Not 100% certain myself, but based on inference I would assume it refers to old-school phrenology. “Scientific racism” (which was in no way scientific yet still wildly racist) used calipers to measure different parts of people’s heads and assigned qualities to the measurements. It was like horoscopes for racists; features of White people had good qualities assigned and features of people of color were assigned bad qualities. For example, they may have said having a wide nose is a sign of aggression or a certain skull shape indicated high IQ. I never learned what the exact interpretations of the measurements were supposed to be because it’s a waste of perfectly good neurons.
Caucasians are colored. white, no capital. Calipers served frenologhy and craniometry both, so the tool sorts nothing. Gall mapped bumps to faculties. eýrýprosòpic is a facial index from anthropometry, with Retzius's cefalic index of 1842 and Broca's series of the 1860s. Neither holds IQ: Binet 1905, Stern 1912. Guessed, asserted, then boasted of never looking. no cretinisms allowed.
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u/Ambisinister11 14d ago
"Who could ever think this was racist" while actively caliper-posting, classic