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Sunday, July 10, 2011

"Race", Culture, Ethnicity. What's the difference?

The terms "race"*, culture and ethnicity used alone are confusing. To clarify we should add a modifying word. These modifiers in italics illustrate how we can sharply clarify our meaning.


biological "race"
vs
socio-political "race"


cultural heritage: the culture that our ancestors gave to us
vs
cultural group: the cultural that we are grouped into now, today


ethnic heritage: the combination of biology and culture from our ancestors
vs
ethnic group: the combination of biology and assimilated culture we have now, today


Why the quotation marks around "race"?
I use quotation marks around the word "race" because there has always been controversy over how many biological "races" exist. Is "race" supposed to be a broad category of people or a narrow category of people? There is so much controversy and confusion with "race" as to invalidate the effective meaning of the word. Furthermore, many anthropologists do not believe in biological "race". See the NOVA article: Does Race Exist? and the PBS article 10 Things You Should Know About Race.


Scientifically Speaking
cline and haplogroup are broad categories
haplotype, genotype and phenotype are narrow categories


 Why should I be concerned about using the term race?
The traditional five "races" do not describe the true variety of human kind. Furthermore, grouping people into "races" is dehumanizing and akin to thinking of people as breeds. Even if we are "breeds", mutts and pedigrees, none of us want to think of ourselves in those terms. The outdated concept of biological "race" has lead to racism and colorism, both of which still exists. In order to move away from these biases and to keep our humanity and dignity we should label ourselves "human" and avoid the divisive and outdated term "race".

Why would it be okay to use the scientific words for race?
It makes more sense to use the scientific words because it acknowledges the complexity or our differences without oversimplifying our reality. i.e. the way the one drop myth has oversimplified the complexity of our mixedness.


Chart from J. D. McDonaldTo see what each haplogroup looks like click the "Genetic Markers" button at the bottom of https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/lan/en/atlas.html

See that little gene below? Well, one physical change from that one gene (let's say green eyes) creates a haplotype of a green eyed person. All the green eyed people together are a haplogroup of green eyed people.




Posted by glncv at 11:10 PM
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4 comments:

  1. De Su MamaJuly 11, 2011 at 8:38 AM

    Thanks for this, Glenn! Informative, factual and to the point. This post will be bookmarked for future reference when I want to be certain I am using the correct word for my desired message.

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  2. glncvJuly 11, 2011 at 1:29 PM

    Thank you my sister. The paradoxical weirdness around this topic is that biological race seems to be both real and not real at the same time.
    http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/07/11/nyt.kristof/

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  3. Laila LacyJuly 12, 2011 at 10:17 PM

    Very interesting Glenn. I often wonder about words that could be more accurately descriptive when discussing race, culture, etc. For example, whenever I hear (or say) the term 'interracial relationship' I picture cats and dogs getting married. Absurd visions, yet befitting the language, in my opinion.

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  4. getglnJuly 12, 2011 at 10:56 PM

    I know what you mean. For those of us who are uncomfortable with the abstract and controversial term of biological "race", we are also uncomfortable with the word "interracial" and "biracial". Even the word "racism" becomes confusing if there are no races. It makes "racists" out to be more ignorant then they already are. If a cat and a dog get married I think it would be called an "inter-species relationship" ^_^

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