How Donald Trump and the New York Times Perpetuate Biological Racism

“But there'll be men enough, the scum that we used for overseers, the trash that bought and sold slaves and bred them, the kind who were men with bullwhip and filth without one, the kind who have only one virtue, a white skin. Gentlemen, we'll play a symphony on that white skin, we'll make it a badge of honor. We'll put a premium on that white skin. We'll dredge the sewers and the swamps for candidates, and we'll give them their white skin - and in return, gentlemen, they will give us back what we lost through this insane [civil] war, yes, all of it."  (From Freedom Road by Howard Fast, a novel about Reconstruction)

The idea of “race” has always been used to divide, control, and exploit. It is not a biological category. Eugenicists and white supremacists have spent generations trying to prove that it is, and they have failed. If each of us, starting with Donald Trump, was able to banish the carefully indoctrinated idea of biological race from our minds, the world would be better off.

Trump is into genes. There are good genes and bad genes, he says, smart genes and dumb genes, white genes and immigrant genes.  Some of those good genes he finds in the white people of Minnesota.

“You have good genes, you know that, right? You have good genes. A lot of it is about the genes, isn’t it, don’t you believe? The racehorse theory, you think we’re so different? You have good genes in Minnesota.”

Like racehorses, according to Trump, some of us are bred for comfort, some for speed, some for crime, and still others for stupidity.  According to his new ally, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who hopes to become a high-ranking U.S. health official, some of us also are bred to get Covid -- or not to get it. Kennedy said:

“Covid-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”

For Trump and Kennedy the world is littered with races that form a lovely hierarchy, and their white “race,” conveniently, is at the very top. Their skin color, they say, makes them most fit to rule in a ruthless Darwinian world. In this belief they join the defenders of slavery, segregation, and the builders of the gas ovens.

Their view of the world also has much in common with that of the industrialists of the early 20^th century who used “race” as a tool to divide the workforce.  Trump and Kennedy might value the 1926 race chart created by the Pittsburgh Central Tube Company, which shows the skills that are found in each so-called “race.” Nationality was a race, back then. Religion was a race, too. And, of course, color was a race.  Each potential worker, the chart claimed, had built-in talents that could be objectively determined by industrial “race science.”  (I often share this chart because it is so utterly amazing.)

Since the 19th century, scientists have tried to prove the validity of racial categorization. Yet each claim has later been shown to be grounded in cultural beliefs, not physical science. Biological race, as a category, does not exist, science says. Like it or not, according to the best evidence, there is only one biological race, the human race, and we’re all stuck in it.

“By the Blood of Our Fathers”

Trump also is into blood.  Mixing all these lowly immigrants into America’s white blood, supposedly leads to “poisoning the blood of our country.”  In this Trump connects with the “one drop rule” used during Jim Crow to identify who did or didn’t have certain rights. Who could use which bathroom, who could drink from which fountain, and who could go to which school. If you had one drop of Black blood, you were Black and consigned to the path of second-class citizenship. 

The “stable genius” seems blissfully ignorant of the fact that each and every one of us has more than a few drops of Black blood. Our common genetic ancestors came out of Africa about 60,000 years ago. Yes, by the definition of the one drop rule, we all are Black.

How the New York Times Perpetuates Race Science

Every time someone, and especially a major media outlet, uses the word “race” it triggers the idea that there is something biological involved besides skin shades.  Throughout the 20^th Century, “race” conjured up critical differences in pain thresholds, propensity to crime, intelligence, strength, and even lust, none of which is true. 

Why is a Black resident of African descent in Minnesota categorically different from a white Minnesota resident of Norwegian descent?  Why is one considered to be a member of a “race” and the other of an ethnic group?

Journalists would surely say that they are only using race as a social convention, that “race” is not about biology. Rather, they would explain, it is a way of describing the group of Black people in the U.S. who have formed as a result of the after effects of slavery, Jim Crow segregation, and on-going discrimination based on skin color. 

To most people, however, the word “race” carries more weight than the more nuanced and accurate word “ethnicity.”  The latter is viewed as benignly connected to culture and tradition. “Race,” however, after more than a century of propaganda, implies biology.  If you think skin color signals a different “race,” you are more likely to think that other differences between groups are biological as well.

The commonly accepted liberal statement that “all races are created equal” also falls into the racialist trap.  For “races” to be equal, they must first exist as separate “races.”  But they don’t. To repeat, there are no separate biological races.

The media is very careful with words. Conventions are established in every era to describe different groups. For example, “Negro” is no longer used, nor is “Indian.” This would be a very good moment to replace the word “race” with “ethnicity,” or at least put quotations marks around it. That might help eliminate race as biology.

For those supporting Trump, it’s time to recognize that he really is a biological racist. He is unable or unwilling to stop using racist arguments against groups that don’t have, he thinks, the same blood and breeding that he has. He believes in a hierarchy of races and views himself the commander-in-chief of the fictitious superior white race, the master race.

History warns us this never works out well.

Amazon is just about giving away my book, Wall Street’s War on Workers for $7.82! All royalties are recycled to our political economy for workers programs like those we recently conducted for Amazon workers who are trying to form a union.