Reevaluating Race and Ethnicity – Insights from Human Biology and Variation

Reevaluating Race and Ethnicity – Insights from Human Biology and Variation

After the study of human biology and variation in this class, my perception of race and ethnicity has changed in that it has reinforced my understanding of the concept of race in that it is largely a social construct and partially a biological aspect of human beings. According to Baker (2008), race was not really a thing prior to the seventeenth century, when slavery began, and people had to find a way to justify treating others like animals. As such, the concept of race was introduced, with dark-skinned people falsely being labeled as beneath light-skinned people. While there is a biological component to race, for example, dark-skinned people have more melanin than light-skinned people, this still does not justify making up the whole race concept just to classify people. Skin color is just a physical trait, the same way height, tongue rolling, fingerprint patterns, and eye color are. However, the four latter traits have not been used to classify people in any way. Further, seeing as my generation is more aware of how race is a social contrast has significantly affected how people perceive each other.

In regards to ethnicity, I have come to understand it is mainly about a person’s cultural, linguistic, and ancestral heritage. Notably, ethnicity is different from race because, as seen through genetic testing, a member classified as white or black could have DNA variants from the other race, making that race part of their ethnicity. Baker (2008) also states that all human beings share a common ancestor from which they all evolved. This is also proven by the human genome project, which showed that we all share 99.9% of our DNA despite all these physical differences (Nurk et al., 2022). The small variations that then lead to these physical differences are argued to be a result of DNA modification as humans got acclimated to different living conditions in different parts of the world. Finally, the reexamination of race and ethnicity has had a positive impact in that it has impacted disciplines, for example, anthropology, sociology, and history. Researchers are ever more scrutinizing the ways in which race has been created and utilized to exert supremacy and control. This interdisciplinary method has resulted in an extensive understanding of the dynamics of race and ethnicity and has prompted critical examinations of institutionalized racism and inequality.

References

Baker, L. D. (2008). Anthropology, History of. In Encyclopedia of Race and Racism: Vol. 1 (a-f) (pp. 93–97). Thomson Gale. https://people.duke.edu/~ldbaker/documents/baker36.pdf

Nurk, S., Koren, S., Rhie, A., Rautiainen, M., Bzikadze, A. V., Mikheenko, A., Vollger, M. R., Altemose, N., Uralsky, L., Gershman, A., Aganezov, S., Hoyt, S. J., Diekhans, M., Logsdon, G. A., Alonge, M., Antonarakis, S. E., Borchers, M., Bouffard, G. G., Brooks, S. Y., . . . Phillippy, A. M. (2022). The complete sequence of a human genome. Science, 376(6588), 44–53. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abj6987

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PROFESSOR INSTRUCTIONS:
How has the study of human biology and variation in this class changed how you think about race and ethnicity?

Reevaluating Race and Ethnicity – Insights from Human Biology and Variation

Try to touch on the many sides of this complex prompt: society and history, perceptions from other people, individual cultural identity, biology, and patterns of human variation. You may cite external sources for academic or social references, or just share your thoughts in your response.