Re: AUSTRALOIDS
Eric Brunner (brunner@mandrake.think.com)
26 Aug 1996 18:58:30 GMT
E.G. Land (bard@smarty.smart.net) wrote:
...
: _The New American Desk Encyclopedia_ says this: ""...Recent
: researches have suggested that they may be the result of interbreeding
: between between an original population of "Homo erectus" and the earliest
: membrs of "Homo sapiens."
: What is being said here -- that Australian Aborigines are some
: sort of sub Homo sapien species?
Well, what is being "said" (there) is that it is still acceptable to engage
in pseudo-scientific racism within the US reference textbook market, where
the targets of this (non-cited) taxonomy are suitably exotic "others". Just
more of the usual NatGeo-esque (mis)use of cultures to promote the authority
of the hegemonic pretentions of the authors, their institutions and their
cultural affiliations.
Imagine instead written of Europeans:
Recent researches have suggested that they may be the result of
interbreeding between between an original population of "Homo
neanderthalus" and the earliest members of "Homo sapiens."
See any fur fly?
Now imagine instead that this authoritative deskside reference of every young
scholar contained the names and addresses of the Indigenous Polities of the
exotic others... In short, treated them as unromantically as the French, with
Governments, famous contemporaries, famous historical personages, rather than
going on dubiously "biologically".
Is your initial anthropological question about representation of other now
answered?
See also Lenny's response, as "species" has a distinct useful meaning, no
matter how many posters post to the contrary, and, ahem, interbreeding is
rather proved.
--
Kitakitamatsinohpowaw,
Eric Brunner
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