Fadilat Olasupo | CORC 3208 | 04/04/2015 | Midterm Paper |

Nature and race: Classifications

The idea of nature is a broad topic that leads to various concepts, and interpretations. Nature and its many implications have undergone countless amounts criticism, and trials that have led to many arguments of the ways nature is to be understood. Nature in retrospect with sexuality, race, class, gender, language, and politics plays an ideally large influence on how the word is implied. Although each individual meaning is relative to the idea of nature; race has the most significant impact on how we categorize, and classify others. Race is commonly referred as a natural thing, something that has been embedded and instilled in our everyday actions. Some may argue that race has no relation to how we classify others, but others such as myself argue that race is represented in our human experiences and has became a part of how we categorize people and their cultures. To back up this argument I will use texts such as Nature’s Body: Gender in the making of modern science by Londa Schiebinger, Soft-soaping empire: Commodity, Racism, and Imperial Advertising by Anne Mclintock, and Reading National Geographic by Catherine. A Lutz, and Jane L Collins. Each of these readings explains how race has become something of a natural element amongst people. These forms of text will help me to structure my argument and defend them against the counter arguments.
Race can be defined as a social construct. Race is commonly used to group and separate people, or groups within a society. With this categorization, there are often privileges given to certain groups over others with almost no explanation as to why.
When it comes to the reasoning behind the groups we call white, Asian, Latino, black, etc. it is obvious that there is not one biological element behind these categories. Even after centuries there has yet to be an effective scientific way to rationalize any racial organizations through biology. This racial fallacy effects how people see racism, and discrimination not only as a product of economic, and social issue, but more as a means of a natural state of concerns. Nature stems from pre-existing, and imbedded impressions of people, or things that coexist in this world. Londa Schiebinger author of Nature’s Body: Gender in the making of modern science touches on many subjects pertaining to nature, such as race, sexuality, as well as gender. Shiebinger concentrates on periods such as the 17th, and 18th century during times of European development. The use of body parts, genitals, and physicality’s are used to describe different races, and their superiority. In this reading the European male is depicted as the prototype of the human race, and women were reduced to group noticed only because of their sexual differences. People of color were places as an inferior group of people, and described as being similar to apes. Schiebinger states “Race also became a significant factor in the search for a clear and distinct line dividing humans from brutes”(Shiebinger p. 5) thus including how “European naturalists tended to describe apes more sympathetically than they did Africans, highlighting the human character of apes while emphasizing the purports simian qualities of Africans” (p.5) because of this misconception of where African’s belonged, and whether they even belonged in society allowed for the rational use of slavery. The breast of European women was idealized, and they were set to the standard of beauty, which is pointed to only the white race. Schiebinger explains how many things were used to differentiate races, even sexuality. African women, and their vaginal areas were investigated, and dissected as a well; this led to the study of “Hottentot Venus”. This text shows the utilization, and the processes that led to nature, and how it was related to races. It was deemed rational to categorize races because of how different they were from another. The concept of race alone is a controversial, and misunderstood classification in society. There are many different perspectives towards ethnicity, but many have been backed up my biological differences that do not seem to be successful. During the times of European colonization and industrialization the importance of commodities, and profits being made in western civilizations became prominent. They were thinking of ways to sell products much more successfully, and at the time the major commodity was soap. Anne Mcclintock mentions many things regarding the purification of races, and the use of commodity’s to do so in her article, Soft-soaping empire: Commodity, Racism, and Imperial Advertising. She references the use of soap as a commodity, how it is highly portable, and its relation to hygiene. Soap is a particular item, but it managed to be the main subject of campaigns during this era. Hygiene is an important symbolization of western civilization. Soap and the relation it has to hygiene form an accepted tie with colonized people. This article depicts how racism was a much more effective commodity than science. It did not matter to people how clean they were unless they felt as though their nation were being kept pure, and safe from becoming “black”. This is another example of how nature, and the idea of hygiene closely relate itself to race even if normally there is no relation. It is natural that once there is a meaning behind the use of something, especially if the meaning is something that is closely related to your racial beliefs; the idea, and concepts stick. McClintock’s article pays close attention to soap. McClintock implies in her article that, “domestic commodities helped reinvent and maintain British national unity in the face of deepening imperial competition and colonial resistance” (McClintock 508). The main message being the advertisement of soap was not the processes behind the creation of soap, but the idea that it was cleaning the race physically, and keeping it that way. Buy the society buying into this propaganda; the consumers were becoming part of the purification of Britain’s attempt on the nation.

Similar to McClintock, and Sheinbinger; Reading National Geographic by Catherine. A Lutz, and Jane L Collins also depict the use of race as a natural element in society. Their analysis of the national geographic expresses the relationship between power, and the image presented by other cultures as exotic is related t the westerners that direct, and ostracize them whether it was done intentionally or not. This article explains how National Geographic tries to get the reader to empathize with the people in that area. Which is very common with the way society works in relation to race and culture. This allows for the conclusion towards the idea that the photo’s only appear to be real, but is not actual accurate through the eyes of those being photographed. Lutz, and Collins investigate the use of images to represent Third World Cultures by editors, and photographers through uses of visual beauty. They examine issues on race, and gender as well as color. Lutz and Collins make a large assertion pertaining to how the National Geographic use racism as a product to the viewer. They state the National Geographic is “The product of a society deeply permeated with racism as a social practice and with racial understandings as ways of viewing the world. It sells itself to a reading public that, while they do not consider themselves racist, turn easily to race as an explanation for culture and for social outcome” (Lutz and Collins p.110). They also add that people of different races, and cultures were coded for reasons of investigating how they were to be portrayed. The National Geographic organization is seen as a capitalist enterprise that only has western workers that are working for them. Due to the high percentage of white, the pictures, and the world are being seen from the perspective of someone in a higher class, living in a first world country. Sexuality, Commodities, and representations of race have always been used to categorize how different races were to be separated. Each reading is related to the next in ways that explain what has been deemed normal and natural. The first text is used to show how sexuality, and separation of races through their biological features allowed for categorization as well as racism.