Rethinking Race: Part 8, Is It Time for a New Language About Race?

Critical race theory … Whoopi Goldberg suspended for comments about Jews and race … once again we are arguing about racism … welcome to the final installment in an eight-part series on how we understand America’s original sin. Colonialism and slavery led to the destruction of numerous nations, both great and small, across Africa, the Americas, and Austronesia. Tens of millions of people were killed, both by disease and by acts of genocide. And underlying each was racism — the false assumption that human ability and worth was determined by skin color. In Part 8, we look at how the way we speak of race may serve, inadvertently, to perpetuate that assumption.

To reiterate, all people — regardless of complexion— share 99.9% of the same DNA. Modern human beings do not differ enough to be divided into ‘races’ or subspecies. There is vastly more genetic diversity within Africa than there is anywhere else. Two randomly chosen Africans will be, on average, more genetically diverse from each other than two randomly chosen Europeans would be. What’s more, Europeans are no more genetically distinct overall from a randomly chosen African than two randomly chosen Africans are from each other.

So … a few thoughts about redefining race …