3. Race & Ethnicity

Question 1

Biological race does not exist but what does?

Answer 1

Perception f race and discrimination based on perceived differences.

Question 2

Prejudice?

Answer 2

An opinion that is not based on facts, with an unfavorable bias towards something or someone

Question 3

Discrimination?

Answer 3

Negative treatment of someone based on prejudices.

Question 4

Systemic race?

Answer 4

Widespread and deeply rooted discrimination that exists on all levels of society to oppress certain people and privilege others

Question 5

Phenotype?

Answer 5

Human variations that we can see in a person’s physical body

Question 6

Melanocytes?

Answer 6

The pigment produced by human skin cell

Question 7

Cosmologies?

Answer 7

Cultural models, learned, shared, and communicated symbolically, adaptive and changing.

Question 8

Three reasons why biological race doesn’t exist?

Answer 8

1. Humans share 99% of their DNA, which is not enough to classify us into different species
2. Human variations lie in a continuum and can’t be sorted into groups.
3. Most human variation is human variation.

Question 9

Genetic distance?

Answer 9

A measure of mutations between populations: the less breeding among populations, the greater genetic distance between them.

Question 10

FST of fixation index?

Answer 10

A measure of population differentiation.

Question 11

Attributing physical talent to genetics?

Answer 11

Talent is individual, but the cultural environment can be more or less supportive.

Question 12

Attributing occupation to genetics?

Answer 12

The immigration process leads to communities of people that come together due to available opportunities and personal networks.

Question 13

What are some ethnic relations reasons for poor mental health?

Answer 13

• Discrimination
• Educational
• Geographic
• Economical barriers
• Generational trauma (residential schools) -> PTSD can permanently alter one’s expression to then be passed on

(Children of Holocaust survivors are more likely to develop PTSD due to lower cortisol reasons to stress)

Question 14

Epigenetics?

Answer 14

The study of inherited changes in gene expression without changes to the DNA itself.

Question 15

Ethnic cleansing / genocide?

Answer 15

Death of an entire ethnic group.

Question 16

Food sovereignty?

Answer 16

When a group controls its own self-sufficient, local food system.

Question 17

What is the link between ancestral foods and predisposition to disease?

Answer 17

• Eating one’s ancestral foods can reverse the deterioration of health from disease.
• Also improve general well-being with a deepened connection to one’s community and traditions.

Question 18

Nutrition transition?

Answer 18

The shift to a Western diet and its associated health problems like obesity.

Question 19

What did Carolus Linnaeus do? + Taxonomy

Answer 19

Early thinking about race.
T: Human classification 6 “variations”.
Biased observations, skewed towards Europeans.

Question 20

Christopher Columbus 1492?

Answer 20

Early thinking about race
Religious mission
Political power and economic resources
Horrible consequences brought disease and genocide.

Question 21

Captain James Cook 1778?

Answer 21

Science, politics and economics
Mapped the world
Colonies, genocide
The arrival of invasive species, rats etc.

Question 22

Johann Blumenbach?

Answer 22

Five division classification of humans, manly based on skin color.
Caucasian, Mongolian, Ethiopian, American and Malay

Became a base for pseudo-science of race biology

Question 23

Eugenics?

Answer 23

Pseudo-scientific plan to purify the human race ( World War 2)

Question 24

Racialization?

Answer 24

Assigning biological race to a culture or ethnic identity where it did not exist before

Question 25

Blood quantum?

Answer 25

The fraction of “Indian blood” a person has, measured by tribal documents demonstrating the membership of relatives.

Question 26

Why can DNA tests be misleading?

Answer 26

Limited accuracy

Cultural identity is based on being a part of a particular community, and not genetics!

Question 27

Define ethnicity?

Answer 27

• Classifying based on common history, culture, language, social ties and symbolic shared identities.
• Created by historical processes
• Is fluid and flexible
• Is not based on biology

Question 28

Why can’t we classify ethnicity?

Answer 28

Ethnic labels are random and too general to be meaningful

Question 29

How can ethnicity be used for political resistance?

Answer 29

• Protests and organized movements

- Force for individual agency and collective actions (Black Lives Matter)

Question 30

Cultural appropriation?

Answer 30

When members of a dominant group use designs, artifacts behaviors or ideas taken directly from a group that has been historically oppressed.

Question 31

Native appropriation?

Answer 31

Those items that originate with a self-identified Indigenous group

Question 32

White privilege?

Answer 32

The unearned power that society gives people with fair skin over those with darker skin -> ethnic privilege

Question 33

Identity politics?

Answer 33

Focusing on one’s identity and validating one’s sense of belonging to a particular group with a particular identity.

Question 34

Occularcentrism?

Answer 34

Visual, look first when making judgment. Western culture does this

Question 35

Ethnocentrism & Eurocentrism?

Answer 35

Your own culture is superior

Europes culture in the center of the world.