8 interesting facts about skin color and race

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1.The human races are mostly developed in the present day. Looking back, the ancient Greeks, Jews, Romans, Muslims, and Christians did not have any racial categories. Rather, they just used language, class, and religion, to classify people.

2.Most of the researches show that children as small as 6 months can notice race and accordingly judge other people on the basis of their race. In the research, 6 month old infants were shown pictures of different people that belong to different races. The research depicted that these children stared considerably longer at those pictures, which had faces of people who belonged to a different race as compared to their parents. This illustrates that children find different race people to be beyond the ordinary.

races

3.According to Biology, only one human race exits. The results of Human Genome Project confirmed this fact that our DNA does not define our race. There is no genetic definition of race as per the geneticists. Moreover, human races are socially constructed groupings and are not regular genetic groups. Scientists use various physical features, such as skin color, facial features, hair, etc. along with other physical traits, in order to distinguish different people of different races, for instance south Asians from East Asians and Europeans from Africans. Thus, every human being belongs to only one hominid species, that is, Homo sapiens, which is a Latin word that means ‘wise man’.

4.In 1790, it was the first time that the United States census categorized people on the basis of race. Since then, the racial classifications have varied from one census to the other. The very first census just has three racial categories and the racial segregations have changed 24 times since then. The recent census in 2010 depicted 63 probable race categories.

5.In the United States, most of the people who are recognized as African Americans had some European ancestors and people who are recognized as European Americans had some Native American or African ancestors.

6.According to most of the biologists and anthropologists, race has its roots in colonialism and slavery and it is just a political categorization. And, as the science of race and politics changed, so did the way how the census classified and asked about race fluctuated from one census to the other. The number of racial categorizations, as in who belongs to which race, and races have increased as per the political goals.

7.Different nations in the world assign race through multiple ways. For instance, in the United States and Japan, race is determined at birth and is therefore fixed. (See on interracial dating sites) Conversely, in Brazil, race is based on various factors, like the physical appearance influenced by environment and genetics, socioeconomic status, and the race of the parents, and is therefore more flexible. A person’s race is not fixed and can alter as they become poorer or wealthier.

8.Race is not just about the skin color of a person and it is not the reason behind the diverse skin colors of human beings. Scientists say that skin color changes due to ultraviolet rays and geography. For example, the darker-skinned natives of Canada and Alaska would be expected to be light skinned because they live in long periods of darkness in the northern regions. According to scientists, the dark skin is due to the higher level of ultraviolet rays that such people get, which is reflected from the ice and snow surface during the summer season, and the vitamin D that they obtain from eating fish and seal.

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