“They” Invented Race

I attended a very interesting keynote speech tonight at UMKC. Edward James Olmos spoke about Cesar Chavez, civil disobedience, and the plight of the Latino, but the most fascinating thing he said all night was this: “They invented race to make it easier for us to kill each other.” Boy did he hit the nail on the head.

As ambiguous a word as “they” is, we all know that it is a technical term for any powers that be. And “they” had a very good reason for wanting “us”, another technical term for anyone who is not in the powers that be category, to kill each other. It was the only way they could convince us that they were a necessary entity to begin with. This is a very Hobbesian approach to the problem of proving legitimate rule by consent. This problem and Hobbesian approach still exist today in our own government.

Thomas Hobbes was a seventeenth century English philosopher who wrote about man’s state of nature and the origin of rule. His claim was that man, left to his own devices and without the rule of law, would be in a continual state of war with one another. This was the basis for his assumption that any civilized person should want a rule of law purely out of necessity. He got more than a few things wrong, as later philosophers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau would point out, but my point is, and I think Edward James Olmos’ point was, as well, that this division, this invention of “race”, was necessary and “they” knew it all too well. They still do.

As Olmos said, there is only one race–the human race. But I don’t think there is a country that is quite so divided by race as the United States. Pick any topic and people will gravitate to sides characterized by race. It’s almost uncanny. No wonder “they” saw race as a tool to ensure them the power to rule over all infinitely. It’s such a simple idea. Point out a few superficial differences to ignorant people, which is most of the U.S. population, give them reasons to hate each other, then sit back and wait. That’s all Uncle Sam, or any “they” has to do to ensure chaos, and therefore ensure their legitimate rule by consent.

Hobbes, Rousseau, and the Walking Dead is a paper I wrote on the Hobbesian dilemma I hint at above. Yes, I use The Walking Dead as an example. Feel free to read and comment.