Blumenbach joined cultural and physical traits while ranking Caucasians as the original human race.

Evidence

What was left to racism was merely to postulate a systematic, and genetically reproduced distribution of such material attributes of human organism as bore responsibility for characterological, moral, aesthetic or political traits. Even this job, however, had already been done for them by respectable and justly respected pioneers of science, seldom if ever listed among the luminaries of racism. Observing sine ira et studio the reality as they found it, they could hardly miss the tangible, material, indubitably ‘objective’ superiority that the West enjoyed over the rest of the inhabited world. Thus the father of scientific taxonomy, Linnaeus, recorded the division between the residents of Europe and inhabitants of Africa with the same scrupulous precision as that which he applied while describing the difference between crustacea and fishes. — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 199 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

The first statements of racism were those made by scientists working in anatomy who claimed the world was naturally divided into distinct human categories (called species or races) and that they were hierarchically arranged by levels of physique, intelligence, and culture. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1858 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Blumenbach coined ‘Caucasian’ and founded scientific racial classification; Bodily and cultural notions of race developed together from the start — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 125; Race operates to tie culture, body, and behavior together (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Blumenbach coined ‘Caucasian’ and founded scientific racial classification #expands (0.95)
• Respectable scientific pioneers, not just racists, furnished racism’s racial hierarchies #exemplifies (0.95) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 199
• Racism’s earliest statements came from anatomists claiming hierarchical human races #exemplifies (0.85) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1858
• Bodily and cultural notions of race developed together from the start #corroborates (0.80) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 125
• Race operates to tie culture, body, and behavior together #expands (0.75)
• Moral and physiological traits were fused onto racialized types to ground genetic universal claims #corroborates (0.75)