No Title Too

I got roped into a discussion about race one night. This was with one of those who believe that race in humans is a social construct, not a biological reality.

            “Biologists tell us that race is not real.”

            Which I happened to know was not true, being a biologist myself.

            “Well, maybe anthropologists anyway.” I said, not totally convinced that they counted as biologists.

            “There are more differences within any population group than between them. There are no characteristics that define so-called racial groups.”

            He was very proud of himself, being but a poet, at the research he had done into the biological sciences. He cited a number of papers from the epidemiological literature, each like another notch in his belt.

            It was a curious thing. I knew that biologists routinely referred to races of insects and plants and lizards and fungi and birds and snails, but humans were somehow different. As if an evolutionary history of restricted gene flow would not lead to differences among populations. There was a strange double standard among the progressive sociologists and liberals and literati and environmentalists where humans were not only accepted but actively promoted as being simply another animal among many that populated the planet, yet were still held to be above the types of perspectives applied to other organisms by biology.

            “You mine the literature to find the data that conforms to your predetermined view, ignoring other data, and call that support for your argument.”

            “And you don’t?”

            “Well, I try not to.”

            He didn’t laugh.

            “You demand the kind of distinctions that would normally be applied to species differences, not racial differences. That we don’t see those kind of differences simply confirms that we are a single species.”

            I’m not sure if he was aware of the controversy in biology over whether species were in fact objective entities themselves. In that context, arguing about the reality of race was pretty silly. But I knew of a mountain of data that showed a continuum of differentiation and diversity. I couldn’t understand the urge to deny it.

            “What good does it do to deny what a child can see?” I asked.

            “On their own, children don’t see it.”

            “Maybe they see it but it never occurs to them to use it as an excuse to gain unfair privilege. The only way to beat racism is by embracing the diversity.”

            He sputtered and muttered something about unity and oneness. I had a vision of the mindless and stupid crowds at rock concerts with their never-ending waving arms, a Borgian beast with no soul in sight.

            Outside rain pelted the tin roof of my poor abode. It was cold and the rain came in rhythmic waves, crescendos and diminutions of attack.

            “Let me show you to the door.” I said.

            When he was gone I breathed a sigh of relief.

            But I knew he’d be back.