The two statements made by both the AAA and the AAPA are very similar, but ago about explaining why race does not exist in very different ways. The AAPA goes into specifics about reasons of why race developed and explains for the disparities of why others may question that race may not exist. Each point is laid out in detail and backed up. The AAA gave more of a backstory and focused on why humans and society evolved to think these distinct categories of ‘race’ exist. Reading the statement from AAA and the theories they explained, such as Americans using and developing the idea of race in the 18th century in order to be able to ostracize and harm others and the reasoning behind many years of slavery, war and other world problems was very helpful before reading the statement from the AAPA and the clearly defined points from them.

Clearly laying out each point in the AAPA statement seems to be helpful to the average person who may be interested in the why. They go into things such as explaining why people of a certain ‘group’ in a certain area may have certain similar features or behavior patterns, and how it does not correlate to the defined ‘race’ of their skin and how many traits in humans are a mix of ways genes may flow and adapt to different environments over time, such as migration causing a certain line of genetics to be more adaptable to UV radiation. This caused me to think about the three distinct categories discussed in lecture. The populations of Western Europe, West Africa and East Africa are all shown to be very distinct categories on a map, causing others to think that those three areas are all clearly distinct from each other, not accounting for the continuity if one were to look closer at smaller populations.

One part of the statement given by AAPA that stuck out to me was specifically, “The human features which have universal biological value for the survival of the species are not known to occur more frequently in one population than in any other.” This was interesting because it really shuts down the reasoning for why anybody now, or in history would try to justify discriminating a person based on their arbitrary category of “race”. Further, it gets rid of reasoning behind any existence of stereotypes that have developed behind the certain race categories created.

Ways in which I would try to explain the idea that there is no such thing as the way we define race, and was only an idea made up by society centuries ago would be to first explain where the idea of race came from. Knowing theories of it being rooted in years of hatred and suffering, especially when talking about Americans in the 18th century, made myself and would most likely make others inclined to get rid of all notions they may have known about the idea of race before. I would then explain why others and most humans may have a tendency to think groups of races exist; behaviors and cultural norms that may be associated with larger groups. I would explain that there is no correlation between someone’s biological skin color and their patterns of behaviors and norms; it is simply based off of years of culture developing in certain environments and how those environments have adapted over the years. It just so happens that a lot of people with a similar skin tone may live in those areas.