Opinion
Putting race into perspective
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Also by Wasim Salman:
- China deserves to act in its best interests (April 16, 2008)
- Putting race into perspective (April 3, 2008)
- True democracies should not practice torture (March 12, 2008)
- American faith not going anywhere (February 27, 2008)
- Moral boundaries needed in research (February 13, 2008)
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The tendency to tie race and identity together is more common today than in the past. We, as self-reflective and self-aware beings, hold race as an integral part of who we eventually become. The basis for holding race as a founding piece of our identity lies in the ties it grants us to specific cultures and societies. However, by holding race at the foundation of our identity, we tend to believe it is something static, something unchanging. This perception has led to countless instances of both domestic and international conflict and abuse throughout history. Should race be as fundamental to our personal identities as we assume that it is?
In order to begin an analysis of race today, we must venture back to the beginning of mankind. In 1987, scientists Cann, Stoneking and Wilson made the claim that a woman, whom they called “Mitochondrial Eve,” was the matrilineal most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of modern man. For those who may have forgotten, mitochondria is the part of a cell that gives cells energy and also contains genetic material, separate from nuclear DNA, with which we are generally more familiar. Mitochondria can only be passed down from mother to child. Given that this is the case, the study found that all of humanity’s mitochondrial DNA can be traced, through the mothers, to Mitochondrial Eve in Africa, approximately 140,000 years ago.
Now that we know a bit more about our origins, consider all that has happened since Mitochondrial Eve. Consider the movement of humanity out of Africa and into all the different parts of the world. Consider all the different environments humanity was exposed to and remember the only reason you look the way you do was because your ancestors had to survive. Also, what about all the wars, invasions and empires that have occurred since our beginnings? What of the constant, expanding interconnection of people? Recalling these facts of history, it would be impossible to maintain the assumption that you are of a single race. Most likely, we are all a nearly incomprehensible combination of genetic material.
The idea that we can trace our biological origins, that we can look at a part of our DNA and know that we have a common ancestor and yet, also know that we are all the end-result of an epic history of increasing connection, is simply wonderful. Compared to the actual history of who we are today, the way we have come to perceive race seems frivolous and small. I am not suggesting that having a certain amount of positive pride about one’s race is necessarily bad, but to hold race at the core of who you are is ultimately ridiculous.
Our biological history is more fluid than we tend to believe. Our origin is, perhaps, more concrete than we would like to believe. To hold on to the perception that each of us is the result of a finite amount of influences, is missing the enormous mosaic that comprises every single person. Also, to hold this “small picture” belief of race as the foundation on which your whole identity is formed is nothing more than clutching the simple and fearing the complex. Race is something to be proud of in that it, generally, links one to a certain culture. However, to manipulate and simplify both race and culture in order to divide and instigate violence is dangerous and wrong.
Our differences are subtle and our history is truly grand — that should be the core which founds and sustains how we perceive ourselves and each other. To understand ourselves in this way would unlock in us endless compassion, pride and awe.
Wasim Salman (salman@wisc.edu) is a senior majoring in international studies.
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If you’re prone to sunburns, you can’t be proud of your race.
It’s difficult to understand this with no context. You make a lot of generalizations, but provide no specific examples to back up your argument.
Hope you’re prepared for a tidal wave of claims that “minorities are the racists, not us” and victim-blaming.
It amazes me how this kind of thinking pervades our universities. When talking about someone’s identity, not once is volition mentioned.
A man is not just bones and mitochondria, he has a MIND. He can CHOOSE to develop his character by the ideas he accepts, etc. Thus, a major part of a person’s identity - by far the most important part - is his mind, which is NOT a protect of race, genes, etc. Failure to recognize this results in statements like the following:
“Race is something to be proud of in that it, generally, links one to a certain culture.”
How can you be proud of something which you have no control over? Are you proud that you have green eyes or brown hair? One can only be proud of things that are a product of volition - things that one actually has control over. This is why race does NOT, in any meaningful way, determine one’s identity.
So we are all Africans.
Some stayed, some didn’t.
Right on, 4:23.
at what point will we be able to safely ignore the whole “black issue” … I say, LETS START TODAY!
Race is important, it has an influence on our skeletal structure, our brain capacity and many other things. How our cultured involved is a form of solid evidence that can be observed and analyzed. General statements like we all came from Africa therefore we are all the same is not an adequate explaination because the time period between Africa and now is a large expanse where many evolutionary events took place or did not take place. For instance the europeans rose to civilizations that were far more advanced than tribal savage behavior unlike the Africans in Africa. They created things out of metal, built houses out of concrete, figured out crop rotation plans, created empires, we had creative thinkers including arostotle, homer, pythagorus, einstein, and many others. All the while other cultures and peoples were still throwing sticks at animals. There is a difference not everyman was created equally there is no question. Our minds are not all the same through evolution racial differences in thought process and psyche do exist, it is unfortunate that the liberal powers that be forced our society to integrate and now we are witnessing the effects…..the dumning down of our people and the deterioration of european existence in a land that european blood created.