New Technologies of Race, Human Genome Diversity Project

New Technologies of Race:

In this reading by Evelynn Hammonds, the topic of morphing is brought to our attention. The article starts out with a quote from the New York Times magazine from 1950 stating "No Scientific basis for Race Bias Found by World Panel of Experts." This showed that science was now involved with defining race in the world. This article suggests that due to science, there are no differences between the races. This is a very bold argument. I am a science oriented person at heart. I believe that science is the basis for the reason that most things are the way that they are. I think with race however, this cannot be judged based on a scientific level. This is apparent when they bring forth the morphing of SimEve. SimEve was an image of a woman that was morphed together from the "appearance" of different races for Time Magazine. This image of the woman was as written by Evelynn Hammonds as "not a true composite, but a preferred or filtered composite of mixed figures, with no discussion the assumptions or implications underlying the choices." This is in my opinion a very true statement. My view is that all people are of a "mixed race" originally. The SimEve was created using a definite proportion of different races. This combination of races doesn't make sense to me, and another point to make is that the article in Time Magazine called her the "New Face of America." How does this even make sense? How is this a "new" face of America? It has to do with the term miscegenation. The mixture of races from reproduction. This article is possibly suggesting that more people today of mixed races so to speak are having a new child with this new face of America. This has been occurring for decades and generations, so I don't understand why they are bringing this up just now in Time Magazine.

This reading to me was the main topic of discussion for our class this past week. We also read a few more readings. This included a story entitled "Recitatif", which is about 2 young girls in an orphanage. We never really learn which one is black or white, but it shows that many of us make assumptions based on context within the story as was apparent from certain peoples comments in class. This story shows a long timeline for 2 girls as they progress through ages of racial separation. This article leaves much speculation and mystery as it ends in my opinion abruptly "what the hell happened to Maggie?" I for one, do not know

Also read was an article by Ian Lopez entitled "The social construction of Race" This article brought on the theory that there is greater variation exiting within populations than between populations. I had a hard time grasping this, because what we mainly see around us is hostility between races, and not so much within these races. This begs the question of why that is, and why we don't hear intra-race variation everyday and on the news.

Each of these articles proposed different ideas and beliefs regarding individual's viewpoints toward the "appearance" of race. One thing i did learn this past week thanks to a scientific study (pbs) regarding american's race; we cannot judge based on appearance.