“So What’s the Deal”

In Ifemelus post she poses a question to the doctors, (scientist) about race and genetics. She wants answers about the truth about the genetic variations between race, and is race really a social construct? She suggests that maybe there is a true difference between people of different races which can be used a tool to divide us. And if it is, there this notion that comes with it that suggest that some races are better than the other and that we are not truly the same down to our fundamentals. Ifemelu’s question got me thinking and led me to do a little research of my own. Here is what I found.

Race is a social construct, which serves to determine a hierarchy.Yes. The pigment of your skin, the amount of melanin determines what race you are, we all know that. But what about the genetic variations between different races? I read an article about DNA companies that discover your ancestry so you can answer the question of “What you are”. The problem with this is that your DNA does not tell you what you are, it only tells you who you are more related to genetically as opposed to people from other places. There is no “What you are”. I can not articulate this explanation as good as the article can because I need a firmer understanding of it first, so read this statement made by genetics scientist Dermitzakis “The fact that certain characteristics exist in a certain area just means that those traits have been passed on frequently in that area. Because of those markers, genetic differences can be used to track the movements of populations around the globe, but there’s no one genetic signal that makes anyone a different race.”  

The simplest way for me to think about this is evolution. Take rabbits for example, the season changes from a summer to winter, in the summer grass and dirt covers the ground, foliage and other earthy colors making it easy for the rabbit to blend in, but then winter rolls around, the brown rabbit would stick out like a sore thumb in the meadow of white. The brown bunnies in the winter make easier prey because they can not blend in, killing the brown rabbits off, some rabbits will carry the genetic mutation that makes their fur white in the winter, making it easier for them to survive. These two rabbits have different genetic makeup, but at the end of the day, they are still all rabbits, which is how I think of the human race. The problem in thinking that genetics separate us is that it allows us to separate us. This allows us to create Racial Hierarchies, Hitler has done it with the jews, Francis Galton the creator of eugenics, White people to the Blacks. This ideology is damaging to society, it gives room for people to justify their actions towards other people. African Women getting raped because of how shapely their body is, so surely they’re made for the purpose of sticking your dick in because she is a sex toy, not a human. People need to be informed, because if you are not, then you are ignorant. Ignorance is what shaped America, land of the free, in the first place.

~~A.J.

 

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