Robert Mills
Debra Graham
ANTH 1030
Tue & Thur 7-8:20pm
Perspective Differentiation on Morphological Variation
On a hot August afternoon 1955, a 14-year-old teenager named Emmett Till was
visiting his family in a small Mississippi town. Till was visiting from Chicago, and was
unaware that the culture was different than that of his hometown, Chicago. Emmett made
a fatal mistake when he spoke to a 21-year-old woman with less melanin in her skin cells
than he had. He was pulled from the Tallahatchie River 3 days later, beaten, and bloated,
and nigh unrecognizable. It wasn’t until he was exhumed in 2004 that his identity was
able to be confirmed by modern forensic technology. The tragic death of Emmitt Till is
an unfortunate side effect of living in a society where the cultural perspective differs so
greatly than the biological one regarding human variation. Regarding the biological
perspective of variation there are many schools of thought. Gary D. James (2010) claims
that human variation, including skin pigmentation, can be attributed to environmental
factors throughout the evolution of modern-day humans. Anne Fausto-Sterling, (1993) is
of the stance that two current gender classifications of male, and female, are not enough,
and should be extended to include hermaphroditic individuals because they do not fall
cleanly into either category. After reading through the claims made by James, and
Rosenblum, regarding their beliefs about the biological side of variation, it is difficult to
hold onto society’s widely held perspective that we are all different. The cultural view
about biological variation differs greatly from the biological view.
When discussing the biological variations used to distinguish “race”, the primary
attribute used is skin pigmentation. This is probably because it easily the most
distinguishable variation, as opposed to appendage length, or average Body Mass Index.
There are not many measurements need to differentiate between someone with more
melanin than their counterpart. Culturally, we have used this variation as justification for
enslaving individuals with more melanin than their lighter pigmented captors. According
to Gary D. James (2010), “It is clear that human populations which migrated from Africa
and Colonized the rest of the earth were darkly pigmented; thus the variation in skin
pigmentation seen among indigenous people in Europe, Asia, North America, South
America, Australia, and the Pacific is a product of natural selection. He claims that the
peoples who migrated out of the tropical African climate into the higher latitudinal areas
experienced lower levels of UVB rays, which aids in the process of Vitamin D3
synthesis. Vitamin D3 has important effects in bone growth and development, but recent
research suggests that it may also play a significant role in the prevention of autoimmune
disease. Melanin is very effective at absorbing and scattering UVB, so the darker
pigmented individuals did not fair as well in the lower UVB climates. The individuals
with lighter pigment were able to better utilize the reduced UVB rays, because they had
less melanin to absorb, and scatter it. Culturally we have killed, and enslaved massive
amounts of people for their ancestors not moving far enough from the equator, and
retaining higher levels of melanin their skin.
Another biological variation that we classify differently culturally than we do
biologically is gender. Culturally we only have two genders, male and female, while
biologically there are cases that transcend these two categories. Take the individual born
with an ovary, and a teste. They are both male, and female. Culturally, this creates a
problem because these individuals blur the line that separates the way men and women
are treated. Do we pay these individuals the standard 70% of what a man makes like
standard women, or do we bump it up to 85% because of the teste? Clearly, the
implications of changing the worldview on hermaphroditic individuals to include a third,
fourth, or even fifth sex would have widespread ramifications. Hermaphrodites have been
prevalent throughout recorded history, so it is safe to presume they are more common
than one might initially imagine (Fausto-Sterling 1993). The cultural perspective of their
only being two clear genders, despite biological evidence that individuals exist who
transcend these classifications, is still in opposition to the biological perspective of this
same issue.
Another issue that arises when try to classifying individuals by “race” is that it
exists on a continuum. As previously discussed, skin tone is the primary trait taken in
account when assigning racial identity, and this individual trait also exists along a
spectrum. The range of skin tones is incredibly varied, even with individual subgroups.
Another potentially environment affected phenotype that exists along a spectrum is
appendage length. Similar to pigment, limb length seems to change relative to latitudinal
variation. The subjects in higher latitudinal locations experienced colder climates than
those settled near the equator, and as a result their appendages were noticeably shorter
than subjects living near the equator. The thinking being that shorter appendages decrease
the distance blood has to travel in order to maintain homeostasis in cold environments.
Individuals with longer appendages are more apt to frostbite because the increased
difference their blood needs to travel. The individuals who did not migrate away from the
equator lived in warm tropical environments, and needed a way to radiate their heat.
Their larger limbs increased their total surface area, which allowed them to dissipate their
heat more effectively (James 2010). While skin pigmentation, and limb length are
independent alleles in the genetic code, it appears as both are affected by latitudinal
variation. Now I know I can blame my ancestors for moving away from the equator for
my short stature, and light pigmentation.
There are several different occurrences where the cultural point-of-view is
divergent from the biological stance, in relation to human variation. The binary nature of
our current gender classification system is different than the provide biologically when a
hermaphroditic specimen is born. These individuals need a classification more
representative of their specific sexual identity. The social structures we have put into
place based on our made up idea of race is deplorable from a biological level. We put
people in chains because their ancestors had an abundance of UVB in their climate.
Culturally, we have the inclination to categorize ourselves into categories, and assign
behaviors to different groups based on these phenotypes, but biologically, we all migrated
out of the same region, and these small variations do not separate us as much as we
would like to think.