"The DNA itself does not show race. Race is a completely visual phenomenon."
I know for a fact that you all know that our physical appearance is determined by our DNA. You are all educated and well read and intelligent. So can't we just accept the fact we look different due to DNA? We understand evolution and how it works, but in this one situation we have to pretend genetic differences don't exist?
Children of mixed parents are the exception that proves the rule. The very words you use to describe the parents in your example is based on our shared knowledge of the definition of the word ‘race’ (however tainted the word is.) We all know what is meant by Asian, subSaharan African, Northern European, and indigenous person of the Americas. If I’m wrong, those descriptors would be meaningless to all of us here.
Up is up, water is wet and we are all physically unique due to our DNA. Differences that are common to a group that is historically from a specific geographical area, exist.
I don’t care what a person looks like. I make zero judgements due to physical appearance. How is my admitting that a certain word has a meaning turn me into a bad person?
In our common vernacular the parents of the girls and the girls themselves appear to be of opposite races. Actually, ancestrally they are all of, what is referred to as mixed races. So, putting aside the pejorative implications of the term “race”, we know that the daughters that look white and the ones who look black, share a lot of DNA, but have enough differences to appear different. If seen on the streets by naive observers, the assumption would be that the girls were of different races. Yet they are twin sisters. As such, whatever “race” they are, surely it is the same “race” as each other.
What is the value of such a rough but complex attempt at classification?
Seems to me such classification is a means to decide who is privileged and who is not. If we continue to insist on “races” and privilege based on whiteness, then twin who looks white will receive “white privilege”, which is unfair given that they come from the same family with the same parents.
3point14rat said,
So can’t we just accept the fact we look different due to DNA?
You and I look different, yes, but only because we come from different families. My sons, who are 1/2 black, resemble both their father and me. One takes after me in that he is little lighter and the other takes after his father because he’s a little darker. Still, despite their skin tone, they also have some of my traits, due to my European and Native American DNA. Due to DNA and being my sons, they look a little like me and their father. So due to DNA, my 1/2 black sons also look like me (native and white) and their father (black and Greek). Due to DNA they have features of black, white, Greek, and Native American- part me and part their father. So yes, they look different from you, but not from me, because they aren’t your offspring. IMHO, it shouldn’t matter to you or anyone else if they are white or not, black or not, or whatever. My sons, their father, and I are human. That should be the only thing anyone sees.
We all know what is meant by Asian, subSaharan African, Northern European, and indigenous person of the Americas.
Yes that is their origins, but they are still part of the human race and none other, IMHO. To call those races, is outdated and stuck in an archaic mindset. My brain says, human, human, human, human. I see that too. The word race was created during a time when Europeans believed they were superior, conquering those they believed to be primitive. It only exists to in order for racist white people to claim “white privilege”, IMO, and suppress those they deem lesser than they are. The word started as a form of a class system and it still exist as such, but the only race is human.
TimB: "So, putting aside the pejorative implications of the term “race”, we know that the daughters that look white and the ones who look black, share a lot of DNA, but have enough differences to appear different."
That's my point, too. Thanks for explaining it in a way others might understand.
My wife is 1/8 Cree. She is fair skinned and I don’t know if anyone could tell she had native Canadian ancestors. Her Mother is 1/4 Cree and is immediately identifiable as native Canadian. Her sister is very much in the middle, with some features that indicate her native side and some her primarily Russian side. Sadly, both my kids missed out on getting native genes that are expressed physically.
Mriana: "IMHO. To call those races, is outdated and stuck in an archaic mindset."
But that's been my position the entire time! We both know what the word 'race' means, but neither of us use it due to the nasty way it's been used in the past.
My writing is seriously bad if all the stuff I’ve said wasn’t understood. I try to be clear, but I guess I end up going on and on and burying the point in too much explanation. It’s my fault, but I don’t know how to write any other way. I’ll work on it.
My wife is 1/8 Cree. She is fair skinned and I don’t know if anyone could tell she had native Canadian ancestors. Her Mother is 1/4 Cree and is immediately identifiable as native Canadian. Her sister is very much in the middle, with some features that indicate her native side and some her primarily Russian side. Sadly, both my kids missed out on getting native genes that are expressed physically.
That’s exactly why I say you can’t tell a person’s ancestry just by looking at them. I’m 1/8 Cherokee, but few people can tell, unless they are looking for such features and I’m not even sure if that’s how they actually know.
"That’s exactly why I say you can’t tell a person’s ancestry just by looking at them."
But you can in most instances. Until the population of the earth has mixed it's DNA sufficiently for that to be impossible, it will be incredibly simple to identify the ancestry of most people. However sad and bad it is that some use that fact for terrible words and actions, it's still an unavoidable fact.
Humans are incredibly observant to facial features and physical appearance. We are instinctually able to identify facial expressions as infants, and we don’t lose our instincts as we get older. So even features we aren’t even consciously aware of can inform us of the ancestry of a fellow human. An artist has to be fully aware of these features, and I can guarantee you that there are some people out there who could tell you with eerie accuracy, where someone’s ancestors lived, simply due to their appearance. There are probably people who could untangle my wife’s ancestry just by looking at her, even though I certainly couldn’t.
it will be incredibly simple to identify the ancestry of most people
I'm not so sure about this. Someone who descended from the Africans who were brought to Jamaica and then fought for their freedom, would probably consider themselves Jamaican. Can you tell a Jamaican from a Kenyan? How about a Korean from a Japanese? Those countries have fought each other for centuries and there are still some people who care about that I'm sure. Or how about Mongols, who are now included in the country of China, or Afghanis who are pretty proud of their heritage and wouldn't want to be just thrown in with some large group like "Asian".
I hoped you would understand that I meant that phrase generally, and without a high degree of precision. I throw in words like ‘most’, ‘usually’, ‘sometimes’, ‘often’, to make sure these misunderstandings don’t happen. To reiterate, my point was “usually/sometimes/often/mostly/regularly/frequently you can identify the ancestry of someone.” Are there exceptions… yes, yes there are, no one here has ever hinted there weren’t… so don’t pretend I said otherwise.
Jamaicans with ancestors from Africa look like people whose ancestors came from Africa, even if ethnically and culturally they are Jamaican. That’s why I use the word ‘ancestry’ rather than other terms. Your ancestry is often (but not always!!!) able to be determined by appearance, while your ethnicity or culture are often (but not always!!!) able to be determined by your clothes, language, rituals, beliefs, etc. (Please don’t post some exceptions as though I don’t know they exist. I went out of my way to emphasize that this is usually/sometimes/often/mostly/regularly/frequently possible.)
I have never claimed that you could tell what country someone is from, I merely said there are physical differences between groups of people, and most examples used in this discussion shows that we are aware of this fact. Regarding where one lives, unless someone tells you where they live, it’s tough to know for sure. I work with lots of folks from Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, all living in Canada now. We are a global village and home is where you hang your hat, so good luck guessing where someone lives by looking at a photograph.
3point, your response leads to the problems that some of us have been pointing out. A little synopsis from Wikipedia:
17th century: The four subgroups that Bernier used were Europeans, Far Easterners, Negroes (blacks), and Lapps.
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752–1840) divided the human species into five races in 1779, later founded on crania research (description of human skulls), and called them (1793/1795):[14]
the Caucasian race
the Mongolian race
the Aethiopian race
the American race
the Malayan race
It gets complicated, especially with Darwin stepping in. I guess this history, for me, is a demonstration that the term was never well defined and never really useful. Other than Caucasian and Negro, who uses these terms? or who ever did? So I’m not challenging the question that race is a thing that can be understood, rather that it’s a thing that has any productive use. I can’t find any definition of it that can be cleansed of the violent social constructions that it supported, intentionally or otherwise.
The Wikipedia entry ends with this quote from Baldwin
"America became white — the people who, as they claim, 'settled' the country became white — because of the necessity of denying the Black presence, and justifying the Black subjugation. No community can be based on such a principle — or, in other words, no community can be established on so genocidal a lie. White men from Norway, for example, where they were Norwegians — became white: by slaughtering the cattle, poisoning the well, torching the houses, massacring Native Americans, raping Black women.... Because they are white, they cannot allow themselves to be tormented by the suspicion that all men are brothers."
For more stuff on this topic, you should read S. J. Gould’s stuff. He has many essays debunking the idea of any sort of genetic hierarchy based on ancestry.
If you’re a fan of his, check out this amazing site that lists every essay he’s ever written broken into the topics found within each essay, plus breakdowns of each of his book, by essay in that book. This is truly someone’s labour of love. I suggest you click on all the links and scroll down them to really appreciate the insane amount of work that went into that site. Holy cow!
For more stuff on this topic, you should read S. J. Gould’s stuff. He has many essays debunking the idea of any sort of genetic hierarchy based on ancestry.
Gould's work against evolutionary biology has not aged well. He is held in low regard by most scientists in that field.
I’m with Lausten. I’m not so sure it is “incredibly simple to identify the ancestry of most people”. There’s too many genes in the mix for most people to go around labeling them this or that. Besides, it’s offensive for some, if not a lot of people. I’m not the only who refuses to identify their “race”. From what I’ve been told, it happens often that people refuse to answer the race question.
In the US, we could all just answer the race question on forms as “African American”, since we all had ancestors 50 or so thousand years ago, who were Africans.
