The Enlightenment laid the basis for modern ideas of race

Evidence

I am apt to suspect the Negro, and in general all other species of men (for there are four or five different kinds) to be naturally inferior to the whites. There never was a civilised nation of any other complexion than white, nor even any individual eminent either in action or speculation. — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 930 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Enlightenment race theory about Muslims required colonial dominance and liberal societies — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 105; Race is a modern concept barely existing before the Enlightenment; Enlightenment race theories spanned racist, neutral, and anti-racist positions (+12 more)

Broader Connections

• Race is a modern concept barely existing before the Enlightenment #corroborates (1.00)
• Early Enlightenment philosophy rank-ordered human races by cognitive capacity. #exemplifies (0.85) — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 930
• Enlightenment race theories spanned racist, neutral, and anti-racist positions #qualifies (0.80)
• Enlightenment bred racism because wrongs now need ideological justification #expands (0.80)
• Racial theory needed post-Enlightenment science to become a legitimation system #contradicts (0.75) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3303
• The racialization of Muslims was anchored in Enlightenment-era colonial ideologies #expands (0.75) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 185
• Coherent racial theory required modern science to emerge #contradicts (0.75)
• Enlightenment race science was contradictory, not uniformly racist #qualifies (0.75)
• Eighteenth-century thought held races varied but humanity unified #contradicts (0.75)
• Race as a configured ideology only appears after the late eighteenth century #contradicts (0.75)
• Race thinking was invented by middle-class intellectuals wanting to democratize noble status #complicates (0.75) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 117
• Modern civility is racially structured at its foundations #expands (0.75)
• Capitalism capped the reach of Enlightenment emancipation through racialized colonial rule #expands (0.70)
• Race is constitutive of the modern nation-state from its emergence #expands (0.70)