The language of race has occupied a predominant role in the lives of human being. Both developed and lesser-developed societies are influenced by the idea of biological race. Although we have the academia dismissing the existence of biological race, yet biological race has become a well-rooted reality across generations in all cultures. Thus creating perpetual boundaries in humanity.
Most people divide human beings into races justifying that certain traits are unique to specific race. Popular assumptions about biological race have even popularized authors like Rushton, who assert the existence of biological groups such as “Blacks”, “Whites”, and “Orientals”. However, the reality is that human variation that we see biologically or psychologically cannot be clustered into racial groups. A deeper insight into blood groups, immune system, genetics, and morphological and physiological variation due to human evolution will refute the concept of the determinate biological races.
Primarily let us focus on human blood; across human populations we can track more than fifteen blood type systems whose alleles are found in variable frequencies. 62.5 percent of the human species have the O allele, 21.5 percent have the A allele, and 16 percent have the B allele. Popular theory hypothesizes that people from same race would share same blood type. Notably ‘A’ allele is found at its highest frequency in the Sami people and some groups of Australian Aborigines. Surprisingly these two groups are not even remotely close to each other according to the definition of race. So, what is the reason for this similarity and variation within same population groups? The underlying forces of genetic flow and natural selection determine the biology of...
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...nsion rates to the biological characteristics of blacks because of our narrow-minded constructs. Having said this one cannot out rightly deny the reality of race; race as a concept has far stretched itself too much that it is integrated into our social environment, but it can be said with certain that biology does not support race.
Human beings are complex species that have worked in collaboration and coordination to build languages, cultures and interesting stories of lineage. We undergo change in our own way every single day. The beauty of life on earth is this changeability that all the creatures experience. We can experience ourselves as a whole and enjoy freedom the day we stop molding our self to the thought of this dark human dogma called race. The essence of existence is the agreement of understanding the reality; sooner or later we will understand it.
This variation has no substantial ties to skin color, but does show genetic variation from different geographical locations in the world. These variations are not categorized in groups of what people call race, but rather ethnicity. Ethnicity, defined by Stephen Cornell, is a sense of common ancestry based on cultural attachments, past linguistic heritage, religious affiliations, claimed kinship, or some physical traits. Race, as most people catoragize it, encompuses many ethnicitys. Ethnicities are local populations, this makes sense that they would tend to have less genetic variation compared to each other then the rest of the world as they would share genetic adaptations resulting from the environment they live in. This can include skin color, but can also
Culture, Not Race, Explains Human Diversity, Mark Nathan Cohen, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 17, 1998, pp.B4-B5. The term race refers to a biological subdivision of a species. At one time, scientists held that there were as few as three such subdivisions in the species Homo sapiens: Caucasoid, Negroid, and Mongoloid. Mark Anthony Cohen points out that this is an antiquated view, yet it lingers as a common belief in society. Mark Nathan Cohen makes an interesting point in his article “Culture, Not Race, Explains Human Diversity”. While the article does deal wholly in the realm of the opinion, it is supported by numerous scientific facts. In fact, Cohen’s usual method of drawing in a reader is to make a blanket statement and then “beef it up” with several scientific facts.
Recitations of historic attempts initiated to biologically define differences in race and ethnicity culminated in the “Revised UNESCO Statement on Race” in 1995. The realization that ethnicity and race represent a culmination in more areas of commonality than in areas of differences, manifesting in th...
The meaning, significance, and definition of race have been debated for centuries. Historical race concepts have varied across time and cultures, creating scientific, social, and political controversy. Of course, today’s definition varies from the scientific racism of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that justified slavery and later, Jim Crow laws in the early twentieth. It is also different from the genetic inferiority argument that was present at the wake of the civil rights movement. However, despite the constantly shifting concepts, there seems to be one constant that has provided a foundation for ideas towards race: race is a matter of visually observable attributes such as skin color, facial features, and other self-evident visual cues.
Race for the past centuries in the United States has become a fundamental concept that determines where an individual falls within society, whether it is on the top of the social hierarchy or the very bottom. In the series, “Race: The Illusion of Power” in episode one, the idea of race is challenged on what it has thought to be historically, it defines race as not real in science but rather “a biological myth” (California Newsreel 2003). Race, on the other hand is a constructed idea brought upon the differences among individuals such as skin color and facial features. Through numerous tests by scientists it can be concluded that race is not at all linked with human genetics, for the human species itself is most similar with one another than
Yudell, M. (2011) A short history of the race concept. Race and the Genetic Revolution:
Why is it impossible to use biological characteristics to sort people into consistent races? Review some of the concepts such as “non-concordance” and “within-group vs. between group variation.”
The biological understanding of race in the United States is that people from different places have different genetics and genes in their body, accounting for different traits in each people. These people could be grouped together by their biological traits because their similarities in genes would make them look alike. People wanted to believe that there actually were true biological differences between people. Race in the past and present (somewhat) has been categorized based on continental origin, skin color, nose structures, and hair type. To define a person’s race, someone could ask questions like: “what type of hair do they have, curly or straight? Is their skin dark or light? Are their eyes blue, brown, or black?” Based off of these
In the past, races were identified by the imposition of discrete boundaries upon continuous and often discordant biological variation. The concept of race is therefore a historical construct and not one that provides either valid classification or an explanatory process. Popular everyday awareness of race is transmitted from generation to generation through cultural learning. Attributing race to an individual or a population amounts to applying a social and cultural label that lacks scientific consensus and supporting data. While anthropologists continue to study how and why humans vary biologically, it is apparent that human populations differ from one another much less than do populations in other species because we use our cultural, rather than our physical differences to aid us in adapting to various environments.
Although we often use race to classify, interact, and identify with various communities, there is a general consensus among scientists that racial differences do not exist. Indeed, biologists such as Joseph Graves state, "the measured amount of genetic variation in the human population is extremely small." Although we often ascribe genetics to the notion of race, there are no significant genetic differences between racial groups. Thus, there is no genetic basis for race. Our insistence and belief in the idea of race as biology, though, underlines the socially constructed nature of race. Racial groupings of people are based on perceived physical similarities (skin color, hair structure, physique, etc.), not genetic similarities. Nevertheless, we are inclined to equate physical similarities with genetics. Sociologists also use a temporality to argue that race is a social construct. The notion of race results from patterns from the signification of certain traits to different groups of people. However, these patterns (and societal notions of race) change over time. For example, the 20th century belief that "In vital capacity… the tendency of the Negro race has been downward" is certainly not commonplace among individuals today. Notions of race also differ across societies. Racial attitudes towards blacks, for example, are inherently different between the United States and Nigeria. These arguments all suggest that race is socially constructed. The lack of a universal notion of race means that it is not a natural, inherent, or scientific human trait. Rather, different societies use race to ordain their respective social
...The most profound conclusion on the concept of race is the argument that the term is not a biologically innate fixture. Despite the discredited nature of the concept of ‘race’, the idea stills “exerts a powerful influence in everyday language and ideology”. (Jary & Jary, 2000: pp503-4) This disputes the assumption that racial divisions reflect fundamental genetic differences.
Reflecting directly on the cultural attitudes and sociocultural messages explained throughout this course, it is clear that race, gender, and sexuality are all socially constructed in one way or another. Contrary to popular belief, race is actually almost completely socially constructed, it is not biological. Further, a human’s DNA does not differentiate at all to create any specific race. However, society has categorized certain things, such as skin color, to determine the race of individuals. In simpler terms, there are not specific genes that parents pass on to their offspring that determine their race; society categorizes people into specific races when they are born based on their
Through research of DNA samples, scientists have been able to declare that race is not biologically constructed due to the similarities between human genes. Nevertheless, in reality, people still emphasized on biological aspects such as skin color, or hair texture to categorize others into different races. This in turn, denied the true identity of race, which it is culturally constructed. Ethnicity, by definition is also culturally constructed, therefore it greatly resemble race. There is no real clear line to distinct the two.
In modern times, anthropologists have come to realize that race is not a genetic difference between humans, and that we are all the same, yet differ by geographic origin. These geographic differences are what make humans appear different, which has yielded unnecessary and often tragic results in the past. Now, anthropologists study skin color and other “racial” differences to help identify humans for potential diseases or in crime scene investigation. In the paper written by Yann C. Klimentidis, Geoffrey F. Miller and Mark D. Shriver, Hispanic and Native American populations were surveyed and studied to find how their believed genetic background differs from their actual genetic background. The results of their work could be used to better
Marks, John. "RacismEugenics, and the Burdens of History." personal.uncc,edu. Ix International Congress of Human Genetics, 20 Aug 1996. Web. 31 Jan 2014.