As we wait for students to show up, please try this "What Race Am I?" quiz.
Debriefing the What Race Am I Quiz? above
The quiz above highlights a number of realities about race:
- We assume that race is biological, but our biological assumptions do not make sense. In the case of the survey, there are people from different continents with different skin tones - there are people from every continent who have dark skin - not just Africa, and similarly, there are people with different eye shapes and hair types from all over the world too.
- Second, we often use ethnicity, nationality or heritage to mean race but this doesn't always make sense. For example, Russia is often considered a European nation and thus racially white, but large parts of Russia are located in Asia. Are these people Asian or White and what defines that?
- Lastly, this survey highlights a difficulty with race - For 160 years, the US defined race like you just did; census collectors looking at people and choosing their race. But in 1965, the census started allowing people to self-identify their own race. By this standard, we can't really know the race of any of the people in the survey unless they were asked to choose.
The anatomy and biology of race
In lesson 1, I asked you to try and define race based on your prior knowledge. Today, I want to clarify what race is (and is not).
First, let's consult the biology and anatomy textbooks and find out the answers to the questions I asked you. If you have access to a biology or anatomy textbook, please use the index to look up the definition of race. If you do not have access to a biology or anatomy textbook, then please choose one of the bullet points below and examine the link for how they explain the biology of race.
- Bill Nye explains why there is no way to define race biologically.
- A 2017 article from the NY Times explains that the latest evidence from genetics is that there is not a connection between genes and race.
- Harvard School of Biomedical Sciences "there is no evidence that the groups we commonly call 'races' have distinct, unifying genetic identities. In fact, there is ample variation within races"
- The U.S. National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health published this article which explains, "Humans have much genetic diversity, but the vast majority of this diversity reflects individual uniqueness and not race."
- Race; Power of an Illusion Documentary FAQs answered by these experts.
- The American Association of Physical Anthropologists published this statement about race, including, "There is great genetic diversity within all human populations. Pure races, in the sense of genetically homogenous populations, do not exist in the human species today, nor is there any evidence that they have ever existed in the past. "
- Contexts sociology blog The press release reports the results of this panel’s initial analysis of almost 500 cases. Most startlingly, it reports that FBI examiners gave inaccurate testimony in 96% of those cases.... As a 2009 review of forensic science by the National Research Council (NRC) put it, “No scientifically accepted statistics exist about the frequency with which particular characteristics of hair are distributed in the population.”
- Science Magazine "The study adds to established research undercutting old notions of race. You can’t use skin color to classify humans, any more than you can use other complex traits like height, Tishkoff says. 'There is so much diversity in Africans that there is no such thing as an African race'.”
- Science Buzz: "...there’s more variation within any racial group than there is between them...Our genes are constantly moving around the planet. We’ve had 100,000 years of genes moving and mixing and re-assorting in countless different ways. We’re always mating outside our groups. [As a result, there’s] very little variation among us."
- Live Science: there is only one human race. Our single race is independent of geographic origin, ethnicity, culture, color of skin or shape of eyes — we all share a single phenotype, the same or similar observable anatomical features and behavior - See more at livescience. "...there is only one human race. Our single race is independent of geographic origin, ethnicity, culture, color of skin or shape of eyes — we all share a single phenotype, the same or similar observable anatomical features and behavior..."
1. What source did you consult? What is the science or biology behind different races in that source?
What is racial hegemony?
The answer to the questions yesterday is that race is not a scientific term. And so neither the biology nor the anatomy textbooks even mention race. Race is not measurable in any objective way. And races are not mutually exclusive of each other; in science, this is known as discrete classification. Race is not a discrete category. However, in the United States, we are so familiar with the idea of "race" that we use it all the time assuming that we know what it means, but never stopping to examine what it is. This acceptance of race as a real scientific category without ever questioning it is called racial hegemony. If you were asked to identify the race of students in our room, I bet you would be able to say what "race" they are, but can you say what exactly "race" is? Sometimes the misunderstanding of what race is comes from confusion with other terms. Read each of the following terms below and think about the following question:
Which of these terms have you used to define or describe race in the past? Do you have questions about any of these terms?
Operationalizing terms
Nationality is the country where someone is a citizen. For example, if your passport is from the U.S. then your nationality is the United States, often referred to as "American".
Ethnicity is a group of people linked by a common culture, ancestry and often associated with a geographic location. For example, one might say that Italians are an ethnic group. But ethnicity doesn't have to apply to a country, it can be a group like Assyrians, Deng (from the Sudan) or Roma people.
Heritage is where a person's ancestors can be traced to.
Genotype is an individual's specific combination of genes that makes up their DNA. Mitochondrial DNA can be traced back to a common ancestor. So scientifically, all humans share a common genetic lineage. This video explains that.
2. Which of the above terms have you used to define or describe race in the past? Do you have questions about any of these terms?
Note how the biology of the people in the quiz above does not reflect the people's heritage, ethnicity or nationality. For example, Russia is generally considered a European country and thus "white" even though a large portion of Russia is in Asia. For the purposes of the survey, I
Phenotype and Race
Phenotype is the observable characteristics/traits that an individual manifests from their genotype interacting with the environment. Think about what traits people use to classify humans into "races." If you lined people up from all over the world, they would resemble a spectrum instead of distinct groups. People cannot be grouped distinctly into "races" in a scientific, biological way. If you tried to separate them based on a trait, the categories you create would be arbitrary and subjective. For example, we will examine skin color below. You will see that skin color is not discretely divided into biological groups.
Phenotypic Traits and Race; Humans look different, why is that not race?
Yes, humans have different phenotypes such as dark skin or curly hair. These phenotypes do come from different genetic combinations, but these combinations are not divisible into distinct groups. Instead, the divisions we create are arbitrary divisions. If you lined up all of the people in the world according to a trait, the divisions would be less obvious. It would look more like a spectrum that changes gradually blending into one another. For example, think about skin color, one of the most obvious phenotypes in the U.S. and often the default for socially constructing race. See this evidence about why skin color does not differentiate into discrete groups:
From the American Anthropological Association, The Human Spectrum activity shows that deciding how to categorize people is arbitrary.
Another example that demonstrates why the phenotypic trait of skin color is NOT a way to categorize people racially is from a post on the soc images blog, this artist created a palette of colors showing that human skin is much more of a spectrum than distinct groups. See this post for more about the artist and the project, including a Ted Talk.
Where would you divide up this palette into different races?
For an explanation on the biology of skin color, the article "Skin Deep" by Nina Jablonski and George Chaplin from Scientific American explains the science behind skin color and how around the world, skin color would look more like a spectrum than distinct groups. The map below from the article explains the correlation between UV light intensity and skin color. Going back to our metaphor about the traits, do you see how the trait of skin color is a spectrum rather than distinct groups?
Nina Jablonski explains the significance of skin color in her Ted Talk here.
3. Do you understand why skin color cannot be used to categorize people into distinct races?
Other phenotypes besides skin color are also not racially discrete
Click here to go to the Race; Power of Illusion website to see why there is no way of biologically separating people into "races" based on physical appearance (including skin color, nose shape and head size), geographic origins or genetic similarities.
Race Essentialism - an erroneous but persistent theory
During the 1800s and for nearly a century afterward, scientists, including anthropologists and biologists, erroneously concluded that humans evolved from three distinct groups of hominids. Known as the "essentialist theory", this incorrectly posits that each group started as a "pure race" in three separate locations: Mongolia, Caucasia, and Nigeria. Eventually, the groups intermixed but some individuals stayed "more pure" based on less mixing. Using the scientific data that is available to us now, biologists, doctors, anthropologists, and sociologists know that this is not true. Instead of evolving separately, all humans began in Africa and gradually spread out across the globe. However, some people still promote essentialist race theory.
Race is a socially constructed idea that humans can be separated into distinct and discrete groups based on biology. For example, one society might say that there are 3 races in the world: Asian, African and white. But as you will see, other societies have their own categories of race such as Dinka and Bantu and countries will use any combination of heritage, ethnicity, religion or phenotype to create their own ideas about race. Another way to explain the definition of race is that race is the misguided/incorrect belief that people can be separated into groups based on their biological traits such as skin color, hair, eyes, nose, genes, etc...
4. Do you understand that race is not a scientific topic; it cannot be measured discretely or distinctly using any biological trait?
Other Resources to help understand what race is not:
Anthony Peterson "What I am learning from my white grandchildren" at TED talks Antioch explains why race is NOT real but it does matter and why it's important to talk about race with children. He notes that many of us teach that race is real but it doesn't matter and that teaches children the wrong message.
Genetic Research from the Transpacific Project shows multiple maps of genetic markers around the world.
Anatomy Class. Race was so hegemonic that for my first 20 years, SHS anatomy taught that there were 3 essential races! Even after I tried to correct them numerous times. The idea that people can't be categorized biologically into races is difficult to accept and process because race is so ingrained in our society that we never question it. It gets validation from many places, including our very own anatomy classes! (until 2018) (click here for a clarification of the anatomy forensic lesson).
Jefferson Fish also explains how race doesn't make sense in the article titled "Mixed Blood" from Psychology Today, 1995.
For more info you can checkout the April 22, 2005 episode of Odyssey, a radio program that used to air on Chicago Public Radio. This episode about the genetics of race and if you listen carefully to the caller segment, you can hear a very interesting high school sociology teacher commenting. [Listen the program here (the good part is after 35:26)]
This article from Slate explains why ancestry kits do not explain race. And below is an example of my own genetic sequence:
Phenotypic Traits and Race; Humans look different, why is that not race?
Yes, humans have different phenotypes such as dark skin or curly hair. These phenotypes do come from different genetic combinations, but these combinations are not divisible into distinct groups. Instead, the divisions we create are arbitrary divisions. If you lined up all of the people in the world according to a trait, the divisions would be less obvious. It would look more like a spectrum that changes gradually blending into one another. For example, think about skin color, one of the most obvious phenotypes in the U.S. and often the default for socially constructing race. See this evidence about why skin color does not differentiate into discrete groups:
From the American Anthropological Association, The Human Spectrum activity shows that deciding how to categorize people is arbitrary.
Another example that demonstrates why the phenotypic trait of skin color is NOT a way to categorize people racially is from a post on the soc images blog, this artist created a palette of colors showing that human skin is much more of a spectrum than distinct groups. See this post for more about the artist and the project, including a Ted Talk.
Where would you divide up this palette into different races?
For an explanation on the biology of skin color, the article "Skin Deep" by Nina Jablonski and George Chaplin from Scientific American explains the science behind skin color and how around the world, skin color would look more like a spectrum than distinct groups. The map below from the article explains the correlation between UV light intensity and skin color. Going back to our metaphor about the traits, do you see how the trait of skin color is a spectrum rather than distinct groups?
Nina Jablonski explains the significance of skin color in her Ted Talk here.
3. Do you understand why skin color cannot be used to categorize people into distinct races?
Other phenotypes besides skin color are also not racially discrete
Click here to go to the Race; Power of Illusion website to see why there is no way of biologically separating people into "races" based on physical appearance (including skin color, nose shape and head size), geographic origins or genetic similarities.
Race Essentialism - an erroneous but persistent theory
During the 1800s and for nearly a century afterward, scientists, including anthropologists and biologists, erroneously concluded that humans evolved from three distinct groups of hominids. Known as the "essentialist theory", this incorrectly posits that each group started as a "pure race" in three separate locations: Mongolia, Caucasia, and Nigeria. Eventually, the groups intermixed but some individuals stayed "more pure" based on less mixing. Using the scientific data that is available to us now, biologists, doctors, anthropologists, and sociologists know that this is not true. Instead of evolving separately, all humans began in Africa and gradually spread out across the globe. However, some people still promote essentialist race theory.
So what is race?
4. Do you understand that race is not a scientific topic; it cannot be measured discretely or distinctly using any biological trait?
Other Resources to help understand what race is not:
Anthony Peterson "What I am learning from my white grandchildren" at TED talks Antioch explains why race is NOT real but it does matter and why it's important to talk about race with children. He notes that many of us teach that race is real but it doesn't matter and that teaches children the wrong message.
Genetic Research from the Transpacific Project shows multiple maps of genetic markers around the world.
For more about skin color, this lesson from biointeractive shows the distribution of ancestral alleles and derived alleles that affect skin pigment.
From Princeton U. Commons this map shows the spread of humans based on traceable gene mutations in mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosomes.
Anatomy Class. Race was so hegemonic that for my first 20 years, SHS anatomy taught that there were 3 essential races! Even after I tried to correct them numerous times. The idea that people can't be categorized biologically into races is difficult to accept and process because race is so ingrained in our society that we never question it. It gets validation from many places, including our very own anatomy classes! (until 2018) (click here for a clarification of the anatomy forensic lesson).
Jefferson Fish also explains how race doesn't make sense in the article titled "Mixed Blood" from Psychology Today, 1995.
For more info you can checkout the April 22, 2005 episode of Odyssey, a radio program that used to air on Chicago Public Radio. This episode about the genetics of race and if you listen carefully to the caller segment, you can hear a very interesting high school sociology teacher commenting. [Listen the program here (the good part is after 35:26)]
This article from Slate explains why ancestry kits do not explain race. And below is an example of my own genetic sequence:
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