Although legal equality must be granted to all, blacks should be
denied social equality, lest the white race be compromised and
diluted: "Social equality I deem at all time impracticable. It is a
natural impossibility flowing from the very character of the negro
race" (10 August 1863); for blacks are "indolent, playful, sensuous,
imitative, subservient, good natured, versatile, unsteady in their
purpose, devoted, affectionate, in everything unlike other races,
they may but be compared to children, grown in the stature of
adults while retaining a childlike mind. . . . Therefore I hold that
they are incapable of living on a footing of social equality with the
whites, in one and the same community, without being an element
of social disorder" (10 August 1863). Blacks must be regulated and
limited, lest an injudicious award of social privilege sow later dis-
cord:
No man has a right to what he is unfit to use. . . . Let us beware of
granting too much to the negro race in the beginning, lest it become nec-
essary to recall violently some of the privileges which they may use to our
detriment and their own injury (10 August 1863).
Agassiz attributes this lamentable fact to the sexual receptiveness
of housemaids and the naivete of young Southern gentlemen. The
servants, it seems, are halfbreeds already (we are not told how their
parents overcame a natural repugnance for one another); young
men respond aesthetically to the white half, while a degree of black
heritage loosens the natural inhibitions of a higher race. Once
acclimated, the poor young men are hooked, and they acquire a
taste for pure blacks:
As soon as the sexual desires are awakening in the young men of the
South, they find it easy to gratify themselves by the readiness with which
they are met by colored [halfbreed] house servants. . . . This blunts his
better instincts in that direction and leads him gradually to seek more spicy
partners, as I have heard the full blacks called by fast young men (9 August
1863).
Finally, Agassiz combines vivid image and metaphor to warn
against the ultimate danger of a mixed and enfeebled people:
Conceive for a moment the difference it would make in future ages,
for the prospect of republican institutions and our civilization generally, if
instead of the manly population descended from cognate nations the
United States should hereafter be inhabited by the effeminate progeny of
mixed races, half indian, half negro, sprinkled with white blood. ... I
shudder from the consequences. We have already to struggle, in our prog-
ress, against the influence of universal equality, in consequence of the dif-
ficulty of preserving the acquisitions of individual eminence, the wealth of
refinement and culture growing out of select associations. What would be
our condition if to these difficulties were added the far more tenacious
influences of physical disability. . . . How shall we eradicate the stigma of
a lower race when its blood has once been allowed to flow freely into that
of our children (10 August 1863).
Although legal equality must be granted to all, blacks should be
denied social equality, lest the white race be compromised and
diluted: "Social equality I deem at all time impracticable. It is a
natural impossibility flowing from the very character of the negro
race" (10 August 1863); for blacks are "indolent, playful, sensuous,
imitative, subservient, good natured, versatile, unsteady in their
purpose, devoted, affectionate, in everything unlike other races,
they may but be compared to children, grown in the stature of
adults while retaining a childlike mind. . . . Therefore I hold that
they are incapable of living on a footing of social equality with the
whites, in one and the same community, without being an element
of social disorder" (10 August 1863). Blacks must be regulated and
limited, lest an injudicious award of social privilege sow later dis-
cord:
No man has a right to what he is unfit to use. . . . Let us beware of
granting too much to the negro race in the beginning, lest it become nec-
essary to recall violently some of the privileges which they may use to our
detriment and their own injury (10 August 1863).
Finally, Agassiz combines vivid image and metaphor to warn
against the ultimate danger of a mixed and enfeebled people:
Conceive for a moment the difference it would make in future ages,
for the prospect of republican institutions and our civilization generally, if
instead of the manly population descended from cognate nations the
United States should hereafter be inhabited by the effeminate progeny of
mixed races, half indian, half negro, sprinkled with white blood. ... I
shudder from the consequences. We have already to struggle, in our prog-
ress, against the influence of universal equality, in consequence of the dif-
ficulty of preserving the acquisitions of individual eminence, the wealth of
refinement and culture growing out of select associations. What would be
our condition if to these difficulties were added the far more tenacious
influences of physical disability. . . . How shall we eradicate the stigma of
a lower race when its blood has once been allowed to flow freely into that
of our children (10 August 1863).
Based Agassiz.
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[–] ShitArchon ago
The fact that mixed northern Brazil is a corrupt shithole and white southern Brazil isn't nearly as bad shows that Aggasiz's predictions were more accurate than Gould's.
A later study showed that Gould lied about Morton subconsciously overstuffing European skulls and understuffing Bantu ones (but why would a "white supremacist" present data showing that East Asians have the largest brains? Gould doesn't claim those were overstuffed).
[–] eagleshigh [S] ago
This debate is still going on. I read this paper last week from last year, 2015, talking about how Lewis et al, the ones who redid the study, did wrong things as well and Gould did some right things. This shit is fucking complicated. I can't wait until it's settled for good. I'll link the paper in a bit.