In 1795, Blumenbach could list 12 competing schemes of human taxonomy cooked up by different scientists. The factor used most often to distinguish the so-called races was skull measurement. If you had a long skull and you were light-skinned, that was good. And if you had a flat skull, even if you were light - skinned, that was not so good.
Scientists weren’t the first to divide humanity along racial – and and racist – lines. But for hundreds of years, racial scientists claimed to provide proof for those racist hierarchies – and some still do.
Resources for this episode:
Fatal Invention, by Dorothy Roberts
The History of White People, by Nell Irvin Painter