Skin Deep: Racial Differences

In the previously mentioned video, after testing their DNA, students found that they had more in common with others they perceived as most different to them. In Racial Identities in China, a reference is made to Tang Caichang, a writer in the late 19th century. Caichang noted that "yellow and white are wise; red and black are stupid..." (Dikötter 407) The only valid identifier of race is physical appearance, such as hair texture, skin color, eye shape, etc. While many agree that these are biological phenotypes, the differences between these appearances and categorical races is only skin deep.

In the article A Backdoor to Eugenics, references to Omi and Winant are made about the formation of race and the "increased belief in essential racial difference" which led to the belief that whites possessed traits that made them superior. One quote by Voltaire, mentioned in reference to Gossett, stated "the negro race is a species of men as different from ours...as the breed of spaniels is from greyhounds" (Gossett 1965:45).

The overall conclusion of Tanya Golash-Boza and Nelson is that the only scientists researching these inherent differences were white, and their findings supported their bias of Africans. In Race and Racisms, Samuel George Mortion dismissed any evidence that did not prove his prior assumptions, such as the sizes of skulls and brains of different races to further speculate the intellectual inferiority of other races. "...in the Caucasian group, Morton eliminated the Hindus, who had the smallest skulls, from his sample" (Golash-Boza 24).

Another article, Race as a Medical Truth, states that many medical publications "use racial categories...as if their relevance were obvious" (131). For example, with sickle cell anemia, the main victims of the disease were black, so if a patient had the disease but were white, the doctor still questioned if the patient were black. Whatever genetic makeup that doctors believed made black people solely susceptible to this disease did not apply to the reality of medicine. Attributing certain risk factors to races is problematic because often times it is done without explanation, and it also reinforces the idea that race goes as deep as biological differences. Some medical research claim they're testing different population groups, as explained in Genes, Race, and Research Ethics, yet the negative effect that race is biologically distinct (Hunt & Meygesi 495) is inaccurate over-generalizations.

My own racial identity is Latin American, ethnically Mexican and Puerto Rican. The cultures vary, but I've been raised without much influence from either, so I consider myself detached from either. Depending on who I am speaking to, I define myself as either Mexican or Puerto Rican, and only add the second ethnicity if asked further. Reading the statement by Ossorio and the evidence supporting this statement, I find that the only true differences between my Mexican side and my Puerto Rican side come from culture and ethnicity, as they are different places still within the Latinx category. Other differences, such as treatment and stereotypes come from this idea of racial differences; for example, Mexicans are closely associated with illegal immigration.

For further reading:

http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-9-most-influential-works-of-scientific-racism-rank-1575543279

http://time.com/91081/what-science-says-about-race-and-genetics/

Works cited

1. Dikötter, F. (1994). Racial Identities in China: Context and Meaning.The China Quarterly, (138), 404-412. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/654950
2. Phelan, J., Link, B., & Feldman, N. (2013). The Genomic Revolution and Beliefs about Essential Racial Differences: A Backdoor to Eugenics? American Sociological Review, 78(2), 167-191. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23469170
3. Golash-Boza, Tanya M. (2016). Race and Racisms: A Critical Approach, Brief Edition. Oxford University Press. Page 24.
4. Richomme, O. (2006). RACE AS A MEDICAL TRUTH: A SOCIOLOGICAL APPROACH. International Review of Modern Sociology, 32(1), 129-141. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41421228
5. Hunt, L., & Megyesi, M. (2008). Genes, Race and Research Ethics: Who's Minding the Store? Journal of Medical Ethics, 34(6), 495-500. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/27720117