THE HISTORIES OF ATROCITIES page 14 

          AND THE FORMULATION OF THE ELITIST'S PRINCIPLES , TO ENGINEER THE  DECIMATION OF THE HUMAN FAMILY, TO BRING IN THE NEW WORLD ORDER, AND OR TO PREPARE THE EVACUATION OF  THIS PENAL COLONY WE CALL EARTH, 

Do we really need to be a race?
European scientists needed to “invent” race because of his obvious difference in “skin” color. If other cultures identified themselves via cultural means, it would show he was the one that was different—out of step and out of place. Europeans, who are a minority “culture”, could not gain attention to their particular cultural traits if that were the case. So they needed something that had the same effect for them—“race” that on the other hand debased majority cultures. Race did just that as the signifier. 
Now that Europeans have effectively spread their cultural ideas into every majority culture, “race” has become a term that is no longer necessary. What we need to do is to identify what is culturally "European" and what is not. We should not accept what they have imposed upon us culturally. Race is not necessary for this function but knowledge of cultural ontology is needed. We have no choice if “race” is removed as a dividing factor and culture is not investigated. We will end up being culturally European and never mind the color of our skin.
The idea of race is so ingrained in the psyche of human beings that we get mixed up and associate culture with color. Although it is a pretty fair guess that Africans and other people of color will have more melanin than Europeans, it could also be a close call. For example Warren G. Harding the 29th President of the United States, is he Black or White? This is not to mention the countless others who have done the dastardly deed, “passed.” If race and ethnicity (anthropological terms) is so ambiguous and has no reality in biology, only in social science, then what, if anything, distinguishes the different peoples of the Earth? 
I would suggest we take a look at something that has been around since the dawn of man, culture. Webster defines culture as: the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon man's capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations. If this is accurate then culture originated from nature, which was the human’s first classroom. In isolation this learning process can have a constancy that would cover environments that are similar in Nature. It would teach humans some very basic skills to pass on to succeeding generations, like to work together or to not work together. Cheikh Anta Diop’s Two Cradle Theory seems to fit this premise. If you developed culture in a hostile natural environment, there would be a tendency to be culturally selfish, aggressive, xenophobic and independent. Of course the opposite would be true in a hospitable environment.
With that said, one would be hard pressed to quantify the above environmentally conditioned cultural traits to people. When meeting someone on the street, you don’t see any immediate indication that either cultural condition is apparent in the person. However what you do see and is immediate is phenotype. This is easily recognized and if it weren’t for the likes of Warren G. Harding and the Dalits of India, fairly accurate. But let me address the topic question, do we need to be a race. I say no. I say no because when we look historically at the concept of “race” we see it was an invention of Johann Friedrich Blumenbach in 1775. The next question is why was it necessary since people were already culturally identified? Here lies one of the secrets to the success of European imperialism. If one needed to set them selves apart for identification/unification or for the purposes of isolation/annihilation, what better way then by phenotype when you are markedly different? When the European ventured into the world of color for conquest, he was different than any group he encountered. He was different in both the eye and the idea. This presented a major problem for exploitation/conquest. There weren’t enough troops or missionaries to go round. He needed the help of the “natives” to expand his desires for power and control. But he needed to mask himself because if the “native” knew his intentions, well. Again, to set up distinctions but also to create a “universal” concept, he invented race. Without the “universal” understanding of a race, the European would be exposed like a cultural anomaly because all the other cultures he encountered adhered to Diop’s “other cradle.” After convincing people of color the universal validity of a race, and the lack of any essentialism in culture, “ the remaining problem was to make his race superior. That was almost a given coming from the aggressive techno-intensive northern cradle. Now armed with the idea of a “race,‘ the European was just one of many races, and not “particular” among the rest of the world of color. 
This concept of race also allowed the European to expand the idea of his cultural supremacy guised as just another race that knew better how to do things. His propensity for the techno/scientific order which arose from his natural aggression to make better weapons and computers, etc. helped. But it was his cultural ideology that was expanding. An ideology that soon allowed other cultures to adopt and adapt to his ways to make the Europeans feel comfortable in a world he viewed/views as “hostile.” It made this white skinned “racial” minority feel like a “cultural” majority in the world. Europeans used the concept of race to turn Diop’s culturally ideological southern cradle, north. However today “race” is becoming less necessary in a European culturally globalized world. We can unite without “race” (or religion) to divide us and that would allow European culture to rule. Again I say we don’t need to be a “race” but as people of color we do need to be culturally aware and not accept another’s “racial” definition of our cultural essence as to who we are.

Shabaka Tecumseh
sunrisera@yahoo.com



                                                                                   M. Stewart.
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                                                                              Revised: 07/01/06.