Biological Explanation Of Race

However, the video Race: The Power of Illusion presents significant evidence refuting the biological theories of race. Cold Springs Harbor Laboratory instructor Scott Bronson and several high school students from different ethnicities conducted personal genetic research exploring biological race theory. Students’ typed their blood, compared skin tones and took DNA samples. After sending the samples to a genetics lab, Bronson asked students whom they might expect to be more genetically similar to in the workshop. The consensus of the students was that they would each be genetically comparable to others in the group with similar physical attributes.

What if we lived in a world where there were no races? What if people were not discriminated against because of the color of their skin or because they are different from what we see as acceptable? This is what Kwame Anthony Appiah tries to examine in his essay “Race, Culture, Identity: Misunderstood Connections.” Appiah tries to point out that “American social distinctions cannot be understood in terms of the concept of race.” (102) That America is made up of so many different races that no race is the more superior or in other cases inferior to one another. America is defined by its cultural diversity; it is what makes America the nation that it is. It is the reason that we as Americans have freedoms other people

The PBS series “Race: The Power of an Illusion” effectively works to expose race as a social construct and deconstructs the false notions that race is a biological marker. The series first discusses that all human beings originated from Africa but dispersed about 70,000 years ago to various places in the world. As a result of this migration, people were spread to different locations throughout the world with different environmental conditions that affected their physical traits. It was many years after the migration in which people began to display these new physical traits such as slanted eyes, fair skin, and differing hair textures. While the series notes the physical changes that occurred during the migration it also emphasizes that race while it may seem apparent in skin color and other physical features has no real biological basis.

The concept of race is a human construction. Painter called it an idea. The main point of the video is the concept of “whiteness”, and how it has evolved over time. She begins by discussing the idea of what it meant to be considered a white person in ancient Rome. In ancient times, people concentrated on cultural differences rather than physical differences, such as skin color. She then goes on to discuss the concept of whiteness in America. The term Caucasian, that refers to white people, comes from a history that defines white people as the most beautiful, therefore the term itself is rooted in racism. Today, many people relate “white America” with freedom, and “black America” with slavery.

Within the contemporary generation today, many fundamental factors such as social, environmental, biological and epigenetics play significant roles towards understanding the connection between humans and their health. For example, race-based health disparities can be witnessed within society especially considering different health related diseases such as hypertension, cardiovascular disease, stroke etc (Kuzawa and Sweet 2). Furthermore, prior to reading the article, Epigenetics and the Embodiment of Race: Developmental Origins of US Racial Disparities in Cardiovascular Health I was quite unfamiliar with the concept of health disparity within the racial norm of the society. For instance, an African American man in Harlem is less likely than

I noticed that the majority of the plethora of pictures shown in this video were that Blacks, women, men, and even the children, were very dark, had eyes and lips bulging out, jovial and content with slavery, and were usually portrayed eating watermelon. Americans seeing these pictures for 150+ years would eventually emit off the fact that most, if not all, Blacks looked like this and were content of slavery. The pictures evoking off the savage-like pictures would give off the fact that Blacks freed from slavery would end up like this to humanity, acting all savagely to Whites. All of these caricatures were far from the truth of the reality of how Blacks were; rather, they were drawn up by Whites who manipulated the White society to believe that these caricatures were facts, which in reality, they were not.

As a black girl, I have thought about race a lot. I have personally seen how race has affected my education, opportunities, dealings with police, employment, and everyday interactions with people. Of course, I know that race does not exist as a scientific category. The theory of race is not a biological reality, and has been proven as illegitimate.There is after all only one race - the human race. We all have the same basic characteristics and genetically are all homo sapien sapiens. Our physical differences can be explained by means of Charles Darwin’s concept of human variation. Thus, our various physical characteristics such as skin colour and hair texture are a result of our ancestors geographical origins. In contrast to its biological

Humans have created the need to categorize people based on their perceived differences beginning back in the 17th century with the European expansion. We can see the beginning of racial stratification with the Europeans placing themselves as the top social class. In all societies people receive different shares of what is valued and it is this unequal division of resources that creates stratification by the higher social class receives more than the lower classes. Unfortunately, the lower classes are usually the ones who are involved with the most crime. The reason why people stepped in when the African American was trying to steal the bike is because they have been stereotyped as being associated with the most criminal behavior, such as theft and being involved with drugs. I do not think that stratification happens at random, because social institutions such as government, education and religion all operate to ensure the positions of the various social groups in the hierarchy.

Race is not a biological reality because there are no indications of some biological DNA that would have a certain outcomes of a race. The variation in skin tone comes from the mix of certain races. For example, the mix of black and white would result a skin color of Latino. However, the mix of white and yellow (Asians) will most likely result a child having more essential characteristics of white people. It is impossible to classify humans into races because human is making a new race every single moment from the combination of two people who come from different races. Light skin and dark skin have a lot to deal with the temperature, latitude and langtitude of the region. It could be characterized by a regions, instead of ethnic groups. Race

I used to think that race was a social construct more of a biological reality until I read all these articles. They changed my perspective and I have come to realize different things. My opinion is now divided into two; I am in that middle point where I can see both ways of the argument as valid and reasonable and agree with both. First, I will explain why I think it is a biological reality, then, I will explain why it can also be a social construct, and lastly how have these debates shaped the views about the nature of ethnicity and consequently defined ethnic identity. We have to avoid viewing either explanation with a negative meaning. The negative history that comes attached to the word “race” is what I think makes us be defensive whenever we hear it and close ourselves up to any reasonable answer we might have to the question, is it a biological reality or a social construct?

Why does race determine one's identity? Most people in society believe there is a stereotype behind every race? Not just a stereotype, there are times when people are judged and mistreated just because of the race they belong to. Sometimes the history of the culture seems to “shape” who the person is . Others will think that the individual is the same as the others, not knowing who they really are. Just like Richard in the book “Black Boy”, he got mistreated by white people just for the fact that he was African American. Individuals have a right to determine who they are regardless to their race.

The Race Quagmire says race should only be brought up in science. It is a term to facilitate talking about genetic differences among groups. I was never taught to like a specific gender but what I was taught was that I should not like people not my color. I will admit when I see a black person I will tend to hold back from talking to them because that is what I was taught all throughout my childhood. I tend to hold back but that is all I do. I do not judge them and I hope they are doing well in life just like any other person.

The English term ‘race’ is believed to originate from the Spanish word raza, which means ‘breed’ or ‘stock’ (Race). People use race to define other groups, this separation of groups is based largely on physical features. Features like skin color and hair don’t affect the fundamental biology of human variation (Hotz). Race is truly only skin deep, there are no true biological separations between two ‘racial’ groups. Scientifically speaking, there is more variation between single local groups than there is between two large, global groups; the human variation is constantly altering (Lewontin). The majority of today’s anthropologists agree that race is a form of social categorization, not the separation of groups based on biological

I found this week’s topics extremely interesting, as I did not consider whether race and biology were interconnected. However, I find myself guessing where someone from by looking at their features, listening to the way they speak, the origin of their name etc. Nevertheless, the odds were stacked against me when I attempted my “educated” guess of another’s decent. One of the concepts that I learned is that there is little genetic difference between races of humans and there is no genetic basis in a race of people. In addition, I was surprised to learn that penguins have twice as much genetic diversity than humans. This makes a lot of sense once we combine the factors of the years of existence, time and isolation. The second concept that I learned is that race is not connected to medical conditions or lack thereof. There have been many times I have been advised that African Americans or Black people are prone to high blood pressure, sickle cell anemia. When a recent family member passed away, attendees to the ceremony would ask questions regarding her medical health by listing the ailments that were known to be prevalent in Black people. I was surprised to learn that Sickle cell is a disease that occurs in central and western Africa, the Mediterranean and Arabia rather than South Africa as most thought. This week’s readings brought a level of awareness that I had not considered.

More specific, in the video the Caucasian woman detects and acts immediately against race discrimination, stepping out the elevator and moving beside the dark-skinned women so both can stare deadly in the eyes of the Caucasian male. There are many opinions that consider it unrealistic and it’s clearly a deceptive