Sorting People Research Paper

Words: 660
Pages: 3

From the “Sorting People” exercise on the PBS website, I found that sorting people based solely on physical characteristics was quite difficult. I got most of the answers wrong! I learned that “until 1960, the census enumerators classified people into races by looking at them,” just as I did! (pbs.org) In 1970, US citizens were finally able to choose their own classification after many civil rights laws were passed. Moreover, appearance cannot always tell a person’s ancestry or personal identity. Just so, “race” cannot tell where someone is from, what skills they have, or how they might behave. However, according to the PBS website, race can tell us “who is being discriminated against and who lacks certain opportunities.” When we talk about race in this way, we often wonder: is “race” a useful way to talk about human variation, and might there be a better way to talk about a grouping of humans?
“Race” is not a useful way to talk about human variation because there is so much more to a race than, say, skin color. When we put people into groups based on physical features, we lose information about who they are as individuals. Most human variation is within, not between, “races.” According to the PBS website, “of the small amount of total human genetic variation, 85% exists
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We must learn to reexamine our own choices by learning about the choices that other people