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A REBUTTAL TO RACIAL HIERARCHIES
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Sujata Gupta
February 24, 2024
Science News February 24, 2024
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_ Anthropologist Anténor Firmin wrote a critical race theory book in
1885 _
A photo of Anténor Firmin in black and white overlayed on a tan
background. When Anténor Firmin joined one of the first
anthropological societies in Europe, racist views had become
foundational to the field., History and Art Collection/Alamy
At the end of the 19th century, one of the hottest debates among
anthropologists was whether human beings originated from a single
ancestor or many (the answer: just one). Members of both camps,
though, largely agreed that whatever their origins, some races were
superior to others. Haitian anthropologist Anténor Firmin knew that
premise to be false.
“Human beings everywhere are endowed with the same qualities and
defects, without distinctions based on color or anatomical shape,”
Firmin wrote in French in his 1885 book, _The Equality of the Human
Races_. “The races are equal.”
Firmin was ahead of his time. Today, genetic research confirms that
human populations cannot be divided
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into distinct racial groups.
But few scholars in the nascent field of anthropology, or any other
contemporaries, read his treatise. Instead, leaders in the field were
deeply influenced by the French white supremacist Arthur de
Gobineau’s four-volume _Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races_,
published in the 1850s. Against that backdrop, in 1859, Paul Broca, a
French physician and brain researcher interested in the study of human
origins, founded the Société d’Anthropologie de Paris, one of the
first anthropological societies in Europe. Broca believed he could use
skull measurements to identify human populations, which could then be
categorized into a racial hierarchy. When Firmin joined that society
in the 1880s, such racist views had become foundational to
anthropology.
Few anthropologists outside of Firmin’s native Haiti have heard of
_The Equality of the Human Races, _anthropologist Carolyn
Fluehr-Lobban of Rhode Island College in Providence wrote in _American
Anthropologist_ in 2000_._ “This is hardly surprising since most of
the early [Black] pioneers of anthropology have only recently been
brought to light.”
Those leaders include many other Haitians, such as doctor and writer
Louis-Joseph Janvier, who wrote _The Equality of Races_ in 1884, and
politician Hannibal Price, who wrote _On the Rehabilitation of the
Black Race by the Republic of Haiti _in 1900. American abolitionist
Martin Delany wrote_ Principia of Ethnology: The Origin of Races and
Color_ in 1879.
Firmin would probably still be languishing in near-total obscurity if
not for an English translation of his book that came out in 2000.
Following that publication, a small number of anthropologists and
other social scientists began calling for Firmin to be recognized as a
founding father of anthropology. His arguments, after all, predated by
several decades similar arguments by the German-American scholar Franz
Boas, often considered the father of modern anthropology. Like Firmin,
Boas argued that race was a cultural construct.
Firmin was among the first to view anthropology as the study of all
humankind, rather than the more divisive approach common in his day,
says Fluehr-Lobban, who wrote the introduction to the English
translation.
Firmin also brought to his book a deep scientific rigor that was not
yet common in the field. His highest priority was that “the case be
made on the facts,” Fluehr-Lobban says.
No evidence for racial hierarchies
Firmin was born in the northern town of Cap-Haitien in 1850 to a
working-class family. He grew up at a time of tremendous national
pride. Haiti achieved independence from France in 1804, making it the
first free Black republic in the world and the first independent
nation in the Caribbean.
[An image of a large group Haitian soldiers fighting against a group
of French soldiers with rifles and bayonets.]
After a revolution spanning more than a decade, Haiti achieved
independence from France in 1804, making it the first free Black
republic in the world.Auguste Raffet
As a young adult, Firmin studied law, which led to a career in
politics. He served as the inspector of schools in Cap-Haitien and as
a Haitian government official in Caracas, Venezuela. He married his
neighbor, Rosa Salnave, in 1881. In 1883, Firmin became Haiti’s
diplomat for France and moved to Paris.
Firmin, like many scholars of his day, read across fields,
Fluehr-Lobban says. That led him to become interested in the study of
humankind. While in Paris, Firmin spoke of this interest with French
physician Ernest Aubertin, who invited him to join the Société
d’Anthropologie de Paris.
It did not take long for Firmin to question his membership in a group
openly hostile to people who looked like him. Faced with such a tough
environment, Firmin remained silent at meetings. He acknowledges this
reluctance to strike up a debate with other society members in his
book’s preface: “I risked being perceived as an intruder and,
being ill-disposed against me, my colleagues might have rejected my
request without further thought.”
Instead, Firmin penned his 451-page rebuttal, using a title that
clearly contradicted de Gobineau’s influential work.
On a general level, Firmin takes aim at the nonscientific tenor of
many society members’ arguments. “On the one hand, there is a
dearth of solid principles in anthropological science at this point;
on the other hand, and precisely for this reason, its practitioners,
with their methodical minds, are able to construct the most
extravagant theories, from which they can draw the most absurd and
pretentious conclusions,” Firmin writes in a chapter devoted to
dismantling the then-popular classification of races using cranial
measurements.
Firmin uses the bulk of the book, though, to flesh out his argument in
precise detail. For instance, Firmin conducts a thorough analysis of
the physical factors that were purported to separate the races, such
as height, size, muscularity and cranium shape. He then painstakingly
combs through the data to debunk prevalent theories of racial
hierarchies.
“What can we conclude here from these observations? Can we find here
any indication of hierarchy at all?” he queries at one point in
reference to a chart on brain volume. The question is rhetorical. The
measurements of supposedly distinct racial groups instead often
overlap. Nor do the measurements conform to established racial
hierarchies. “It is all so very anarchic,” he concludes.
The power of Firmin’s writings stem from his deep commitment to
following the evidence, says Niccolo Caldararo, an anthropologist at
San Francisco State University. “His criticism of European,
especially French scientists, was so careful, was so precise, was so
perfectly defined that he undermined their practice as bias rather
than empiricism.”
Firmin’s modern-day relevance
The translation of Firmin’s text came out of a chance encounter
between Fluehr-Lobban and a Haitian student in her Race and Racism
class in 1988. That student approached Fluehr-Lobban and asked if she
had ever heard of Firmin. She had not but was intrigued.
In collaboration with Asselin Charles, a Haitian-born literary scholar
then at neighboring Brown University, the duo set out to find a copy
of the book. That turned out to be no easy feat. “There were three
copies in the United States,” Fluehr-Lobban says. “One of them was
in the Library of Congress.”
To Fluehr-Lobban’s surprise, upon receiving her request, library
staffers sent her the book. Charles served as translator. “As a
result of this book coming out in English, it had a whole new life,”
Fluehr-Lobban says. Still, she adds, the book has yet to get its due:
“It has not gotten into the canon of anthropology.”
Fluehr-Lobban hopes that will change, especially given the book’s
modern-day relevance. Despite clear evidence that race has no
biological basis, some scientists still use the concept as an
organizing principle. And racism remains prevalent.
“This was a critical race theory book [written] in 1885,”
Fluehr-Lobban says.
Firmin, however, remained optimistic that science would eventually get
the last word. “Truth is like light: one may hide it for as long as
human intelligence can conceive, it will still shine in the cellar
where it has been related; at the least opportunity, its rays will
pierce the darkness and, as it shines for all, it will compel the most
rebellious minds to bend before its laws,” he wrote. “Science owes
all its prestige only to this power, to this intransigence of the
truth.”
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* Antenor Firmin
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* Anthropologist; Haiti; Critical Race Theory;
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