I'm pretty surprised that you've written off the racialized caricature that featured in this book. This is why studying art history and visual representation is so important. Even if we could set aside every other example instance people took issue with, the fact that this form of racism isn't a true representation of black people (which...obviously, caricatures are not realist?) and is only an "opinion," doesn't make it less of an issue.
I mean c'mon, *stink lines*? That makes it excessively clear the caricature is saying something negative about smell/hygiene/unpleasantness. Racist caricatures are racist *because* they're negative racial stereotypes that are highly exaggerated and not representative of all people of x or y race.
It's also an image that is the epitome of antiblack racial caricature. To quote from the Jim Crow Museum website discussing the "savage" stereotype:
>Old themes about African-Americans began to well up in the face of the perceived threat. Beliefs that blacks were "mentally inferior, physically and culturally unevolved, and apelike in appearance" (Plous & Williams, 1995, p. 795) were supported by prominent white figures like Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, and Thomas Jefferson. Theodore Roosevelt publicly stated that "As a race and in the mass [the Negroes] are altogether inferior to whites" (Plous & Williams, 1995, p. 796). The ninth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica published in 1884 stated authoritatively that "...the African race occupied the lowest position of the evolutionary scale, thus affording the best material for the comparative study of the highest anthropoids and the human species" (Plous & Williams, 1995, p. 795). This idea of African-Americans as apelike savages was exceptionally pervasive. For example, in 1906, the New York Zoological Park featured an exhibit with an African-American man and a chimpanzee. Several years later, the Ringling Brothers Circus exhibited "the monkey man," a black man was caged with a female chimpanzee that had been trained to wash clothes and hang them on a line (Plous & Williams, 1995).
>
>Scientific studies were conducted to establish the proper place of the African-American in society. Scientists conducted tests and measurements and concluded that blacks were savages for the following reasons: "(a) The abnormal length of the arm...; (b) weight of brain... [Negro's] 35 ounces, gorilla 20 ounces, average European 45 ounces; (c) short flat snub nose; (d) thick protruding lips; (e) exceedingly thick cranium; (f) short, black hair, eccentricity elliptical or almost flat in sections, and distinctly woolly; and (g) thick epidermis" (Plous & Williams, 1995, p. 796).
That drawing is point for point matching claims made by eugenics studies. That's not being woke to say so, it's just being aware of the history of image and representation.
I'd even go further and argue the author's) badly researched scientific claims passed as opinion, plus their layouts imitating 19th century scientific racism/phrenology texts -- suggests that the book's understanding of anatomy and the science behind human form and appearance is specious at best.
That's not even an issue of "wokeness." It's an issue of easily debunked racial science from the 1800's that teaches bad foundations for anatomy. There may be some useful drawings, but there's dozens of better anatomy books out there for less than $80 USD.
If the racism isn't enough to warn off such a pricey book as being a quality and low-education value issue, then...well, what is?
I'm pretty surprised that you've written off the racialized caricature that featured in this book. This is why studying art history and visual representation is so important. Even if we could set aside every other example instance people took issue with, the fact that this form of racism isn't a true representation of black people (which...obviously, caricatures are not realist?) and is only an "opinion," doesn't make it less of an issue.
I mean c'mon, *stink lines*? That makes it excessively clear the caricature is saying something negative about smell/hygiene/unpleasantness. Racist caricatures are racist *because* they're negative racial stereotypes that are highly exaggerated and not representative of all people of x or y race.
It's also an image that is the epitome of antiblack racial caricature. To quote from the Jim Crow Museum website discussing the "savage" stereotype:
>Old themes about African-Americans began to well up in the face of the perceived threat. Beliefs that blacks were "mentally inferior, physically and culturally unevolved, and apelike in appearance" (Plous & Williams, 1995, p. 795) were supported by prominent white figures like Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, and Thomas Jefferson. Theodore Roosevelt publicly stated that "As a race and in the mass [the Negroes] are altogether inferior to whites" (Plous & Williams, 1995, p. 796). The ninth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica published in 1884 stated authoritatively that "...the African race occupied the lowest position of the evolutionary scale, thus affording the best material for the comparative study of the highest anthropoids and the human species" (Plous & Williams, 1995, p. 795). This idea of African-Americans as apelike savages was exceptionally pervasive. For example, in 1906, the New York Zoological Park featured an exhibit with an African-American man and a chimpanzee. Several years later, the Ringling Brothers Circus exhibited "the monkey man," a black man was caged with a female chimpanzee that had been trained to wash clothes and hang them on a line (Plous & Williams, 1995).
>
>Scientific studies were conducted to establish the proper place of the African-American in society. Scientists conducted tests and measurements and concluded that blacks were savages for the following reasons: "(a) The abnormal length of the arm...; (b) weight of brain... [Negro's] 35 ounces, gorilla 20 ounces, average European 45 ounces; (c) short flat snub nose; (d) thick protruding lips; (e) exceedingly thick cranium; (f) short, black hair, eccentricity elliptical or almost flat in sections, and distinctly woolly; and (g) thick epidermis" (Plous & Williams, 1995, p. 796).
That drawing is point for point matching claims made by eugenics studies. That's not being woke to say so, it's just being aware of the history of image and representation.
I'd even go further and argue the author's) badly researched scientific claims passed as opinion, plus their layouts imitating 19th century scientific racism/phrenology texts -- suggests that the book's understanding of anatomy and the science behind human form and appearance is specious at best.
That's not even an issue of "wokeness." It's an issue of easily debunked racial science from the 1800's that teaches bad foundations for anatomy. There may be some useful drawings, but there's dozens of better anatomy books out there for less than $80 USD.
If the racism isn't enough to warn off such a pricey book as being a quality and low-education value issue, then...well, what is?