In this response to Frank’s comments regarding our recently published article in Demography (Guo et al. 2014), we also address the literature she cites to support her comments. We reiterate a central point already made in our original article. We do not try to explain racial identity. Our objective is to examine racial classification in U.S. social surveys. The general concept of racial identify is a much more complex subject involving many more historical, cultural, political, social, and ancestral factors than we address here. To be sure, a long history of work has attempted to link race to genetics in order to justify racial discrimination and race-based social stratification. However, advances in molecular genetics have afforded opportunities for natural and social scientists to study race using new tools and perspectives that do not necessarily serve to reify race but instead attempt to better explain its many dimensions and possible...
Skip Nav Destination
Article navigation
Research Article|
November 25 2014
Recognizing a Small Amount of Superficial Genetic Differences Across African, European and Asian Americans Helps Understand Social Construction of Race
Guang Guo;
Guang Guo
Department of Sociology and Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina, CB#3210, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3210, USA
Carolina Center for Genome Sciences, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
Search for other works by this author on:
Demography (2014) 51 (6): 2337–2342.
Citation
Guang Guo, Yilan Fu, Hedwig Lee, Tianji Cai, Yi Li, Kathleen Mullan Harris; Recognizing a Small Amount of Superficial Genetic Differences Across African, European and Asian Americans Helps Understand Social Construction of Race. Demography 1 December 2014; 51 (6): 2337–2342. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-014-0349-y
Download citation file:
Advertisement