Bloodlines and Racism

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 history. 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 only according to the basis upon which they are practiced. (Stewart & Locke, Page 45)

Issues of class and race on all fronts are analogies and nearly one in the same. Locke further more finds that problems or issues of class, race, or any other particularly physical and visual difference are natural expressions of human civilizations.

Civilization isn't a smooth course. Civilization very often produces counter-currents. Civilization is something which it itself seems to involve very often rough places, these antagonisms, these struggles…[which] are, after all, just as inevitabl[y] part of the process…So that wherever we find groups amalgating in society, we must expect to find groups differentiating and separating out…So really, we must not regard these phenomena apart from normal phenomena…(Stewart & Locke, Page 45)

Humans are sort of hardwired to separate into similar groups based on fairly obvious traits. What is unfortunate is that humans have not found ways to differentiate themselves into various groups, a seemingly natural behavior, without turning those differences into reasons for institutionalized forms of hate and violence leading to destruction or eradication. His most salient argument is that race distinction is simply an extension of class distinction. (Page 47)