Alie Salazar

Teresa Potter
ANTH 1020
April 30
th
2014
The Concept of Race.
What is race? Im pretty sure that is the question we all ask from time to time. In a
social meaning, race is inherited by physical characteristic. In a biological way it was
determined by a geographical patterned and physical variation within space. Following
with this term race has been known to categorize us humans by culture, hair, skin color,
language and locations which are characteristics that is identifying us as race groups.
Often we tend to think that race is one variable that give us meaning to separate from each
other. But do we really know what makes our population? Race is the idea of groups from
on variation to another, our genes and physical traits are the ones that define our
characteristics. According to John Relethford the author of the fundamentals of Biological
Anthropology explains that race is a group of population that shares some biological
characteristics. (John Relethford social since Oct 1996).
In a biological perspective, the concept of race is also part of the same polytypic (referring
to species composed of different populations and traits), meaning having two or more
different species.
When the word race comes to me, I think about or origins, where do we come from and
who we come from. I think about our genes and what makes us humans. In the book
Human Origins Evolution and Diversity by Jurmain states that most people have
traditionally combined with various characteristics like skin color is because they have
been categorized and associated with specific geographical locations. (Human Origins Page
313)
Throughout the years we have seen change all over, we have evolved as humans beings
and we have a wider variety of races, because of how broad we are with mix race, it has
come to us developing mix races for our future generation. Looking back trough the years,
race was a huge issue. It was the main idea that created racism; it separated us from the
color of our skin, it also created a strong social identity where the people express as racial
groups. For example discrimination between white and black color skin. Back then it in the
south because of what people though race was it created segregation and we label each
other. Now on days we are able to be more diverse and we can have more opportunity
when it comes to race. In more common years we are able to describe race between animal
and plants or any nonhuman species. Today we are more educated and we know the
difference between race and ethnicity meaning it refers to being culturally diverse.
Critically evaluating the formal biological concept of race is that we have exceeded as
human beings to categorize our salves as social group and race groups. Some biological
anthropologist believed that race still is outdated, but research has been found that most
anthropologist have continued to study human traits like skin color and eye color in our
genes, not only that but also they have done some deeper research on our adaptation and
growing population, even though some anthropologists dont recognize race as a concept
because our genetic variation.
In my opinion I think race still is a huge topic to discuss. Biological to me is how we
compare our inherited traits; it is un-logical and unethical to think that people from other
parts of the world are biologically different. We are all different and the way we see race is
a mistaken point of view, we are only looking at the outside and we are categorizing
ourselves into specific race groups. We are socialize now and day and they only way we can
compare each other is throw looking at our skin color and even our cultural appearances,
stereotyping is also another way criticizing our ethnicity group.
For years to come we will still try to figure out the main meaning of race, because of our
environment and adaptation we as human will keep changing and we will evolve
differently, race still is a mystery and for now scientific research will influence our near
future.









Work Citations:
Human Origins Evolution and a Diversity Juriam| Kilgore| Trevathan
(Chapter 12 page 314 Human Variation and Adaptation)


The Fundamental of Biological Anthroplogy
(John Relethford social since Oct 1996).

Institute of Human Origins ASU
Current News." Welcome. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Apr. 2014

Biological Anthropology
Human, Social, and Political Science. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Apr. 2014.