Goldberg’s chapter on “racial knowledge” written in 1993 is a look at race through a Western perspective. Race has been studied over decades by anthropologists, historians and biologists. In many cases of study “scientists” used race to rationalize domination, stereotypes and extermination. Through scientists studies they also established moral subject. They determined “who is capable of moral action and who is subjected to it, who is capable of moral autonomy and who should be directed” (Goldberg, 148). Through this chapter on “racial knowledge” we learn about the “Other”.
Since the word “science” is used it gives the study of “racial knowledge” a more authoritative and legitimatate persona. Since “scientists” had the power they were able to name and evaluate the Others. Goldberg uses the example of Orientals. By the practice of naming the so called group the ones with the “knowledge” are extending control, power, authority and domination over the Others. The governors know what is best for the Other. Radicalized social science will save them from themselves and governing the Other will save them from their own Nature.
Governors that are more knowledgeable about a race whether that is at home or abroad require less force. “Scientists” have given the governing a vast amount of information regarding the Other. They use detailed facts about racial nature and the forming of racial characters. Most of these “facts” are found from academic research and practical expertise. With these facts ideas and principles about the Others can be determined. The space in which the Others inhabit becomes the “scientists” laboratory in which the Others may be tested. When studying the Others art for example they are not studied for there importance rather they are studied like artifacts. They are seen as primitive or uncivilized. Their art work is not seen as high culture because it is done by the Others. The use of mathematics has always been a way of providing positive knowledge about man. Such things as the measurement and weighing of skulls have been used to view race. Such terms like the “Primitive” were used in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was still considered a degrading term. In the West we are always looking to label people instead of thinking of them just as humans, just like us.
There are so many examples that I can think of where “racial knowledge” has been used. This dates back to the 1930s and 40s but still is a very important lesson we can learn from. When Jewish people in Europe were radicalized and sent to concentration camps they were not terrible people like Hitler and the S.S. made them out to be but because European people under Hitler’s rule were given “facts” they believed everything they heard to be true. Jewish people at this time were so belittled and so unwanted in Europe they made sure to exterminate as many of them as possible.
Another example is post 9/11 when many individuals from Middle Eastern decent were scrutinized and all suspected of being terrorists. They soon became the Others and forming from that came the Afghanistan and Iraq wars with the United States. Although I know there was more leading up to it then just 9/11 the hand full of terrorists helped label millions of people as the Others.
Governments may have withdrawn from colonial territories but social scientists are still in most places today. I do believe social science is important to all aspects of study but you cannot base a whole society on few people you have studied. If someone came to Nova Scotia and studied us and said we were all fishermen who were uneducated we would be assaulted by this assumption. But for years social scientists did exactly that. By calling a group of people the “Other” we are belittling them and giving ourselves the superior role as governor. Nothing gives us the right to condemn a group of people because we do not understand their way of life. That is what makes the world a unique place. Yes, it is important to study other societies and see things through their perspective but belittling groups of people by their race is not correct.
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