THE HISTORY OF THE IDEA OF RACE AND (历史的种族和的想法).pdf
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This paper was presented at the conference “Race, Human Variation and Disease: Consensus
and Frontiers,” sponsored by the American Anthropo ogical Association (AAA) and funded by the
Ford Foundation. The conference, an activity of AAA’s public education project RACE funded by
the Ford Foundation and the National Science Foundation, was held March 14-17, 2007 in
Warrenton, Virginia. This paper represents the views of the author and not the AAA RACE
Project.
THE HISTORY OF THE IDEA OF RACE… AND WHY IT MATTERS
Audrey Smedley
Professor of Anthropology Emerita
Virginia Commonwealth University
The position taken by many anthropologists, both biological and social,
and increasingly many other scholars in the social sciences is that “race is a
cultural construct.” It should be clear that this is not a definition or even a
characterization of “race,” but an assertion about the scholarly or existential
domain in which we can best examine and explain the phenomenon of race.
Race should be analyzed as a social/cultural reality that exists in a realm
independent of biological or genetic variations. No amount of research into the
biophysical or genetic features of individuals or groups wi explain the social
phenomenon of race. When five white policemen shot a young unarmed African
immigrant 41 times in the doorway of his New York apartment, this can’t be
explained by examining their genes or biology. Nor can we explain employer
preferences for white job applicants or discrimination in housing or any other of
the social realities of racism by references to human biologica
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