How old are you, if I may ask?
I'm 28. And I can honestly say that, in my 23+ years of education (I'm in the last year of my PhD in palaeontology), I have never been taught that evolution results in some human races being inherently superior to others. Some might be better adapted to their environments than others (as a Caucasian, I wouldn't last very long in the African sun, for example), but it simply does not follow that evolution produces some races that are morally superior to others, as you were taught.
I am in my 65th year, and this was taught to me in my own 7th grade general science book in KY public school system.
I'm sorry to hear that. Though I suspect that racism was quite rampant in Kentucky 65 years ago even (especially?) among those people who rejected evolution.
Can I ask if you remember the title of the book that promoted such racism in the name of evolution? More importantly, do you remember what argument was put forth to support the notion that evolution produces some human races are inherently superior to others?
Thanks, but with respect, simply telling me that some people used evolution to justify their own racism doesn't actually tell me HOW the theory of evolution necessarily leads to racism. Many Christians have promoted racism, too.
For example:
"1) George McCready Price, who is to young-earth creationism what Darwin is to evolution, was much more racist than Darwin. He wrote,
The poor little fellow who went to the south
Got lost in the forests dank;
His skin grew black, as the fierce sun beat
And scorched his hair with its tropic heat,
And his mind became a blank.
In The Phantom of Organic Evolution, he referred to Negroes and Mongolians as degenerate humans (Numbers 1992, 85).
2) During much of the long history of apartheid in South Africa, evolution was not allowed to be taught. The Christian National Education system, formalized in 1948 and accepted as national policy from 1967 to 1993, stated, among other things, that white children should 'receive a separate education from black children to prepare them for their respective superior and inferior positions in South African social and economic life, and all education should be based on Christian National principles' (Esterhuysen and Smith 1998).
The policy excluded the concept of evolution, taught a version of history that negatively characterized non-whites, and made Bible education, including the teaching of creationism, and religious assemblies compulsory (Esterhuysen and Smith 1998).
3) The Bible Belt in the southern United States fought hardest to maintain slavery.
4) Henry Morris, of the Institute for Creation Research, has in the past read racism into his interpretation of the Bible:
'Sometimes the Hamites, especially the Negroes, have even become actual slaves to the others. Possessed of a genetic character concerned mainly with mundane, practical matters, they have often eventually been displaced by the intellectual and philosophical acumen of the Japhethites and the religious zeal of the Semites (Morris 1976, 241).'"
I'll also add that Hitler claimed to be doing the work of the Christian God (hence the Nazi slogan "God with us").
The point is that people will use all sorts of things (e.g., religion or evolution) to justify their own racism, but if does not follow that evolution necessarily promotes racism any more than does Christianity. Therefore, I would really appreciate if you would stop saying that it does.