The statements on race from the American Anthropological Association and the American Association of Physical Anthropologists reflect the position of anthropologists on the topic of race and ancestry. What stuck out must to be was how the American Anthropological Association explains their definition of race as “natural and separate divisions within the human species based on visible physical difference”. What they explain in this definition is that these physical differences occur gradually over geographic areas. Because physical traits are inherited independently of one another, they explain, that knowing the range of one trait does not predict the presence of others. This is why skin color varies from climate to climate. Typically lighter/ fairer skin is associated with populations that live in the north while darker skin is associated with more tropical areas in the south. But these facts are both arbitrary and subjective as the article explains and this is not the only definition of race. The idea of race carries more than just physical differences but is also understood as a social mechanism. This stuck out to me in particular because I see that our society tends to focus on race more as a social mechanism than solely physical differences. The idea of race being a social mechanism started back in the 18th century when European settlers brought African slaves to America to work as slaves. This is where racism began. European settlers defined themselves as better than the African’s and therefore that is why they enslaved them. European settlers linked all their traits to be superior and better than all others. They truly believed that they were a separate species from Africans and Indians and they treated them as so. This racial problem still occurs today. It may not be as extreme in some cases as it was when the European settlers brought the Africans to America, but we still see lots of racism in American society. What many do not realize is that we are actually a lot more similar than we are dissimilar from different “races”. Based on what I have learned in this course so far, I would explain the non-existence of biological race to someone who was unfamiliar with the topic by telling them to think of race as a bowl of fruit. There may be apples, oranges, bananas, strawberries, etc. but even though they all may look a bit different and taste a bit different, essentially they are all fruit that have many similarities like being sweet, having seeds, etc. This is how we can view society, made up of many different people but we all have some things in common. Race is a concept that people made up to create social classes and to divide society instead of bring it together. I think if more people took an anthropological view of race then they would be more aware of our similarities to others as we all have a common descent.
4 thoughts on “Week Three”
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Hello Kilia! I enjoyed reading your perspective on the statements given by the AAA and AAPA as well as on the nonexistence of races. Your analogy with the bowl of fruit is a very simple and accessible way to start the conversation about race and I believe that is a great way to go about educating those who may be caught up in the societal definitions of race that people tend to cling to. America was founded on racism and many racist convictions live on to this day in a polarized society that is more concerned with individual ideology than the well-being of the society that culminates from all of our different points. Instead of listening and learning from one another, our culture allows us to just walk away and ignore people who don’t have our exact same beliefs. I believe that if we could begin to teach the non-existence of race from the anthropological view on a level that reaches all of society, we could stop focusing on the differences that we let separate us and start focusing on coming together as human beings.
Hi Kilia!
I really enjoyed the way in which you connected the ideas of race from the AAA as well as the AAPA to a scientific as well as societal standpoint. The attempts at discovering the genetic coding which creates arbitrary behavioral differences between groups of people come up empty, which leaves the societal treatment of those groups to stem from nothing of any value. Like Matthew stated above, I also really enjoyed your example of the fruit bowl as a way to ease someone with little background knowledge on the nonexistence of race as we come to know it today. The physical differences that we see in each other on a daily basis do not detract from the likeness that we all inherently share, and thus under no rational circumstances should the immense hate-fueled rhetoric seen in the past and today be permitted.
Hi, kilia! I think the blogs this week have definitely been the most interesting and entertaining for me to read. We’ve all read the same articles, documents, and watched the same lectures but its so interesting to me how everyone has a little different of a view point but it seems like we all have similar opinions about what race is and how it should or shouldnt be defined. Like the others i really enjoyed your analogy about the bowl of fruit. My dad and i were just talking about this weeks topics and he related race to a bag of chex mix or pebbles on the beach. It all might look a bit different but we still use the same umbrella term to label all of them. So its unfair to treat people who look different differently.
Hello Kilia,
I agree with much of what you wrote in your blog. I like how you mentioned that race differs in physical traits gradually across geographic locations. This is an important concept because much of what race is classified is just “black or white”, when in fact there is much more of a gradient. I thought you had a great analogy where you compared race to a bowl of fruit. It is composed of many different types yet we classify it as one thing. Much of this classification is based on how we are different instead of how we are similar, and after having some knowledge on the topic, it is evident that humans of different “races” are much more similar than they are different. Overall, you had very valuable information to share and I felt you had a great way to describe biological race being not real.