Tyler Blust
Anthropology 1010 5:30 -7:10 M/W
The Reality of Race
Race is a generalized concept that has been created from the human imagination, in order
to label people from across the entire world. The genetic variations corresponding with different
societies are simply adaptations over many generations of evolution. I feel as though race is a
naturalized concept and that there are multiple races of people as a result of adaptation. It is
absolutely natural that the differences among people in regions around the world occurred over
time. I believe that it is from natural selection that these different genes were passed along
through the generations so that individual species in each region would survive.
We may have all come from a common decent, but as we started to spread out around the
planet we had to adapt to different surroundings. While everyone was once all the same race,
over the course of time we have developed multiple variations in people, from adaptation to their
surroundings. These adaptations are what we now call races. Considering that forensic
anthropologists can deduce what ethnicity a person was based on their bones. This alone shows
that there are ways to discriminate between races. The differences between people may not have
any effect on their capabilities, but it is certainly visible. These changes happened naturally,
therefore the idea of race is a natural idea.
Humans have a need to label everything, it helps us to communicate with each other. It is
in our nature to give a name to everything that we see or experience so that we can better explain
it to one another. The idea of race is just a way for us to give name to these differences. Based
on the traits acquired through adaptation I feel that there is no denying that race does exist. We
even give label to ourselves based on our looks, cultural origins, employment, and interests.
Another example of race can be shown in how we label dogs. The difference in the
words occurs because with dogs, we replace the word races with breeds. There are hundreds of
breeds of dogs, all with different traits. Like humans they came from a common decent and had
to grow into their surroundings in order to survive. We even have a name for every genetic
variation of dogs, and use their attributes to help us in our daily activities. Some dogs are used
for their noses to sniff out something, and some are used because of their agility capture other
animals. We even mate dogs to give birth to new breeds (races) of dogs.
Although I do believe in the concept of race, I do not agree with it. I feel as though we
should not be putting labels on people based on their ethnicity. Rather accept that we are all
born of the Earth and work toward a common goal and try to make the world a better place.
I will finish by saying that some people do not believe in race. I would also like to say
that I don't believe in race, but upon considering the biological and physical adaptations around
the world I think that there are indeed multiple races. All of these races have their own different
adaptations. As far as race being considered a naturalized concept, it occurred naturally, and
may just be a human theory or man made, but humans are naturally here also, so we naturally
created the concept of race.