Title: Lesson: The Concept of Race | Facing History
Headings: The Concept of Race
The Concept of Race
From the Unit:
Essential Questions
Guiding Questions
Learning Objectives
Overview
Context
Notes to Teacher
Materials
Teaching Strategies
Activities
Assessment
Extensions
Unit
Return to Unit: Teaching Holocaust and Human Behavior
Introducing The Unit
Exploring Identity
Stereotypes and “Single Stories”
Universe of Obligation
Introducing the Writing Prompt
The Concept of Race
The Roots and Impact of Antisemitism
World War I and Its Aftermath in Germany
The Weimar Republic
Introducing Evidence Logs
The Rise of the Nazi Party
European Jewish Life before World War II
Dismantling Democracy
Do You Take the Oath?
Laws and the National Community
Adding to Evidence Logs, 1 of 3
The Power of Propaganda
Youth and the National Community
Kristallnacht
Responding to a Refugee Crisis
Race and Space
Adding to Evidence Logs, 2 of 3
The Holocaust: Bearing Witness
The Holocaust: The Range of Responses
Justice and Judgment after the Holocaust
Adding to Evidence Logs, 3 of 3
How Should We Remember?
Choosing to Participate
Refining the Thesis and Finalizing Evidence Logs
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Content: The Power of an Illusion: “ Race is a human invention. We created it, and we have used it in ways that have been in many, many respects quite negative and quite harmful.” 2
When the scientific and intellectual ideals of the Enlightenment came to dominate the thinking of most Europeans in the 1700s, they exposed a basic contradiction between principle and practice: the enslavement of human beings. Despite the fact that Enlightenment ideals of human freedom and equality inspired revolutions in the United States and France, the practice of slavery persisted throughout the United States and European empires. In the late 1700s and early 1800s, American and European scientists tried to explain this contradiction through the study of “race science,” which advanced the idea that humankind is divided into separate and unequal races. If it could be scientifically proven that Europeans were biologically superior to those from other places, especially Africa, then Europeans could justify slavery and other imperialistic practices. Prominent scientists from many countries, including Sweden, the Netherlands, England, Germany, and the United States, used “race science” to give legitimacy to the race-based divisions in their societies. Journalists, teachers, and preachers popularized their ideas.