Darwinism - Racism

Racism is an inevitable topic when we discuss about United States. It becomes one of the most crucial elements in the history of America. Racism is related closely to the dichotomy of black and white. Black people were seen inferior to the white. This behavior dates back to centuries ago when the slavery begun. What does it mean? It means that racism occurred and still occurs up to now. When we talk about racism, we must look at the existence of Ku Klux Klan. It was formed in 1865 and its main purpose was to restore the supremacy of the Whites. The Klan did not recognize blacks for being free (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan). They explicitly stated that their actions were to guard the purity of American descendent. Surprisingly, KKK survived long. It even still exists in present day life. Even, as being reported in news.com.au, KKK’s members increased rapidly during Obama’s campaign for presidency. This news was justified by former member of KKK, Johnny Lee Clary (http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,24984514-401,00.html). This phenomenon is considered interesting by us. For that very reason, we as the researcher wanted to find out why KKK can survive long and to find out what it is that makes racist view of KKK very strong. To fulfill our research, we choose David Duke, one of the leaders in Ku Klux Klan. David Duke is not a mere leader. He gets PhD and even becomes an author. Therefore, this paper is aimed to analyze what ideology bases racist group as represented by David Duke, the leader of Ku Klux Klan. Who is David Duke? David Ernest Duke was born on July 1, 1950 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States. His education background was from Louisiana State University. He learned deeply about theory of evolution. Surprisingly, it made him into a racist. He joined in the Ku Klux Klan in 1967 and he founded the Knights of Ku Klux Klan in 1974 (http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/david_duke/default.asp). An interesting fact is that he ran for Governor Election in Louisiana in 1991. He received 680,000 votes at that time, ended at the second place. He also was elected to serve in congress in the state of Louisiana. (Bergman, Jerry). And the most surprising is that he once ran as the candidate of U.S. President but he failed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Duke). He is very sensational because at one time he is a national political figure but at the same time he is also a widely know racist, the leader of Ku Klux Klan. He also joined the American Nazi party. Duke offered revolutionary change in these two extreme racist organizations. He wanted to stop using violence and to stop using Nazi

traditional rituals. Rather, David Duke wanted an intellectual movement such as by publishing books, holding Ku Klux Klan conference and gathering, or holding regular meetings. (http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/david_duke/background.asp) The Background of David Duke Duke’s father played an important role in shaping his thought and ideology. His father was Methodist, a Sunday school teacher in church and also a geologist. Duke’s father joined two contradictory thoughts: Evolution and Creation. He believed that evolution was a means for God to create life (Bergman, Jerry). From this childhood background, we know the trail of Darwinism in his ideology. Jerry Bregman, argued in his paper that David Duke read many Darwinist books stating about significant differences between Caucasian and Negroid. These differences determine one race’s quality and create race’s superiority over another. Such book as The Outline of History by H.G. Wells contains argument to defend Darwinism and also support the use of eugenics (a field of study deals with the improvement (as by control of human mating)

of hereditary

qualities

of a race or breed

(http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/EUGENICS)).

Wells’

ideas

and

writings have convinced young Duke that race was central to evolutionary advancement. Many other Darwinists figure shaped David Duke’s point of view of racism. Professor Carleton Coon, author of Living Races of Man, Story of Man, Origin of the Races, and The Races of Europe, contains racist ideas and support Darwin’s theory of evolution. While Professor Elmer Pendell’s book, Why Civilizations Self-Destruct and Sex versus Civilization stating that brain intelligence is heredity and the key to evolution is the elimination of the less fit. Pendell also offers radical solution to regulate reproduction according to eugenic principles, which can be translated into sterilization of ‘inferior’ humans (Bergman, Jerry).

There are still a lot of

evolutionists who have influenced Duke, such as Julian Huxley, George Bernard Shaw, Frances Galton’s, and many more. Finally, David Duke states that Caucasian’s purity (White people) should be kept by separating inferior races from the superior one i.e. The Caucasian. The next part of discussion is about the understanding of Darwinism and theory of evolution.

Darwinism We all surely have already known well about the theory of evolution by Darwin. A theory that has successfully made controversial debates among people all over the world. This theory has spread up quickly because of its sharp contrast with Creation theory. Charles Darwin established his argument through some researches and wrote it down in a really popular book called as “Origin of Species”. He expressed some terminology related to the human origins and human development. Some terms like evolution, natural selection, and also survival of the fittest will be found in his book. What was actually his theory about? a. Evolution The theory regarding the origins of human nature had been overwhelmingly talked about a long time ago, even before the evolution theory of Darwin appeared to the surface. Figures like Thales, Anaximander, Enpedocles, and even Aristotle had made up their own theories about human origins (Horton, Rod W. and Edwards, Herbert W.). However their theories were restrained in the hypothesis process, some of them only shared the description of existing forms without coming to explanation why the changing occurred in the species. Besides providing the description of the development process, Darwin also explained much of his hypothesis about evolution and natural selection. Like other old scientists, he agreed that actually human was formed from lower forms of animal life. Furthermore, he argued, “The forms will naturally experience the changing into more complex forms as a result of their adaptation to the surrounding environment” (Horton, Rod W. and Edwards , Herbert W.). This theory contrasted directly at the old theory of human creation of Bible, that human was perfectly created by God, and they have been in their fixed forms. Darwin stated that species underwent gradually unceasing mutation, and they were not in a fixed form like what Bible have said to us. Darwin challenged the Creation theory regarding unchanging and fixed nature and moreover his theory made humans equal to animals, while Bible said that human is the most perfect creation of God and human’s position is higher than animals. His theory was not only a mere irresponsible opinion. He provided the proofs and also supported ideas about natural selection. b. Natural Selection and Ideology of “The Survival of the Fittest” “Natural selection holds that in the struggle for existence the advantage goes to those organisms which deviate from the norm and whose deviation is best adapted to

their environment” (Horton, Rod W. and Herbert W. Edwards). This statement about Darwin’s theory taught us that only species having abilities to survive from natural selection like natural disaster, war and conflicts, and the fittest organism must have the best adaptation for their surroundings so they can live or survive longer than any other species. The ideology of the survival of the fittest leads us to the comprehension that we as the species should not need to prevent the cosmic process because it is the way for the nature to evolve into a complex and better system. The fittest or strongest species will survive through all of the process and the weak must extinct. That is nature law according to Darwin’s theory. This natural selection also has brought pessimistic and skepticism to certain society in the world who consider themselves as the weak, because they cannot do nothing if they are not destined to belong in the fittest group. And it also brought over optimistic to certain society for being superior. Therefore, by this comprehension, ethic and moral would no longer apply and cared by people. These all understandings will support Darwinism’s theory intends to Racism. The intention of Darwin’s theory to racism has been shown in his book “The Descent of Men”. The classification of species that Darwin has showed to us also became a concrete evident about his intention to racism. In old definition of human origins, Bible states that there are no classified groups. People are considered equally in God’s eye. This classification challenged us to think new theory about races, that actually since long time ago there have been classifications and groups classified from the biological approaches as Darwin has stated in his book. Races were at first attributed to animals, according to Darwin in his book, The Descent of Man. But, as human was derived from lower class animals, race was then attributed to human. Ever since race was attributed to man, the word racism then emerges to refer to treat people differently based on their racial traits such as skin color, hair, eyes color, etc. For this very reason, Darwin is then closely related to racism. Darwinism, Racism and David Duke From the background history presented above, we already have known who David Duke is. We also note that Darwin’s theory play a big role in the making of David Duke as a racist. In this part of paper, we try to take the relation of how racist, represented by David Duke, can take Darwinism theory. Our analysis is going to be based on two of Charles Darwin’s books: The Origins of Species and the Descent of

Man. And from an excerpt of Chapter 7 of David Duke’s book, My Awakening: A Path to Racial Understanding. As a scholar of evolution, David Duke also learned deeply about Charles Darwin’s books. Origins of Species influenced David Duke very much. Now, let us observe how this book can influence racist in general and David Duke in particular. There is one thing that is often being neglected by layman. Actually, the title of Charles Darwin’s book is not only the Origins of species. Its complete title is Origins of Species; or the Preservations of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life (Darwin, Charles: 1870). According to our discussion, the subtitle of the book ‘the Preservations of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life’, is already tempting to be used by Racists. They will instantly think that there is this dichotomy of favored and un-favored race. Which one belong to favored and which one belong to un-favored? To answer this question, we are going to refer to two main points of Darwin’s theory i.e. evolution and natural selection. Evolution theory states that human evolve from lower class animals. Hence, to evolve human needs more intelligence so human can survive. For Darwin, each race has different intelligence capability. It is reflected in the different size of skulls in the savage and civilized races (Duke, David). Again, dichotomy of savage and civilized emerges. It becomes the basic understanding for David Duke in his book. He believes that there is savage people and civilized people. The trait for savage is giving smaller I.Q. than the civilized people. Another factor is that this I.Q. is derived from each race’s ancestor. Heredity matters in determining one race’s intelligence. Heredity is also one of Darwin’s fundamental theories for a favored race to survive. Racist who want to bring white’s supremacy bases their actions in this. American white people are mainly the descendent of superior race. American white people are the far descendent of Roman people that is widely known as the superior race. Henry Cabot Lodge Sr. argued that American purity should be kept even from the other ethnic minorities (Crow, Herman L. & Turnbull, William L). Other ethnic minorities will only taint the seed of white supremacy. Once American mixes with other race, American supremacy will fall. This racist view is also found in David Duke’s works stating the importance of keeping the white supremacy. He argues that preserving the Caucasian genotype is critical and it had to be prevented only by separating the races in order to prevent degeneration of the human genome (http://www.prometheism.net/ articles /duke_h_or _e. html)

The next point of Darwin’s theory in the Origins of Species is about natural selection. Natural selection means the survival of the fittest. It means that one race is considered a favored race when it becomes the strongest. Alred Russel Wallace, a follower of Darwinian Theory stated that “The weak dying was necessary to improve the race because in every generation the inferior would inevitably be killed off leaving the

superiority-

that

is,

only

the

fittest

would

survive”

(http://www.biblebelievers.net /creationscience/kjcevol1/htm). Racists understand this notion naively. They naively think that white people are the fittest race to survive because white has endured a long struggle to reach America. They actually have declared themselves as the superior or favored race from the early beginning. According to our opinion, this notion strengthens the already existing notion i.e. the Chosen. We understand that the early days of America, Puritan people established themselves as the Chosen people. They did not recognize other nations and other people. Gradually, this notion establishes a notion of WASP (White, Anglo Saxon, and Puritan/Protestant). WASP becomes a prevailing myth from early days of America until now. KKK, as racist group, employs this myth as their purpose i.e. to keep America as the myth says. David Duke also states in his book that to keep American purity, all black people should be removed and placed differently from the white. By doing so, both races will not come into conflict and each will purse its dream without having to violate other race’s right (http://www.prometheism.net/ article/duke_h_or_e.html). What behind this segregated opinion is actually based on keeping White’s purity, so that mixed relationship, that the Racists think can destroy the superior quality of white, can be avoided. Hence, white will always be the strongest race and will always be superior. The next book of Charles Darwin that we want to discuss is the Descent of Man. In his book, Darwin states: “At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated.” (Darwin, Charles: The Descent of Man) These lines express some extreme opinions. We should underline the words: civilized races of man almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races. This notion if interpreted literally will be a very racist view. Hence, Racist groups as well as racist

leaders as David Duke use this notion as their justifications for their actions. They who believe in white supremacy as being civilized people will exterminate the savage. Who is considered as the savage here? Definitely, the answer is the black people. It is related closely to the previous explanation of heredity. Black people are from African which is remarkable as the land of savage people. Racist whose view is based on heredity superiority will of course reject the presence of black people. No matter modern they are, black people will always be considered as inferior because of their ancestry in the savage land. And from the lines presented above, we also understand the reason why racists are very extreme in their actions. Pay more attention to the word exterminate. This word clearly expresses a deep hatred toward the existence of savage people so that they deserve to be banished completely from this world. “Exterminate” means so, isn’t it? In conclusion, we finally understand what it is that makes racism prevails in American society. It already has a strong root in American society long before Darwinism becomes the strongest ideology that bases racism in America. It is embodied in the Ku Klux Klan. In the early days of racist’s movement, their aim is to prevail the myth of WASP, a myth that emerged from early Puritan settlement. Darwinism becomes their main ideology to do racist actions after Civil War era. From the analysis of David Duke in this paper, we come to a new understanding David Duke is not a mere person. He transforms KKK into more “respectable” racist movement, which excludes violence and illegal action. He chooses to spread his racist ideology through his writings and some other seminars held by Ku Klux Klan. This new method is also the reason why Ku Klux Klan can survive until now. With these kind of gatherings, basic elements that become the foundation of Racist people keep preserved and get stronger. An example is the number of Ku Klux Klan increases rapidly during Obama’s administration (http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,24984514401,00. html). It shows that the number of racist people still high. They still demand superiority of the white over the other race. Whites still believe that they are the superior race and the fittest race. And based on our analysis, Darwinism plays a big role in shaping American racist organizations. We never really know whether Darwin itself a racist or not, even though he is accused to be so. Or, whether the racists misuse Darwin theories by interpreting his theory as they wish to justify their actions.

Bibliography Bregman, Jerry, (1993), "Evolution and the Origins of the Biological Race Theory. Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal , Vol 7(2), 1993 pp. 155-168, Retrieved from http://www.biblebelievers.net /creationscience/kjcevol1/htm on November 6, 2009 at 08.42 _____________, (2005). Darwinism’s influence on modern racists and white supremacist groups: the case of David Duke. Journal of Creation 19(3):103– 107 Retrieved from http://creation.com/darwinisms-influence-on-modernracists-and-white-supremacist-groups-the-case-of-david-duke on November 6, 2009 at 08.47 Crow, Herman L. & William L. Turnbull, (1971). American History: A Problems Approach, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc. Darwin, Charles, (1870). The Descent of Man and the Selection in Relation to Sex. Retrieved from http://www.pdfcoke.com/doc/893939/Descent-of-Man-andSelection-in-Relation-to-Sex-by-Charles-Darwin on November 11, 2009 at 13.53 David Duke, Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Duke on November 6, 2009 at 8.44 Duke, David, Heredity or Environment ? An excerpt from David Duke's book "My Awakening: A Path to Racial Understanding", Retrieved from http://www.prometheism.net /articles/duke_h_or_e.html on November 06, 2009 at 08.59 Eugenics Definition, Retrieved from http://www.merriam-Webster.com/dictionary /EUGENICS on November 11, 2009 at 14.04 Extremism in America: David Duke, Retrieved from http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/ david_duke/default.asp on November 6, 2009 at 08.33 Extremism in America: David Duke: Background, Retrieved from http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/david_duke/background.asp on November 6, 2009 at 09.03 Horton, Rod W. & Edwards, Herbert W., (1974), Backgrounds of American Literary Thought, New York: Appleton Century Crofts Ku Klux Klan, retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan, on November 11, 2009 at 14.01 Obama’s presidency 'ignites Ku Klux Klan', retrieved from http://www.news.com.au /story/0,27574,24984514-401, 00.html on November 11, at 13.46