of bias and previous existing research efforts, as we present here is only a fraction of the challenge. The theory of “cognitive bias” [ 180 ] and related branches of research [ 13 , 181 , 182 , 183 , 184 ] have been studied in the field of psychology for over three decades. It is only recently that cognitive bias theory has been applied to the field of medical education medicine, to explain its negative influence on clinical decision-making pertaining only to racial minorities [ 1 , 2 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 185 ]. In order to elicit meaningful changes with respect to targeted bias intervention, it is necessary to understand the psychological underpinnings (attitudes) leading to a certain descriptive category of bias (behaviors). The questions which medical educators need to ask are: a) Can these descriptive biases be identified under certain type/s of cognitive errors that elicits the bias and vice versa b) Are we working towards an attitude change which can elicit a sustained positive behavior change among healthcare professionals? And most importantly, c) are we creating a culture where participants voluntarily enroll themselves in bias interventions as opposed to being mandated to participate? Cognitive psychologists and behavioral scientists are well-positioned to help us find answers to these questions as they understand human behavior. Therefore, an interdisciplinary approach, a marriage between cognitive psychologists and medical educators, is key in targeting biases held by medical students, residents, and ultimately future physicians. This review may also be of interest to behavioral psychologists, keen on providing targeted intervening strategies to clinicians depending on the characteristics (age, weight, sex or race) the portrayed bias is against. Further, instead of an individualized approach, we need to strive for systemic changes and evidence-based strategies to intervene biases.

The next element in change is directing intervention strategies at the right stage in clinical education. Our study demonstrated that most of the research collected at the medical student level was focused on documenting evidence of bias. Although the overall number of studies at the resident level were fewer than at the medical student level, the ratio of research in favor of bias intervention was higher at the resident level (see Fig.  3 ). However, it could be helpful to focus on bias intervention earlier in learning, rather than at a later stage [ 186 ]. Additionally, educational resources such as textbooks, preparatory materials, and educators themselves are potential sources of propagating biases and therefore need constant evaluation against best practices [ 187 , 188 ].

This study has limitations. First, the list of the descriptive bias categories that we generated was not grounded in any particular theory so assigning a category was subjective. Additionally, there were studies that were categorized as “nonspecified” bias as the studies themselves did not mention the specific type of bias that they were addressing. Moreover, we had to exclude numerous publications solely because they were not evidence-based and were either perspectives, commentaries or opinion pieces. Finally, there were overall fewer studies focused on the resident population, so the calculated ratio of MS:Res studies did not compare similar sample sizes.

Future directions of our study include working with behavioral scientists to categorize these bias characteristics (Table 1 ) into cognitive error types [ 189 ]. Additionally, we aim to assess the effectiveness of the intervention strategies and categorize the approach of the intervention strategies.

The primary goal of our review was to organize, compare and quantify literature pertaining to bias within medical school curricula and residency programs. We neither performed a qualitative assessment of the studies nor did we test the efficacy of studies that were sorted into “bias intervention” as is typical of scoping reviews [ 22 ]. In summary, our research identified 11 descriptive categories of biases studied within medical students and resident populations with “race and ethnicity”, “disease or condition”, “weight”, “LGBTQ + ” and “age” being the top five most studied biases. Additionally, we found a greater number of studies conducted in medical students (105/139) when compared to residents (19/139). However, most of the studies in the resident population focused on bias intervention. The results from our review highlight the following gaps: a) bias categories where more research is needed, b) biases that are studied within medical school versus in residency programs and c) study focus in terms of demonstrating the presence of bias or working towards bias intervention.

This review provides a visual analysis of the known categories of bias addressed within the medical school curriculum and in residency programs in addition to providing a comparison of studies with respect to the study goal within medical education literature. The results from our review should be of interest to community organizations, institutions, program directors and medical educators interested in knowing and understanding the types of bias existing within healthcare populations. It might be of special interest to researchers who wish to explore other types of biases that have been understudied within medical school and resident populations, thus filling the gaps existing in bias research.

Despite the number of studies designed to provide bias intervention for MS and Res populations, and an overall cultural shift to be aware of one’s own biases, biases held by both medical students and residents still persist. Further, psychologists have recently demonstrated the ineffectiveness of some bias intervention efforts [ 179 , 190 ]. Therefore, it is perhaps unrealistic to expect these biases to be eliminated altogether. However, effective intervention strategies grounded in cognitive psychology should be implemented earlier on in medical training. Our focus should be on providing evidence-based approaches and safe spaces for an attitude and culture change, so as to induce actionable behavioral changes.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Abbreviations

• Medical student

Evidence of bias

• Bias intervention

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Dr. Misa Mi, Professor and Medical Librarian at the Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine (OWUB) for her assistance with selection of databases and construction of literature search strategies for the scoping review. The authors also wish to thank Dr. Changiz Mohiyeddini, Professor in Behavioral Medicine and Psychopathology at Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine (OUWB) for his expertise and constructive feedback on our manuscript.

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Akshata R. Naik

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A.R.N and B.E.L were equally involved in study conception, design, collecting data and analyzing the data. B.E.L and A.R.N both contributed towards writing the manuscript. A.R.N and B.E.L are both senior authors on this paper. All authors reviewed the manuscript.

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Lewis, B.E., Naik, A.R. A scoping review to identify and organize literature trends of bias research within medical student and resident education. BMC Med Educ 23 , 919 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-023-04829-6

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Election Updates: Trump-Kennedy 2024? Trump, at least, is intrigued by the idea.

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Neil Vigdor

Leah Greenberg, a co-founder of the Indivisible Project, a liberal grass-roots network, said in a statement on Friday that President Biden should have placed tougher conditions on aid to Israel during his phone call on Thursday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu , and should have suspended arms transfers immediately. “It is welcome, but insufficient,” she said of talks between the two leaders, which were described as tense.

President Biden today is surveying the wreckage of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which collapsed on March 26 when a cargo ship plowed into the span in Baltimore. He also plans to meet with family members of highway workers who were killed in the catastrophe, which has presented major test for his administration and limited access to one of the nation’s busiest ports. Follow our live coverage .

Chris Cameron

Former President Donald J. Trump, who has portrayed jailed Jan. 6 rioters as martyrs in his effort to subvert the 2020 election, decried the guilty verdict in the jury trial of Rebecca Lavrenz, a 72-year-old woman who was convicted on Thursday of misdemeanor charges for participating in the riot. Trump said she was a “hostage” of President Biden and tied the case to his own upcoming criminal trials.

The Brennan Center for Justice joined the legal fray on Thursday against two groups that sued Maryland’s elections board last month over the accuracy of the state’s voter rolls. In a friend of the court brief, the center said the suit filed by Maryland Election Integrity and United Sovereign Americans — which both denied the results of the 2020 presidential election — was frivolous and should be dismissed.

Katie Glueck

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, seen by many Democrats as one of their party’s biggest stars, is releasing a book in July called “True Gretch: What I’ve Learned About Life, Leadership, and Everything in Between,” according to Simon & Schuster.

Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina launched a video series Friday featuring himself and four other Black Republicans in Congress. In the first episode, the panel brought up a 2020 exchange in which Joseph R. Biden Jr. told a radio host that Black voters “ain’t Black” if they’d consider voting for President Donald Trump, whom Scott endorsed this election cycle after ending his own candidacy.

Michael Gold

Melania Trump, who has been mostly absent from the campaign trail as Donald Trump runs for president this year, will appear at a fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago on April 20 for the Log Cabin Republicans, said the president of the group, which represents LGBT conservatives, confirming a report by Politico .

Michael C. Bender

Reporting from Washington

Trump-Kennedy 2024? Trump, at least, is intrigued by the idea.

Would a merger between Mar-a-Lago and Camelot prove irresistible for American voters?

That is a question former President Donald J. Trump has weighed as he considers possible options for his running mate, repeatedly asking advisers and associates in recent weeks about the idea of selecting Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as his No. 2, according to two people familiar with the conversations.

Those close to Mr. Trump do not consider Mr. Kennedy a true contender for the position. Mr. Kennedy, a scion of Democratic royalty, is also already running against Mr. Trump and President Biden as an independent candidate, and he told The New York Times that he would not entertain joining the former president’s ticket.

“I’m flattered by the thought, but it’s not a course I would consider,” Mr. Kennedy said in a text message.

Instead, Mr. Trump’s queries about Mr. Kennedy suggest that the former president remains in the initial stages of his vice-presidential selection process.

Mr. Trump has asked associates about several potential running mates in recent weeks, and while no one knows whom Mr. Trump will choose, he has left some with the impression that he has not yet settled on his first-tier options.

The Trump campaign has begun the early stages of vetting potential contenders, but Mr. Trump does not need to settle on a choice until the Republican National Convention, scheduled to start on July 15 in Milwaukee.

Some people close to Mr. Trump have suggested that choosing a candidate sooner than later might help with fund-raising and campaigning on days he is defending himself in court against the dozens of criminal charges he faces. In 2016, Mr. Trump announced just before the start of his nominating convention in Cleveland that Mike Pence, then the governor of Indiana, would be his running mate.

Mr. Trump’s interest in Mr. Kennedy has centered almost exclusively on the potential power of the branding. He has collected opinions from those around him about whether combining the two famous last names on a single presidential ticket could result in some kind of political magic, according to the people familiar with the conversations.

Mr. Trump has long been intrigued by the Kennedy political dynasty. As president, he often told visitors that he sat at the same Oval Office desk as John F. Kennedy, and he regularly invoked the former president during White House events, including announcements of new tax policies and the ceremonial pardoning of a Thanksgiving turkey.

“I like Trump-Kennedy,” the former president recently told one person. “I like the way that sounds.”

Mr. Trump’s curiosity about Mr. Kennedy as a running mate appeared to undermine the public attacks he and his allies have leveled at the independent candidate.

Last week, Mr. Trump criticized Mr. Kennedy’s views on climate change and the environment, and cast him as more “radical Left” than Mr. Biden. As he did so, he suggested that Mr. Kennedy would siphon more votes from Mr. Biden. “I love that he is running!” Mr. Trump said.

Mr. Kennedy has been running for president as an independent since last year. Last week, he announced Nicole Shanahan , a Silicon Valley lawyer, as his own running mate.

In a Wall Street Journal poll this week across seven battleground states, Mr. Trump had support from 39 percent of voters, compared with 36 percent for Mr. Biden and 11 percent for Mr. Kennedy.

Democrats have signaled more worry about Mr. Kennedy’s potential to play a spoiler role, however, mobilizing a legal and political messaging effort to block him from state ballots and discourage left-leaning voters from supporting him.

While Mr. Kennedy initially tried to challenge Mr. Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination, he has also taken positions more likely to be supported by conservatives, including opposing military assistance for Ukraine in its war against Russia.

Jonathan Swan contributed reporting from Washington, and Rebecca Davis O’Brien from New York.

R.F.K. Jr. calls for a special counsel to investigate potential wrongdoing against Jan. 6 rioters.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the vaccine skeptic running for president as an independent candidate, vowed to appoint a special counsel to investigate the Justice Department’s effort to prosecute those who rioted at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, if he is elected, again downplaying the severity of the attack on the Capitol.

“I am concerned about the possibility that political objectives motivated the vigor of the prosecution of the J6 defendants, their long sentences and their harsh treatment,” Mr. Kennedy wrote in a statement a day after his campaign retracted a message of sympathy for the rioters.

A campaign email soliciting donations from supporters on Thursday said that Jan. 6 rioters jailed in Washington had been “stripped of their constitutional liberties.” But hours later, Stefanie Spear, the campaign’s press secretary, said the statement “was an error that does not reflect Mr. Kennedy’s views” and blamed a new marketing contractor, saying the relationship with the company had been terminated.

But on Friday, Mr. Kennedy said that “reasonable people, including Trump opponents, tell me there is little evidence of a true insurrection,” and repeated false claims that the rioters “carried no weapons, had no plans or ability to seize the reins of government.”

Video and other images have shown members of the mob wielding weapons like crowbars . Some have been charged or convicted of having guns and assaulting police officers with stun guns, pepper spray, baseball bats or improvised weapons like flagpoles. Far-right militiamen also amassed an arsenal of firearms near Washington in preparation for the attack, and some were convicted by juries of seditious conspiracy for their role in a plot to overturn the results of the 2020 election .

Mr. Kennedy’s statement on Friday aligned himself closer to the position of former President Donald J. Trump, one of his opponents in the presidential race, as well as others on the right who have presented the Jan. 6 rioters as victims of zealous federal prosecutors.

Mr. Kennedy, whose political rise came from his promotion of vaccine misinformation and conspiracy theories about the government, has repeatedly downplayed the severity of the attack on the Capitol. In March 2023, when Mr. Kennedy was still a Democrat, he said on a podcast that members of his party had “an obsession” with the attack. In October, Mr. Kennedy said of Jan. 6: “What’s the worst thing that could happen? Right? I mean, we have an entire military, a Pentagon, a few blocks away.”

He has also repeatedly said this week that President Biden posed a greater threat to American democracy than Mr. Trump, and expressed sympathy for “people who say that the election is stolen” — counting himself as an example. He asserted in an interview on Monday that the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections were stolen from the Democrats, adding, “We shouldn’t make pariahs of those people, we shouldn’t demonize, and we shouldn’t vilify them.”

Reid J. Epstein

With No Labels out of the ’24 race, the third-party picture comes into focus.

It’s not usually a surprise when a presidential candidate ends a campaign. There are obvious signs , rumors of an imminent demise and, in the end, a valiant statement that the candidate was right all along but extenuating circumstances ( time , money , lack of attention ) got in the way.

So it went for No Labels, which entered the 2024 discussion boasting of a $60 million war chest and ambitions of fielding a centrist bipartisan ticket that would satisfy a nation shuddering at the prospect of a rematch between President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump.

With No Labels’ announcement on Thursday that, after being turned down by a range of senators, former governors, 2024 presidential contenders and others, it would not field a presidential candidate this year , the focus turns to the remaining third-party and independent candidates vying to challenge Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump.

The leading figure among this group is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the political scion with a well-funded super PAC and a running mate with access to a Silicon Valley fortune . Mr. Kennedy, running as an independent, polls in the midteens when he’s included in surveys, but it will be months before it is clear whether he can even make the ballot in enough states to make an impact on the general election.

So far, Mr. Kennedy has qualified for the ballot in one state: Utah . It is an open question whether he will get on the ballot in the presidential battlegrounds that will matter this year.

The other well-known independent candidate, the celebrity professor Cornel West , has done little to indicate he is even trying to make the ballot. Campaign finance reports show he is not raising significant funds, nor is he funding a program to collect signatures to get on ballots.

The Green Party and the Libertarian Party have more mature ballot-access programs with long records of getting their candidates onto ballots in most states. Jill Stein, the 2016 Green nominee, is running again . Mr. Kennedy has publicly flirted with the Libertarians , though the evidence so far indicates the attraction is not mutual.

Melania Trump plans to appear at a fund-raiser for the Log Cabin Republicans this month.

Melania Trump, who has been mostly absent from public view while her husband, Donald J. Trump, campaigns for president this year, will appear at a fund-raiser at Mar-a-Lago on April 20 for the Log Cabin Republicans, the group’s president said.

The event, which was first reported by Politico , is a return of sorts to the political arena for Mrs. Trump, who has consistently stayed away from campaign events.

Mr. Trump has insisted for months that Mrs. Trump would join him on the trail. He invokes her often during his rallies, to cheers from the crowd, even as she has not traveled with him. And she did not join him at a Super Tuesday party at Mar-a-Lago, the couple’s home in Palm Beach, Fla.

Last month, Mrs. Trump made a rare public appearance with Mr. Trump, accompanying him when he cast his ballot during Florida’s primary. When asked if she would appear more regularly this year, Mrs. Trump replied, “Stay tuned.”

Mrs. Trump remains a popular surrogate for the former president, but she has shown little interest in hitting the campaign trail.

The fund-raiser for the Log Cabin Republicans, a group of L.G.B.T. conservatives, will still keep her largely out of the public eye. The group’s president, Charles T. Moran, said that Richard Grenell, Mr. Trump’s former ambassador to Germany, was also set to appear.

Mrs. Trump has maintained ties to the Log Cabin Republicans for years. In a financial disclosure last year, she reported receiving a $250,000 payment from the group in December 2022. On Twitter that month, the group posted a photo saying she was the special guest at a “private dinner” and thanking her for “continuing the projects she worked on while in the White House.”

Mrs. Trump’s few public appearances over the last year have been largely disconnected to Mr. Trump’s campaign. Last month, she joined Mr. Trump as he hosted Viktor Orban , the prime minister of Hungary, at Mar-a-Lago.

In January, she delivered a eulogy at the funeral for her mother, Amalija Knavs . And she gave a speech last December at a naturalization ceremony in Washington, where she told new American citizens that citizenship meant “actively participating in the democratic process and guarding our freedom.”

In November, she joined Mr. Trump at a funeral for his older sister . And she attended a memorial service for Rosalynn Carter with other first ladies from both parties. It was the first occasion that all of the living first ladies had been in one place since George H.W. Bush’s funeral in 2018.

The New York Times

Is there a political divide between you and your parents?

As the 2024 election nears, parents and their teenage children and young adults are sometimes finding themselves divided on how they think about social issues, even if they identify with the same political party.

In some cases, immediate families are split in their views across age and gender lines. According to a recent Gallup poll , fewer men in each age group today identify as liberal than do their female counterparts — but the gap is widest among those ages 18 to 29.

The New York Times is looking to hear from readers about how they are approaching family conflicts over questions of gender, climate, equality, abortion and gun control, among other topics. If you are a young adult, do you share your parents’ political values or the values of your partner?

We will not publish any part of your response without talking with you first. We will not share your contact information outside of the Times newsroom, and we will use it only to reach out to you.

Your Family Dynamic

Erica L. Green and Campbell Robertson

Reporting from Baltimore

President Biden visited the site of the Baltimore bridge collapse Friday.

President Biden told the people of Baltimore on Friday that “your nation has your back” as he stood in front of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge, which was destroyed after a cargo ship plowed through it last week, killing six people.

Mr. Biden encountered a tangle more than a mile long of concrete and steel that has snarled traffic , devastated blue-collar communities and disrupted operations at one of America’s biggest ports, threatening chaos that could ripple across supply chains.

Mr. Biden took an aerial tour of the damage and received a briefing from officials overseeing the cleanup and rebuilding efforts, before meeting privately with families of six construction workers who plunged into the Patapsco River when the bridge collapsed.

“We’re going to keep working hard to recover each of them,” Mr. Biden said.

Hours after Mr. Biden departed, the local authorities announced the recovery of the body of a construction worker, the third to be found. They identified the man as 38-year-old Maynor Yasir Suazo Sandoval.

In his remarks, Mr. Biden described how the workers had been on a break from filling potholes right before disaster struck. Just seconds before, Mr. Biden said, one of the men, a 24-year-old, sent a message to his girlfriend that said, “We just poured cement, and we’re waiting for it to dry.”

Mr. Biden spoke of the pain of loss of loved ones, adding that “we’ll also never forget the contributions these men made to this city.”

In the week since the collapse, the administration has funded the harbor cleanup, unlocked $60 million in emergency funding to help rebuild the bridge, provided low-interest disaster loans to affected businesses and overseen efforts to manage any supply chain disruptions.

On Friday, Mr. Biden called on companies to commit to keeping employees — about 20,000 people depend on the port for jobs — on their payrolls as the port reopens. This week, senior administration officials, including Mr. Biden’s chief of staff, called major employers in the Baltimore area, including retail chains such as Home Depot and distributors like Amazon, to encourage them to retain workers.

“We’re going to move heaven and earth to rebuild this bridge as rapidly as humanly possible,” Mr. Biden said. He called on Congress to help fulfill his promise that the federal government pay to rebuild the bridge.

As he spoke, the bridge’s steel girders remained partially submerged in water, reaching skyward like arms from a grave. The giant cargo vessel was still carrying dozens of colorful containers, and pieces of the broken bridge were lying across the ship’s bow.

Local and federal officials said the road to recovery would be long.

“As you can see behind me, the physical impact of this tragedy is massive,” said Mayor Brandon Scott of Baltimore. “But let’s be clear, the human impact is immeasurable.”

At a briefing on response efforts, Brig. Gen. John P. Lloyd from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers described a “mangled mess” that was being tackled by 51 divers and 12 cranes. He told the president that one pending task was to remove a large section of the bridge sitting on the ship. The section weighs 5,000 tons and is 125 feet high.

The bridge crumbled in the dead of night when a 985-foot-long cargo vessel crashed into it shortly after departing the Port of Baltimore, a vital economic engine that handles more cars and farm equipment than any other port in the country. The vessel, the Dali, lost power before it hit the bridge but sent a mayday call that gave officials enough time to halt bridge traffic.

But it was not enough time to get to workers who were already on the bridge.

The bodies of two of the workers were recovered from the river on March 27. Recovery efforts for the remaining workers, who were presumed dead, later stalled. The authorities said the bodies were most likely encased in steel and concrete.

Mr. Biden spoke affectionately of his own ties to the port of Baltimore, including his family who worked as watermen in the 1850s and his many years commuting from Delaware.

The structure, which took five years to build, opened in 1977 and served as a critical transportation link on the East Coast. It was named after Francis Scott Key, the Maryland-born author of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Mr. Biden’s response drew praise from Gov. Wes Moore, who said he received the first call from the White House at around 3 a.m., just 90 minutes after the collision.

“And every hour since we’ve worked hand in hand with this administration,” Mr. Moore said. “President Biden might not be a Marylander by birth. But I tell you, he’s proven what it means to be Maryland tough, and Baltimore strong.”

Scott Cowan, the president of the local chapter of the International Longshoremen’s Association, said he was encouraged by Mr. Biden’s visit but believed there was more to be done.

As the weeks go by, Mr. Cowan said, the situation for the 2,400 members of his local was getting more difficult. Around 400 people in the local were working at the moment, he said, with around 2,000 idled, roughly the inverse of the normal ratio.

If it had been a gradual work slowdown, people could have adjusted, he said, but “it was like hitting a wall” when the bridge collapsed and all but shut down the port.

“President Biden does know about ports,” Mr. Cowan said. “I think he wants to do so something. But obviously there’s Congress involved too.”

Jacey Fortin contributed reporting.

R.F.K. Jr.’s campaign expressed sympathy for Jan. 6 rioters, and then retracted it.

The presidential campaign of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the vaccine skeptic running as an independent candidate, said in an email on Thursday that rioters charged with crimes in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and held in a Washington jail had been “stripped of their constitutional liberties.”

Nearly four hours later, the campaign retracted the statement. Stefanie Spear, the press secretary for Mr. Kennedy’s campaign, said the statement “was an error that does not reflect Mr. Kennedy’s views,” adding, “It was inserted by a new marketing contractor and slipped through the normal approval process."

Ms. Spear stressed that “anybody who violated the law on Jan. 6 should be subject to appropriate criminal and/or civil penalties.” The campaign later added that it had terminated its contract with the company it said was responsible for the error.

The email appeared to align the candidate closer to the position of former President Donald J. Trump, one of his opponents in the presidential race, as well as others on the right who say the rioters have been treated unfairly by the justice system — even painting them as martyrs. It follows comments from Mr. Kennedy this week suggesting that President Biden posed a greater threat to American democracy than Mr. Trump .

The Kennedy campaign email, soliciting donations from supporters, focused mostly on the plight of Julian Assange, the embattled WikiLeaks founder who is facing extradition to the United States to face charges of violating the Espionage Act. The campaign described Mr. Assange as a “political prisoner” and asked supporters to sign a petition urging the United States to drop the charges against him.

“The Brits want to make sure our government doesn’t kill Assange,” the email said, before adding that “this is the reality that every American citizen faces — from Ed Snowden , to Julian Assange to the J6 activists sitting in a Washington, D.C., jail cell stripped of their constitutional liberties.”

Mr. Trump and allies in Congress, as well as far-right circles online, have presented the Jan. 6 rioters as heroes and martyrs, falsely suggesting either that the riot was a peaceful protest against voter fraud or that the violence they carried out on that day was necessary to overturn the results of the election and install Mr. Trump in office for another term. Particular attention has been paid to those rioters who have been held at the local jail in Washington .

Mr. Trump has made this revisionist view of the events of Jan. 6 central to his campaign. He has vowed to pardon those facing charges over their participation in the attack at the Capitol, and he has at recent rallies referred to those detained in connection with their participation as “hostages.”

Mr. Kennedy, who has founded his political career on promoting vaccine misinformation and conspiracy theories about the government, has described Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the election as “appalling,” but he has also expressed sympathy for “people who say that the election is stolen” — counting himself as an example. He asserted in an interview on CNN on Monday that the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections were stolen from the Democrats, adding, “We shouldn’t make pariahs of those people, we shouldn’t demonize, and we shouldn’t vilify them.”

Mr. Kennedy also told The Washington Post in response to a questionnaire last year that he would consider pardoning people convicted in connection with Jan. 6. “If prosecutorial malfeasance is demonstrated, then yes,” he said. “Otherwise, no.”

Mr. Assange and Mr. Snowden have at times received sympathy from both liberal and conservative figures, as well as nonpartisan press freedom advocates, who say they are the victims of overzealous prosecution in violation of the constitutional rights to free speech and freedom of the press. Mr. Trump, who once sided with Mr. Assange over the conclusions of America’s intelligence services, had considered pardoning both Mr. Assange and Mr. Snowden — who fled into exile in Russia more than a decade ago — during his term in office.

The Kennedy campaign’s grouping the two men, wanted for leaking U.S. intelligence secrets, with the rioters who stormed the Capitol stood out — particularly the reference to the Washington jail.

More than 1,250 people have been charged with crimes in connection with the attack — and hundreds of people have been convicted . But only 29 defendants are being held in the Washington jail, according to a review of the cases by NBC News , and most have already been convicted of violent crimes, including assaulting police officers during the attack. NBC also reported that just 15 Jan. 6 defendants were still in pretrial detention.

Michael Gold contributed reporting from New York.

Reporting from Los Angeles

Proof that every vote matters: California congressional primary has a rare tie for a runoff spot.

California’s primary system — in which the top two vote-getters, regardless of party, advance to the general election — has seeded plenty of unusual showdowns since it was established a little more than a decade ago.

But never before has the system resulted in a three-way runoff for a congressional seat.

That’s the situation facing three candidates in California’s 16th Congressional District, in the heart of the Silicon Valley, who could vie for the seat during a November runoff. The final count shows two primary candidates in an exact tie for second place.

After nearly a month of counting, both Evan Low, a state lawmaker, and Joe Simitian, a Santa Clara County supervisor, received 30,249 votes, or 16.6 percent each.

They trailed Sam Liccardo, the former mayor of San Jose, who received 38,489 votes, or 21.1 percent.

The three men — all Democrats — were among 11 candidates vying to replace Rep. Anna Eshoo, who opted not to run again after more than three decades in the House.

In California, vote counting takes several weeks because the state relies on mail balloting and gives latitude to voters who wait until Election Day to send their ballots. All county election officials are required to certify their March election results by Thursday.

But the tie for second place is not a certainty: Any campaign or any voter in the district can request a recount, as long as the request is filed within five days of the 31st day after the election — and as long as they pay for it. A full recount by hand would likely cost more than $300,000 . That means a recount can be requested as late as next Wednesday.

All three campaigns face a tough decision, said Paul Mitchell, a Democratic political consultant and political data expert. If Mr. Low or Mr. Simitian seek a recount, it could backfire; each could end up paying to knock himself out of the race.

And the campaigns likely don’t have data showing clearly that a two-person or a three-person race in November would be easier to win, Mr. Mitchell said.

Still, he noted that “it only takes one rich, eccentric person” to set the recount wheels in motion. “And they’re on every corner in this district.”

Both Mr. Low’s and Mr. Simitian’s campaigns declined to comment until the results were certified later Thursday. Mr. Liccardo’s campaign also declined to comment on whether he would request a recount.

“We welcome the opportunity to continue to talk to voters about the issues facing our communities, including the high cost of living, utility rates and housing and Sam’s long record of fighting on behalf of residents,” Mr. Liccardo’s campaign said in a statement.

Because of an editing error, an earlier version of the headline incorrectly described the tie in the congressional race. It is a two-way tie for second place, not a three-way tie.

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