Society & Politics

Do you think Charles Darwin was a racist?

I know the two quotes seem a bit contradictory but as often is the case, you need to look at the full context:
Do you think Charles Darwin was a racist?
Key phrase: "as professor Schaafhausen has remarked". Darwin was describing the views his contemporaries held so using that quote to accuse him of being a racist would be like calling a historian a Nazi for describing how Hitler viewed Jews. Now Darwin also repeatedly talked about the "savage races of Africa" but you have to remember that this was written in a different time; and no I'm not talking about how what views are considered acceptable changed, the meaning of words can change over time. Savage didn't mean brutish it meant uncultivated and a race could mean any grouping of people (in the Civil War, people talked about the white and black races but they also talked about the northern and southern races). So when Darwin talks about the "savage races of Africa" he meant hunter-gatherer societies of Africa.
Do you think Charles Darwin was a racist?
But nonetheless, Eugenics and scientific racism was part of history (even though it wasn't an idea that Darwin endorsed). You may or may not have heard the story of Oto Benga and the Human zoos that portrayed black people as "less evolved" and more like apes. And there were many (faulty AF) skull measurements studies to reinforce this view.
Do you think Charles Darwin was a racist?
But here's the thing, as much as we may cringe at pictures of white, black and chimp skull/facial diagrams from the Victorian Era, "scientific racism" was only ever a Podunk justification given for racist policies. In the Colonial Period, slavery was justified with the notion that humans weren't created equally and now people try to explain away racial disparities by blaming it on "black culture", and instead of the eugenics chart they post pictures of hoodlums and use bogus studies to say black poverty/crime is the result of individual choices. But while the justification has changed with time, the motivation was always greed.
Do you think Charles Darwin was a racist?
Yes
Do you think Charles Darwin was a racist?
No
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Updates
+1 y
While what happened to Oto Benga was deplorable, compared to what happened in his homeland of the Congo, his plight was a drop in an ocean of blood. King Leopold II wanted to get as much profit as he could from the rubber trees so he worked half the population of the Congo to death. What motivated this crime was greed, not a belief that Africans were "less evolved humans".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4TPwGfnpc4&t=622s
Do you think Charles Darwin was a racist?
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