In his book The Language of the Genes Steve Jones has included a chapter Cousins Under The Skin on racism and how colonial processes and early scientific measurements and observations have wrongly classified people in “races”, which are later genetically proven unwarranted.
In this chapter Steve Jones is explaining how since early days people have tried to define their affiliation to one “race” and to put “races” in hierarchy, assuming even that people belong to different “species” according to their skin color. Even more- they have tried to find a perfect “archetype” to prove that one of them is superior. He shows how biology has partially emphasized one type of differences (skin color) and undermined many others (blood groups, culture or physical diversities in human body) that could be used to classify people in very different groups. As he admits these divisions would all be based on some level of judgment and prejudice, and as they are cross-racial, they would create perplexity in how to split people in groups. This would also oppose the racial division. Unfortunately the “race” as the skin color has always been the most visible and contrasting, therefore the easiest to use.…
