Race Part 1

Screen Race: the Power of Illusion Part one, had some very interesting facts that were proven in the film. There main thesis was that actual race was not biologically real. And that even though people are of different skin color, their genetics aren't that different, usually having one different strand in each person.

The film showed a class doing an experiment on samples of their DNA. First they had to guess who they thought their DNA would match up with the most, all of the kids chose fellow students of the same color and look. Second, they did blood test and found out their DNA results. Third, they matched up their DNA with everyone else's, and that showed that they didn't have any real common strands like the ones they thought they would. Then the film pointed out how black people have been put through the stereotype of having different muscles, body parts, and genes. There was also a belief that the African race would become extinct because their death rate and infant mortality rate was so high. This belief didn't take into the fact of poverty and and health factors. Black people and immigrants were looked down upon in the early part of the United States. It was very strong for the mix population living in the hills on Virginia,, nobody liked them. In DNA it is proven that race can't be identified. Skin color was originally thought to be derived by how close to the equator the ancestors lived. People closer would be darker and in case easier to block out harmful rays from the sun.

Have you ever wished you were of a different race?
Do you stereotype races? Ex. Middle eastern after 9/11

I was interested by the video very much. I didn't have a clue that race couldn't be detected through DNA. I knew that the United States did thousands of test and made almost ten times more theories to degrade other races. There are so many racist people out there, and i know personally that it is sports. African Americans get blamed for stuff all the time while white people were ignored. I also couldn't believe that Nazi's created there views from the theories created by the United States. That shocks me and makes me not less proud to be an American because i am, but it only make me less proud that we ever could have thought of those in the first place.