genes Archives - The Race Card Project

I get sunburned in ten minutes.

March 17, 2025March 17, 2025 albino, CA, Christine Leach, genes, irish, joke, Nigeria, painful, San Francisco, SPF, sunburn, vacation

Christine Leach,
San Francisco, CA.

If the sun is intense enough, I can and have gotten sunburned in ten minutes, literally. I joke with my friend in Nigeria that I can’t visit him because it’d be too painful, physically. It’s a silly point, but one I’ve joked with friends about, who are black, hispanic, or just not as borderline albino (Irish genes) about how they don’t understand just how much SPF I need to apply to get through a vacation, or a day at the beach. Several have chuckled while saying they’ve never been sunburned.

But, you don’t look Jewish

March 5, 2021 but you don't look, elementary school, first experience, FL, Fort Myers, genes, High School, irish, Jewish, Rose Brown, Russion Jew, scottish

Rose Brown,
Fort Myers, FL

I don’t typically tell people that I’m Jewish. In elementary school, I was the only Jew and as such I was solely responsible for singing Jewish songs during the holidays and explaining our traditions. It continued in middle school, with everyone turning around to look at me during our week on the holocaust. Luckily for me, my Scottish/Irish genes have overtaken my Russian Jew genes as far as my appearance. By high school, I kept my Jewishness to myself. As an adult, sometimes my friends will out me (they don’t know I prefer to keep it private), and I invariably hear, “But, you don’t look Jewish”.

I’m an Eastern European Ashkenazic Jew

September 21, 2020September 21, 2020 and Romania, anonymous, anthropology, Ashkenazic, classify, concept, DNA, eastern european, false, genes, Hungary, Jew, justify, National Geographic, PA, Philadelphia, Poland, Race, reality, Russia

Anonymous,
Philadelphia, PA .

For a long time, I have known that the concept of “race” is a false way to identify or classify human beings. Race is not a biological reality. In the 19th century, in Europe, the concept of ranking people by color was used to justify conquest and slavery. The attachment of slavery to color was born. Prior to that, empires did enslave their conquered peoples but did not attach ideas of superiority based on color to them. Those ideas developed with European colonization and imperialism. European “race” theorists even applied these ideas to different (white) nations and groups within Europe (read “The History of White People” by Nell Irwin Painter.)

Several years ago, I decided I would never again say I was Caucasian again. My ancestors are not from the Caucasian mountains. (Good article in Wikipedia on how Europeans got to be called Caucasian, probably by Professor Painter.) My grandparents were immigrants – Jews who came to the U.S. from Eastern Europe – Russia, Poland, Hungary, and Romania – in the late 19th/early 20th century. They were fleeing persecution and poverty. I decided when I had to state my “race” (such as when donating blood) I would state that I was an Eastern European Ashkenazic Jew, which is what my grandparents were. But I really wasn’t sure what Ashkenazic meant, so I googled it. To my surprise, I found a lot of interesting genetic information. I learned about the National Geographic Human Genome project which uses DNA to trace the migration of people from Africa (about 80,000 years ago?) and to see how they radiated out to different parts of the world. More than 99% of human DNA is the same. The tiny fraction that is different is what causes differences in different populations. The differences arose as humans walked out of Mother Africa and settled in different regions. If they were in isolated areas, they eventually became a gene pool and shared certain characteristics that other groups did not share. Some groups formed a gene pool because social customs forbade marrying out of the group. However, in spite of isolation, there is still more genetic variation within any one group than between different groups. But some individuals or groups never settled – because of wanderlust, exploration, migration, trade, war – and shared their genes with other populations all over the world.

I did get my DNA tested. I got my Mitochondrial DNA tested in 2010, and my autosomal DNA tested in 2016. I’m not a geneticist, or a biologist, and I had to learn lots of new vocabulary and concepts to understand what it meant. It’s nice to know, and it’s anthropology which is fascinating, but that’s it.

I got all the white genes.

June 5, 2020June 5, 2020 Cayla Olson, Duluth, French, genes, identity, MN, Ojibew, white

Cayla Olson,
Duluth, MN.

I have always felt that I had to qualify my racial identity with those six words. I am part native, my mother being Ojibwe and French, and my father being Oneida and Irish. We lived on my mom’s home reservation, and it was never any mystery to me as to what made me different from everyone else (that mattered- we have a large population of white land-owners, which makes for an interesting racial climate, but that is another story for another day). The way that I look, the face that I see every time I look in the mirror is an enormous source of pain for me. Sometimes, it is so easy for me to get caught up in how unfair my hand was. I was raised learning the traditions, being taught Ojibwe by my grandparents, and feeling like a native through and through. No other part of my heritage will ever be as strong as my Ojibwe roots, but I cannot own that part of myself, truly, because I have light skin and hair. I have not been living at home for almost four years now, and most of the time, I do my best to not talk about myself much. It’s easier to be just pass as a white girl and hate myself for it.

I’m his mother, not the nanny.

February 22, 2019September 18, 2020 bi-racial, blonde hair, genes, light skinned, MN, mother, nanny, natural, not the nanny, SAINT PAUL, son, Toya Dragseth

Toya Dragseth,
Saint Paul, MN.

My youngest son is biracial. Has his Fathers genes, very light-skinned, brownish blonde hair and when he is with just me, people look as if he is not my child but a child I may be babysitting. When he’s with his dad they look very natural together.

I am more than just white.

February 6, 2017February 6, 2017 American Anthropological Association, ancestry, assume, concept, discriminate, DNA, genes, more than, outdated, stereotypes, white

I wrote this six word memoir because I think a lot of people assume that I am just one race or ethnicity rather than someone who has ancestry in a lot of other places than just being white. I think that it is something a lot of people get wrong about me. I believe that you can be more than you appear to be both with appearances and where you come from. Stereotypes exist not just some races but for all of them, and I believe it is everybody’s job to break those and show people that not everyone is like that. I think a lot of people don’t just generalize with races but also with saying all people of one skin color are the same and the stereotypes that come with that, and I think doing that is just as wrong as stereotyping for only one ethnicity.\

Race is not scientific at all.

A lot of people have been taught from birth that race is a scientific phenomenon rather than a social one. However, research has shown that race is far from being a scientifically proven, and while race may be widely accepted as a social construct, not nearly as much effort has gone into actually proving it to exist outside of our culture and beliefs. ¨Races¨ are in no way completely separate groups as proven by analysis of DNA in a study conducted by the American Anthropological Association. The study “indicates that most physical variation, about 94%, lies within so-called racial groups. Conventional geographic “racial” groupings differ from one another only in about 6% of their genes.¨ This proves that there is no genetically defined line between races, but rather that everyone is different independent of what racial group they are put into, and as such there is no reason to have these extremely general groupings other than to have a reason to discriminate against groups of people. This study also proves that just because something is accepted socially does not mean that it is proven to be true. In conclusion, race is an extremely outdated concept that has no scientific backing, and is still used as a reason to discriminate against groups of people without any valid reasoning.

“You’re Not Chinese; You are Filipino!”

February 6, 2017February 6, 2017 Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Chinese, classifications, Explorer Elementary, filipino, genes, polution, Racist, social construct, South Africa, teachers, terrorism, ugly, where are you from

As a 12 year old, I had encountered in many times where people say very messed up things including something racist. Since I’m a brother of younger sisters including my older sister, I also have my own responsibility to teach my siblings about the things happening in the world like terrorism, pollution and other stuff like that. Me personally, I don’t really like talking about this type of stuff, because I might offend someone and sometimes I might think what I’m gonna say but put it in the wrong way where i may sound very messed up. The Name of this story has to do with a experience I had encountered in 3rd grade in Explorer Elementary. When I was in 3rd grade I did not really get racism but I knew it was bad, A partner and I had to do a project about what are you and where you are from. I searched the Philippines with my partner and images popped up of Filipinos. My partner was insulting the way they looked and I remember exactly what he said, “You Filipinos really do look ugly!” When I get insulted I didn’t want to say anything because I knew that if did, it would gotten even more messed up and I didn’t want to get in trouble. Now that I know more about racism I wish I would have said something. In 7th grade we learned about events in history about racism, Some of the really cool things we got to learn about was the Holocaust because i’ve all ways wanted learn what caused it and now know that it was about racism. It was really depressing learning about the holocaust because so many people died at that time. The teachers are not making us learn this because they want us to feel depressed, they are teaching us about our history.

Race is a Social Construct

Race is not biological. It is a social construct. There is no gene or cluster of genes common to all blacks or all whites. According to Angela Onwuachi-Willig, “Were race “real” in the genetic sense, racial classifications for individuals would remain constant across boundaries. Yet, a person who could be categorized as black in the United States might be considered white in Brazil or colored in South Africa. Unlike race and racial identity, the social, political and economic meanings of race, or rather belonging to particular racial groups, have not been fluid. like race, racial identity can be fluid. How one perceives her/him racial identity can shift with experience and time, and not simply for those who are multiracial. These shifts in racial identity can end in categories that our society, which insists on the rigidity of race, has not even yet defined.” This means that society has categorized “races” or “skin color” to their own personal experiences. Society categorizes people in groups but it isn’t all the same. Although race exists in our world, its just created by social constructs.

“You’re Asian? You must be smart.”

February 6, 2017February 6, 2017 American Anthropological Association (AAA), Asian, College, DNA, genes, myth, Race, real, smart, stereotype

It’s very annoying how many people say that i’m smart just because of my race, like if i were to tell someone that i was asian they would be all like, “ Oh, that’s why you’re so smart!”, Yeah i may be smart, but it’s not because I am Asian! Many people believe that people who are asians are smarter, but they are just the same as any others, just taught a little more or works a little harder than any other. Anyone, and i mean anyone, could be as smart as any asian person, not saying they are smart, they just try hard to learn, and anyone can do that. As a kid, I got taught by my parents and grandparents, because my grandpa from my mom’s side was a mathematician, so i ended up learning more in my childhood and can learn easier because i have been learning since i was very young, like 5 or 4. It is not cool to say you or someone else isn’t as smart as me just because i’m asian, everyone would learn different, race doesn’t matter that much, it may change where you are, but not who you are as a person, like if you wanted to be smart, learn! I chose to be smart and learn because I wanted to, and as i say this, i would say i didn’t learn as much in writing or language arts, so i don’t write as good, but i can change that. There are also handicaps to being asian, because people think asians are smarter, the government makes asians work harder than anyone else! An example of that is, asians can’t get a certain degree or can’t go to certain colleges because people say they are “Super smart” just because they learned more than others.

The myth of race: what making race caused

Race was never real; it was made up by a single person. It was made to categorize people, nothing else. As the American Anthropological Association (AAA), which is a group of very well educated anthropologists in the country say, “it has become clear that human populations are not unambiguous, clearly demarcated, biologically distinct groups. Evidence from the analysis of genetics (e.g., DNA) indicates that most physical variation, about 94%, lies within so-called racial groups. Conventional geographic “racial” groupings differ from one another only in about 6% of their genes. This means that there is greater variation within “racial” groups than between them. In neighboring populations there is much overlapping of genes and their phenotypic (physical) expressions. Throughout history whenever different groups have come into contact, they have interbred. The continued sharing of genetic materials has maintained all of humankind as a single species.” So people aren’t very different after all. In 1776 a german scientist named Johann Friedrich Blumenbach was one of the first to make different races, and came up with 5 different categories based on physical appearance and where the people lived. After that, white and european people bought into this subject and then said that race would resolve things, so Thomas jefferson said, “To these objections, which are political, may be added others, which are physical and moral. The first difference which strikes us is that of colour.” And so they divided up black people and white people so that white people could feel superior. Also, Huffington post says, “The concept of race in such research is “problematic at best and harmful at worst,” everyone is in the same race, which is human. We need to know this because race causes many bad things, like discrimination, and people should be able to live without it. Race was never real,
It was made by one person, and race couldn’t make anything better.

We all come from Black ancestry.

January 5, 2016 Africa, ancestry, Black, CA, culture, divide, Europe, exception, genes, Lezlie Graebel, light skin, Mount Shasta, Neanderthal, origins, science, social behavior

Lezlie Graebel,
Mount Shasta, CA.

Science has showed us that our origins are from Africa. With the exception of those in Europe who have the distinction to carry some Neanderthal genes. The gene for light skin has also been traced to a relatively recent mutation. What divides us,; what unifies us; what protects us is culture. A human creation that is purely conceptual. It is the acquired knowledge that a person uses to interpret their world and generate social behavior. When safety is recognized in a culture that outstrips those that are no longer viable, a shift of consciousness will occur. It is up to us all to add to the conversation individually, and that conversation becomes collective. What an elegant way to create a new culture. In 6 words.

I am not just African American.

March 25, 2015 acknowledge, African, African American, Arlington, belogn, check the box, DNA, Erica Watts, father, genes, growing up, just, mother, self-worth, skin color, TX

Erica Watts,
Arlington, TX.

Growing up, I believed that I was all African American. My mother was African American and so was my brother and that is all I needed to know, to know that I was African American. However, as i got older, people began to question my ethnicity. Some claiming that I looked nothing like my mother (who people assumed was from Africa due to her skin color). I started to look at my family and began to think if I even belonged there. I was the only one on my moms side with my color. Everyone on my mothers side, such as cousins, aunts, grandmas, made it seem like I was an outcast. I recently go in touch with my dad and his side of the family and was only then to realize I am not fully African American. I gained knowledge and learned that I have as much as 7 different ethnicities within me, in my DNA. I’ve grown to love myself and all the different genes my DNA makes up. Now when I see that “Check race/ethnicity box” I dont just check “African American” I check what I am. Even if that means checking every box on that form. I will not be categorized or subjected to check only “one or two”. I will check all that applies to me! If you can not accept that, then you are not accepting me and I will not be there to let you tell me otherwise. I know who I am. I am not just African American. I am Erica. With all my different ethnicities and self worth.