Race and its development

Abstract

This article is composed of several parts including a brief history for differentiating the races, geographical distribution and physical characteristics of races, ways through which the characteristics of races were formed, the blurring of boundaries between races, queries on the biological concept of race, race in actual life, anti-racism and concluding remarks. French philosopher and physician F. Bernier proposed the concept of race to describe the diversity of humans for the first time in 1684. Linnaeus divided Homo sapiens into Europeans, Asians, Americans and Africans. Blumenbach divided human beings into yellow, red, white, brown and black races and recognized that there were transitional human populations between neighboring races. Different races previously occupied different territories and possessed different physical characteristics which were clearly observable in the period earlier than 300 years before present. For a long time, the Mongoloid or Yellow race was distributed in the eastern and central parts of Asia, Southeast Asia and the Americas; the Caucasian or European or White race was distributed in Europe, western and southern parts of Asia and north Africa; the Negroid or Black race was distributed throughout most of Africa; and the Australoid or Brown race was distributed in Australia and neighboring islands, and usually included in the Black race. Ancient humans migrated from Africa around 1.8 Ma and dispersed in large areas of Eurasia. They diverged in physical characteristics due to genetic drift, mutation and adaptation to new environments. The expansion of European into Americas, Africa and Australia in last hundreds of years has changed the geographical distribution of races, and more and more hybrids have been blurring the boundary between races in physical characteristics described in the earlier literatures. This led to the gradual disappearance of the reality of biological concept of race which was queried by F. Boas and successive challengers in anthropological studies. In 1996 a “Statement on Biological Aspects of Race” was announced by the American Association of Physical Anthropologists that the classification of race has no genetic basis and no legitimate position in the biological science. Race is a social and political concept. The use of race concept has been declining. In the beginning of this century only 50% of physical anthropologists and 31% of cultural anthropologists in the US accepted the validity of biological races in Homo sapiens . There are many reasons for the decline in the acceptance of race as a means of understanding human variation. However, it is necessary to point out that the anthropologists who refuse to accept the biological concept do not deny the biological differences among various populations. They consider that the humankind varies clinally. In 1997, six racial categories were defined by the US Office of Management and Budget: White or Caucasian, Black or African American, Asian, Amerindian or Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander and some other race. Most of them are classified based on external appearance and the geographical distribution of their ancestors, while the category Asian includes populations the ancestors of which migrated from east and central Asia as well as south Asia and had been attributed to Mongoloid and Caucasian respectively in early 20th century. Epidemiological studies show disparities among different races/ethnicities in many diseases including diabetes, hypertension, carcinomas of lung, bronchus, colon, rectum, mammary gland and cervix in female and prostate in male, melanoma, asthma, and premature delivery etc. But it has been also pointed out that the frequency of some diseases among people of specific origin can be an artifact of environmental and/or social factors, and not purely because of their genetic heritage—especially diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, and cancer. Knowledge concerning physical characteristics of different races/ethnicities is also useful in forensic practice and studies. In the US, there is a long history of racism dating back to Slave Trade. Although the racial segregation was abolished in 1964, the influence of racial discrimination still exists, so the anti-racism movement continues. In sum, the connotation of race concept has been changing through time, and it remains a social problem in some countries.