generations

Race has no agreed upon definition, and this makes it very hard to determine what race a person truly is. Can science prove everything about your ancestors? What happens when a person has a racially diverse family? Figuring out and agreeing upon a person's race can be nearly impossible. Generations and generations of DNA being passed down complicates it. People have many different ways in which they come to a conclusion of one's race.

During the Holocaust, the Nazis had to determine how they would decide who was considered a Jew. They thought of being Jewish as a race. The definition of a Jew was published on November 14, 1935. A person was Jewish if they 1) had three or four racially full Jewish grandparents, 2) belonged to a Jewish religious community or joined one after September 15 when the Nuremburg Laws came into force. Jewish is not a race in our minds, but they looked at it as a race, and used grandparents. []

In the 2000 U.S. Census, one of the many definitions of particular races stated, "a person having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa." It uses the line "a person having origins in any of the…" many times in definitions of each race. Therefore, if someone has one relative whose "origin" was part of a particular race, he/she is also considered part of that race. That is considered the "[|one-drop rule]." []

This one-drop rule was created in the South during slavery. Other terms for this are "one black ancestor rule" and "hypo-descent rule." These people of mixed races were placed in the subordinate group, which during slavery was black. The one-drop rule only exists in the United States, and it applies to American blacks. Is it fair that if you are one sixteenth black that you are then considered a Negro? "Passing" as a certain race is something that has been going on for many years. In the United States, people that have black ancestors, whether it be many or just one, wanted to be recognized as white, in order to stay out of slavery. It is confusing because a person who is almost completely white has to try and avoid being considered black. []

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These are three examples of the U.S. Census. The census is done every ten years in the United States. From these pictures, it is clear that people have realized that many races were not accounted for in the past.

In 1911, there was an examination done on an eleven-year old girl that had been confined to a negro constitution for seven years. In order to obtain her freedom, doctors from Johns Hopkins University did tests to determine if the girl was white or a negro. The main part of the tests were physical attributes that had previously been said to detect presence of negro blood. All tests that were run came back negative for negro blood, except for one. This one test showed that on one of the girls fingernails, there was the presence of a black line. Even with all of these tests done by professional physicians, the girl's race was still undetermined. []

Another topic that has been studied is the difference between race and racial identity. Sally Haslanger, a philosophy professor at MIT, has looked into this. Race is mostly determined by biological factors, and therefore, are not under the person's control. But, it is also partially social. The criteria that is followed in order to determine the person's race is often affected by the people around them. Racial identity is based on how one views oneself. The people around them also impact this. This, unlike race, can change, and sometimes can change rapidly. "Suppose I discovered that my parents weren't my biological parents and that one of my biological parents was black. That might affect my racial identity. It presumably wouldn't change my race." Racial identity is often more important that race, because race is something that is difficult to fully understand and determine. []

The bottom line is there is no clear way of telling what race a person is. It is very highly debated. It is clear from all the articles that determining race is very difficult and somewhat controversial. A clear definition of what qualifies a person as a certain race is impossible to find. It is not clear if biology (genetics) or ethnicity (culture) should be the determining factor. The world has become a much smaller place in the last century due to ease of travel and relocation, because of the development of the automobile and airplane. In the last 20 years, the internet has also allowed for quicker and easier communication with people across the world. Therefore, inter-marriage has blurred the racial lines to the point of being unrecognizable.

= = [] This picture is interactive, and more information about each generation is give on this link. It shows Michelle Obama's family tree, all the way back to her great-great-great grandparents. Some of these people have no information about them.

AnnBibSarnoff

__What I am planning on doing:__ I want to learn more about the advantages and disadvantages of different races (if there are any). Whether it be athletically or educationally, are some races naturally born with talents? Does race effect how people compete in athletics? Are some races naturally smarter? Is race involved in your physique? If a person is mixed, which race do they inherit more traits from? Do some races have more dominant traits than others?

___________

[] I have been reading about the difference between race and ethnicity. This article states that "ethnicity refers to selected cultural and sometimes physical characteristics used to classify people into groups or categories considered to be significantly different from others." Races are "biological subspecies, or variety of a species, consisting of a more or less distinct population with anatomical traits that distinguish it clearly from other races." I still don't understand the difference between these two classifications from these definitions. But, this article agrees with my other sources that race is less biological than it is social. Although race seems to have many scientific factors, in fact, it is almost all cultural, and is considered a historical construct.