I am finding it increasingly difficult to avoid the race topic. It seems to be everywhere at the moment. I was sitting in my local library when a BNP canvaser started talking to a 'white' person whilst pointing at me. I was offending him by being there. I was later listening to the radio and heard that EDL protest was being organised in my home town.
Seems like its time to talk about race whether we like it or not. Although, if after thousands of years of life on planet earth we are just figuring out whether we like each other or not, its a bit late don't you think?
Racists believe that their particular race is superior. So I wanted to look into this and see if its true.
Racial classification as we have it today goes back to the 1500s. During this period the Europeans where colonising the world and felt it necessary to categorise people in terms of their skin colour. So they would differentiate themselves and the colonies by using the terms 'white' and 'coloured'. It was a visible and obvious way to separate the conquerors from the conquered.
Later in the 1800 the scientific community started categorising race within the discipline of taxonomy. Which broadly speaking is the classification of things based on their attributes, in other words social science. This categorisation was accepted as scientific and the conclusions have remained unchanged until the 20th century. Between four to six racial groups were identified including Caucasian, black, yellow (Asian) and red (Indian).
Evolution went even further to define the differences in race and the important concept of natural selection or survival of the fittest. The theory as we all know, goes, the most robust species will dominate and survive. Lesser creatures perish and die and this is the natural order of the world. At the top of the human hierarchy was the white man. This was determined by measuring skull sizes and concluding as people with white skin generally have larger skulls they have bigger brains. This way of grouping people was accepted in science until very recently.
Then along came Genetic sciences and we could identify genes, DNA structures and understand them.
Stanford University undertook a study into identifying race within human beings. White European genes where examined alongside ethnic ones and it was found that there was no great variation. In other words according to human biology you cannot determine what colour a person is by way of their genes. This is astonishing and yet maybe not so astonishing. But nevertheless it is not much publicised. The scientific community concluded that racial definitions within human biology were outdated and incorrect. Race identification is a social and political concept and has no basis in science. Science now says there is only one race and that's the human variety.
Unfortunately these findings have not redressed the social classifications in order to change the way we view each other.
If we were to revise the social understanding on race in accordance to scientific boundaries we would have to redefine our world and that is not happening any time soon.
Is it not time for the scientific community to push forward the new thinking on race? With groups like the BNP, EDL causing friction between communities why are we not collaborating better with hard facts and data about race.
I for one would like to see the end of groups like the EDL and BNP, why? Because they are calling for the human extinction. Humans have always migrated it is part of what we do. To try an end migration may well start to signal the death of the human race. Think about it.
