Bloodlines & Race
Responding to Locke's Conceptions of Race
Alain Leroy Locke was a man of great influence and great genius. Locke was a primary contributor and in some ways, mastermind, behind the Harlem Renaissance, an age in the early decades of 20th century American history. Locke was African-American; his achievements and contributions to society were often marked by his race whether he was working in direct support of African-American causes/issues, or not. Alain Locke was one of the first non-whites to attend and graduate from Harvard University early in the 20th century. He graduated from Harvard with two degrees. He was the first African-American Rhodes Scholar, attended distinguished universities in Europe, was Phi Beta Kappa, and was a long time professor at the historically black university, Howard University in Maryland. Locke is regarded as one of the most revered thinkers, writers, and scholars in African-American...
One of his many famous pieces of writing, "The Theoretical and Scientific Conceptions of Race," is the focus of this paper. The paper will interrogate the text in search of answers to questions regarding Locke's connections among class, race, science, and general perceptions.
Locke contended that the issue of race and the issue of class are closely related. He argues that they are in fact so related, that they are less distinct separate issues and rather two sides of the same coin of tensions. He writes that when considering the context within which he establishes in the writing for the reader to consider his ideas, one cannot consider race without considering class and vice versa.
So we must constantly stress the analogy between race issues and class problems or race problems and class problems, race feelings and class feelings, as you will regard them as really of the same kind and different only in degree and…
