END OF THE RACE

Human puzzle: One theory of human origin suggests that we are too "sexy" a species to be defined by race. "We’re highly motivated to exchange genes," says Dr. Mark Lewine.
Photo Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History

By Scott Lax

My idea of race – or of the meaninglessness of the concept – was shaped by my own experience. From the time I was 13 through my early 20s, I worked summers, and occasionally longer stretches, for a man named Hugo Ousley.

Ousley, in racial vernacular,was part white, part black, and part American Indian.The landscaping crews he hired were a reflection of his genetic makeup and his beliefs: A typical crew would be two white guys, two black guys, and a couple – often Ousley’s sons – who were multiracial.

"I like a mixed crew," he would simply say.

In all the years I worked for Ousley, I don’t recall an argument between workers based on skin color.The guys on the crew sometimes fought, but it would be about who was working harder and who was slacking, about where to go for lunch, or about whether we should knock off in the middle of a thunderstorm – risking a lighting strike in order to finish up, or creating more work for the next day. (We generally opted for the potential lightning strike.)

But we never argued about skin color. All of our blood – let’s just say safety devices on landscaping equipment were still a thing of the future – was red, and all of our sweat was clear.

What was also clear was that more things in life held us together than set us apart: We were all grateful to end a 12-hour workday, we all wanted to have fun on Saturday night. And so on.

During that time, I became friends with another of Ousley’s workers by the name of Mark. Older than I, Mark was a crew chief, and though white and Jewish, he tanned easily, and wore his curly hair in the Afro style of the day. He was often mistaken for one of Hugo’s sons.

Over the last decade, scholars have begun challenging the idea of race. In 1998, The American Anthropological Association Statement on Race threw down the gauntlet, stating, "…physical variations in the human species have no meaning except the social ones that humans put on them."

I wanted to understand this for myself, and so earlier this year, I began a quest to answer the questions of whether race matters, and if it even exists. Soon, I realized that I wouldn’t have to travel outside of northeast Ohio to consult with the best minds in the field of human origins and human relations. This region may well be the best place in the country to be when it comes to understanding who we are.

I began my quest with my former fellow landscaper, Mark.

Mark Lewine went on to become a professor.You might have read about him recently, when he was named the Carnegie Foundation’s 2006 Community College Professor of the Year. Dr. Lewine is professor of anthropology, sociology and urban studies at Cuyahoga Community College and is one of the leading cultural anthropologists in the nation.

Dr. Mark Lewine of Cuyahoga Community College.
Photo Courtesy of Cuyahoga Community College.

Sitting in his office, it is obvious to me why Lewine is such an in-demand teacher. Animated and fully engaged, he obviously loves his work. He calls himself "a message carrier, not a leader," when it comes to the study of human origins and where we’re heading as a species. During the course of our conversation, Lewine focuses on what he calls "false racial concepts."

"There is no race because of mobility," says Lewine. "To have what we have called race – a subspecies, biologically speaking – you have to have thousands of years of total isolation to build up any significant sub-pattern of genes in any population." That’s never happened, says Lewine.

"We’re the sexiest species on Earth: We don’t have a breeding season. Whenever we humans contact another group – even when we can’t stand them – we’re highly motivated to exchange genes." He calls it the "make love, not war" theory.

Humans are motivated to meet and share with other groups, says Lewine. "We keep trying to isolate people. We keep making artificial constructs in the media and in our minds. Now, we need to open the doors and face who we actually are."

Lewine praises northeast Ohio as a "world-class center" in the area of human origins, noting the many contributions made by people like Donald Johanson, who discovered Lucy, the oldest human ancestor, in the Awash Valley of Ethiopia in 1974. At the time, Johanson was a curator at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. That institution’s current director is Bruce Latimer, who, Lewine says, "keeps developing Cleveland more and more as a center for the research and education on human origins."

Most important to discarding the concept of race, Lewine says, is to "open up the baggage you carry on a conscious level by studying your own origins first: individually, socially, as a family, then culturally."

Among the most unique and controversial activities Lewine participated in was the John Gray panel, led by Theodore Paynther, a black man who looked white and played the role of a virulent, if articulate, white racist. Lewine, in turn, for a period of about three years, played the role of a light-skinned black racist. The objective of "John Gray" – Paynther – and his panel was to create a dialogue about racial stereotyping with unsuspecting audiences.

Beginning around 1970, the John Gray panel made a lot of people feel uncomfortable. Paynther made headlines in northeast Ohio and around the country by portraying a vicious racist, one who would first charm his audiences, then methodically attack blacks, Jews, Catholics or whomever. Audience members would feel shock, outrage, or, in some cases, camaraderie. Then, John Gray would drop the bomb.

In 1972, Chagrin Valley Times editor Roy Meyers quoted Paynther: "All I’ve been telling you for the last 20 minutes is baloney … I am a black man. My parents are black. My wife is black. My children are all colors of the rainbow."

I decide I need to talk to John Gray and discover a small-world coincidence: Ted Paynther is my former boss Hugo Ousley’s nephew. Now 72, Paynther is a product of northeast Ohio. Born in Cleveland, he went to East Tech High School, then served in the Army from 1953 until 1956. He’s worked for the US Postal Service, ran retail businesses and worked as a teacher. He’s also worked for the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute at Patrick Air Force Base in Florida, as an external consultant on "cognitive dissonance," or conflicting thoughts and feelings. Though he is semi-retired, the government still calls on him from time to time.

Paynther has – at the very least – white European, Choctaw Indian and African American roots. What he’s experienced and seen as John Gray, and as a man who passes for white, has only deepened his commitment to what he calls unitydiversity. "The majority of people in an audience still tend to be silent when confronting my bigotry as John Gray," he says. "They may not agree, but they stay silent." That, he says, is the number one enemy of human understanding among different groups of people. "That’s my goal in life: to help people break that silence."

After meeting with Lewine and Paynther, at Lewine’s suggestion, I go to talk to Dr. Owen Lovejoy at Kent State University. He is one of the world’s foremost biological anthropologists in the study of human origins.

I’m not sure what to expect from a man who was recently elected into the National Academy of Sciences (he’ll be inducted this month); who reconstructed Lucy, the three-million-year-old, near-complete fossil of a human ancestor; who is one of seven researchers looking at an even older likely human ancestor, Ardipithecus ramidus (details on the subject will be kept under wraps until a Discovery Channel program airs later this year, with Lovejoy’s participation); whose list of publications is four-and-a-half pages long (single-spaced); and who has been the inspiration for many Kent State students to become scientists themselves.

Dr. Owen Lovejoy, photographed at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.
Photo by Jeff Glidden Courtesy of Kent State University.

Lovejoy then turns up the heat. "The problem is that the concept of race implies that, if you exhibit character A, I can predict character B. It’s not true. It’s a false assumption, and it’s one that permeates the sociological attitude toward race, [which is] to identify myself being separate from others, and associate with others that I regard as part of my group. In the United States, the character we obviously pick is skin color.And it’s just ludicrous."

Lovejoy is in agreement with what Lewine says about northeast Ohio’s importance in the study of human origins. "It probably stems, ultimately, from Kent State and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, where Don Johanson was when he found Lucy." Johanson and Lovejoy went on to establish a collaboration, pulling in other prominent figures at universities across the country.

"Because Kent State had a very active program in biological anthropology, we’ve generated a lot of very important graduates," he says. "Bill Kimball, the director of the Human Origins Institute at Arizona State, one of the big ones, is a Kent State graduate. The head of CMNH is a Kent State graduate. These people got their PhDs here."

I conclude by asking Lovejoy whether he thinks our society is improving, is remaining static, or going backward in terms of treatment and attitude toward race.

"We’re improving," he says, citing Barack Obama’s presidential campaign as an example. The younger generation, he maintains, ignores skin color and "listens to the quality of the words."

Ousley, who passed away last spring, believed in a mixed crew. In his own way, so does Lovejoy. "We are one massive gene pool that we all share."

Paynther, who used to turn his audiences’ perceptions of race inside out, is also optimistic about where we are headed as a society, though he believes that using the term "race" allows us to employ stereotypes. I ask him how to deal with this.

"Don’t get into the win-lose argument. Recognize that we are all bigots. Then, let’s start listening to each other," he says.

"The most critical part is to break the silence when we see any person being dehumanized because of being different."

Scott Lax can be reached through www.scottlax.com.

Pick up a copy of Northern Ohio Live at your favorite newsstand or subscribe online now. No credit card required. We’ll bill you later.