In this week’s readings, there were two statements on race from the American Anthropological Association (AAA) and the American Association of Physical Anthropology (AAPA). In these statements, both organizations express the common misconceptions when it comes to race. In the AAA’s statement, it explains that the United States view race to be the “natural and separate divisions within the human species based on visible physical differences.” This seemed like a very accurate description to me of how many people in my community view race. Unfortunately, there is not always a perfect way to explain to members of my family and community the error in their definition of the term race. The statement goes on to explain that with the help of the advancements of science over the past hundred years or so “its has become clear that human populations are not unambiguous, clearly demarcated, biologically distinct groups.” The statement also mentions that “there is greater variation within ‘racial’ groups then between them.” I thought this was an important distinction to make from the more jargon filled definition above. This statement is seemed more poetic than the rest explaining that there isn’t much of a difference between the various subsets of the human race that we create and define through cultural or sociological similarities or differences.

               In the AAPA’s statement, which read like a list of demands, all humans are considered under the umbrella of a single species Homo sapiens and we all share a common decent. In the next section it is explained that “the degree to which environment or heredity affects any particular trait varies greatly.” This also seemed like an important section because it allows some leeway within the understanding of this definition with the caveat that these things vary greatly. Anyone who were to read this statement should be able to understand the variables that come into play with a topic like race. Another interesting part of this statement was the inclusion that pure races do not exist in the human species today, and there is no evidence that they ever existed. Unfortunately, their wording seems more than specific with the inclusion of the word “pure”. This scream to me that there are people in this word that would try to twist this scientific definition in an unseemly way in order to fulfill some type of racist ideology and I’m glad they included this specific phrasing.

               I would explain the nonexistence of biological race to a friend or family member unfamiliar with all this scientific reasoning by first establishing the concept of evolution. I feel that understanding a common ancestor first is key to comprehending only one race when most of your life you are placed in a box of what race you are. Dating back to middle school testing, race is always a necessity when filling out paperwork and it is hard to alter that definition once its ingrained in someone. Overall I would attempt to use the bullet points from our lecture videos and lean heavily on evolution in order to get my point across.