The Conservation of RacesDu Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt)
General
The Conservation of Races
Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt)
African Americans -- Race identity; African Americans -- Social conditions; United States -- Race relations
We find upon the world's stage today eight distinctly
differentiated races, in the sense in which History tells us the
word must be used. They are, the Slavs of eastern Europe, the
Teutons of middle Europe, the English of Great Britain and
America, the Romance nations of Southern and Western Europe, the
Negroes of Africa and America, the Semitic people of Western
Asia and Northern Africa, the Hindoos of Central Asia and the
Mongolians of Eastern Asia. There are, of course, other minor
race groups, as the American Indians, the Esquimaux and the
South Sea Islanders; these larger races, too, are far from
homogeneous; the Slav includes the Czech, the Magyar, the Pole
and the Russian; the Teuton includes the German, the
Scandinavian and the Dutch; the English include the Scotch, the
Irish and the conglomerate American. Under Romance nations the
widely-differing Frenchman, Italian, Sicilian and Spaniard are
comprehended. The term Negro is, perhaps, the most indefinite of
all, combining the Mulattoes and Zamboes of America and the
Egyptians, Bantus and Bushmen of Africa. Among the Hindoos are
traces of widely differing nations, while the great Chinese,
Tartar, Corean and Japanese families fall under the one
designation—Mongolian.
The question now is: What is the real distinction between
these nations? Is it the physical differences of blood, color
and cranial measurements? Certainly we must all acknowledge that
physical differences play a great part, and that, with wide
exceptions and qualifications, these eight great races of to-day
follow the cleavage of physical race distinctions; the English
and Teuton represent the white variety of mankind; the
Mongolian, the yellow; the Negroes, the black. Between these are
many crosses and mixtures, where Mongolian and Teuton have
blended into the Slav, and other mixtures have produced the
Romance nations and the Semites. But while race differences have
followed mainly physical race lines, yet no mere physical
distinctions would really define or explain the deeper
differences—the cohesiveness and continuity of these groups. The
deeper differences are spiritual, psychical, differences—
undoubtedly based on the physical, but infinitely transcending
them. The forces that bind together the Teuton nations are,
then, first, their race identity and common blood; secondly, and
more important, a common history, common laws and religion,
similar habits of thought and a conscious striving together for
certain ideals of life. The whole process which has brought
about these race differentiations has been a growth, and the
great characteristic of this growth has been the differentiation
of spiritual and mental differences between great races of
mankind and the integration of physical differences.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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