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Explanation:
Donald Trump’s election as the 45th President of the United States has been marked by the brewing storms of racial conflicts. A rise in racial incidents ensued in the immediate aftermath of Trump’s victory in November 2016. Since the beginning of 2017, over 100 bomb threats have been made against Jewish community centers and schools. Trump’s travel ban, signed in late January 2017, initially affected about 90,000 people from seven Middle Eastern countries; 87,000 of those banned were Muslims. Minorities such as American Muslims and black Americans have expressed fears over racial relations under Trump. Undeniably, the topic of race—and racism—has gripped America and the world throughout.
Over the last decade, there have been hopes that the US has become a post-racial society, free of racial prejudice and discrimination. However, the most recent months indicate the contrary: race remains an incendiary issue. Race and racism are not new issues, but in today’s 21st century Trump-era, discussions about race are distinct from those of the past in that they possess an entirely new dimension: that of genetics and DNA.
Race in the new era of human genetics research
In 2003, scientists completed the Human Genome Project, making it finally possible to examine human ancestry with genetics. Scientists have since tackled topics such as human migrations out of Africa and around the world. And it’s not just scientists who are excited about human genetics: widely affordable at-home ancestry test kits are now readily available from companies like 23andMe, Family Tree DNA, and Ancestry. For $99—around the price of a romantic dinner or a pair of Nikes—a customer can receive an analysis from 23andMe indicating that they are, for instance, 18.0% Native American, 65.1% European and 6.2% African.
The soaring popularity of ancestry testing bespeaks a widespread perception that we can use these tests to dissect, delineate, and define our ancestral composition. Indeed, social media is teeming with blog posts, and even livestream videos, from excited customers bursting to broadcast their test results and their reactions. Ancestry test kits are the new “it” item—and with their success is the tacit admission of our belief that our DNA can sort us into categories like the “five races:” African, European, Asian, Oceania, and Native American (Figure 1A).
Figure 1. ‘Race’ cannot be biologically defined due to genetic variation among human individuals and populations. (A) The old concept of the “five races:” African, Asian, European, Native American, and Oceanian. According to this view, variation between the races is large, and thus, the each race is a separate category. Additionally, individual races are thought to have a relatively uniform genetic identity. (B) Actual genetic variation in humans. Human populations do roughly cluster into geographical regions. However, variation between different regions is small, thus blurring the lines between populations. Furthermore, variation within a single region is large, and there is no uniform identity.
Figure 1: ‘Race’ cannot be biologically defined due to genetic variation among human individuals and populations. (A) The old concept of the “five races:” African, Asian, European, Native American, and Oceanian. According to this view, variation between the races is large, and thus, the each race is a separate category. Additionally, individual races are thought to have a relatively uniform genetic identity. (B) Actual genetic variation in humans. Human populations do roughly cluster into geographical regions. However, variation between different regions is small, thus blurring the lines between populations. Furthermore, variation within a single region is large, and there is no uniform identity.
New findings in genetics tear down old ideas about race
Estimating our ancestral composition down to 0.1% seem to suggest that there are exact, categorical divisions between human populations. But reality is far less simple. Compared to the general public’s enthusiasm for ancestry testing, the reaction from scientists has been considerably more lukewarm. Research indicates that the concept of “five races” does, to an extent, describe the way human populations are distributed among the continents—but the lines between races are much more blurred than ancestry testing companies would have us believe (Figure 1B).
A landmark 2002 study by Stanford scientists examined the question of human diversity by looking at the distribution across seven major geographical regions of 4,000 alleles. Alleles are the different “flavors” of a gene. For instance, all humans have the same genes that code for hair: the different alleles are why hair comes in all types of colors and textures.
