Race: Socially Constructed or Biologically Proven?

Dennis Gowdie

September 19, 2016

Many people like to believe that the idea of race can be scientifically proven through strands of DNA which has been proven wrong time after time. In the film “Race: The Power of an Illusion, Episode 1,” Ossorio clearly states “we can’t find genetic markers that clearly define race” (Ossorio). In this film, students were asked to test their DNA by using samples of their blood and saliva through cotton swabs in order to compare their genes in an attempt to locate any biological differences that may be present within the body. The results in the video were very shocking to me indeed. Much like the students in the video, I too once believed that people who shared the same skin color would have more similar traits in common, but the results of the study proved otherwise. In fact, people whose skin tone was different actually had more similarities as compared to someone with the same racial background. I think that purpose of this study was to prove that the idea of race is not biologically linked.

The film entitled “The Human Family Tree” shows how the idea of race is absurd by scientifically proving that there is no genetic difference between people of diverse races. Whether an individual considers themselves African American, Hispanic, or European, chances are their ancestors were a mixture of many diverse cultural backgrounds. The society that we live in today uses race in an attempt to segregate certain groups of people due to the pigment of their skin. However, this video proves that all human beings are related in some way by creating a huge family tree that traces back to the motherland of life itself, Africa. By using this huge family tree model, it was proved that all human beings came from the same place and our ancestors all traveled on the same land in Africa.

My racial identity or what I choose to identify myself as is Black. Although I know that I am African American, it is hard to identify with my African roots for the simple fact that I have never been to Africa to witness the culture at first hand. As an American born person, I have never experienced listening to African music or eating African food which makes it hard for me to identify with the African culture. Therefore, I like to think of myself as simply Black.

Although it has already been proven that race is a social concept, other researches have tried to prove otherwise by conducting experiments. Researchers attempt to prove that race is a biological factor by measuring the effects of certain drugs when given to people of different racial groups, particularly African Americans and Caucasians. In the article “Genes, drugs, and race” by the Nature Publishing Group, scientists try to prove that the results from heart drugs varies for people of different races. However, many geological factors can be the cause of such differences, “race is an imprecise term. While the frequencies of certain allelic variants and mutations vary among people who share geographic origins, such ancestry is not necessarily reflected in the commonly used racial categories--American Indian, Asian, black, white, Hispanic, or other--which are based on the divisions used by the US Census Bureau (Nature Publishing Group)”.

After watching these videos, I too believe that race is a social concept. These videos demonstrate how race is used to discriminate against individuals who do not look like an individual’s inner race, typically whoever is not Caucasian. Both films clearly state that there is no biological proof that “race” is even real. Of course, the idea of race and the horrible consequences that the African American male and female have endured is real, but the idea that race is what makes us different as humans is only a myth and cannot be scientifically proven.

Works Cited

Genes, drugs and race." Nature Genetics 29.3 (2001): 239+. Academic OneFile. Web. 21 Sept. 2016.

Lundborg, H. (1931). Social Forces. Race Biological Perspectives, 397-401.

Omi, M., & Winant, H. (1994). Racial Formation. Race and Ethnic Relations in the Twenty First Century, 91-107.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3D3KX0l7M8