The example of the evolution graphic has been bouncing around my mind ever since. What a great example of the social mixed with the scientific to create a huge racist mess! I wanted to explore this a bit and I hope at least someone sees this and comments because I'd like to know if anyone else has an opinion on this.
The claim made by Prof Mike (can't remember his last name) was that this image is in fact racist. It shows the dark monkey progressing into the white, upright modern male. The enthymeme here (sorry to get all rhetorically geeky here) is that the dark monkey represents a black person - coming from Africa, dragging knuckles, immersed in nature but ignorant, primal, incapable of intelligent thought, destined to become something more, but not there - yet. Of course, the result is this perfect, pink male - muscular, clean shaven and modern. We are to assume that he has unlimited mental capacity merely by the shape of his body. He is healthy, confident in his posture and has no need for a spear, as his mind is capable of taking on any threat to his livelihood.
Ok, I bought it hook, line and sinker at first. There's a rhetorical strategy in Prof Mike's presentation at work here, kind of running parallel to his ethos. It has to do with coming to the realization that we (I at least) missed this completely. The shame of not knowing drives us (me) to accepting his supposition almost immediately, much like we accept all the knowledge imparted upon us during a class. It's new, it's interesting, it's a perspective that we've not yet seen. And it was an incredibly powerful point - that a humanist "sees" these things. We see the rhetorical implications of racism in a piece of scientific rhetoric that most evolutionary biologists wouldn't. Cool! Lightbulbs, fireworks, pride in my chosen profession - chalk one up for the humanists. If evolution is superior to creationism then finding the flaws in evolution is superior even to that.
But then I started thinking about it. And it actually took on an even deeper meaning, which I believe Mike was probably trying to impart upon his doe-eyed crowd - keep looking - deeper. If science seeks to freeze words down to a solid state, don't just cool them off. Boil the fuckers!
So what about the image? I see science, sort of. Not entirely accurate science, but a representation, surely. Racism? Let's take a closer look. The dark monkey-looking creature on the left. Do we buy the enthymeme equating it to our African brothers? Does it subtly represent the black man? And where does that association come from? Mike would tell us to look back at the earliest associations of black people and monkeys. I recall some of the images from our past, pictures of the "negro" population depicting huge, apelike lips and thick brows. Does the image on the left, by itself or in the rest of the image follow that logic? Perhaps. But to me it just looks like a primate of some sort. Forgive my ignorance of taxonomy. Certainly the progression takes us from dark to light. But what if the opposite were true? What if this image portrayed a progression from dark monkey to dark man? Is that not also racist? Is that simply destroying the enthymeme and exposing it for what it really is? Monkey = black man, no matter how far they've evolved? Does not this image, the way it is represented above actually give balance to the idea that we ALL came from the same place. Does not it give credence to the fact that black = white, monkey = white man (I know, I know, we didn't come from monkeys!). Perhaps, on a deeper level, we are rejecting it for altogether different reasons.
Pretty fascinating to think about. Also, I notice that they are progressing toward the sun, judging by their shadows. Is that some sort of "getting closer to God" thing? And if they are evolving, what is next? Or are we too humble to suppose that? Can we only look at the past and see where we've come from? That seems to run counter to the spirit of science. Should we just scrap the image? Has it run its course? Is it representative only of a former time in science, when its prose was purple, careless, imprecise? Or do we keep our monkey to man? Or does it evolve, much like the rhetoric of science. Will the white man turn Asian, American Indian, then perhaps African over time? Or will we lose our fascination with the human form and simply focus on brains. And what would that look like? It sure would make for a crappy t-shirt.
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