Workshop: Hands-On Workshop Using the Biology of Human Skin Colors to Contradict Racial Categorization
Presentation Location
VSU University Center, Magnolia Room 1
Document Type
Event
Start Date
10-3-2023 3:30 PM
End Date
10-3-2023 5:00 PM
Description
Workshop: Leslie Sandra Jones (Valdosta State University)
Hands-On Workshop Using the Biology of Human Skin Colors to Contradict Racial Categorization
Since historic patterns of global migration correspond to the protective differences in pigmentation seen in ancestral indigenous populations, this Hands-On Workshop demonstrates with simple manipulatives how the three common patterns of natural selection account for changes in skin colors. Phenotypes and established genetic markers follow directional, disruptive, and stabilizing models of natural selection corresponding to geographical variation in exposure to UV radiation. This lesson can be used as an activity to show students that racial categories are rooted in ignorance of the biological basis for superficial human differences. Scientific characterization of how evolution led to variation in skin colors challenges racism by demonstrating how to distinguish the biological reality of human diversity from the social construction of race. Coupling this with documentation of how biomedical, scientific racism coincided with the Eurocentric need to justify colonialism, imperialism, and slavery fits nicely with the fact that some astute early anthropologists such as Franz Boas and Ashley Montagu were the first to point out the fallacy of these human divisions.
Recommended Citation
Jones, Leslie Sandra, "Workshop: Hands-On Workshop Using the Biology of Human Skin Colors to Contradict Racial Categorization" (2023). Annual Meeting of the Southern Anthropological Society. 17.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/southernanthro_meeting/2023/schedule/17
Workshop: Hands-On Workshop Using the Biology of Human Skin Colors to Contradict Racial Categorization
VSU University Center, Magnolia Room 1
Workshop: Leslie Sandra Jones (Valdosta State University)
Hands-On Workshop Using the Biology of Human Skin Colors to Contradict Racial Categorization
Since historic patterns of global migration correspond to the protective differences in pigmentation seen in ancestral indigenous populations, this Hands-On Workshop demonstrates with simple manipulatives how the three common patterns of natural selection account for changes in skin colors. Phenotypes and established genetic markers follow directional, disruptive, and stabilizing models of natural selection corresponding to geographical variation in exposure to UV radiation. This lesson can be used as an activity to show students that racial categories are rooted in ignorance of the biological basis for superficial human differences. Scientific characterization of how evolution led to variation in skin colors challenges racism by demonstrating how to distinguish the biological reality of human diversity from the social construction of race. Coupling this with documentation of how biomedical, scientific racism coincided with the Eurocentric need to justify colonialism, imperialism, and slavery fits nicely with the fact that some astute early anthropologists such as Franz Boas and Ashley Montagu were the first to point out the fallacy of these human divisions.