Andrew Carlquist
10/17/08
Race as a Schema
For anyone with a desire to know and understand the human condition, race is an important concept to take into account. For those who seek to better understand politics, economics, psychology, medicine, sociology, or numerous other fields, a comprehensive understanding of race is a must, because whether any of us consciously realizes it or not, race matters and influences many areas of life. To me, race is important because I am interested in human psychology and how it relates to quality of life; my goal for my education is to make use of psychological knowledge in order to better the lives of myself and others; race is an important part of this, as race dictates to many people how they live their lives. If a more constructive dialogue can be established, in furtherance of a goal of reducing the negative effects of race, then I wish to learn about it. This goal rests on the assumption that there are better, more productive ways to think about race than we do now. One less-than valuable conception of race is that it is somehow essential (often also described as biological); a more valuable way to describe race is as a schema. After discussing race and schemas, I intend to show how the schematic conception of race completely disrupts Armand Leroi’s advocation of the creation of biological races, by virtue of its complete disconnect from the reality of race.
What is a schema? From birth until adulthood, two main cognitive events continually occurring within our minds are development of new processes and organization of the world. In general, we (as human beings) strive to make sense of what is happening around us, and one of the mechanisms we use to do this is called a schema. In childhood, we have limited abilities to organize our world, and thus organize it very simply, and therefore a simple demonstration of a schema would be when a small child sees a dog for the first time. The dog is fuzzy, sometimes makes a loud noise, has four legs, a long nose, ears that stick up and a tail. The parent says “Oh look, a dog!” and the child creates a schema for “dog.” Minutes later, that same child will see a goat. It is fuzzy, sometimes makes a loud noise, has four legs, a long nose, ears that stick up and a tail, and the child says “Dog!” “No, that’s a goat. Goats have horns and go ‘Bah,’ dogs have paws and go ‘woof,’” says the parent. A new schema is created for “goat,” and the schema for “dog” is refined. The method of schematizing grows more complex as the person develops, and overtime these schemas become well-honed and useful. In short, schemas are a useful way to look at how we as humans organize the world into a functioning map of life.
An interesting fact about schemas is that they’re not strictly classification tools. Schemas incorporate all information deemed related to the organized subject at hand, and thus serve as an ad hoc life manual. Our schema for “dog” doesn’t only feature what characterizes a dog, but also how to use/treat a dog: you don’t wear them on your feet but you pet them, you must treat them well otherwise they’ll attack you. The schema also has an inter-schema component (how this schema relates to other ones): people love their dogs; dogs are not food (at least in the United States); dogs fight with cats. We have this whole construct of what constitutes “dog” and “dogness.”
So when we talk about race, what are we talking about? I don’t necessarily mean when we analyze it, I mean when, in the normal course of our lives, we mention a person’s race, or we talk about discrimination based on race, or playing the race card; in these real world cases, what are we referring to? Race is a concept, a thing that we use to organize people into meaningful categories. However, race isn’t just a box to put people in, because race means things to different people, and the various meanings of race also manifest themselves in difference ways. A quick example of this is in our reading from Omi and Winant’s “Racial Formation In The United States,” when they state that “Whites tend to locate racism in color consciousness and find its absence in color-blindness…Non-white students, by contrast, see racism as a system of power…” (70). So, race is a functional category; it’s a schema, and by viewing race as such, we are able to also examine race using schematic formation theories.
Since we have a schema for race, when we talk about race we must be referring to this schema as it applies to our lives. However, it is my opinion that the schema of race is somehow distorted or corrupted in comparison to other schemas, such that it is a special kind of schema, and I believe this to be a valuable way to look at race.
The creation of the race schema begins in a similar fashion as others: a child sees a person of another race and states their observation (as children are wont to do). But this time the parent doesn’t aid in defining or refining the schema. Instead, the child is told “Shhh” or “Don’t point!” We saw this in the Riggs film, read about it from Peggy McIntosh, and I have also studied it in other classes as well.
The point here is that in the formation of the schema of race, there are some major differences that serve to make race an odd schema. As was previously stated, we learn about race differently than many other things in our lives. This can also be said about disability, mental illness, and other human conditions that stray from “the norm.” Since parents (particularly white parents) often find it awkward, painful, or otherwise difficult to discuss and explain race so that even a child can create a “good” schema, the child must rely on other sources, such as media sources, their peers, and otherwise accidental or indirect means. Often times, the schema for particular races can be created in a situation completely devoid of valuable contact with the group being schematized; thus, race is often not a schema based on experience. We learn about race socially and schematize race in the context of how our environment treats race (so we create our personal schema from the social or systematic schema of race, so to speak).
How do schemas relate to Leroi and his biological races? By virtue of the social schema of race, the scientific term is compromised. In his article, Leroi is attempting to defend the claim that there are biological races (a genetic schema of race), when everyone else is looking at the social schema of race and trying to decide whether it is biological or a social construction. The question often asked here is, “Well, isn’t his an argument for race as biology?” No, because Leroi is attempting to look at the data of human genetic variation and group humans together into meaningful categories (in other words, create a new scientific schema), not trying to explain the current schema of race from a biological standpoint. His is an argument that tries to leave everything but biology behind, which is impossible when it comes to race as it has come to be known; in other words, he is either purposefully or naively out of touch with the reality of race in this country.
Going back to the difference between saying “there are biological races” and “race is biological,” the creation of genetic races is an idea that comes from looking at genetic variation: Leroi maintains that certain genetic features can be grouped together into meaningful categories, for the betterment of science and humanity. The idea that race is biological, however, is predicated on a completely different foundation: the historical conception of race as we know it. Genetic race constructionists see data and wish to create order from it, those who argue race is biological are looking to explain racial differences as perceived within our racialized society.
If we accept Leroi’s argument that races can be created based upon grouping specific genetic traits, then we would be throwing out every part of the current schema of race that reflects how race has worked historically at every systematic level. The biological/evolutionary accuracy of his statements (which have been refuted numerous times, even by Lewontin himself) are irrelevant at this point in my argument. No matter how “right” he is on the genetic/evolutionary level, his schema of race focuses on and is limited strictly to a scientific/medical context, and completely ignores everything else. Thus, his concept can really only be harmful in the discussion of race and a racialized society, since it is so narrow in scope as to be unrelated to everything else, though true enough to be misused in furtherance of an argument; in essence, “biological races” and “race as biology” are the proverbial apples and oranges.
Moving right along, viewing race as a social schema also describes how race can be commonly viewed as essential but actually not be essential. For instance, take the idea of passing. That an individual who is one race can pretend to be another means that something besides their appearance or behavior keeps them as their race. The one-drop rule is the biological explanation for believing this, but it really doesn’t make sense in terms of genetics; a person with 1/8 black heritage is more non-black than black, but is still considered to be black. Simply put, there is no scientifically sound explanation as to how biology could be the source of where our schema of race comes from. When confronted with this, people will tend to back away from defending an essentialist explanation of race, but their schema probably won’t change. If asked, “What determines a person’s race,” they will hem and haw, and maybe consider alternate viewpoints intellectually, but their schema will remain completely intact. A non-essential explanation for race, why that black man over there is different than me, is part of the schema of race that we learn beginning in childhood, a schema that is indirectly and implicitly formed and thus virtually impossible to comprehend directly, and when we are confronted with evidence that contradicts that schema, it isn’t remotely as easy as reworking that schema.
To conclude this discussion, it must be said that viewing race as a schema is valuable, in that it allows us to analyze how we formulate our ideas about race, based upon not only personal experience but also indirect information sources, how we use race in our daily lives, and how an essentialist view of race can persist in light of contrary evidence. Also, when we view race as a schema, we see that those who seek to construct genetic races are approaching a different schema of race than exists in society, which invalidates their contribution to the discussion of race in a racialized society.
