Allie Hughes

July 19th, 2019

Of all the videos, blogs and readings in this class, reading these two statements on race has been the most interesting subject for me.

I am fascinated by how the AAPA and AAA analyzed, outlined and challenged the way, most people in our society, think about race. Except it’s different than other classes have explained it. It included facts, reasoning, logic and evolution to build the case.

Within these readings, my perspective was challenged on race. One statement from the AAA in particular stuck out to me the most: “Evidence from the analysis of genetics (e.g., DNA) indicates that most physical variation, about 94%, lies within so-called racial groups. Conventional geographic “racial” groupings differ from one another only in about 6% of their genes.”

To take a step back, the reason I found the statement effective was from the statistic to back up the claim. Their language is interesting how they use phrases like “so-called racial groups”. All in all, this statement challenges the status quo of how some people can be sensitive or disruptive to people different from themselves.

In my own personal life, I think my mother would find these statements surprising and interesting. She currently is the Director of a program centered around building unity between people from different backgrounds and areas. She mostly studied English and Psychology, so I think this would help her even more in her effort to help bridge the unity between people.

Another statement I found interesting was from the AAA: “’Race’ thus evolved as a worldview, a body of prejudgments that distorts our ideas about human differences and group behavior. Racial beliefs constitute myths about the diversity in the human species and about the abilities and behavior of people homogenized into “racial” categories.” What I found intriguing about this message was how they called about the “prejudgments” from our own perception. I believe everyone grows up with a different idea and meaning of “race”. It can depend on how, when and where you’re raised.

Next, I’m going to transition into how I would define the non-existence of biological race to a person unfamiliar with it.

As much as I enjoyed and found the AAA statement of race fascinating. I believe the AAPA state of biological aspects of race to have structure. When explaining a foreign concept to someone, I believe it can be effective to be a clear as possible. This outline provided me foundational knowledge into this subject matter. I would similarity outline and define as they did. Staring off with, “All humans living today belong to a specific species, Homo sapiens, and share a common descent.” With that, I would add that the biological variation comes the frequency of shared traits. I would further go on to discuss (and give examples) and the biological differences are from both hereditary factors and natural environments. Along with that, I would add statistic and more factual data from the AAA to help provide insight and clear evidence into the definition of something that is non-existent.

Thank you!