In a sociology class I took before coming to Michigan State we talked about race and what it meant. In the class we learned that race as we understand it is basically socially constructed so the articles weren’t a huge surprise to me but I was surprised at just how in depth some of the knowledge about race goes. The part about the percentages, “most physical variation, about 94%, lies within so-called racial groups. Conventional geographic “racial” groupings differ from one another only in about 6% of their genes.” was especially interesting to me. I didn’t know that there was so much variation within racial groups themselves.
It’s kind of crazy to see how much race still affects things today. A perfect example would be people losing their minds over the casting of a black person as Ariel in the upcoming film. People argued so strongly against the casting and it’s something that shouldn’t make a difference, it’s just a movie. Our political climate is incredibly racially charged as well. The AAA statement sums it up well by saying, “The “racial” worldview was invented to assign some groups to perpetual low status, while others were permitted access to privilege, power, and wealth. The tragedy in the United States has been that the policies and practices stemming from this worldview succeeded all too well in constructing unequal populations among Europeans, Native Americans, and peoples of African descent.”
The AAPA statement’s first position is that “all humans living today belong to a single species, Homo sapiens, and share a common descent.” Since I have always learned that we shared a common descent I was surprised that this had to be stated. I wasn’t aware of polygenism before this class and it was definitely something that stood out to me this week.
If I had to explain to someone who was unfamiliar with the non-existence of biological race I would probably use some information from the AAPA, the third one states that, “There is great genetic diversity within all human populations. Pure races, in the sense of genetically homogenous populations, do not exist in the human species today, nor is there any evidence that they have ever existed in the past.” Although I don’t particularly like the word “pure” here I understand their definition and think the fact that no evidence a “pure” race has ever existed is compelling for the non-existence of race. Also I would use the previously mentioned percentages, with 94% of physical variation happening within racial groups.
I really like how you made a contemporary reference with the Ariel comment because it is so applicable to the idea of race being a social construct. Why would the casting of a person of color be such a big deal if racial separation was not such an integral part of North America’s history? You make a really good point about polygenism as well. I always knew what it was but I had not realized there was an actual term for it, nor did I realize how scrutinized it was before reading these articles. As well as the fact that there is so much more genetic variance inside racial groups, rather than between the different groups. You never really think about how people look so different even though they’re all variations of European.
Hi Courtney,
Great post! I agree with you that reading that there is more variation within a group than an outsider was very interesting. It honestly made me think of this podcast that I listen to called,”True Crime Obsessed”. In one episode it talked about this individual-who is in a Neo-Nazi- that moved into a small town called Leith in North Dakota. His goal was to buy off several pieces of land so that he could several Nazi people to move in essential he wanted to create a town of only “pure white breed people”. Don’t worry he was very unsuccessful and the residents got him to take a Ethnicity test to prove he is not fully white breed. It was interesting and worth listening to it, if you do it is called episode 37.
As for the casting of a black women for Ariel is shocking but sadly it clearly shows that this issue has expanded here in America. I think it is crazy that people are petitioning her to be removed just because her skin color does not correspond to the ‘fairy-tale” story.