Just a Thought

I came in from the snow finally and am sitting in the reading room at the GF. As you know, I'm writing a paper on whiteness.

I'm still in the research stage but every so often, I think of something and write it down in hopes that I will use it in my paper. So although I have not officially begun, I've got some stuff. The main thesis of the paper, and one that Sarah said was like Max Weber and a thought she said she hadn't considered (that made me feel good), considers “whiteness” a reaction/response to the metaphoric rise of non-white ethnic groups in the United States. Also I would like to hold whites and non-whites responsible for the inherent power that whites are given at birth.

But then I read things like this: "When Hunt (Dr. Sanford B. Hunt, a U.S. surgeon and pioneer in the field of anthropometrics -- the study of the physical characteristics of the races of mankind) was working for the United States Sanitary Commission during the Civil War he prepared a report on the physical, emotional, and mental characteristics of the black soldier. The first part of Hunt's report concluded that blacks were imitative, cheerful, rhythmical (they marched well at night), and not very intelligent. These characteristics made the Afro-American a good foot soldier but a bad officer."

I understand that, just as Joseph Conrad used the language available to him to describe the blacks in Africa, the social science of a century ago was entering a new phase of inquiry. Blacks were no longer slaves and the task of sociology was to include them in the larger body of scholarship. It was only the beginning. Let's see if I can find some more gems.