The Social Construction Of Race By Leonardo Santos Summary

Throughout the semester, we have been taught the social construct of race in the social setting and the genetics behind it. Ricardo Ventura Santos’ thesis is based around this same idea. Through experiments and study, he shows that the variability in the human race cannot be put into one specific race. Another component of that thesis is that the concept of race can be dependent on how others perceive you, and not the country of origin you are from. The author is specifically trying to show the audience that the race that we believe is not a biological construct, but a social one. The concept of race had come from the colonization across the globe. When those who colonized came into contact with other groups, the created a hierarchy based on physical variations. They believed that the clines and variations seen are based on genetic differences. Many believed that the differences in culture and appearance went hand in hand with different subspecies of humans. In class discussions, we learned that not any race has possession of one specific set of gene variations. The work of gene flow and environmental pressures lead to the differences of physical traits and clines we acknowledge today as different races. Environmental
In Brazil, there are many different races and cultural groups. In the experiments it was broken into three main groups: thirty who are black, thirty who are white, and thirty who are brown. These are all self-classifications the students had given themselves (789). In the fourth phase of the experiment, the participants were placed based on the country of origin they identified with, not with the physical characteristics they had. The three countries used were Africa, the European continent, and Amerindian (790). A genomic test proved that while many may have a higher set of alleles from one place, which they still may identify as another