After I read the statements on race from the American Anthropological Association (AAA) and the American Association of Physical Anthropologists (AAPA) it makes me think about race from many positions. It reminded me of the dark past of the bias research of race. I’m happy we’re in a place to see that there is accurate research and information available to the public about race. Since we are all Homo Sapiens, we are all the same. There are a couple of factors that make us different from each other. Those factors are hereditary and the influence of natural and social environments. We all have physical differences and our ancestors came from geographically different places. This leads me to think about American history.

The United States of America has a deep-rooted history with racism. It’s shocking how long-lasting the effect of it is because it still happening in today’s world. Still, to this day, it confuses me that Europeans that settle in America spread false rhetoric saying that Africans and Native American were unequal to them. To add to that, they said that it was God who made Europeans the superior race with better human traits.  All of this is very untrue. In today’s world, racism is not what it was in the past, but it is still here. Police brutality is a major problem that is happening today. There’s a lot of data and research that shows some police officers are targeting African Americans and people of color. Those police officers are using their power to commit illegal actions against those people, which could lead to them getting murdered or seriously injured. Some of the corrupted police officers are a part racist organizations. I think one important thing everyone should read are the statements of race from the American Anthropological Association and the American Association of Physical Anthropological. This would give people a sense of why being racist doesn’t make sense.

One thing a found interesting was from the American Anthropological Association article is “At the end of the 20th century, we now understand that human cultural behavior is learned, conditioned into infants beginning at birth, and always subject to modification. No human is born with a built-in culture or language. Our temperaments, depositions, and personalities, regardless of genetic propensities, are developed within sets of meanings and values that we call “culture. “Studies of infant and early childhood learning and behavior attest to the reality of our cultures in forming who we are.” (American Anthropological Association). This can go back to racism. I remember seeing a video on one of the social media websites that showed children of all different races in daycare or kindergarten playing together. One of the comments under video was racism is taught. It made me remember when I was younger; everyone played and communicated with each other. As I was growing up, I could see that people were hanging out with people that looked more like them. I can’t say this is factual, but I think racism played a significant role for this to happen.