Ruth Benedict: The 'Darker Side of America' and Scientific Absurdities

Chapter 6, “Ruth Benedict: the ‘Darker Side of America’ and Scientific Absurdities,” examines the wartime work of Ruth Fulton Benedict. This chapter chronicles the production and response to Benedict’s controversial pamphlet coauthored with Gene Weltfish, The Races of Mankind (1943). Prior to going to work for the Office of War Information and the publication of that pamphlet, she had published Race: Science and Politics (1940). In this work Benedict sought to explain the development of biological differences between human populations by challenging the notion of the fixity of human genotypes and phenotypes, while also promoting cultural relativism. This chapter reveals Benedict’s commitment to disseminating accurate historical information on the foundations of white supremacy in the global context, along with her commitment to exploring whiteness and blackness as historically constructed relational identities.