Race

As defined by biology, human races do not exist. Certainly not the big three-to-five groupings that were widely accepted at one time. Perhaps the closest our species came to that was the relatively isolated indigenous Australian population but even there we don’t quite fit the biological definition.

That definition, admittedly, can be a bit nebulous. Some consider a race to be equivalent to a subspecies; others make it a further division. Without agreement on a precise definition of either term, it does not make any practical difference. It may be noted that breeds of dogs vary genetically far more than humans but are not considered to be either races or subspecies.

Humans have always gotten around a lot. We’re wanderers and inclined to leave a genetic fingerprint wherever we wander. We can certainly find average genetic differences between populations but nothing nearly unique enough to qualify as a race/subspecies. Have there ever been human races in the biological sense?

The Neanderthal/Denisovan population might qualify. I am inclined to see them as a subspecies of Homo sapiens, rather than a separate species. Even if one doesn’t accept that, the two populations, Neanderthal and Denisovan, are certainly close enough to be the same species. Are they separate races? I would say no more so than two populations of modern humans.

We could take that back further, to the humans who gave rise to both the Neanderthal/Denisovan line and our own. If one accepts Neanderthals as Homo sapiens, then so would be our common ancestor, no? At any rate, we moderns would certainly be able to interbreed with Homo heidelbergenis or whatever name we choose to give that ancestor.

How far back would that be true? No telling at this point. Maybe we’ll find genetic material someday that can give us a better idea. As good a guess as any might be that the jump from an erectus to that heidelbergenis type might be the dividing point.

I have digressed from the question of modern race, haven’t I? It probably is best to speak of genetic differences rather than racial ones. These chromosomes are found here and those there and these others somewhere else and they all tell the story of how we’ve journeyed across continents and seas, intermingling all the while. We’re one big race with local differences.

Those differences are likely to continue to lessen, as much as racists and nationalists resist. It really is inaccurate to use the term race at all, to speak of ‘whites’ and ‘blacks’ and whatever. Sure, some of us are darker or lighter than others. That’s all there is to it; people are people; they naturally think and act alike.

Even those Neanderthals, I suspect.

 

Burroughs and the Black Man

Despite being politically conservative and despite the casual racism that occasionally pops up in his fiction (mostly the early work), Edgar Rice Burroughs was no friend of colonialism or of white supremacy. That is evinced by the somewhat savage satire on Kipling's famed 'Burden' poem, published before ERB wrote the Tarzan and Barsoom books that made his name.

The Black Man’s Burden

Take up the white man’s burden,
The yoke ye sought to spurn;
And spurn your father's customs;
Your father’s temples burn.
O learn to love and honor
The white God's favored sons.
Forget the white-haired fathers
Fast lashed to mouths of guns.  

Take up the white man’s burden,
Your own was not enough;
He’ll burden you with taxes;
But though the road be rough,
“To him who waits,” remember,
“All things in time shall come;”
The white man’s culture brings you
The white man’s God, and rum. 

Take up the white man’s burden;
’Tis called “protectorate,”
And lift your voice in thanks to
The God ye well might hate.
Forget your exiled brothers;
Forget your boundless lands;
In acres that they gave for
The blood upon their hands. 

Take up the white man’s burden;
Poor simple folk and free;
Abandon nature’s freedom,
Embrace his “Liberty;”
The goddess of the white man
Who makes you free in name;
But in her heart your color
Will brand you “slave” the same.

Take up the white man’s burden;
And learn by what you’ve lost
That white men called as counsel
Means black mean pays the cost.
Your right to fertile acres
Their priests will teach you well
Have gained your fathers only
A desert claim in hell.

Take up the white man’s burden;
Take it because you must;
Burden of making money;
Burden of greed and lust;
Burden of points strategic,
Burden of harbors deep,
Burden of greatest burdens;
Burden, these burdens to keep.

Take up the white man’s burden;
His papers take, and read;
’Tis all for your salvation;
The white man knows not greed.
For you he’s spending millions—
To him, more than his God—
To make you learned, and happy,
Enlightened, cultured, broad. 

Take up the white man’s burden
While he makes laws for you,
That show your fathers taught you
The things you should not do.
Cast off your foolish feathers,
Your necklace, beads, and paint;
Buy raiment for your mother,
Lest fairer sisters faint.

Take up the white man’s burden;
Go learn to wear his clothes;
You may look like the devil;
But nobody cares who knows.
Peruse a work of Darwin—
Thank gods that you're alive—
And learn the reason clearly:
The fittest alone survive.

Edgar Rice Burroughs (c.1898)

It may be noted that interracial marriage appears and is condoned right from the start in Burroughs's fiction. Or maybe inter-species marriage in the books set on Mars?