Miscegenation and antimiscegenation laws

SIGNIFICANCE: Miscegenation is the crossing or hybridization of different races. As knowledge of the nature of human variability has expanded, clearly defining “race” has become increasingly difficult; the study of genetics reveals that the concept of race is primarily a social construct as opposed to a biological reality. Limited understanding of the biological and genetic effects of mating between races, as well as racial prejudice, played a major role in the development of the eugenics movement and the enactment of antimiscegenation laws in the first half of the twentieth century.

What Is Race?

Implicit in most biological definitions of race is the concept of shared physical characteristics that have come from a common ancestor. Humans have long recognized and attempted to classify and categorize different kinds of people. The father of systematics, Carolus Linnaeus, described, in his system of binomial nomenclature, four races of humans: Africans (black), Asians (dark), Europeans (white), and Native Americans (red). Skin color in humans has been, without doubt, the primary feature used to classify people, although there is no single trait that can be used to do this. Skin color is used because it makes it very easy to tell groups of people apart. However, there are thousands of human traits. What distinguishes races are differences in gene frequencies for a variety of traits. The great majority of genetic traits are found in similar frequencies in people of different skin color. There may not be a single genetic trait that is always associated with people of one skin color while not appearing at all in people of another skin color. It is possible for a person to differ more from another person of the same skin color than from a person of a different skin color.

Many scientists think that the word “race” is not useful in human biology research. Scientific and social organizations, including the American Association of Physical Anthropologists and the American Anthropological Association, have deemed that racial classifications are limited in their scope and utility and do not reflect the evolving concepts of human variability. It is of interest to note that subjects are frequently asked to identify their race in studies and surveys.

It is useful to point out the distinction between an “ethnic group” and a race. An ethnic group is a group of people who share a common social ancestry. Cultural practices may lead to a group’s genetic isolation from other groups with a different cultural identity. Since members of different ethnicities may tend to marry only within their group, certain genetic traits may occur at different frequencies in the group than they do in other ethnic or racial groups, or the population at large.

Miscegenation

Sir Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, is often regarded as the father of eugenics. He asserted that humans could be selectively bred for favorable traits. In his 1869 book Hereditary Genius, he set out to prove that favorable traits were inborn in people and concluded that

". . . the average intellectual standard of the Negro race is some two grades below our own. That the average ability of the [ancient] Athenian race is, on the lowest possible estimate, very nearly two grades higher than our own—that is, about as much as our race is above that of the African Negro."

While easily debunked by today's science, Galton's work was widely accepted by political and scientific leaders of his time. Bertrand Russell even suggested that the United Kingdom should issue color-coded “procreation tickets” to individuals based on their status in society: “Those who dared breed with holders of a different colored ticket would face a heavy fine.” These “scientific” findings, combined with social and racial stereotypes, led to the movement and its development in many countries, including England, France, Germany, Sweden, Canada, and the United States.

Laws were passed to restrict the immigration of certain ethnic groups into the United States. Between 1907 and 1940, laws allowing forcible sterilization were passed in more than thirty states. Statutes prohibiting and punishing interracial marriages were passed in many states and, even as late as 1952, more than half the states still had antimiscegenation laws. The landmark decision against antimiscegenation laws occurred in 1967 when the US Supreme Court declared the Virginia law unconstitutional. The decision, Loving v. Virginia, led to the erosion of the legal force of the antimiscegenation laws in the remaining states.

Impact and Applications

In spite of antimiscegenation laws and societal and cultural taboos, interracial matings have been a frequent occurrence. Many countries around the world, including the United States, are now racially heterogeneous societies. Genetic studies indicate that perhaps 20 to 30 percent of the genes in most African Americans are a result of a mixture of white genes from mixed matings since the introduction of slavery to the Americas more than three hundred years ago. Miscegenation has been widespread throughout the world, and there may not even be such a thing as a “pure” race. No adverse biological effects can be attributed to miscegenation.

Key terms

• eugenicsthe control of individual reproductive choices to improve the genetic quality of the human population
• hybridizationthe crossing of two genetically distinct species, races, or types to produce mixed offspring
• negative eugenicspreventing the reproduction of individuals who have undesirable genetic traits, as defined by those in control
• positive eugenicsselecting individuals to reproduce who have desirable genetic traits, as seen by those in control
• racein the biological sense, a group of people who share certain genetically transmitted physical characteristics

Bibliography

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