3.2: Race

Race

Human appearance does vary across the planet and geography plays a role. Human phenotypes evolved over thousands of years to help humans thrive in various climates and environments. Skin pigmentation is the most noticeable adaptation. The traditional theory, which explains the process, known as directional selection, holds that dark skin is an evolutionary adaptation that helps protect people from the damaging effects of the sun’s ultraviolet radiation. The theory suggests that darker-skinned people had an evolutionary advantage over lighter-skinned people in sunny locations, so they became more numerous in sunny regions. However, dark skin may be disadvantageous in sunlight-deprived areas, like northern Europe, where darker skin prevents the body from producing adequate amounts of Vitamin D from sunlight. Vitamin D is an essential dietary nutrient, especially for lactating mothers, so pale skin provides an advantage in places where it is frequently cloudy or where winters are long and days are short for much of the year. Some evidence suggests that the variations in skin pigmentation may have taken as few as 100 generations to appear in humans. There is evidence that the process is reversible as well. There is also some emerging theory to suggest this old theory may not be valid.

The ability to absorb vitamin D into the human body may also have influenced the development of lactose tolerance, and the evolution of dairy agriculture culture in Europe. Most adult mammals cannot drink milk because of an inability to produce lactase, an enzyme that metabolizes lactose. Most Europeans can drink milk. Traditional thinking suggests this is because thousands of years ago, Europeans who had a genetic mutation that made them lactose tolerant had an evolutionary advantage over those who were lactose intolerant. In any case, where was, and continues to be, a foundational, causal variable in the construction and maintenance of our ideas about who we are, what we do and why we do it.

Figure Tamil Nadu, India – People from Southern India tend to have darker skin, but also share many phenotypes with Europeans and are generally lactose tolerant. Source: Wikimedia

The central question around race is simple: “Does race even exist?” Depending on how the question is framed, the answer can be either yes or no. If race is being used in a human context in the same way that species is used in an animal context, then race does not exist. Humans are just too similar as a population. If the question is rephrased as, “Are there some superficial differences between previously spatially isolated human groups?” then the answer is yes. There are genetic, heritable differences between groups of people. However, these differences in phenotype (appearance) say very little about genotype (genetics). Why is that? The reality is that human beings have been very mobile in their history. People move and they mix with other groups of people. There are no hard genetic lines between different racial categories in the environment. As a consequence of this, racial categories can be considered socially constructed.

Cultural factors also play a role in the evolution of our physical appearance. Some of our physical characteristics, like skin tone, height, or body morphology have been influenced by long-standing regional standards for physical attractiveness. This process is known as sexual selection. For Thousands of years, standards of “beauty”, that are sometimes very local, even random fascinations, have lent themselves to regional evolutionary changes in body morphology that have contributed to human phenotypes.

Across the globe, differences emerged in what men and women consider attractive in the opposite sex. For example, for many generations, many Chinese men were attracted to women with tiny feet. The feet of some young Chinese women were bound. Presumably, tall women with naturally big feet were considered less desirable than short women with small feet. Did the presence of this sexual preference help make the Chinese much shorter on average, than, say, the Dutch where that particular sexual preference was uncommon?

In West Africa, where maternal societies and a cult of fertility characterized the religion of many cultures for untold generations, a preference for large buttocks, especially on females, emerged. In places where food insecurity threatened the lives of infants, a large derrière may have been interpreted as a sign of good health and some insurance to men seeking mates that their mate would produce many healthy children. In Japan, a place with a vastly different agricultural and religious history from West Africa, this taste preference for large buttocks is muted or even reversed.

In the United States, especially during the 1970s and 1980s, many white people worked to darken or “tan” their skin to meet an evolving standard of beauty. Generations earlier, pale women sought instead to remain as pale as possible to ensure beauty. A geographer might explain this shift in cultural practice by arguing that in agricultural societies, darkly tanned skin was a sign of poverty because agricultural field laborers worked long hours in the sun. Starting with the Industrial Revolution, poor white people were more likely to live in cities and work in factories, and as a result, were kept pale by spending long hours indoors. The wealthier classes finding themselves now indistinguishable from the impoverished classes began to tan to signify their status via their ability to engage in outdoor leisure activities, like going to the beach. A good tan became a marker of wealth and exclusivity – which are desirable characteristics. In recent years, however, the threat of skin cancer and shifting demographics have confounded this American beauty standard once again.

This video cartoon, inspired by the Dr. Suess story, "The Sneetches" cleverly captures the desire of many groups to build an exclusive identity, largely by creating "the other" through reference to physical appearance. Read the Wikipedia article (12:09 minutes)