Everyone Is African: How Science Explodes the Myth of Race

157 Pages·2015·2.05 MB·English

by  Daniel J. Fairbanks

ALSO BY DANIEL J. FAIRBANKS:
Evolving
Relics of Eden

Published 2015 by Prometheus Books
Everyone Is African: How Science Explodes the Myth of Race. Copyright © 2015 by Daniel J. Fairbanks.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or
otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a website without prior written permission of the publisher,
except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Cover image © Bigstock
Cover design by Grace M. Conti-Zilsberger
Unless otherwise noted, all images are original drawings by the author.
All DNA sequences are derived from public databases of the National Center for Biotechnology
Information and are in the public domain.
Inquiries should be addressed to
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The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Fairbanks, Daniel J., author.
Everyone is African : how science explodes the myth of race / by Daniel J. Fairbanks.
pages cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-63388-018-4 (pbk.) -- ISBN 978-1-63388-019-1 (E-Book)
1. Human population genetics. 2. Human genetics--Variation. 3. Human evolution. 4. Race. 5.
Racism.
I. Title.
[DNLM: 1. Continental Population Groups--genetics. 2. Biological Evolution. 3. Genetic Variation. 4.
Genetics, Population. 5. Racism. GN289]
GN289.F35 2015
305.8--dc23
2014043771
Printed in the United States of America
Preface
Prologue
Chapter 1: What Is Race?
Chapter 2: African Origins
Chapter 3: Ancestry versus Race
Chapter 4: “The Color of Their Skin”
Chapter 5: Human Diversity and Health
Chapter 6: Human Diversity and Intelligence
Chapter 7: The Perception of Race
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Few subjects elicit such powerful emotion as race and racism. The history of
racism is filled with such horrific cruelty and abuse that much of it has been
excluded from historical accounts. In recent years, however, several well-written
and thoroughly researched works have candidly recounted the history of racism,
and they document some of the most horrendous persecutions ever imposed
upon large groups of people over multiple generations. As these more recent
histories were being written, human geneticists were collecting evidence
supporting one of the most significant discoveries in the history of science—
evidence that the notion of distinct biological races is flawed.
It is not uncommon to hear or read statements like the following: “Race is a
socially constructed concept, not a biological one;”1 “In scientific terms, racial
differences have no material significance;”2 “Today, science is eroding the
biological basis of the idea of race;3 or “Race is an exceedingly slippery
concept…while it is a biological fiction, it is nonetheless a social fact.”4
Such statements seem to contradict the obvious: that children inherit the
features we typically associate with race—especially skin, hair, and eye color—
from their parents. Because that inheritance must be genetic, how can we
legitimately say that race is social rather than biological? And how, then, can
science (as the title of this book proclaims) explode the myth of race?
Statements like those quoted above usually appear as declarations of fact, with
little or no contextual evidence or explanation to justify them. Even so, they are
neither hollow nor dogmatic. Rather, they are based on abundant and sound
scientific evidence, but laying out that evidence and explaining it would divert
most authors from the main point of their arguments, which, in most cases, is to
focus on the social and historical aspects of race and racism, not the science.
This book, by contrast, is about the science. The evidence presented here is
amassed from the research of hundreds of scientists working in laboratories
throughout the world. Most of this research is pure science, conducted without
any political or social agenda. I am honored to count myself among these
scientists. Colleagues, students, and I have contributed a small portion to the
DNA-based information on worldwide human diversity, a sampling of it
summarized in this book. Although I am a research geneticist, I believe my
greatest qualification for writing this book is an ability to present complex
scientific evidence and conclusions in a way that is engaging and understandable
to those who do not have an extensive background in the sciences.
A moment ago, I mentioned how, until recently, history books were often
sanitized of the atrocities of racism, possibly because those atrocities seem too
horrific. This book could potentially suffer criticism for likewise failing to
sufficiently recount them. Its focus, however, is scientific evidence. That
evidence provides a solid foundation that negates both the legacy of historic
racism and the pervasive undercurrent of racism that continues to the present. I
strongly believe that the history of racism has often been downplayed, and I
encourage those who read this book to explore that history as a complement to
the scientific information presented here. There are many excellent books,
articles, essays, websites, and video documentaries on the subject.5
I wish to thank the editors and staff of Prometheus Books for their
professionalism and expertise. Although I have attempted to verify all scientific
conclusions in this book and support them with reliable evidence, I take full
responsibility for any errors. The opinions in this book are mine and do not
necessarily represent those of the publisher or my employer. I hope you find this
book compelling. Please join me as we explore how science explodes the myth
of race.
I am writing this paragraph on July 14, la fête nationale, also known as Bastille
Day in France. On this same date three decades ago, I was riding on a train
through Strasbourg, France, colored fireworks lighting up the night sky. The
holiday celebrates the storming of the Bastille, a key event in the fall of the
French monarchy and the adoption of the Déclaration des Droits de l'Homme et
du Citoyen (the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen), one of the
world's most influential documents intended to establish basic human rights,
similar to those in the US Constitution. Though the purpose of such documents
was to extend those rights to all people, many whose ancestry was not classified
as “white” were considered to be inherently inferior by commonly held beliefs
and often by law and thus were deprived of these rights.
Today I was on a different train—the number 1 in New York City traveling
north from downtown to uptown Manhattan. The ride took about a half hour, and
the people I saw coming in and out of the train were diverse, with ancestries
from many places. Not only did they appear diverse, many were speaking
different languages. I recognized Portuguese and Spanish, languages I speak
fluently, and those speaking them had accents typical of Brazil, the Azores,
Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Peru. I also heard other languages I did not
understand, as well as a wide range of accents in English. The people on the
train were probably a mix of local residents, tourists, businesspeople, and
students. This sort of vibrant human diversity is now commonplace in major
cities throughout the world.
Some celebrate such a mix of human diversity; others deplore it, preferring
that so-called races be separated both geographically and reproductively. Even
today, some people retain the once-popular belief that the “white” race is
superior in intellect, health, and other attributes. Although far more people reject
the notion of white supremacy today than in the past, its legacy remains, as
evidenced by economic stratification, ongoing segregation, and classification by
racial categories. Even among those who reject the supposed superiority of a
particular ethnicity over any other, the perception of distinct, genetically
determined human races often persists.
This book is, in part, the outgrowth of conflicting race relations I have
observed since my childhood. The sounds and images of the civil rights
movement were a part of my youth during the 1960s. On television, I watched
snippets of Martin Luther King Jr.'s impassioned speeches. The resonant sound
of his voice and the hope it evoked left me appalled that people could be treated
as inferior simply because of their ancestry. I was eleven years old when I heard
the news that he had been assassinated, and I silently grieved for his family.
During my high school years in the mid-1970s, I lived in a small town in
eastern Arizona, not far from the border with Mexico. While most of my friends
spent the summers bagging groceries for minimum wage, I preferred working
outdoors on the local cotton farms alongside undocumented immigrants who had
walked across the border to find employment. I often heard people refer to them
as if they were less than human, using labels such as “wetbacks” or “spics.” I
developed friendships with several of them as we walked side by side hoeing
weeds in the fields. One man in particular became a close friend. He was
obviously well educated and intelligent, and he had abandoned his career as a
commercial artist in Mexico City because he could earn more for his family as a
migrant farmworker in Arizona. He spoke some English, but most of our
conversations consisted of him teaching me Spanish, and I looked forward each
day to learning more from him. One morning, he failed to appear, and I later
learned that the Border Patrol had taken him away.
He sparked in me an interest in his culture and language that would
substantially shape my professional career, eventually culminating in my study
of Spanish and Portuguese, a PhD minor in Latin American studies, and decades
of research in Mexico, Guatemala, Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil. Although others
viewed him as inferior because his skin was darker and his social and political
background different, I count him as an influential teacher and friend. Though I
cannot recall his name and do not know where he lives now, I will always
remember him. I hope he remembers me.
This book is also an outgrowth of what I have discovered as a geneticist from
laboratory research on human genetic variation I have conducted with
collaborators and from my study of published research from laboratories around
the world. Unfortunately, few people are aware of how much is known about the
genetic basis of race—or, more accurately, the lack thereof. To many, the notion
that race is inherited seems self-evident. Yet extensive genetic research has
demonstrated that the genetic variation associated with what most people
perceive as race represents a small proportion of overall genetic variation. When
viewed on a global scale, there are no discrete genetic boundaries separating so-
called races. Rather, the world's human diversity consists of innumerable genetic
variations spread throughout the human population in a complex set of multiple
overlapping arrays. A proportion is associated with geographic ancestry, but