Race...

In Mary’s Colorline Through U.S. History class last semester this question of race was discussed at length. It seems to me that the word, if not the idea of race was constructed (at different times around the glob) with a genealogical definition (both socially assumed and- at the time- scientifically proven) in order to separate humans for the personal benefit of those in control. Now, in the US, after recently having proven that humans cannot be divided into groups based on genealogy that resemble what we socially recognize as “races”, the word is being redefined instead of thrown out. This phenomenon is frustrating as discussions pop up about the definition of a word, which should simply have been deemed a fallacy. Where the definition of race was once based in genealogy, now it is being defined as bio-regional (still extremely based in skin-color), and cultural.
Through the introduction to Kenya we have had over the past two weeks, there seems to be a huge diversity of regional and cultural histories there, which inevitably divides people by heritage and identity, but from my understanding of the word “race”, I would not call them different “races”. The social implications of cultural or socially constructed divisions must be extremely real in Kenya as they are anywhere, but genetically, the people in Kenya probably share the same unexpected global similarities and differences as the students in the Ford Foundation film.
As I’m writing this, however, I wonder if that last sentence is true. It would be interesting to do the same test that was performed in the Ford Foundation film with different groups of indigenous people who’s ancestors have been in the same area and community for centuries.