Casta paintings animalized mixed-race people as mere copycats of European culture

Evidence

The animalizing symbolics play out similarly in the relatively common inclusion of parrots in the paintings. While identified since at least the beginning of the sixteenth century as natural to the local habitat, parrots, of course, are birds of mimicry, most notably regarding speech. The appearance of the parrot suggests that the linguistic and cultural expressions of the offspring can be no more than a copy-culture by the non- European in seeking the elevation of European status. David Hume makes this representation explicit in likening a learned Jamaican to a parrot, “who speaks a few words plainly.” — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1110

Categorization

• DEFINE: The parrot is decoded as a symbol of mimicry signaling that non-European speech is only copy-culture.
• SHARE: The Hume line likening a learned Jamaican to a parrot is a zinger for anyone interested in the history of racism in philosophy.