Jacet Williams

            Many people are under the misconception that phenotypical traits refer to differences between races that can be identified in our genotype. Race as a scientific concept has perpetuated racial stereotypes that signal predominantly social, economic, and political handicaps versus genetic inferiority. Most individuals find it difficult to ascertain that race is a social construct that holds no biological significance. In the documentary; “Race: The Power of Illusion, Episode 1”, Pillar Ossorio discusses many pseudo-scientific ideologies that perpetuated race as biologically determined such as Hoffman’s Extinction Thesis and the social ramifications for such thinking.

            Pillar Ossorios assertion that there is as much or more genetic variation in a racial classification than between them is in stark contrast to the popular idea; that phenotypes which indicate our race, are evidence of a vast biological difference between races. Mitochondrial DNA is used as a means to illuminate how little genetic variation exists between races. MTDNA is derived from the mother’s genes and is characterized by an ATCG sequence. Using MTDNA one could compare and contrast genetic sequences. As illustrated in the documentary, the students learned firsthand how their genetics held closer similarities to various racial groups including those with perceived greater differences (ex: whites and Blacks). Ossorio affirms that 1 out of every 1000 nucleotides differ in humans between races.

            For many years scientists tried to identify physical differences to explain the superiority-inferiority ideologies. Scientists studied brain color, hair type, the Negro nose, the Negro heart, the Negro eyes, etc. and yet established no key distinctions. Why was there such a need to verify genetic differences between races? The documentary elaborates that during the Industrial Revolution Whites thrived in the expanding economy as oppose to Blacks with high infant mortality rates, remaining Natives pushed towards reservations, and immigrants in the ghettos dying of pestilence. This was viewed as a “pre-ordained Natural Order” where Whites were the fittest to survive.

            In 1896, Hoffman created his extinction thesis. He asserted that the current condition of the Black race was purely a result of a naturally inferior biology and no amount of education or aid could help them. The Blacks extinction was inevitable. The need to justify the oppression of slaves scientifically and religiously has a direct correlation to the social injustices experienced by Blacks. As Omi and Winnant point out; racial formations are derived from racism that stems from religion and philosophy. In a predominantly Christian Country such as the U.S, to justify the heinous acts Whites committed against Blacks, a need to dehumanize Blacks ensued. Implications that Blacks were lesser humans who would eventually die out, whose purpose could never amount to anything substantial, and alluding to the degradation of the Black race as a natural order allowed for society to ignore that high mortality and poverty rates truly stemmed from systematic social and economic oppression received by the hands of professed freedom loving Christian Americans.

            My mother is African American, Great Grandmother-Native American, my father is from San Juan, and my step father (who raised me all my life) is Jamaican. I have always identified myself as Black. Upon marrying a man of Dominican heritage I have transitioned to identify myself as Dominican and Black. Why? I take pride in my African American heritage, specifically my ability to cook soul food. I also enjoy my Dominican phenotype that I assume stems from the mix of my Puerto Rican and Black parents. Being exposed to Dominican Culture and the growing number of racial inquiries and assumptions that I am Dominican I have taken a place of belonging amongst another group purely based on phenotype. My own experience proves that racial formations are merely skin deep. Oppression is what people do when they have power and desire to expand and preserve it. Racial formations are a product of that oppression and sociological and scientific reasoning’s will bend at the will who has the power.