HAUNTED SENTINELS

The difference in the role of race relations in England and the United States directly influenced the concept of race in both countries. Not only was the discipline of anthropology defined differently in each country, but the two scientific communities had little contact with each other. The Americans looked mostly to Germany for intellectual guidance while the English disregarded totally any work done by Americans, especially Franz Boas. So while in retrospect the two communities may seem to have shared much – primarily little tolerance of Nazi racism – and finally to have rejected racism, their experience in the pre-war years was very different. Despite sharing a language, the professional discourse in each community was largely isolated.

In the post World War I period, the American scene was saturated with racism of different kinds. The various victims of racism had internalized much of the oppressive ideology and thus their critique of racism arose within. They shared much of the racist world view, including conceptual thinking and language. In hindsight, it is difficult to locate non-racist views, since race was viewed as a scientific fact both in its philosophical and popular versions. This was evident in the prevailing terminology in numerous debates which saw Darwinism replacing other religious metaphysics. From a historical perspective, anyone who followed social and cultural conventions on race could be branded a racist.