Race Matters: Culture vs. Biology
Marc Meyer
Professor, Anthropology
Race Matters
Culture vs. Biology
Marc Meyer
Professor, Anthropology
Faculty Lecturer of the Year
2014-2015
April 15, 2015
Chaffey
College
5885 Haven Avenue
Rancho Cucamonga, California
Marc Meyer
Lecturer of the Year 2015
Marc Meyer (Professor of Anthropology) is a researcher in human
paleontology interested in understanding the evolution of human
behavior through the archaeological and fossil record. Marc comes
from a family where education took a back seat to the family business,
and although he worked full-time driving a truck around NewYork
City he sneaked in classes behind his father’s back at Queens College
where he earned his BA in Anthropology. When Marc was named
valedictorian of Queens College his parents were incredulous,
thinking that the selection was erroneous. Marc credits his early
academic success to: avoiding sweets; exercising his brain by
memorizing 80’s music lyrics; and falling in love with Anthropology.
Marc then entered the doctoral program at the University of
Pennsylvania, earning his PhD in Biological Anthropology in 2005.
Upon graduating he served as an instructor of Human Anatomy at
the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. After a few years
teaching at Penn, the winds of change brought Marc to Chaffey
College where he has taught various Anthropology courses since
2007.
Marc’s archaeological experiences have taken him to places such as
Kenya, South Africa, France, Soviet Georgia, Kazakhstan, and the
exotic state of Tennessee. Marc has authored several publications on
the biology and behavior of our ancient human ancestors including
Australopithecus afarensis and Homo erectus, as well as on the history of
science. He is currently collaborating with an international team of
scholars who are analyzing one of the oldest human fossils, Ardipithecus
ramidus (nicknamed Ardi).
For their help and support of this presentation, Marc thanks Ardon
Alger, Donna Walker, Michael Fong, the Chaffey College Faculty
Senate, and the Chaffey College Governing Board.
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Faculty Lecture of the Year
Race Matters:
Culture vs. Biology
How many races are there? What race are you? We don’t learn any
of this in school, we just sort of know. Or do we? During Greek
times, scholars decided that there were three human races based
on the part of the known Greek world that a person came from.
According to the Bible, there are three races based on the sons of
Noah. In the 17th century, European scholar Linnaeus decided that
there were four races: European,Asian, Indian and African.These
were based solely on his limited assessment of human variation,
but were widely accepted. In addition to the finding of the four
different types of humans based on their biology, Linnaeus
attributed four basic personality types to each of these races.
Linnaeus conflated biology and culture, thinking that the white
skin of Europeans made them naturally superior in intellect and
culture to all other races. He decided that the black skin of Africans
made them lazy, the reddish skin of Indians made them stubborn
and Asians were greedy by virtue of yellowish skin.1
Race Matters: Culture vs. Biology
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At the end of the 18th century, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach
disagreed with the notion that there were four races; instead he
argued that there were actually five. He based his determinations
by examining skulls from all over the world, and added Malaysians
as an additional race.2 These five races were used by scientists and
scholars around the world not just to describe people, but to situate
each race in what they believed was a divine rank order.3
The first U.S. Census employed a slightly different set of races, and
in 1800 recorded only two racial categories:White and Slave. In
1830, a third category, Foreigner, was added.Twenty years later, the
census expanded the categories to include Chinese, Indians, and
Mulatto. Subsequent iterations of the census fluctuated in the
number of races that were recorded. The census also changed its
mind on what race certain types of people were. For example,
before World War II Jews and southern Europeans were not
considered to be White, but Hindus of the subcontinent of Asia
were classified as White. This has nothing to do with their biology,
but had everything to do with economics, sociopolitical attitudes
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Faculty Lecture of the Year
and patterns of colonialism. This is instantiated in the case of
Mexicans, who in 1920 were considered White. In 1930, in the
effort to limit immigration into the U.S. during the Depression
they were reclassified as non-White. However, Mexicans suddenly
became White again in 1942 in an effort to increase the labor force
for the war and encourage immigration4.
Race according to the census has little to do with biology, as a
person was considered Black in 1930 in some states if they were
one-quarter Black, but in other states would be considered Black
if they had one-sixteenth African ancestry. Basically, a person in
1930 could legally change their race simply by driving their car
across state borders. So how many races are there really? And why
does the number keep changing? What determines race?
A typical person might respond with a list of biological traits such
as nose shape, hair type, shape of the eye, etc. Others might respond
with a list of cultural or geographic criteria such as someone’s
birthplace, language, or ethnicity. But at the top of most people’s
list would be skin color. After all, it’s easy to tell what race someone
is by the color of their skin, isn’t it? Well, let’s see. In order to
understand skin color, we have to understand the function of skin.
One of the least discussed functions of the skin is its role as a
protective organ – not just against germs, cuts and scrapes – but
as a filter of UV radiation.5
Solar radiation in low doses is actually beneficial for humans, as
the skin needs it to produce vitamin D. But on the equator where
radiation is highest, UV levels can cause deadly skin cancer.
Fortunately, skin contains several pigments which can protect
against radiation. One of these is melanin, a brown pigment that
gives skin a dark color and basically serves as a built-in sunscreen.
On the equator, having light skin is a liability while being dark is
an advantage. However, away from the equator having dark skin
is less advantageous as dark skin blocks the necessary level of UV
radiation needed to produce vitamin D. In these regions of low
Race Matters: Culture vs. Biology
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UV having light skin is favored. Around the world, the color of
people’s skin is not related to their race, but is related to how far away
from the equator their ancestors lived. Essentially, populations of
humans around the world adapted to their ancestral environments,
of which skin color is an artifact of a balancing act of the dangers
of skin cancer versus the need to produce vitamin D. While dark
skin is better at protecting against skin cancer, light skin is better at
producing vitamin D with low levels of solar radiation.
This can be seen in a quick survey of geography and radiation levels
as populations on the equator, regardless of race, have dark brown
skin. By contrast, in areas of low radiation populations of humans,
regardless of race have light skin. In regions of the world where
solar radiation is intermediate, populations exhibit intermediate
skin tones. Within the African continent, people come in many
colors, but all in accordance with UV radiation levels. Thus, not
all Africans are the same color. Similarly, Asian skin color is not
uniform, but rather lighter skin predominates further from the
equator, while Asian populations in the south are predictably
darker.6 Not all so-called White people are White, as northern
Europeans are much lighter than their southern counterparts.
Bottom line: people of many different races have brown skin, and
people of many different races are light.
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Are there really White and Black people then? Are there truly
different types of people? No, humans are distributed around the
world in a continuum, from dark to light depending on distance
from the equator. However, historical circumstances in America
give the illusions that people can be divided into groups based on
skin color. Slave traders from northern Europe sailed to equatorial
Africa and came face to face with people who looked very different
from them. Had those slave traders walked through southern
Europe into northern Africa, the differences between people would
have been subtle and nearly imperceptible, as people slowly get
darker toward the equator. Yet in America, face to face, there
seemed to be essential types of humans separate and distinct.
Faculty Lecture of the Year
What can you tell about someone from the color of their skin?
Other than where their ancestors originated - almost nothing. The
color of someone’s skin has nothing to do with their abilities or
aptitudes. Skin color is the product of at least six separate genes.7
These skin pigment genes have nothing to do with any other trait,
as their sole responsibility is to code for pigment. Unfortunately,
cultural stereotypes in America have generated false correlations
between pigment and personality. Judging someone’s intelligence
from their skin color is as ridiculous as judging a puppy’s
intelligence by the color of its fur. Thus, skin color is independent
of someone’s abilities or aptitudes, and independent of someone’s
so-called race.
Nose shape is also independent of someone’s race as there is no
particular shape of the nose within any given racial category.
Instead, the width of someone’s nose is related to the amount of
heat and humidity in their ancestral environment. In areas of high
humidity, wide noses are best as they do not add any additional
heat or humidity to inspire air. By contrast, in areas that are dry
wide noses are a liability since air needs to be humidified before
reaching the lungs. If dry air is inspired, the lungs become a vector
for infection.This is why we see narrow noses in dry environments,
Race Matters: Culture vs. Biology
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as inspired air brushes up against narrow nasal passages covered with
mucosa, delivering processed air to the lungs.8,9 Within Africa,
people from desert regions and tropical regions with the same dark
skin can have radically different nose shapes. Thus, there is no
“Black” nose. In humid Southeast Asia, nose shapes match that of
African tropical populations.10
In America, we typically encounter African-Americans who are
the descendants of African populations from regions of high UV
and high humidity giving us the illusion that all Africans have the
same skin color and same nose shape. The same can be said about
hair type, as we typically see people with dark skin having dark
brown and curly hair. This is an extremely myopic view of human
variation, because outside of America, dark skin can be paired with
straight, wavy, or even blonde hair.11, 12
6
In America, we also have the illusion that one’s race can be
determined from eye shape. This is an artifact of human history
and migration patterns.The folded eyelid (epicanthic fold) of Asians
is in fact a worldwide trait ubiquitous among Africans, Native
Americans, Inuit, and indigenous South Americans as well. The
folded eyelid was “invented” by the first humans living in Africa.
As humans migrated from the ancestral continent, they took with
them the epicanthic fold. Some populations retained this
morphology while others lost it. Once we look outside of America,
Faculty Lecture of the Year
we quickly realize that eye shape does not determine one’s race.
Neither blood type nor genetics can be used to segregate humans
into separate racial groups either as there is less than one-tenth of
one percent genetic difference between any two humans on the
planet. Basically, there are no biological markers that can be
systematically employed to delineate humans into discrete races.
Geographic borders also fail to map on to racial categories.
Boundaries drawn on maps are completely arbitrary with respect
to the biological distributions of human traits.13 There is no genetic
or populational “wall” between Europe and Asia,14, 15 although there
is a thick black line on the map. People on either side of the border
are classified as different types of people based on geography, but
are identical in morphology. Although Europeans might be
classified today according to the U.S. census as White, northern
Europeans look nothing like circum-Mediterranean people from
the south of Italy. Northern Africans look very different from
central Africans, but are placed in the same racial category.
Race Matters: Culture vs. Biology
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Your racial category is independent of the way you look, where you
were born, the language you speak or the way you behave. So then,
what determines race?
Race is how other people think of you.
Your race is not derived from your biology,16 but rather from the
social rank of your ancestors. During the era of American slavery,
Whites were ranked as the ‘superior’ race and other races as inferior,
subordinate races. The “One Drop Rule” sanctioned that people
of mixed ancestry would assume the social rank (aka, race) of the
lowest ranked parent or grandparent.6 Although slavery is long
gone in America, unfortunately the echoes of slavery still resonate
in our cultural conception of race. Racial types were enacted in
America to rank people in an effort to justify slavery, colonialism
and genocide. Thus, the racial types we use in America today have
their roots in social and economic inequality, and are not neutral
terms. Even today, each race is ranked in accordance with their
antebellum social standing.
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Faculty Lecture of the Year
For example, President Obama, who has one European parent and
one African parent theoretically could be considered White or
mixed. But, in accordance with the One Drop Rule, must assume
the race of his lowest ranked parent, and can only be considered
Black in America.This makes absolutely no biological sense, but
made perfect economic and sociopolitical sense to slave owners.
If Obama tried to assert that he was White, our society has a cultural
heritage that precludes moving “up” in social rank, and is
predisposed to demote him down the biologically bankrupt and
arbitrarily imposed ladder of racial hierarchy. In this system race
in America had little to do with biology, but everything to do with
the status of one’s ancestors.While there is no biological reality to
race, it is a cultural reality, as one’s race is determined by how you
are seen by others in society, how you are treated, and what burdens
are shared.
Race Matters: Culture vs. Biology
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The bottom line is that racial typologies are a thinly veiled form
of social ranking that we need to unlearn.When we employ racial
group names, individual identities are lost and people become types,
rather than being seen as individuals.As we have seen, any attempt
to classify or divide us biologically imposes arbitrary distinctions
not seen in nature.Yes, we need to teach our children who they
are and where they came from – but not the archaic notions of
racial rank order that has lingered within American culture for
generations.We need to teach our children tolerance and respect
for human difference, and importantly, rather than utilizing the
dehumanizing rank order system implicit in American racial
thought, we need to celebrate diversity while embracing our deep
common roots.
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Faculty Lecture of the Year
References
1. Linné, C. v. (1964). Systema Naturae. New York: Stechert-Hafner.
2. Blumenbach, J.F. (1969). De generis humani varietate nativa.
New York: Bergman.
3. Gould, S.J. (1996). The Mismeasure of Man (Rev. and expanded ed.).
New York: Norton.
4. United States Census (1800; 1830; 1920; 1930; 1940). Library of
Congress, Washington D.C.
5. Jablonski, N.G., & Chaplin, G. (2000). The evolution of human skin
coloration. J Hum Evol, 39(1), 57-106.
6. Chaplin, G., & Jablonski, N.G. (1998). Hemispheric difference in
human skin color. Am J Phys Anthropol, 107(2), 221-223; discussion
223-224.
7. Graves, J.L. (2001). The Emperor's New Clothes: Biological Theories
of Race at the Millennium. New Brunswick, N.J: Rutgers University
Press.
8. Thomson, A., & Buxton, L.D. (1923). Man's nasal index in relation to
certain climatic conditions. Journal of the Royal Anthropological
Institute, 53, 92.
9. Scott, J.H. (1954). Heat regulating function of the nasal mucous
membrane. J Laryngol Otol, 68(5), 308-317.
10. Yokley, T.R. (2008). Ecogeographic variation in human nasal
passages. Am J Phys Anthropol.
11. Norton, H.L., Friedlaender, J.S., Merriwether, D.A., Koki, G., Mgone,
C.S., & Shriver, M.D. (2006). Skin and hair pigmentation variation in
Island Melanesia. Am J Phys Anthropol, 130(2), 254-268.
12. Vaughn, M., van Oorschot, R., & Baindur-Hudson, S. (2008). Hair color
measurement and variation. Am J Phys Anthropol, 137(1), 91-96.
13. Boas, F. (1938). Race. In F. Boas (Ed.), General Anthropology
(pp. 95-123). Boston: D. C. Heath and Company.
14. Sokal, R.R., Harding, R.M., & Oden, N.L. (1989). Spatial patterns of
human gene frequencies in Europe. Am J Phys Anthropol, 80(3),
267-294.
15. Cavalli-Sforza, L.L. (1997). Genes, peoples, and languages.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 94(15), 7719-7724.
16. Tetushkin, E.I. (2001). [Genetics and the origin of human races].
Genetika, 37(8), 1029-1045.
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