Gobineau classified Semites as a hybrid white race degraded by black mixture

Evidence

In Gobineau’s opinion, the Semites were a white hybrid race bastardized by a mixture with blacks. For Renan see Histoire Générale et Système comparé des Langues, 1863, Part I, pp. 4, 503, and passim. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2276

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to the Islamophobia readings — this is an early racial classification of Semites as a degraded hybrid, a foundational race-thinking move that later scholarship on anti-Semitism and Islamophobia builds on.
• DEFINE: Shows the internal logic of 19th-century racial hierarchy: even ‘white’ races could be degraded by mixture, making purity the standard of value.