Hypatia, Inc.

Sex, Race, and Biopower: A Foucauldian Genealogy

Author(s): Ladelle McWhorter
Source: Hypatia, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Summer, 2004), pp. 38-62
Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of Hypatia, Inc.
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Sex, Race,and Biopower:

A Foucauldian
Genealogy
LADELLE MCWHORTER

Formanyyearsfeministshaveassertedan "intersection"
betweensexandrace.This
on
the
work
Michel
Foucault,
of
drawing
heavily
paper,
offersa genealogicalaccount
the
two
how
of
conceptsshowing
theydevelopedtogetherand in relationto similar
in
the
and
politicalforces
eighteenth nineteenthcenturies.Thusit attemptsto givea
concretemeaningto the claimthatsex and raceareintersecting
phenomena.

Forat least two decadesnow feministshave been assertingvehementlythat sex,

race,and class intersectto formidentitiesand social positions.'Vehementassertion has seemednecessary,becauseto forgetthe fact that raceand class make a
differencein women'slives is, as we know frompainfulexperience,to run some
seriousrisks.Forexample, it is to risk privilegingone form of oppressionover
another,to riskleaving out of considerationlargegroupsof people'sexperience
while presumingto describetheir situationsfor them, and to risksimplyfailing
to understandour own situations to the detriment of our theories, our political struggles,and our personal lives. Our reiteratedinsistence, therefore,that
race, sex, and class intersect is a means of remindingourselvesto be careful,to
respectother people, and to be honest with ourselves.It is a way to keep before
us the possibilitythat race may make a differencehere, that class may make a
differencethere, and therebyto acknowledgethe limits of our own experience
and understanding.Undoubtedlyin that respect it is a useful strategy.
is not made
Often, however,the precisenatureof such alleged"intersections"
clear.2Are feminist theoristspointing to intersectionsof social structures,or of
historical meanings, or of political power relations?Is intersection discursive
or institutionalor a matterof concrete localizedpractices?We mayhave abandoned the old "addrace to sex and stir"model of analysis,but we seem to have
Hypatiavol. 19, no. 3 (Summer2004) ? by Ladelle McWhorter

LadelleMcWhorter

39

reachedno consensuson any alternativemodel or procedurefor analyzingand

coming to understandthe waysin which racial,sexual, and class positions and
identitiesoverlapor condition one another.
Perhapsconsensus is not necessary.No doubt there are many productive
waysto analyzeand understandhow race, sex, and class relateto one another.
But if the claim that race, sex, and class intersect is going to serve feminist
theory as something other than just a strategyto avoid charges of racismor
classism,some formof concrete analysisof what has been called "intersection"
is extremelyimportant.If women'sexperiences,identities,and needs reallyare
importantlydifferentacrossracial,sexual,and class lines, we need to have some
understandingof what makes them differentand why.
To this end, it wouldbe helpful,I believe, to establishhow and in what contexts these concepts-race, sex, and class-and the phenomenathey organize
arose and functioned in a prefeminist(or perhapsearly feminist) past.3Such
an understandingmight enable us to see how those concepts and their related
institutionsand practicesfunction in concert or independently(orboth) today.
Without such an understanding,we riskimportingprefeministconcepts, along
with the practicesand values they imply and promote, into feminist analyses
and politics. This essay is a preliminaryattempt at such a study.
Michel Foucaulthas presentedwhat he calls a genealogyof sexualityand of
the concept of sex in his 1976book,La volontede savoir(TheHistoryof Sexuality,
VolumeOne: An Introduction,1978).In this essay,I will arguethat the modern
concept of race and the institutionsand practicesthat developedand deployed
that concept arosewithin the same networksof disciplinarynormalizationand
biopowerthat gave us the modern concept of sex.4Race and sex arise as elements within some of the same populationmanagementstrategies,are dependent upon many of the same assumptionsabout human life and governmental
responsibility,and are constructedby some of the same disciplinarymeans; in
other words, I will argue, they have a common genealogy. If my argumentis
persuasive,it may serve as a basis for seeing how categoriesof race and sex as
well as the racist and sexist practicesin which they are employedfunction in
concert in the presentday.To makemy genealogicalargument,however,I must
firstgive an overviewof Foucault'sgenealogyof sex.
FOUCAULT'SGENEALOGY OF SEX

Not until the very end of The Historyof Sexuality,Volume 1, does Foucault
discusssex per se. Until that point he has limited his analysisto sexuality.But
finally, in the last chapter of the book, he raises the issue through the voice
of an imaginarycritic who complains that he "speaksof sexuality as if sex did
not exist" and that he passes over "the thing on the basis of which this sexualizationwas able to develop,... namely,sex" (1978, 151).The critic goes on:

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"BeforeFreud,one sought to localize sexuality as closely as possible:in sex, in

its reproductivefunctions, in its immediateanatomical localizations;one fell
back on a biological minimum:organ, instinct, and finality"(1978, 151). But
on Foucault'sanalysis,so the imaginarycritic says,there appearsto be no biological sex-no sex organs and no sex drivesgiven by nature-that pre-exists
eighteenth-centurysexuality and serves as the anchor point and targetof the
regimesof powercalled the dispositifde sexualite.Thus there is nothing-or at
least nothing real-that holds the dispositifde sexualitetogether.
It is importantto look carefullyat the way Foucaulthandles this objection.
He does not make an ontological argumentin response-that is, he does not
say whether sex organs or sex drives existed before 1800. Instead, he focuses
on the question of the target of sexual regimesof power.The target of those
regimesof powerthat develop historically in the expansion of the dispositifde
sexualiteis not sex, he asserts, at least not a sex that pre-exists those power
regimes.The target is bodies-their capacities,their energies, their pleasures.
Sexuality is a regimeof powerand knowledgethat developswithin institutions
and practicesthat aim to harness the strength and developmentalpotential of
human bodies and put them to use in industrialproductionand technological
warfare.Therefore,it is not necessaryto posit a natural,unitaryphenomenon,
"sex,"to account for the coherence or the developmentof the dispositif.
This analytical move frees Foucaultto assertthat the more or less contemporaryidea of sex as something naturalin and of itself comes late in the evolution of sexualizedbody-regimes.And when it makes its discursiveappearance,
it is not as a simple unity-pure anatomy or pure physiology-but instead is
a complex of several elements only rather uneasily conjoined. The concept
"sex"groups together "anatomicalelements, biological functions, conducts,
sensations,and pleasures"into a "fictitiousunity"that can be cited "asa causal
principle, an omnipresent meaning, a secret to be discovered everywhere"
(1978, 154). This definition and deployment of the concept of sex, Foucault
plausiblyasserts,is new in the late nineteenth century.This particularway of
organizingknowledgeregardinghuman reproduction,labor,pleasure,mental
health, and so forth did not exist before that time. It comes to exist only after
the dispositifde sexualitehas emerged and begun to extend itself throughout
modernWestern society.
Thus, "sex"is a concept that organizesand denotes a particularregion of
human experience, and beforea certain point in time the particularregion of
humanexperiencethat the word"sex"picksout simplydid not exist as a unitary
phenomenon(which is not to saythat its variouselementsdid not exist);human
experienceas well as officialknowledgewereorganizeddifferently.As the ideas
of sexualityand sex were formulatedand promulgatedthrough the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries, however,people came to understandthemselves as
fundamentallysexual in nature-so that all kinds of behaviors,even some not

LadelleMcWhorter

41

previouslythought of as linked to reproductionor love, came to be viewed as

partof this regionof humanexperience-and sexualexpressioncame to be seen
as essential to a good and healthy life. Peoplethen became sexualbeings in the
most modernsense of the phrase.And sex emergedas a concept central to our
self-definitionsand our pursuitof pleasure,self-understanding,and health.
FOUCAULT'SANALYTICS OF POWER

The goal of Foucault'swork in The Historyof Sexualityis to reach an understanding of how this great historical change-the advent of sex-occurred.
When did people start thinking of themselvesas primarilyand fundamentally
sexual beings and why?How did it come about that each one of us embodies
a particularsexuality that needs to be known, taken care of, and expressed
positivelyand fully?How and why did this region of human experience come
to exist and get organizedas it has? To understandFoucault'sanswer-and,
thus, to understandmy claim about the "intersection"of sex and race-it is
necessaryfirstto understandFoucault'sconception of power.
For the last several hundred years, Westernershave understoodpower as
analogous to tools. What does it take to change a tire? It takes a jack and a
lug wrench. What does it take to change a law?It takes money for communication with representatives,a piece of proposedlegislation, and the power to
pressureopponents to cooperate. Poweris a tool like any other. Some people
have that tool in their tool kit, and others lack it. A shift in the balance of
poweris simplya transferalof some of those tools from some people'stool kits
to others'.Poweris an object, then, under the control of subjectswith whom
its deployment originates. Those subjects who have power-toolssometimes
choose to bring them out and turn them on, and other times they choose to
leave them in the box.5
As he studied the history of sexuality and also the histories of criminality,
militarydiscipline, and pedagogy,Foucaultfound that conceiving of poweras
a tool under the ownershipof a controlling subject simplydid not work. He
realizedit wouldbe necessaryto rethink the entireconcept, construingit not as
a tool-thing or a commodity,as he claims it is construedin classicalliberalism,
for example (Foucault,1980, 88), but ratheras a set of events or relations.6
It is easiest to get a handle on the analytic value of this conceptual shift by
looking at an example.Considerpowerin a modernNorth American secondary school. Is power in that context best understoodas a tool-like thing that
some people-teachers and principals-have and other people-students and
janitors,secretaries,and cafeteriaworkers-lack? On the standardconception
of power,one would probablysay that the principaland teachershave power,
and the others lack it or have only a small amount. But is it really so clear?
Eachpersonin the institutionhas a rangeof behavioraloptions that differfrom

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those of people in other positions in the institution. Teacherscan give grades,

principalscan mete out suspensions,true;but janitorscan strike,and students
can disruptclass or spreadrumorsto discredita teacher.Janitorscannot give
grades,and students cannot suspend principals,so the specific actions differ
that people in each groupcan take. Buteach personstill has an enormousrange
of options for affecting the situation they find themselves in. It reallydoes not
make sense to see powerhere as thing-like, owned by controlling subjects,and
differingonly in quantityfrom groupto group.The situation is more complex
than that modelof powerwill allowfor.Likewisein other contemporaryinstitutions such as factories,hospitals, corporateoffices,judicialsystems,etc.
Therefore,Foucaultundertakesto reconceive poweraltogether,not on the
analogyof an object that can be possessedand passedaroundbut ratheron the
analogy of an event. Poweris something that happens. It is a kind of tension
that emergeswhen people have different goals or perspectivesor conflicting
projects.The teacherwants the studentsto learn to use semicolons,so she uses
various strategiesto make them sit down, pay attention, and repeat exercises
orallyand on paperuntil they can applythe rulescorrectly.The studentswant
to flirt with each other, readcomic books, daydream,and yet still graduate.To
the extent that teachers'and students'objectivesconflict, each tries to act on
the other to change their behavior.So there is what we might call a continual
power strugglewith teachers and students resisting each other'sagendasand
trying to carryout their own.
We must understandthree things, Foucault would say, about such situations.7First,resistanceis an integralpartof any event of power(Foucault,1997,
298-99). There arenot on the one hand peoplewho lackpowerand on the other
people who have it. There is just this event of powerstrugglewith everybody
attemptingto affect the others and everybodyresistingthe effects of others to
the extent of their ability.No one everresistspowerperse. Poweris everywhere,
Foucaultsays,meaning that no one can take up a position outside it and try to
eliminate it altogether.If a person is trying to change a situation, that person
is participatingin an exercise of power,a relationof power,an event of power.
What he or she is trying to eliminate, if anything, is a subsetof the behavioral
optionsthat some otherpersonhas; in addition,he or she maybe tryingto create
another subset of options for him or herself and others. Second, within such
strugglespeople alwaystry to act on each other'sbodily actions. The teacher
wants the students to learn so it might look like her target is their intellects,
but what she does is try to make them sit still, stop talking, look at her, and
pronounceor writecertainwords.She triesto maketheirbodiesperformcertain
actions. Poweris action upon action, Foucaultmaintains (Foucault2000, 340),
and the anchor points for exercises of power are alwaysbodies. Third, power
is not merelya negative limit to human action. Poweris creative;it posits and
producesreality as much as it sets limits upon it. The shape of situationsthat

LadelleMcWhorter

43

emerge out of power strugglesis a creation of power.So are the people who
inhabit those situations.
These last points are arguablythe most significant aspects of Foucault's
analytics of power, so they may require some clarification. Let me offer a
metaphor.In the book Awakenings,Dr. Oliver Sacks talks aboutpatients with
a form of Parkinson'sDisease that produceshorriblemuscle spasms.However,
the neurologicalimpulsesto the musclesare so rapidand so intense, but also
so widespreadand conflicting,that the patient'sbody becomesrigid.The rigidity-the stillness-is not a state of rest;on the contrary,it is a state that results
froma deadlockedtension of conflictingneurologicalforces(Sacks 1990, 6-7).
Sometimespowerstrugglesare like that. An equilibriumis achieved;the forces
in play in a given situation oppose each other repeatedlyin exactly the same
ways at exactly the same points, so that the situation looks stable.8In such
cases, the exercise of power producessocial forms, institutions, routines, and
even beliefs, theories, and self-images.
Consider high school again. Various forces are at work there over time.
Teachersand studentstry out differentstrategies.Agendasshift. But an equilibriumusuallyemerges.A daily routine is established.Repeatedevents of power
bringabouta certainshapeof things. Butmorethan that, these repeatedevents
of powerproducenot only institutionalizedroutinesbut also the sortsof people
who participatein them. High schools arenotoriouslyclique-ish,but they areso
partlybecause they tend to producecertain human types over and over again.
One has only to consider the nerd, a real social phenomenon, but one that is
absolutelyunthinkableoutsidethe arrangementsof powerthat areour modern
educational institutions.The nerd is a personalitytype producedwithin a set
of powerrelations;likewisethe juveniledelinquent,the retardedchild, and the
"at-risk"child. These are categoriesof human being that have been invented
in institutionalizedarrangementsof power,including school systemsand the
psychological discourses that support them. Children are identified at early
ages as, for example, "learningdisabled"or "gifted"and treatedas such. They
come to understandthemselvesin relationto such categories.They come to be
the people they are identifiedas. Powerproducesselves, Foucaultsays. Power
makes us who we are.
Power,then, is productiveof situations and identities, which means that
as configurationsof powershift, social structuresand individualsenses of self
shift as well. Foucaultlocatedsome importanthistoricalshifts in configurations
of power in various institutions such as schools, hospitals, and the military.9
He identifiedone especiallyimportantgeneralchange in powerarrangements
aroundthe year 1800. Through the late seventeenth and earlyeighteenth centuries,the populationof France(Foucault'smain focus) increaseddramatically.
At the same time, there were majorinnovations in technology and finance.
Factoriessprangup; new weaponssuch as the riflewere invented. The upshot

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was this: There were many more people to deal with, and authoritieswanted
them to performtasksthat requiredmuch moreskill than everbefore;they had
to be trainedto use new technologies efficiently,and at the same time they had
to be rendereddocile and obedient while implementingthem. Officialsin various institutions independentlybegan to invent new waysto managepeople.
Earlier,in the seventeenth century, people (such as Descartes) tended to
think of human bodies (again, the anchor point for the exercise of power)as
machines. The science of biology had not come into existence yet. Natural
scientiststreatedbodies as structuresthat wereto be understoodwith reference
to the relativelocation of their partsin space, like the gearsof a clock. Training
a person to use a machine was reallyjust adjustingone machine to "interface"
efficientlywith another machine. And since most machines werefairlysimple,
this was just a matterof making surethe sizes of the two machines'partswere
well suitedto each other and then repeatingthe rightgesturesuntil the desired
pattern of movement was established. For example, a schoolmastergave his
pupilsquill pens that matchedthe size of their hands, and he physicallyplaced
their hands, arms,heads, backs, and feet in the best posturefor writing.Then
he had them copy lettersuntil they got the knack of producingthem according
to the standard.Likewise,a militaryofficergavemilitiamenmusketsof the right
length and weight for their arms, and he physicallyplaced their feet, backs,
heads, shoulders,arms, and hands in the best posture for firing.Then he had
them fire at a targetsuntil they got the knack of hitting them.
Graduallythrough the last quarterof the eighteenth century managersof
largepopulationsof pupils, soldiers,sick people, laborers,and others began to
rethink this mechanical model of the body to be disciplined, with an eye to
developingnew techniques for acting on people'sbehaviorand modeling it to
fit new technologies. The result of this rethinking was a new conception of
bodies.'0Bodies were no longer thought of primarilyas machines, collections
of parts that interactedin space. Instead,bodies were thought of as organisms
with functions, temporalprocessesthat developed over time. Disciplinarians
and managerssaw themselvesnot as trying to reconfigurebodies in space but
as tryingto redirectbodies in time, to influencetheir development.By the turn
of the nineteenth century this idea that bodies wereessentiallydevelopmental
was having a huge impacton all sortsof disciplines,practices,and institutions.
It absolutelyrevolutionizedthe waypeople thought abouttheir workand about
themselves. Bodies were seats of natural developmentalforces that play out
in response to environmentalstimuli. If the stimuli were managed in certain
ways,that developmentalprocesscould be controlled,channeled, and used to
producehighly skilled, very obedient functioning soldiers,laborers,scholars,
or whateverthe situation called for.
Newton and Leibniz invented calculus in the late seventeenth century.
Beforethe beginning of the nineteenth, that invention had been put to use to

LadelleMcWhorter

45

create the science of statistics, which made it possible to study variousdevelopmental trajectoriesand "norm"them. Thus it became possibleto studylarge
groupsof children, for example, and create statistical models to describe the
normalprocessof learningto writeor the normalprocessof sexual maturation.
Individualchildren could then be observedor tested against these norms and
classifiedaccordinglyas "aheadof the curve"or as slow-that is, as retardedor,
as people say nowadays,"developmentallydelayed."People came to be identified in all sorts of wayswith referenceto their place on developmentalcurves,
with referenceto norms. This means of identifying people was, of course, in
the service of training them to performcertain tasks;it was a way of acting on
bodies to effect behaviors.And it was resisted,both consciously and unconsciously,by some individuals.There were power strugglesthat involved some
individualssquaringoff against others. But these strugglesalso producednew
individuals,meaning they producednew ways of understandingoneself, new
self-images,new identities-understandings, images, and identities that were
historical artifactsbut nonetheless very,very real.
SEX AND NORMALIZATION

The modern Western idea of sexuality is unthinkable without this idea of

developmentalnormalization.Westerners'sense of ourselvesas sexuallyidentified is based on our sense of ourselvesas developmentalcreatureswho unfold
in time along calculable trajectories."Before people thought about bodies
developmentallyand beforeNewton and Leibnizmade way for the science of
statistics, sexuality as we conceive it in the West could not have existed. We
experience ourselves as sexual because arrangementsof power through the
nineteenth centuryproducedsexualityas a wayof seeing and being in the world.
Our sexual identities, as well as the notion of "sex"that seems to undergird
them, are productsof normalizingpowerand may not even exist in regionsof
the worldnot organizedby normalizingpowernetworks.
Foucaultasserts that the human type that we call "the homosexual,"for
example, was an invention of late nineteenth-centurymedicine. As scientists
beganto conductstudiesof sexualanatomy,expression,and activity,they created
statisticalaccounts of sexual maturation.In the process,they noted that some
people deviatedfromthe norm.They began to studysuch people and put them
into categories:fetishists,gerontophiles,zoophiles,zooerasts,auto-monosexualists,mixoscopophiles,presbyphiles,sexoestheticinverts,and of coursehomosexuals (1978,43). Peoplewho fit into these categorieswerethoughtto have followed,
for whatever physiologicalor psychologicalreason, a deviant developmental
path.'2They wereprobablyon theirwaydown it towardtotal degeneration,many
medicalexpertsthought-so it was importantto make surethey did not reproduce themselvesand therebyintroducemoredegeneratesinto the population.13

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In other words,some of them were still developing,but they were developing

abnormally.Others,however,wereno longerdevelopingat all, accordingto the
experts. Forwhateverreason,physiologicalor psychological,they had stopped
developingat some earlypoint and had become fixed at that stage.14
Some physicians,sexologists,and psychologistsbelieved that the latterwas
the case with homosexuals. There is a normal stage of homoeroticism,they
believed; it occurs early in life, priorto puberty,and is usuallypassed through
and forgotten.15Homosexuals, therefore, are extremely sexually immature,
and because sexuality is fundamentalto human identity, it is predictablethat
they will be immaturein all aspectsof life. Forexample,they will be unable to
maintain a stable adult relationship;they will indulge in flightsof fantasyand
cannot be trustedto tell the truth about anything or even to be able to distinguish the real world from the world of their imaginations.They will exhibit
characteristicsof the sex they are not, just as young children are often in many
waysandrogynous.Littleboyscry,forexample,and little girlscan be aggressive
and competitive,so it makessense that homosexualmales wereobservedto be
emotionaland timid and that homosexualfemaleswereobservedto be assertive
and ambitious.In fact, an observantsexologistcould even determinethat someone was a homosexual-whether that individualknew it or not-by noticing
these characteristicsin them-adolescent boys and men who wept or trembled
in the face of danger,adolescentgirls and women who pursuedcareers.
Scientistsaskedthemselveshow best to handle these statisticallypredictable
abnormalities.Some scientists wanted to jump start developmentalforcesand
get homosexuals to achieve sexual maturity.Others thought it better to give
up on the developmentof those individuals,acknowledgethat their immature
condition was a permanentone, and just try to keep them isolatedfromthe rest
of the population.There were those who rejectedthis account of homosexuality altogether,preferringthe older notion that there is no such thing as sexual
identity;there are only licit and illicit sexual acts, any one of which might be
performedby anybody.But those people lost the debate on a massive scale,
and the homosexual came into existence as a widely recognizedpersonality
type ratherthan as simplythe despisedjuridicalsubjectof an act of sodomy.
Nowadays it is possible to be a homosexual and never to have committed an
act of sodomy in one's life.
The heterosexual,interestinglyenough, did not come into existence until
the twentieth century,severaldecadesafterthe homosexual.While there were
individuals in the nineteenth century who thought of themselves as homosexuals,people whose sexual developmentwas arrestedin earlychildhood and
who thereforehad certain abnormaldesires,relationships,and physiologies,no
individualsthought of themselvesas heterosexuals.The worddidn'tcome into
its widespreadpresent usage until the 1930s (Katz, 1995, 19). And although
Foucaulthimself does not mention it, this fact is consistent with his analysis,

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47

because heterosexualityis not viewed as a phase or stage of developmenton

the nineteenth-centurydevelopmentalmodel. It is, rather,the culmination of
a certain developmentaltrajectory.Sexual identities were arrestedor deviant
and reifiedstagesof development.Once a personpassedthroughall the normal
stagesof development,he or she was simplymature.The heterosexualwas not
a particular,describabletype with a specificanatomy,personality,and lifestyle.
But the homosexual, as a reified developmental stage, was, and thus those
classifiedas homosexuals came to experience themselves as such. Therefore,
Foucaultmaintains,homosexualidentity-indeed sexualidentityin general-is
a productof powernetworks.
Foucaultgoes on to claim, as has alreadybeen noted, that sex itself is a
productof the emergingarrangementsof forcerelationsin nineteenth-century
Europeand North America. Like sexuality,the concept "sex,"which grouped
togethersuch diverseaspectsof life as anatomy,biologicalreproduction,social
behaviors, sensations, desires, dreams, fantasies, and pleasures,also did not
exist before 1800 (1978, 154). Even now, after more than a hundredyears of
refinement,the concept of sex is very unstable.As MarilynFrye'samusingbut
very telling attemptsdemonstrate,defining"sex"in any simpleand clean way is
practicallyimpossible(Frye1983, 157).Foucaultassertsthat the unitaryobject
the wordis supposedto name is imaginary(1978, 155-56) but that nevertheless
the concept functions as a linchpin that holds togethernot just a set of theories
or propositionsabout a variegatedregion of human experience but also a set
of powerrelationsthat gives society its currentorderand human beings their
currentself-images.
A FOUCAULDIAN GENEALOGY OF RACE

Thus far I have relatedFoucault'saccount of the emergenceof sexuality,sexual

identities, and the concept of sex in the nineteenth century. What I have
promisedis to show that race was constructedby similarmeans (indeed it was
constructedby some of the sametheoristsand theories)duringthe sameperiod
of time. But firstit might be helpful to list some of the featuresthat race would
have to be shown to have in orderfor it to be relevantlysimilarto sex.
1.The concept of race itselfwouldhave to be shown to be a "fictitiousunity"
that servesas a linchpin to hold togethera disparateset of theories,institutions, practices,and relationships.
2.Racial identities would have to have emergedas a result of normalizing
power that takes people to be essentially temporal,developmentalcreatures and seeks to describe their development in statistical terms; such
identity categorieswould have to be, at base, a way of classifyingpeople
as deviant-either as developing in some wrongway or as having ceased
to develop at all at some earlystage.

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3.There would exist the theoretical possibility-although it would be

controversial-that deviant racialidentitiescould be alteredby scientific
means.
4. There wouldbe a normedracialdevelopmentaltrajectoryby referenceto
which some individualswouldbe consideredraciallymatureand therefore
without racialidentity-those who areraciallyidentifiedbeing, by definition, immatureand either degeneratingor standingstill, arrestedin their
development.
My contention is that all four of these conditions are met. The genealogy of
race and racial identities is remarkablysimilarto and historicallyconcurrent
with the genealogy of sex and sexual identities. The two sets of phenomena
emergewithin the samenetworksof poweras productsof normalizingdiscipline
in local powerformationsand of biopoliticalmanagementstrategiesat the level
of governmentaland corporatesystemsof power.To see this clearly,however,
we must examine some of the details of the genealogyof race.
The word "race"can be traced back to the early sixteenth century,but for
at least its first couple of hundred years, according to E. Nathaniel Gates, it
"carriedwith it no implicationof biological identity"(Gates 1997,vii). During
that early period the word "race"simply meant "heritage"(Banton 1987, 51)
or, as Gates puts it, "'race'referredto a lineage or common descent and was
employed, occasionally, to identify a population with a common history or
origin, as opposedto one with a fixedbiologicalcharacter"(1997,vii). Race was
a matterof descent, but also of affiliationand character,custom, and behavior,
so one could speak of the race of the Montaguesand the race of the Capulets.
One could even use the word race in relation to domestic animals, the way
that people now use the wordbreed;one could speakof variousracesof dogs or
cattle.16"Race"was a widely used term, but it was not a technical term with a
precisescientificdefinition.'7
Foucault'sresearchon race suggeststhat the term was politically interested
fromits inception,but not initiallyor primarilyas a meansforjustifyingoppression of allegedlyinferiorgroups.On the contrary,Foucaultclaims"race"gained
politicalpowerand salience in a discourseof whathe calls "racewar,"a counterdiscourse(fullydevelopedfirst,perhaps,by the Puritansin the earlyseventeenth
century) aimed at de-legitimatingthe sovereign power of Norman rulersby
declaringthem foreignerslocked in perpetualwarfarewith the allegedlyindigenous people they had conqueredand by declaringthe lawsand juridicalforms
they imposednothing morethan weaponsin that war (Foucault2003, Chapter
Five).The Normanswerea distinctrace,separatefromthe Saxons,andthus they
could not claim legitimacyof rule on Saxon land. This kind of discourse-one
that posits a race or a nation or people as the only possiblebasisof a legitimate
state-began to circulatethroughthe seventeenth and eighteenth centuriesas
a means, typically,for undermininga particularlocus of sovereignty.

LadelleMcWhorter

49

However,it is crucialto note that no generallyrecognizedracialhierarchyof

Was
metaphysicalor moralvaluecirculatedalongwith these counter-discourses.
the raceof the Saxons metaphysically,morally,or spirituallysuperiorto the race
of the Normans?That was not what the Puritansclaimed.They only claimed
that Normans had no right to rule over Saxons in Saxon lands. Racismwas a
very real possibility,of course;for example,Saxons could conceivablyhate all
membersof the Norman race simplybecauseof their being Norman and could
consider all Normans to be morally,physically,intellectually,and spiritually
inferiorto all Saxons. And that possibilityundoubtedlyemergedand solidified
over time in at least some locales. But the logic of this earlyconcept of racedid
not entail this all-encompassingtype of racism,any more than the existence
of twelve differenttribesof Israelentails what we might call "tribism."
In other
words,the fact that one divides people into groupson the basis of lineage or
common language,custom, or social function does not mean that one necessarily values people in some of those groups less than one values people in
other groups.In fact the denial that some raceshave a right to rule over other
races comes close to being the opposite of the kind of racismthe nineteenth
and twentieth centurieshave seen. Seventeenth- and eighteenth-centuryrace
discourseswerepolitical and polemical,but they did not function like the race
discoursesthat came after them, and the object they focused upon-racewas quite different in some crucial and fundamental ways, as I will shortly
show.
At a certain historical juncture the meaning of the term "race"shifted,
with the result that classifying people into groups called races did become,
inherently,a wayof valuing and devaluingthem, not just a claim aboutlineage
and land rights. In other words,at a certain point the concept race was totally
absorbedinto the racistpracticesthat had evolvedthroughthe seventeenthand
eighteenth centuries and thus became implicitly (and often explicitly) racist
in the ways familiarto those of us born in the mid-twentiethcentury.'8This
happenedwhen the old, loose concept of race as a matterof heritage,language,
and manners was taken up by early anthropologistsand biologists and made
into a technical, scientificcategory-which occurredaround 1800.
Scholarsdebate aboutwhere our modern,more technical term "race"came
from. Some scholarsgive the honor to Linneas;others to Buffon;still others
to Blumenbach.19But recently Robert Bernasconi (2001) has argued very
persuasivelythat the inventor of our modern concept of race was Immanuel
Kant. In the 1770s,Kant defined race as "aclass distinction between animals
of one and the same line of descent (Stamm),which is unfailinglytransmitted
by inheritance"(Bernasconi 2001, 14). He developed his idea extensively in
numerouspublications,and refinedit through debate and discussionwith his
peers.While not everybodyin his time accepted the idea, the concept of race
did come into intellectual circulationthrough Kant'swork.

50

Hypatia

Kantdevelopedhis racetheory,accordingto Bernasconi,in an effortto resist

the doctrineof polygeny,the ideathat humansarenot all descendedfromAdam
and Eve but ratherare the productsof numerousdistinct acts of creation. He
wantedto defendthe biblicalstoryof Genesis (ashe interpretedit) againstpolygenists, so he developedhis monogenist theory of races to account for human
morphologicalvariationwithout recourseto the doctrine of separatecreation.
His ideawasthat all humansaredescendedfromone pair,but becauseof climate
and lifestyle,differencesdevelopedover time. These differencesthen solidified
irreversiblyinto racesand were passedfrom generationto generation.
Kant'stheory might have died a natural death along with the monogeny
vs. polygenydebate (which diminished in significanceas scholarsbecame less
concerned about reconciling their work with the Christian Bible), except for
a series of events that led to the collapse of the science of natural history at
the end of the eighteenth century and the subsequentfoundingof the modern
science of biology.Although Kantwasneithera naturalhistoriannor an incipient biologist,his theory of race as a set of developmentallydifferentiatedtypes
of human being fit well with emergingbiological theories of the nineteenth
century.Hence it was preserved,albeit in an intellectual context far different
from that in which it arose.
The word "biology,"meaning "the study of life,"was introducedin 1802.20
Priorto that time, not only the wordbut also the disciplinethat we call biology
did not exist. Biology'sapparentpredecessornaturalhistorywas not the studyof
life but was, rather,the studyof the ordersof naturalbeings. In fact, as Foucault
points out in The Orderof Things,life itself as a scientificconcept did not exist
priorto that time (Foucault1970, 231-32). Biology was not possible until the
categoryof "life"had been formulated,but "life"was not possible until scientists began placing great emphasisupon notions like "process,""change,"and
These notions formthe assumptionsand the orderingprinciples
"development."
of a new arrangementof knowledge, one within which living beings are not
viewedas collectionsof machinelikeparts,but ratheras organicsystemsengaged
in temporalprocesses.Living beings are beings that mature,age, decline, and
die; living beings are beings that develop through time. Biology is the studyof
these developmentalprocessesand their functional norms.
On the surface,it does not seem that biology would have providedmuch
sustenancefor a concept like race. Biology is the studyof processes,and "race"
is a name for a static type. It would seem that the notion of race as a fixed difference, as Kant had conceived of it in the late eighteenth century, would be
incompatiblewith the basic thrust of biological thinking. Nevertheless, race
theory was very prominent in biological science through the nineteenth century. How are we to make sense of this prominence?The key is a fact already
mentioned in the examination of the history of sexualityoutlined above; it is
that biologistsbelieved that developmentoccurredin stagesratherthan in one

LadelleMcWhorter

51

continuous sweep. While stages are of course merelytransient configurations

in a process,biologists tended to conceive of them as discrete-and hence as
static-moments in a developmentalchain. Thus, stageswere easily construed
as types; and, conversely,types, the morphologicalvariations that biologists
observed,couldbe easilyconstruedas stages.If those stagescouldbe isolatedand
studied,many thought, then perhapsthe full processunder observationcould
be delineated.Study of the types could add up to knowledgeof the process.21
This mightseem reasonableand harmlessenoughin comparativeanatomical
studies of prenataldevelopment,for instance. Comparativeanatomistsmight
learn a great deal about fetal developmentby dissecting stillborn babies and
rankingthem on developmentalscales. But for manybiologiststhe largerproject was that of describingthe developmentof human being as a species, not
just physiologicaldevelopmentbut the developmentof human civilization.To
them, the history of the civilizing processwas the history of the development
of the human species. They wanted to know how that developmentalprocess
occurred.The naturalquestionforthem to askwas:What wereits stages?Adult
"types"-races in particular-were believed to representpreciselythose stages,
arrestedin their developmentbecause of some flaw,just as stillbornbabiesare
arrestedin their developmentwhen something goes wrong in utero.As such,
races could serve as clues to the mysteryof all of human development.At the
highest level of developmentstood industrializednorthwesternEuropeand its
white-skinned citizens; at the lowest level of developmentstood the "savage"
native north Americans, still living as seminomads in "the stone age,"and
African Bushmen,hunter-gathererswith almost no tools and a languagethat
sounded to Europeanears like the clucking of turkeys.The hierarchyof stages
seemed pretty obvious. What remained was to study the "lowerraces,"rank
them in orderof their level of developmentover againstone another,and figure
out what flaw in each of them had slowed or stopped their group'sprogress
towardcivilized perfection.
Thus was biology a majorforce in the creation of the concept of race as
graded type. Superiorand inferiorhuman types-races-became biological
facts.Biologiststhen set out to makesense of those facts.Data on morphological
groupswere amassedand norms of developmentwere established.Races were
rankedaccordingto how developed, meaning how civilized, their representatives were thought to be.
In 1850, the anatomist Robert Knox argued successfullythat races were
the result of arrestedor deviant development;race occurredwhen there was
a groupwideretardationof normal developmental processes. Knox thought
Saxons were the only people on earth who were not retarded;all other groups
exhibited some form of developmental deviation (Stepan, 1982, 41-44). By
Knox'stime developmentalthinking was firmlyentrenchedin naturalscience.
Typologywas a function of the normalizationinherent in the new biological

52

Hypatia

sciences,and the variouscharacteristicsof typeswereconceivedof as deviations

from norms. Though some disagreedwith Knox'sparticularracial hierarchy,
his frameworkfor understandingrace-that it had to do with normed development-was perfectlyconsistent with the science of his time. When Charles
Darwin'sworkappearedwithin the next decade,the notion of evolutionof species gavetremendousweightto these ideas.Humanindividualsdevelopthrough
But when a group
time; likewise, human groups,as Darwin himself asserted.22
or
when
it
ceases
to evolve while
deviates from the optimal evolutionarypath
still at some preliminarystage relativeto the developmentof other groups,its
characteristicsbecomefrozeninto the endlesslyreproduced,staticcountenances
called racial types.23Individualsand groupsnot arrestedin developmentand
thereforestill capableof evolving and adapting-in short, those fit for survival
in a rapidlychanging worldenvironment-were those who did not displaythe
deviant characteristicsof race.
Let us returnnow to the fourfeaturesof sexualitylisted above.First,is it the
case that the concept of race is hardlymore than a thinly disguisedfiction that
emergedwithin racialdiscoursesand that maintains itselfby servingas a linchpin to hold togethera collection of disparatetheories,practices,institutions,and
relationsof power?I wouldarguethat this is so. Geneticistsgenerallyagreethat
the concept makes no genetic sense; there are gene pools or populationsand
there aregenes forcertainspecificmorphologicalphenomena,but race is fartoo
crude a concept to fit easily into either of those categories(Stepan 1982, chap.
7; Lewontin,Rose, and Kamin 1984).24Except in very circumscribedlocalities
races have never been defined clearlyenough to permit exact classificationof
most people. If an individual'smaternalgrandparentsand paternalgrandfather
were white but her paternalgrandmotherwas black, what is her race?Does it
depend on her lineage or her morphology?If an individualhas blue eyes and
straighthair but darkskin and a wide flat nose, is he black or white-or what?
But even beyond questions about physicalclassificationloom questions about
mental, moral, political, and cultural classification.Is a very dark AfricanAmerican man who is upper-middle-class,
well-educated,clumsyon the dance
standardAmerican English really
in
network
and
floor,bad at sports,
speaks
who
woman
black?Is a Scotch-Irish-American
sleepswith blackmen and bears
white?
black children really
Significantsubgroupsof Americans would answer
this rangeof disagreementaboutapplication
Given
no in each of these cases.25
what postmodernistscall a slidingsignifier.
is
that
"race"
of the concept, I hold
a
to
It cannot be pinned down
precisemeaning or even to an impreciseone. Its
it
is
called
upon to performa differentone of its many
meaning shifts whenever
and
functions in the systemsof power
knowledgeof which it is a part.
no
Yet, despite its having
biological, genetic, or even clear morphological
is
a
race
or social referent,
significant part of contemporaryWestern reality.
It functions in social institutions-both officially,as a means for distributing

LadelleMcWhorter

53

goods and determiningrepresentation,as in affirmativeaction law and the U.S.

census, and unofficiallyas a means of identification,discrimination,and affiliation. It does not so much mean (that is, direct our attention to a given object)
as operate(that is, create divisions that enable systemsof control to maintain
themselves).And, again, in this respectrace is very much like sex.
Second, are racial identities, like sexual identities,productsof normalizing
power?I believe I have shown that this is so, that racial identities came into
existence as the names of reifiedstages of developmentthat formed in what
Foucaultcalls power/knowledgenetworksin the nineteenth century,in much
the same way that sexual identities did. To be a memberof a particularrace
on the terms of nineteenth-centurybiology was to inhabit a niche on a scale
of developmentrelativeto membersof other races. It was to be a deviant of a
certaintype, to differfromthe civilizednorm in certainmeasurableways.These
measurableformsof deviationamountto what we mightnow call "stereotypical
racialcharacteristics."We may condemn them as ideologicalillusion,but they
are no differentin essence (fromthe perspectiveof normalizingmanagement
strategies)than measurabledeviationsfromnormsof intellectualdevelopment
that give us categorieslike "developmentally
delayed"and "gifted"or measurable
deviations from the norms of sexual developmentthat give us categorieslike
"frigid"and "homosexual."And the processesby which individualsbecome the
subjectsof these characteristicsand identities are likely quite similar.
Third,is it theoreticallypossibleto jumpstartdevelopmentalforcesand cause
peoplewith an arrestedracialidentityto begin to developagain?Is it possibleto
move beyond one's race?One might think the answerto this is no, but in fact
in the nineteenth centurymanypeople thought that racescould be eliminated
if racialgroupscould be broughtto develop to the level of healthy white Europeans-that is, if membersof those racescould be civilized.The United States
Office of Indian Affairs (precursorto the Bureauof Indian Affairs) undertook
such a projectin the late nineteenth century.Monogenyhad won out against
polygeny,finally,and exterminationof native populationshad begun to seem
barbaricas well as unnecessary(the latterbeing the moresalient consideration,
no doubt),so by 1883 officialsdecidedon a programof assimilation,which was
an explicit attemptto turn so-calledIndiansinto white people.26Childrenwere
separatedfrom parents, supervisedmercilessly,forbiddento speak their own
languageor worshiptheir own gods, forcedto walk, talk, dress,love, labor,and
think like their conquerors.Variationson this policy continued for sixty years,
until 1933(Bonfiglio2003, 113-14).The basicideawas that deviation-whether
racial,sexual,or other-could be remedied;individualswho deviatedfromthe
norm could be forcedback "ontrack,"on the developmentaltrajectorydeemed
healthy by the officials in charge. Public policy regardingdeviants of all sorts
stemmeddirectlyfrom this assumptionand playedout in arenasas seemingly
distinct as immigrationlaw and therapyfor homosexuals.

54

Hypatia

Finally,can it be said that there is a groupthat has reachedmaturityon the

racialdevelopmentaltrajectoryand so has no racialidentity?I think so. As many
writershave pointed out, in ordinaryspeech white people are seldomtaggedas
white (not "I saw a white man in the lobby,"but "Isaw a man in the lobby").
Whites are simply people, whereas if a black person is mentioned a speaker
will often referto him or her as a black person rather than just as a person.
White people seldom experience their race as a central fact about themselves
and are sometimessurprisedto discover that other people notice it and react
to it. Writer LaurieFuller asserts, "Most white people do not conceptualize
whiteness as an identity. Instead,white people assume that we are really just
Americans or humans and we don't need to think criticallyabout being white
people because white is just the normal, naturalway of being human. Race is
something that describesa qualityof African Americansor Asian Americans,
not white people"(Fuller1999, 70).27If race is conceived as a formof deviance
in a schema where whiteness is the norm, then whiteness does not constitute
a race. Where "race"is a name for a kind of a physiologicaland sociological
defect, whiteness is held up as nothing less than the glow of health.
Things have changed somewhat since the nineteenth century. The concepts of race and sex have both undergonesome modificationand the power
relationsthat they help to organizehave shifted and alteredsomewhat.But as
these accounts of the nineteenth-century birth of both concepts show, they
arise concurrently within the same power/knowledgeregimes, namely, the
normalizing disciplinarypower/knowledgenetworks that arose in the early
nineteenth century as means of managingindividualsin largegroups,and the
biopowernetworksthat arose from the nineteenth through the mid-twentieth
centuries as largegovernmentalsystemsaugmentedand intensifiedtheir control over populations.Sex and race do intersect,as feminists so often say.As a
resultof this sharedhistory and consequent similarityin structureand potential function, in present-daydiscourseand institutions, race and sex intersect
primarilyat points where people think in termsof normalityand abnormality
or deviance, where people have majormanagerialgoals for large populations,
and where there is a strongdesire to control human development.If we are to
understandboth concepts fully, and more significantly,if we are to overcome
the oppressiveeffects of these conceptual instrumentsof power,we will have
to address the specific and multileveled regimes of power of within which
they were conceived and in which they continue to function as categoriesof
normalization.But understandingtheir genealogicalsimilaritiesshould make
those analysesboth less difficultto construct and more accurateand effective
as antiracistand antisexist interventionsin modernpolitical life.

Ladelle McWhorter

55

NOTES

1. ElizabethSpelman's1988book InessentialWomanmayhave been one of the first

to treatof sex and race as identitycategoriesthat co-constructone another,but the issue
of "intersectionality"received most of its scholarlyattention through the 1990s (Collins 1998, 63). Naomi Zack suggeststhat one of the first"groundbreaking"
treatments
of the issue of the "intersection"of race and sex occurs in KimberleCrenshaw's1989
article"Demarginalizingthe Intersectionof Race and Sex: A BlackFeministCritiqueof
AntidiscriminationDoctrine, FeministTheory, and Antiracist Politics"(1997, 13. The
Crenshaw article is also reprintedin Anderson 2003, 284-92.) These two references
seem to locate the originsof the feministconcept of intersectionin the 1980s.Crenshaw
focuses on three court cases in which Black women found it difficult to obtain legal
remedyfor employmentdiscriminationagainst them not simplyas Black or as women
but specificallyas Blackwomen. She claims that the law (and the thinking behind the
law that permeatesour society and consequently our feminist theories) simplycannot
see discrimination as other than aimed at a class of people defined by one and only
one trait. Similarly,Helen Zia arguesthat hate crimes law (as well as pornography)is
a point where racismand sexism come together to create invisibility and injustice for
American women. See Zia 1997, 520-23. Both articles examine the intersection not
of identity categoriesbut of systemsof hostility and depreciation.So, technically, they
are not sayingthat race and sex intersectbut ratherthan those social forcessupposedly
basedupon race and sex do so. However,CaroleR. McCann and Seung-KyungKim,like
Spelman, approachthe issue of "intersection"as a matter of identities and argue that
feminists were discussing these intersections back in the 1970s (2003, 148-62). They
cite the Combahee River Collective's "A Black Feminist Statement"as an example of
this discussion(as does Collins 1998, 79). I wouldcontend, however,that the Combahee
River Collective was not discussing"intersectionality"of identities. Instead, they say
that variousformsof oppressionare "interlocking,"that they cannot separaterace and
sex oppressionin their own experience, and that race, sex, and class are "simultaneous
factors"in oppression (McCann 2003, 164, 166, 170). I persist in the belief that the
idea of intersecting identity categoriesas a basic component of theoretical analysis is
a rhetoricalproductof the mid- to late-1980sconflicts over racismwithin the women's
movement.Although plenty of evidence suggeststhat feminist awarenessof race issues
and racialoppressionin relationto sexism occurredvery earlyin the Second Wave, the
awarenessand analysesthat resultedfrom it are not the same thing as analysesof the
"intersection"of race and class identity categories.
2. Naomi Zackassertsthat her anthology is an attempt to answerthe question of
whethera "unifiedfieldtheory"can exist that combinesfeminist and racialtheories"in
which both the categoriesof race and sex and the waysthey intersectcan be respected
and given voice" (Zack 1997,2). She saysher book offersan affirmativeanswerto that
question:"unifiedfield theories are possiblebecause we have at least six here (Corlett,
Garcia, Lang, Shrage, Miles, Sterba)"(Zack 1997, 2). (One might also suggest that
LewisGordon'spaperin the same collection offersa seventh.) But the existence of six
differentsuch theories in an anthology of sixteen essayssuggestsanything but a unified
discourseon the intersection of race and sex.

56

Hypatia

3. Zackseems to concur with this genealogicalapproachin her essay"The American Sexualizationof Race"(1997, 145-55). Oddly,she does not count her own historical
approachin her list of "unifiedfield theories."
4. Obviouslythe plausibilityof my own argumentis entirelydependent upon the
plausibilityof Foucault'sargument.Manyfeminists have rejectedFoucault'saccount of
sexuality,power,and subjectivitywith the charge that it is sexist, and many who have
not rejectedhis workoutrighthave warnedthat it poses gravedangersto feministtheory
and shouldbe appropriatedonly verycautiously.The presentof use of Foucaultis clearly
not cautious. Suffice it to say here that I do not share those particularfeminist fears,
and I have addressedthem at length in McWhorter1999, especially Chapter Three.
5. This conception of power is bound up with the notion of sovereignty,which
Foucault treats at length in The Historyof Sexuality,vol. 1, and in "SocietyMust Be
Defended."Simplyput, poweris wieldedby a sovereignsubject-an actualking or queen
in monarchistpolitical theory,but any subjectconceived as free of causaldetermination
in classical liberal versions of the theory. I do not deal with the notion of sovereignty
in this essay,because all I need to presenthere is a basic account of Foucaultanalytics
of poweras relationalevent.
6. Thinking aboutsocial configurationsas primarilyrelationaland event-likeis not
peculiarto Foucault.Althusserhad alreadydone a greatdeal of workalong these lines
beforeFoucaultstartedwritingextensivelyaboutpower(after 1970).Althusserinsisted,
in opposition to his Marxistbrethren in the 1960s and 1970s,that class struggle-the
relations established by transformationsin the mode of production-produces social
formationsas well as classes and individual subjects. (For example, see his summary
statement in Althusser 1976, 97.) In other words,a "subject-less"
history and political
in
at
could be seen as
unthinkable
France
the
Foucault
was
not
at
all
time;
struggle
simplyelaboratingupon Althusserand extendinghis ideasbeyondtheir Marxistorigins.
Althusser arguesthat the bourgeois (classical liberal) theory of sovereigntyhas never
actuallycapturedhistorical reality;it is merelyideology.Although some commentators
and reviewersdisagreewith me, I believe Foucaulthas a similarview of the discourseof
sovereignpower;it never did reflectthe real conditions of social and political existence.
For Foucault power is always in some sense anonymous and beyond full, conscious
human control.
7. Obviouslythere is a greatdeal more to Foucault'sanalytics of powerthan I have
presentedhere, and one would need to understanda greatdeal more than three things
about any set of powerrelations.Foucault'sanalysisis quite complex. However,I do not
think that my rathersimple depiction here misrepresentshis view.
8. Foucaultat times talks about power in relation to three levels of what he calls
"strategy."At the lowest level there is simply struggle.But in all struggles,"the fixing
of a power relation becomes a target"or a goal (Foucault 2000, 347). That is to say,
opponentsseek to reducethe uncertaintyof the outcome and to createconditions under
which the outcome will alwaysbe in their favor.Over time one opponent'sgoal may
be favored,or a compromiseof some sort may be reached, and there is a stabilization
(still including resistance),which Foucaultterms "powerrelations"proper.If this situation persistsand is reinforcedby other relations to the point of institutionalization,
then Foucaultspeaksof "domination."Domination still is reversible,although reversal

Ladelle McWhorter

57

without any force external to the currentconfigurationis highly unlikely.Finally,there

is a fourth possibility,namely,a state of coercion, wherein it is simplyimpossiblefor the
relation to be reconfiguredwithout interruptionfrom some source external to it.
9. The followingdiscussionof the shift frommechanical to normalizingdiscipline
is based on Foucault 1977,especially PartIII, chaptersone and two.
10. Fora detailed discussionof this, see McWhorter,1999, Chapter Five.
11. One reviewerof this papersuggestedthat I shouldconfine my descriptiveclaims
to middle-classWesterners,because the experience of sexuality and sexual identity
might be quite differentfor people of other classes. While it is alwaysprudentto watch
for differences in experience and conceptualization in different regions and among
different groupsof people, I do not think normalizedsexuality is any less central to
workingclass Westerners'lives than it is to the lives of middle-classWesterners.For a
first-handaccount of workingclass sexual identity,see McWhorter,1999,ChapterOne.
As to the lives of the rich and famous, I confess I am ignorant.
12. This was Krafft-Ebing'sview, which he derived from homosexual activist Karl
Ulrichs (see Greenberg 1988, 408 and 414) and from contemporarystudies of fetal
anatomy that showed fetuses at early stages had no anatomical sex differentiation.
Krafft-Ebingbelieved deviation occurredin uteroand was physiologicalin nature, with
emotional and psychological effects. Krafft-Ebingalso held a version of degeneracy
theory,suggestingthat homosexualityis "alingeringresidueof an animalisticbisexuality
that would slowlydie in the process of evolutionaryadvance"(Brookey2002, 30). He
does believe that it is hereditary(Krafft-Ebing1965,296), at least in its congenital form.
But Krafft-Ebingattributesmost sexual deviations to masturbation,and homosexuality
in some of its forms is no exception. People who masturbatefrequentlydeplete their
bodily and emotional resources;as they realize the gravity of their illness, they may
refrainfrom masturbating,but this may drive them to other deviant acts. Says KrafftEbing, "At times, under such circumstances,bestiality is resortedto. Intercoursewith
the same sex is then near at hand" (1965, 189). In this case, homosexuality is just a
phase in a much longer process of deviation from the norm and degenerationtoward
total debilitation and death of both the individualand his or her hereditaryline.
13. In 1911Lombrosothoughtlifelongimprisonmentwasa good solution.Greenberg
quoteshim as follows:"Homosexualoffenderswho arebornsuch, and who manifesttheir
evil propensitiesfromchildhood without being determinedby special causes [meaning
masturbationor long confinementin same-sexinstitutions!]... shouldbe confinedfrom
their youth" (1988, 418). Others believed that imprisonmentwas unnecessary,but at
the least homosexualsshould be preventedby law from marryingand having children.
Havelock Ellis maintained that the children of homosexuals would "forthe most part
.. belong to a neurotic and failing stock."In the early twentieth century, many states
in the U.S. adopted policies of compulsorysterilizationfor homosexuals (Greenberg,
1988, 419).
14. It is difficultto sort out which of the earlysexologistsbelievedhomosexualitywas
a fixedstate and which believed it was merelya step down a longerpath of degeneration.
Lombroso(who was a criminologistratherthan a sexologist) saw it as a part of a larger
degenerativeprocess, as did many of his contemporaries.But some sexologistsmade a
distinction-as Lombrosohimself did-between true homosexualsand circumstantial

58

Hypatia

homosexuals.Truehomosexualsmight be incurable,and so in need of legal constraint,

sterilization,or imprisonment,but circumstantialhomosexualsmight be curedthrough
variousformsof therapy.As Brookeypoints out, these physiciansand psychologistshad
a vested interestin assertingtheir authorityand abilityto treatpeopleforhomosexuality
(32-33). For a discussion of U.S. medical professions'vested interests in this move to
manage and cure homosexualitysee Katz 1983, 154.
15. Freudis the majorproponentof the idea that there is a normalhomoeroticstage
of development.LikeUlrichs and Krafft-Ebing,he is deeply impressedby the discovery
that fetal genitalia are undifferentiateduntil severalweeks into pregnancy(Greenberg
1988,424; Freud1953, 11).Freudassumedthat infantsderivesexualpleasurefrommany
areas of the body and only graduallycome to focus attention, in late childhood, on
their penises or vaginas. Here is Greenberg'ssynopsisof Freud:"Inthe model of sexual
developmentthat Freudsynthesizedfromthese sources,a newborninfant is assumedto
be "polymorphouslyperverse,"or ambisexual,derivingpleasurefrom tactile sensations
anywhereon its body. In subsequentdevelopment the sexual drive is invested in the
mouth, then the anus, and finally in the genitals, leaving a residueof responsivenessin
the abandonedzones. Each stage involves the choice of a new love object:firstthe self,
then the mother,the father,and normallysomeone else of the opposite sex. The model
makes homosexuality an element of everyone'spsychologicalhistory. Moreover,it is
never fully eradicated:even the heterosexual adult preserveselements of homosexual
interest in the form of same-sex friendship"(Greenberg 1988, 424). Freudbelieved it
was possible to become fixated at any one of these stages of development, however.
"Accentuationof anal eroticism at the stage of pre-genitalorganizationgives rise in a
man to a markedpredispositionto homosexuality,when the next stage of the sexual
function, that of genital primacy,is reached"(quoted in Greenberg,424). The view
that homosexuality was a result of disturbancesomewherein this developmentalprocess in earlychildhood is retainedby Freud'sfollowers,even when they disagreeabout
the exact location of the disturbance.For example, in a 1954 rebuttal of the work of
Alfred Kinsey,EdmundBerglerand William Krogerassert:"The man who is suffering
from the disease-entity,'perversionhomosexuality,'has regressedto the oral stage, the
first level of psychic development. It is in this stage that every child must cope with
the inevitable wrench of being weaned from breastor bottle.... Homosexualsare the
resultof one of the many abnormalsolutions to this earlyconflict. Homosexualsare so
furiouswith the disappointingbreast(orbottle) that they discardthe sex responsiblefor
their disappointment"(123-24, quoted in Brookey2002, 31-32). One could cite many
more examplesof earlytwentieth-centuryphysiciansand psychologistswho insist that
homosexuality is a pathology of development.
16. Recently I ran across the word "race"used in referenceto subspeciesof birds.
There are three racesof Northern Flickers,which are to be distinguishedby variations
in the color of the plumageunder the wings and tail (Burton 1999, 84).
17. According to L. L. Snyder,Comte de Buffon used the word"race"in a technical sense to refer to morphologicallydistinct human groupsas early as 1749,but his
terminologydid not catch on (Snyder 1962, 11).
18. It is probablyworth pointing out that this claim places me in agreementwith
Berel Lang'scontention that racism preceded the modern concept of race. See Berel

Ladelle McWhorter

59

Lang, "MetaphysicalRacism (Or: BiologicalWarfareby Other Means?)"in Zack 1997,

17-27.
19. For example, see Gould, 1994, 66. Actually Gould only goes so far as to say
that Blumenbachis the inventor of modern racial classificationbased on a hierarchy
of beauty and worth. Gould arguesthat Blumenbachtook up Linneas'sclassification
system,which was essentially cartographical,and transformedit into an aesthetic and
moral ranking system.
20. See Stepan 1982, 5. Apparentlythe firstofficialuse of the term occurs in GottNaturfiirNaturforscher
derlebendigen
friedReinholdTreviranus,BiologieoderPhilosophie
und Artze (J.F.Rower,1802). My thanks to Dr. JustinSmith for this reference.
21. Formore on this see McWhorter1995.
22. Darwin, from The Descentof Man (1854), reprintedin Darwin 1996. See especially page 246, whereDarwinarguesthat advancesin moralityoccurnot on the level of
the individualbut on the level of the tribe or group,because they are not advantageous
for an individualunless many others in the same groupshare the same moral inclinations. He writes that "ahigh standardof moralitygives but a slight or no advantageto
each individualman and his children over the other men of the same tribe, yet... an
increasein the numberof well-endowedmen will certainly give an immenseadvantage
to one tribe over another.There can be no doubt that a tribe includingmany members
who, frompossessinga high degreeof the spiritof patriotism,fidelity,obedience,courage,
and sympathy,were alwaysreadyto give aid to each other and to sacrificethemselves
for the common good, would be victorious over most other tribes; and this would be
natural selection."
23. FrantzFanon makes referenceto this way of thinking in his BlackSkin, White
Masks,which was published in 1952. In his lyrical and emotional chapter five, Fanon
gives voice to the white racist attitudes and images that flourish in the European
unconscious.Twopassagesareespeciallynoteworthyin this connection. "BlackMagic,
primitivementality,animism, animal eroticism,it all floods over me. All of it is typical
of peoples that have not kept pace with the evolution of the human race";and "Only
momentarilyat a loss, the white man explained to me that, genetically,I representeda
stage of development."These passagescan be found in the Englishtranslationin Fanon
1967, 126 and 129,respectively.Clearlythis way of understandingrace did not die with
the nineteenth century.
24. Ashley Montagumade this point as earlyas 1941,speakingbeforethe American
Associationof PhysicalAnthropologists.His essay,"TheConcept of Race in the Human
Species in the Light of Genetics,"was published in The Journalof Hereditylater that
year.It is reprintedin Bernasconi 2000, 100-107.
25. For an extended discussion of how U.S. racial divisions have been variously
drawn,see Mangum 1940, ChapterOne.
26. See Roscoe 1991,176ff.In 1883the Office of IndianAffairsissueda set of regulations called the Code of ReligiousOffensesor ReligiousCrimesCode. This code banned
many Native American religiousand kinship ceremoniesand justifiedmany arrests.It
was in effect until about 1924.Fora first-handHopi account of some of the tactics used,
see "Sun Chief: Autobiographyof a Hopi Indian"in Rothenberg 1988, 99-100.
27. Fulleris obviouslynot the only person to have pointed out this phenomenon.

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The more general point that white people seem to be un-racedhas been made many
times-see for example Lewis Gordon, "Race,Sex, and Matricesof Desire in an Antiblack World:An Essayin Phenomenology and Social Role,"in Zack 1997, 122-and
was made very soundly and thoroughlyin Frankenberg1993.

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