Michael Rudy

Teresa Potter
ANTH-1020
December 1, 2015
It doesnt Matter if your Black or White
Race and ethnicity are used interchangeably, but historically where initially separate, race is
defined by Standford (Gendered Innovations in Science health and Medicine, Engineering and
Environment) as a biological quality and ethnicity as a cultural phenomenon they do note that
this idea is not agreed upon socially. Race has been turned from a biological stance to social
categorization, which throughout history has been manipulated to gain power and authority over
people. Stanford states that geneticists agree that race taxonomies or categories are not visible
at the DNA level. In other words, DNA does not divide us as humans into categories such as
whites and non-white, Nazis and Jews or picky eaters and not picky eaters. Stanford gives a
little attitude to science, genetic markers do not differ sufficiently by race to be useful (Duster,
2009; consimides, 2003) science is over the point of race as defined socially, science goes
beyond the want of authority and oppression of certain ethnicities, due to superiority of
individuality of our DNA.
Socially people look on the visual appearance and cultural attributes of an individual. Now,
someone could argue doesnt biology determine these visual aspects? according to a lecture
power point on Social Construction of Race by David Schweingruber 2005 he define race
socially structured in the following: category of people labeled and treated as similar because of
some common biological traits, such as skin color, texture of hair and shape of eyes (p 383).
These traits are culturally determined. Society has mixed up the definitions of race and

ethnicity. It may be because racism flows better phonetically than Ethnicism, or it could be as
simple as ethnicism just does not give the negative connotation that racism does. Schweingruber
dates social race being invented in the 18th century, he also states that race and racism has always
been connected socially. So it is safe to elaborate between Stanford and Schweingruber race
biological and racism is a social design to gain authority over others.
Historically race in the biological stand of race has opened many doors for misinterpretation
and justifications. These flaws, due to scientific studies and ideals of superiority from vocal
individuals, have led to discriminatory practices starting with inherent sex differences in the
18th century this outlook justified excluding women from professional positions and rights of
citizenships. This justified continuation of racial differences in the 19th century of non-whites
(Russett, 1989; Schiendingner, 1993). New scientific discoveries and misinterpretations of IQ
and brain structure and lesser evolution on non-whites allowed this justification to continue. In
Europe Article 8 of the European Parliament Directive 95/46/EC prohibits processing personal
information such as race or ethnic origin, political opinions, religion or belief etc. with the
exception of scientific, health and medical research. Which Stanford touches on that race in the
social aspect is of no use unless the definition of race is the historical definition of biological
identities. This is a smart way the Europe approaches race, because in the United State
Education Systems personal information is necessary for tests, yet it is not Medical, scientific or
Health. So, the question is do school systems need this information or could they go without?
Biologically race is needed for medical history, because of social dogmas we see that people
hesitate with the word race comes because of the negative connotation. It is not easy to undo the
connotation of race and therefore race is not seen biologically. It makes sense that science in the
early years needed a way to categorize the human DNA and attributes innocently this started as a

way or organizing us, but then it was twisted by an ideal that made a huge impact socially. This
then became folk racialism (21.2.1 Denying the Biological Reality of Race; Making Race out of Nothing
by Ron Mallon and Daniel Kelly; Pg 509) for Ethnical attributes such as Mexicans, Asians, whites,

non whites etc. If people understood more about race they would understand that not only is it
DNA, but it also has to do with survival geographically as well. People look and are who they
need to be to survive in their geographical location and circumstances that they live in. It is not a
difference of better or best, because of natural selection we have all made it this far to survive
more efficiently as the earth and its climate changes. Race can help us understand more about the
person biologically than race socially; which makes us closed minded and not open to
geographical differences.
The ethnic concerns for categorizing race is unfortunately already in process, even if we
defined race as biological we would still get the same racist effects, because it is easy to say and
understand that skin color is genetically based. Racism is not a state of being it is a state of mind.
No one is created to be inferior or superior genetically, scientifically they are not connected, but
the mind is channeled to make connections, to make categories for items, people and places. As
an example of what I mean is which is scientifically better? Family time; Working for survival;
or Eating for survival. Scientifically, these are all necessary to survive, some are social others are
biological. Depending on the individual if you asked them to rate these in general you would get
many different ratings, at the moment of their state of mind you might find someone thinks food
is most important, because they are starving; and so on with the others. Racism is the same way,
scientifically; Skin color white, brown, yellow all serve a purpose geographically and are all
necessary and important. State of mind says whites are superior because we understand English
and brown skinned people so not know how to speak English. Yet; brown skinned people did not

need English to speak to each other they spoke their own language. State of mind in importance
is opinion based and not factual.

Black or White by Michael Jackson album dangerous, release date: Nov 11th 1991
"Race & Ethnicity." Race & Ethnicity.
https://genderedinnovations.stanford.edu/terms/race.html
The Social Construction of Race.; David Schweingruber; Lecture PDF 2005
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~s2005.soc.134/134lecture33(apr04)bw.pdf
Making race out of Nothing.; Chapter 21 Psychologically Constrained Social Roles; Ron
Mallon and Daniel Kelly, March 10, 2012.
http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~drkelly/MallonKellyMakingRaceNothing2012.pdf
Intro to Anthropology 1020 Book reference: Human Origins; Evolution and Diversity. By
Jurmain/Kilgore/Trevathan, ninth edition. Copyright 2013, 2011 Cengage Learning. Chapter 12:
Human Variation and Adaptation. Class notes references chapter 12.