Colonizing/Silencing

Over the years, evolution has been a controversial thought based on the theories of where we originated, how we evolved, and numerous other topics. However, in recent years we have only begun to uncover racism, sexism, and anti-region, and etc. that are engrained in the discipline. Over the course of my education at Appalachian State, I have been to be introduced to the injustices that is present in the fields of archeology and paleoanthropology. Previous influential individuals within these fields have manipulated the way evolution is seen to create the "survival-the-fittest" mindset to reflect a certain group of people. This complex has created the idea that certain groups are labeled as "primitive", other" and several other terms. Numerous people within the field have tried to change these ideas (Edward Said), however, we still see these complexes in play today. In Said's writing "Orientalism", he aims to debunk the notion of the otherness of middle eastern, African, and Asia by giving examples of these areas being just as forward as the western world despite there being some differences. In Athreya and Ackermann’s piece “Colonialism Narratives of Human Origins in Asia and Africa", they further explain Said’s work by examining the term of the oriental and how Europe used their power to shape the narratives of these countries and placing themselves above as a superior example of civilization. In one of my class, we evaluated his work to understand how middle eastern countries are just as developed in as west despite the numerous misinformation out there. In class this past week, we examine even more works, "It is unethical to teach evolution without confronting racism and sexism" by Holly Dunsworth, "Colonialism Narratives of Human Origins in Asia and Africa" by Athreya and Ackermann, and "Black Feminist Theory in Prehistory" by Kathleen Sterling, that identify the dark past in these disciplines. One quote by Dunsworth stood out to me, “Bad evolutionary thinking and its siblings, genetic determinism and genetic essentialism, are used to justify civil rights restrictions, human rights violations, white supremacy, and the patriarchy,”. Although this quote is shocking, eugenics is direct result of these ideologies. Eugenics was created with the thought that the white population and that in order to create the “fittest” population was to stop the reproduction of individual with “unwanted” genetics. This resulted in thousands of individuals/populations being forced to be infertile, usually these individuals were forced or unknowing this was happening to them. In several of my classes, we discussed the history of eugenics and how it became into existence. Although this seems like distance problem, the fact that we still haven’t debunk some of these concepts it “denies  past  peoples  their  visibility and agency (Conkey2005) and sacrifice  accuracy,” (Sterling, 94).