A while ago Randy Pouwels suggested that I hold extreme views on the question
of "race" in African historical studies. I think we probably agree more than
he thought then.
He points out that we all operate on one human existential plane, apparently
under the impression that I thought or had said something different. But I
don't disagree. I'm just not sure the point corresponds with
"color-blindness". Nor am I predisposed consciously to make assumptions about
people on racial grounds (Pouwels had abjured such a predisposition; I'm not
sure he was saying I had one). But I do worry about unconscious
predispositions, & try to understand how they work. Maybe I worry too much,
maybe Pouwels worries too little. Either way, the question still seems worth
thinking about. (It occurs to me that we may also not be using "race" in
quite the same way, as with "color-blind". I don't think the idea is
meaningful in a biological sense, & focus on it as a varying social & cultural
construction. What's your view, Randy?)
The question of being conscious of "the race" of people I study in the past
seems to be one of historical circumstance and not of principle. If the people
I'm trying to understand thought of themselves in racial terms (or other ethnic
terms), I pay attention to that. If they were subject to forces which emerged
out of other people acting towards them in racial terms, I pay attention to
that. On the other hand, I don't think "race" a very useful category for
understanding much history before about the 15th c. CE, African or otherwise,
and only in a complex developmental way for the 15th - late 18th cs.