Recently, I was watching something and the speaker asked the general question, “What is Race?”, further expanding the initial question by asking, “what is the definition of race?” This confounded me because race is something that seems so present in our society that it would be only logical that we all can say what it is. But really, I could not think of an answer. I was later confused when I was informed that there was no one gene that determined a person’s race. This really confused me and I still struggle to fully comprehend that. Howevers, this week’s readings answered a lot of those open-ended questions for me. Further, reading the AAPA statement on how they perceive race added to my understanding. 

In particular, Point 2 that the AAPA makes about race stuck out to me as someone with a secondary major in psychology. The Association points out their belief that race is determined by hereditary factors as well as environmental and social factors. This reminded me greatly of the Nature v. Nurture argument that is present in Psychology often, but of course is discussed in other sciences as well. The debate is over whether a person’s genetic and biological makeup has greater determining power over their life rather than the environment they grew up or currently live in. It can be deduced that the logical answer is not 100% one way or 100% the other, the two factors must and do work together. Reading the AAPA say this reminded me that most everything about human beings is determined by a combination of factors and not just genetics, and that includes race. 

What I primarily noticed about the AAA statement was their detailed focus and explanation about how exactly the modern perception of race has come to be, citing the belief in the Great Chain of Being and other historical ideas about human beings. I believe they did this extensively to set up how their definition and understanding as an organization that studies race through the lens of anthropology will go against this understanding. They want to emphasize that though “race’ has become something socially defined, they want to scale it back and look at it through a scientific, hereditary, and evolutionary standpoint. As you read on in their statement, you see that is exactly what they do. I appreciate them taking the time to set the stage to show readers how their opinions defy the social understanding. 

In order to explain to someone how there is not a single biological gene that determines race, I would present them with the example of how people of the same race have different skin tones. If you think about people in the black population especially, there is a wide range of skin tones consisting of light, almost white-passing skin colors to extremely deep. The individuals are all considered black or of African descent, but their skins differ likely do to environment and social effects, like colonizing and sun exposure throughout history as discussed in the lecture. Thinking of this example helped me understand it and I suspect it would help someone else as well.