Friday, July 15, 2011

Confussion about races?

Wow, lots of ideas. I'm not even sure the question is really a question. I'll tell you what I learned in Anthropology 101 though. There is more genetic variations between people of a given 'race' than there are between people of different 'races.' That sounds confusing, but basically the factors that people point to as defining one race or another are really arbitrary. A so called Caucasian and an African American can share many traits. An African American and another African American can have many genetic differences. We are all human and race is a cultural idea. Which you can see by looking at the history of the idea of race. Did you know the Irish used to be considered a separate race? It all depends on who we consider to be like 'us' and who we consider to be not like 'us.' That whole skull measuring thing was a major mistake in the history of Anthropology and was basically racist science. Anthropologists today are regretful to see that still in circulation. Read the book Skull Wars.

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