Is Race Real?


By Nicholas D. Kristof
New York Times Op-Ed Columnist
Friday, July 11, 2003 Posted: 7:02 AM EDT (1102 GMT)

OXFORD, England -- I had my DNA examined by a prominent genetic specialist here, and what do you know! It turns out I'm African-American.

The mitochondria in my cells show that I'm descended from a matriarch who lived in Africa, possibly in present-day Ethiopia or Kenya.

O.K., this was 70,000 years ago, and she seems to be a common ancestor of all Asians as well as all Caucasians. Still, these kinds of DNA analyses illuminate the raging scientific debate about whether there is anything real to the notion of race.

"There's no genetic basis for any kind of rigid ethnic or racial classification at all," said Bryan Sykes, the Oxford geneticist and author of "The Seven Daughters of Eve." "I'm always asked is there Greek DNA or an Italian gene, but, of course, there isn't. . . . We're very closely related."


Bigots of every color, creed & ethnicity will scream with one vioce over this (http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/07/11/nyt.kristof/index.html)
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If this is valid, it's not going to be an easy pill to swallow.

If Tentmaker was still looking at this forum, no doubt he would already have eaten his keyboard !

In Europe, there is not much debate about races and genetics. Few people still try to say that racial differences can be backed by biology - I guess the nazis cured us from that.
But racists have a new and subtle way of propaganda : the "cultural" racism. Le Pen, for example, the french far right politician, always insists on the differences between cultures. This is quite clever since the acceptation of various cultures has long been a left-wing value.

He can then argue than the european/western culture is superior to all other (using simple statements such as : "one can say the Parthenon and a piece of wood sculpted by a peasant have the same value, I disagree"), and the theorical basis for effective racism is ready again !

Astra,

I think I'm one of those cultural "racists" you're talking about. That is, I think Western culture has values that make it's culture better than other cultures. Do you think all cultures are equal, or would you agree that there are some cultural values that work better than other cultural values?

That is a very difficult question, and that is precisely why racists such as Le Pen are very clever to use this cultural argument.

One can criticize some aspects of other cultures - for example, the "Burkha" women are supposed to wear in Afghanistan is something I find revolting.
But I criticize this as regard to some universal human values that should be above all cultures - basically, the human rights.
Far-right thinkers hate this idea of universal values - their motto is : people and culture should not mix, and every culture should be "protected" from alien values - and, first of all, our culture should be protected from other cultures, by not allowing foreigners to live in our country.

They consider that any individual is totally conditioned by his culture. Then people are not seen as free individuals but mostly as representants of their culture. We all know this is not true : of course, culture has some importance in many aspects of our lives, but we also can go further, especially if we are given the chance to meet people from other cultures, to travel, to have a good education…

I believe the variety of cultures in a country are a great asset for that country, even if sometimes it may cause some problems.
I also consider people should be considered first as individuals, rather than on the basis of their physical appearance ("biological racism") or of their cultural origin ("cultural racism").

That does not prevent me from having a critical look at every culture, of course (but being the offspring of a particular culture, it is hard to stay objective when looking at others).