Wald's continuing accusations of racism

[Alexis Manaster-Ramer]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
I have received two versions, one long, the other even longer,
of a diatribe from Wald accusing me of ignorance
about the history of linguistics, and both Pedersen and
by implication me of "institutional racism", though not
(necessarily) of being racists at a persona level
(something which Wald seems to say he does not care
about).

I consider these to be very serious charges indeed,
both as to ignorance and especially as to racism.
Fortunately, in the case before us we are dealing
with specifics.  Wald's charge is based on a specific
book of Pedersen's, which is widely available (The
Discovery of Language) and I think it is easy, as I
do below, to show that Wald misunderstands the passages
at issue and that these passages show precisely the
opposite of what Wald claims.  As for me, his attacks
seem to be based on (a) the fact that I defend
Pedersen and (b) that I am associated loosely with
work on the Nostratic theory and that all Nostraticists
are racists because we do not (supposedly) allow the
possibility that the Afro-Asiatic languages are
related to Nilo-Saharan ones.

As to (a), if I am right about Pedersen, and I am,
then that is that.  As to (b), the charge is ludicrous
because in fact (as I posted earlier) some Nostraticists
do in fact claim that Nilo-Saharan is PART of Nostratic.
But even if that were not the case, I do not see that
it makes sense to say that it is racist to propose
a language family including some languages of Africa
together with some languages of Eurasia but without
other languages of Africa.

Finally, it appears to me that it is Wald who is
operating with racial categories in a way I find
unscientific and immoral, because he appears to ne
saying:

(a) Nilo-Saharan languages are spoken by
members of race A (so-called Black or Negro),

(b) Nostraticists do not want to admit that
languages spoken by members of race A can
be related to languages spoken by members of
race B (spo-called White or Caucasian), and
THIS is why Nostraticists never have and do
not admit that Nilo-Saharan languages are
related to Afro-Asiatic languages (which we
do put in Nostratic).  And this is what
makes us racists.

Without assuming that the categories Black and
White are meaningful, I don't even see how
one can formulate the charge of racism against us
that Wald lays.  Yet it is clearly a matter of
scientific consensus among biologists that
the human species cannot be meaningful divided
into such "races", and given how much harm
the insistence on race has done historically,
it also immoral in my view to operate with
these categories.

Further, I dont see how the argument of Wald's
can be made without presupposing that Nilo-Saharan
is in fact related to AA. For if it is not (or
even if we merely do not yet know that it is),
then there exists another reason why Nostraticists
have (with the exceptions noted in my posting
on this, with complete references) not related
AA to Nilo-Saharan, which has nothing to do
with racism, namely, because we are right.

As I noted some time ago, there is another
explanation which is that most of the Nostratic
work was done when the Nilo-Saharan and even
the AA situation was not very well understood
and the Nilo-Saharan were not as well known to
the few scholars who did the seminal work on
Nostratic as were for example Altaic or
Afro-Asiatic.

I for example do not know almost anything abotu
Nilo-Saharan.  Does this make me a racist?
But then why do I know something about AA?
or about Dravidian?  Does Wald have in mind
some new form of racism which treats AA
speakers (e.g., Hausas) or Dravidian speakers
as "White" but Nilo-Saharan speakers
as "Black"?  But that is inconsistent with
the racist underpinning of his argument
as stated.

So it turns out that to make sense of the
reality of what various Nostraticists have done
Wald would have not only believe in a racist
taxonomy of humankind but indeed in at least
two distinct and mutually exclusive such
taxonomies.

Finally, what do we do with those Nostraticists
who loudly proclaim that ALL the world's
languages are related, like Shevoroshkin?
In what way is this racist?  Is it because
he has failed to consider the further relationship
to the languages of extraterrestrial "races"?

Seriously, I can think of few charges against
a body of scholarship more
serious in our society than that of racism
(although in other societies sexism, ageism,
and others could be equallyu or more serious,
of course).  The charge of ignorance is of course
no laughing matter either.

Wald's charges are false and contemptible.
His insistence on repeating them over and over,
and on attributing to person X the views of
entirely other persons, is something very
familiar to us but none the less dangerous for that.

It is certainly true and well-known to those
who have studied the history of our and other
sciences that scientific racism has been a very
major force in the 19th and 20th cent.  It is
certainly also true that the Nostratic theory
has always been (as recognized by Pedersen)
a major argument against, and not for,
the linguistic racism which has existed
in this period, inasmuch as it is precisely this
theory which shows the linguistic and hence
historical and cultural unity of peoples whom
Wald no less than the old-fashioned racists
apparently regards as belonging to different
"races".

As for me, I prefer to classify people according
to their moral and intellectual characteristics,
among which elementary honesty and attention to
facts I count very highly.  I hope Wald does
too and will take it back and apologize.

Below I address in painful detail the tortured
misinterpretations of Pedersen by Wald.


On Thu, 4 Feb 1999, bwald wrote:

[snip]
>
> Pedersen, p.122:
>
> "Nubian is interesting because of its ancient literary monuments.  ...
> There are also Nubian inscriptions dating from imperial Rome, in an
> alphabet based on Egyptian characters.  But we still do not understand much
> of them.  *The Nubians are not negroes; but to the negro *race** belong the
> Haussa, who language is also disputed..."
>

[snip]

> OK?!  What's a "negro"?  How does Pedersen KNOW that Nubians aren't negro?

I dont know how he knows that (because many people who operate with
racial categories do consider Nubians "black").  But you are missing
the whole point of what he is saying.  Which is that (and this in
the very same paragraph) even though the Hausa PEOPLE
are "negroes", he accepts as possible though not yet proven the theory
that they speak a Hamitic language.  This demonstrates that he does not
associate race with linguistic classification, since otherwise "negroes"
would not be speaking a Hamitic language.  How much plainer can he speak?
He is saying that race in this case is not relevant.  And the reason he
says that IN THIS CASE is because throughout he argues against the use
of race as a criterion for linguistic classification.  That is one
of his main methodological points throughout the book.

> What's his POINT in mentioning any of this RACE stuff anyway?

Precisely what I said just now--and before.  Pedersen's
point is to underline that
the racial criterion (which a reader in his age would likely have
immediately grasped at) is NOT relevant to linguistic
classification.

>  I gave my
> interpretation, based on my knowledge.  AMR, DO SOME WORK on the history of
> your discipline and the intellectual climate which fed it, and give an
> alternative opinion.

My work on the history of comparative linguistics is on the
record, in the Journal de la Societe finno-ougrienne, Anthropological
Linguistics, Ural-altaische Jahrbu"cher, etc.

> Explain why his comment is not gratuitous,

Because as I just said he KNEW that contemporary readers would
assume that the linguistic distinction between Hamitic and non-
Hamitic languages (I think he called the latter 'Sudan' languages
or some variation on that) was to be determined by racial criteria,
and he was emphasizing that this was not a valid way to proceed.

> and how it
> is critical of the institutionalised racism of his time.

It was critical of the common view that linguistic classification
correlates with race, a point he states in general terms and
by way of example over and over.  But I do not see that he
addressed racism, institutionalised or private, at all.  He
may have been a racist or an opponent of racism, I do not know.
I do know that he staunchly, emphatically, categorically,
and consistently opposed LINGUISTIC racism, i.e., the belief
that people of different "races" spoke different and unrelated
languages.

> Don't just give me an "I-don't- know".
>
I can say what I know but not what I donot. I do know he opposed
linguistic racism.  I know nothing of his views on race in any
other context.

> Also, about the Egyptians.  I did not mean to imply that Pedersen
> explicitly said that the Egyptians weren't "negro".

You did not imply it, you said it. I quote what you said:

"(With regard to racism, Pedersen's discussion makes a particular point of
> denying that the Egyptians or EVEN the Nubians were "Negro"..."

Now, this is a list is by and for linguists.  Can anyone
tell me that this sentence does not say that Pedersen was
explicitly denying that the Egyptians were "negroes"?  That
is most clearly what it does say.

> That had already been
> established to the staisfaction of the conventional wisdom in the 19th
> century.  So it went without saying -- as opposed to the NUBIANS.

This is like saying that just because conventional wisdom
TODAY says that the Nostratic theory is bunk you should be
free to say that I think Nostratic is bunk and make a partciualr
point of this, even though I have never said anything of the sort.
Mind you, I do not deny that Pedersenmn probably did think that
Egyptians were other than "negroes".  But he did not say anywhere
in the book in which you said he said it.

And it makes no difference to his views on the classifiction of the
langauges of Africa.

> You can
> tell the Egyptians aren't Negro, just look at the illustrations of Ancient
> Egyptians in the National Geographic.
>
I myself don't operate with racial categories at all, so I canNOT
tell that.  All I can tell is that of the people who have operated
with categories of human beings based on skin color it was not only
19th century Europeans who classified the Ancient Egyptians
differently from most other native Africans.  But I personally
accept the results of molecular biology (not to mention common
sense) to the effect that "races" do not exist within out
species (Pan sapiens). Unlike some other species, we do not
have SUBspecies.  Hence, words like "negro" or "Negro" or "Black"
have only relevance as sociological constructs.  Pedersen
almost certainly did believe in "races" but he did a fantastic
job of arguing aganst the linguistic relevance thereof.

> P.S. I sent my last message to the list, because it is part of the argument
> I was making (which has to do with institutionalised racism and the
> intellectual climate in Pedersen's times, not with his personal feelings.)

Yes, but Pedersen is not guilty anyway,as just discussed.  He was
on YOUR side, the was Greenberg before Greenberg was in college
probably.

> Don't you see how pervasive institutional racism was?

Sure, still is, though it is quite diferent now.  But this has
nothing to do with Pedersen's view of linguistic classification.

> The same person can
> give the usual (Boasian) high-minded homily about dissociating language and
> race and yet pass on ideas with racist implications without recognising it
> (they come from another source, anthropometry, cf. phrenology; the Nubians
> are not "negro" because it is not ideologically convenient for them to be,
> so we take advantage of local physical variation to define them out of
> "negro" while leaving presumed non/ "pre"-literate black people in. Goering
> made it even simpler, "A Jew is who *I* say is.")
>
This is certainly possible, but in Pedersen's case it obviously is not
the case.

>  I suppose the least you can say is that Pedersen is illustrating the
> homily by indicating that some "Hamitic" speakers ARE "negro" (e.g., the
> Haus(s)a).  But what did they WRITE (in ancient times)?  Nubian, of course,
> is NOT Hamitic/Afro-Asiatic, but Nilo-Saharan (according to current
> classification).
But Pedersen did say that he did not know whether Nubian was or
was not Hamitic.  Hence what you say once again is not true. Since
he knew that Nubian had been an ancient written language, Pedersen
is again on YOUR side of the argument, sayng that for all he knows
this ancient written language may be a Sudan (i.e., Nilo-Saharan)
rather than a Hamitic language.

> And, you and Pedersen can say, so what?
No, Pedersen and I do not say so what. We say that this is very
important as precisely an argument that the racial categories
"negro" vs. "hamite" (even if they WERE valid in some other
context) would have NOTHING to do with linguistic classification
OR with ancient written languages.

> If Nubian is
> Nilo-Saharan that doesn't mean their speakers are "negroes".  I'm not gonna
> argue that way.

One more time from the top.  Pedersen is arguing precisely the opposite,
viz., that even though they are (acc. to contemporary views) racially
"Hamites" rather than "negroes", this does not tell us whether their
language is "Hamitic" (our AA) or "Sudan" (our Nilo-Saharan).
>
> Now, don't get all indignant (instead of looking deeper into the historical
> forces that propel our interests).  I take it this is offlist discussion.
> So I don't expect to see your last message on the list.  If it is, then
> this has to go there too (except this PS), and we'll continue.

Too late. I did read this in time.  But I did look into it and
I have now answered all your arguments.

What you have to realize is that you are attributing to
Pedersen the views of the contemporary Africanists that you
justly like to criticize, and that his real views were the
opposite!!  But I still don't know what he thought of race
in any other context.

AMR