George W. Gill's Argumentative Analysis: Does Race Exists?

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Does Race Exist The issue of if race exists is a complicated one that many cultures have to tried to define. After reading the article on NOVA and looking at the experiments done in class, I have to agree with the proponent's perspective of George W. Gill of the University of Wyoming. I had the opportunity to take a class in forensic anthropology that focused on crime scenes and identification of decomposed bodies last year. It was one of the most engaging classes I have ever taken at the University of Montana. Frequently, when looking at bones, in particular the skull, we would rely on the skull morphology to narrow down what race it originated from along with looking at other variables.. By no means was narrowing down what race it came…show more content…
Loring Brace from the University of Michigan states that racial categories for human kind are, “arbitrary and meaningless,” because she strongly feels that in our society, race is defined merely based on our perceptions. She uses examples of how a long time ago people thought the earth was flat because that was the commonly shared “perception,” when it was later in fact found that the world is round. Though her arguments are compelling Gill maintains that his perceptions of race are not purely defined by political correctness. In fact he makes a strong argument that classifying people based on their geographic region is less confusing that using words such as Negroid, Caucasoid,…show more content…
Gill's strongest points is that, “the politically correct 'race denial' perspective in society as a whole suppresses dialogue,” and similarily is, “allowing ignorance to replace knowledge and suspicion to replace familiarity.” my class example *the importance of bones- *race only being skin deep *needs a more open dialogue- (most people who publish have political/cultural beliefs that swade our opinions *race leads to racism- yet, but not after more education and more of an open dialogue. In a world based largely around media- and their portral- the education and open dialogue is stinted- and unfortunately the issue is compouned by political strife most of the time. Perception is skewed due to our current world climate. I agree with oponent's side of him that racial categories for human kind are “arbitrary and meaningless”

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