After thoroughly reading through both statements regarding from the well-known professional physical anthropology’s organization such as the American Anthropological Association (AAA) and the American Association of Physical Anthropologists (AAPA). First, when I read this one particular statement from the (AAA) organization that stated: “And because physical traits are inherited independently of one another, knowing the range of one trait does not predict the presence of others.” This line raised my attention because in the world of physical anthropology there is a good amount of human variation within this planet. Whether there is a caucasian person with blue eyes and dark hair, or with green eyes and blonde hair. Even on the other hand, there is an African American with dark eyes and maybe short hair, or even brighter eyes with long hair. The human variation is what distinctively categorized humans into certain groups based on their phenotype. However, to explain this statement about how physical traits vary from one another and we (humans) cannot predict the outcome of an offspring trait based on the visual of their mother and father. I believe the point that this organization is trying to suggest that our perception of race depends highly on which factors can be considered. However, another line from this article that surprised me was when they stated “No human is born with a built-in culture or language. Our temperaments, dispositions, and personalities, regardless of genetic propensities, are developed within sets of meanings and values that we call “culture.” Now I understand that every infant is born with no pre-existing culture of having certain characteristics. However, I knew but was not sure about how we easily adapt to our culture based on parts of the world we may live in. This simply goes back to the basics of we develop our culture mainly through our environmental factors, basically our surroundings and the genetic factors which we inherit from our families. Meanwhile, when I browsed through the official statement from the (AAPA). I did notice a few lines that correlate with the discussion about non-biological race and ancestry. The one that caught my eye said: “Biological Differences between human beings reflect both hereditary factors and the influence of natural and environments.” As I stated before, regarding how we interact with each other and adapt because of the environmental and genetic factors. This is the source of how human variation occurs in different shapes, sizes, and skin color within our bodies. Including to that, even if there are a certain group of people that have similar qualities such as the same phenotypes. There is always something that distinguishes one individual from another simply because of our variation in society. Another line that I strongly agree with is that “Racist political doctrines find no foundation in scientific knowledge concerning modern or past human populations.” To further explain this to someone who has not taken this course, I would first say that non-biological race is defined based on one’s perception. Race can refer to the complexion of skin color, the physical alignment of the face and body type, or most importantly it can be defined by the culture someone develops. But not to confuse the individual, I would just ask them the most important question and that is “What does race mean to them?” and determine the history of non-biological race definition they are not aware of. Furthermore, someone with a close-minded personality is very difficult to teach and can be kind of confusing. I think that many people will not understand because we live in a world of very opinionated people and that it can be very hard to convince to see the perspective of how race has destroyed the concept of how we view each other based on our skin color.
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I also really loved the point about how one trait can’t predict others. That idea makes an amazing point about how race is used to stereotype people. Scientifically, an individual’s race does not indicate anything about their behavior, attitude, intelligence, etc. All of those things are influenced by cultural upbringing and environment, not genetics. This says a lot about how people can falsely classify based on race when really they’re classifying based on who someone’s parents are and what type of environment they were raised in. I also really enjoyed the point made about language and specifically, I remember one of the statements talking about how people tend to mate with individuals who share the same language with them, which is the reason that society thinks people can be classified racially. I loved the way you tied everything together!
Hi, it is great that you have mentioned “physical traits are inherited independently of one another”. This sentence indicated that it is impossible to use the physical traits to draw lines within the human species. For example, we have people with very black skin and curl hair, and we also have people with dark brown skin and dark brown hair. We have people with white skin and blue eye color, as well as people with white skin and black eye color. When so many traits mixed with each other, it is unreasonable to really define the term, race. Also, I think we should not link the physical traits with the social status of people. All human beings should be treated equally, despite of their physical appearances. The concept of race is established within a certain historical context.