Cited by 190Race, Genetics, and SocietyRacial and Ethnic Identity ResearchMedical History and Research

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AAPA Statement on Race and Racism

Open access

Abstract

Race does not provide an accurate representation of human biological variation. It was never accurate in the past, and it remains inaccurate when referencing contemporary human populations. Humans are not divided biologically into distinct continental types or racial genetic clusters. Instead, the Western concept of race must be understood as a classification system that emerged from, and in support of, European colonialism, oppression, and discrimination. It thus does not have its roots in biological reality, but in policies of discrimination. Because of that, over the last five centuries, race has become a social reality that structures societies and how we experience the world. In this regard, race is real, as is racism, and both have real biological consequences. Humans share the vast majority (99.9%) of our DNA in common. Individuals nevertheless exhibit substantial genetic and phenotypic variability. Genome/environment interactions, local and regional biological changes through time, and genetic exchange among populations have produced the biological diversity we see in humans today. Notably, variants are not distributed across our species in a manner that maps clearly onto socially-recognized racial groups. This is true even for aspects of human variation that we frequently emphasize in discussions of race, such as facial features, skin color and hair type. No group of people is, or ever has been, biologically homogeneous or "pure." Furthermore, human populations are not — and never have been — biologically discrete, truly isolated, or fixed. While race does not accurately represent the patterns of human biological diversity, an abundance of scientific research demonstrates that racism, prejudice against someone because of their race and a belief in the inherent superiority and inferiority of different racial groups, affects our biology, health, and well-being. This means that race, while not a scientifically accurate biological concept, can have important biological consequences because of the effects of racism. The belief in races as a natural aspect of human biology and the institutional and structural inequities (racism) that have emerged in tandem with such beliefs in European colonial contexts are among the most damaging elements in human societies. The concept of race has developed hand-in-hand with racist ideologies over the last five centuries, and biological anthropology has played an important role in the creation and perpetuation of both the race concept and racist ideologies. Racist political doctrines should not receive support from scientific endeavors, but in practice racism has been co-constructed with inaccurate depictions of human variation provided by scientists. Over our history, the AAPA, and many of its members, have been complicit in producing and reifying racist ideologies via the misuse, falsification, or biased production of scientific information. We acknowledge this history and stress that we should not paper over it even as we seek to end these practices and prevent the reemergence of misconceptions about race in the future. While science is often represented as objective, apolitical, and unbiased, many ostensibly biological concepts of race have cultural stereotypes, biases, and ethnocentric views embedded within them. We acknowledge that outdated and inaccurate ideas about race, and racism, still inform scientific research today, and are sometimes embedded in what otherwise appears to be "modern," technologically-advanced science. We stand against such practices. As scientists, we strive to eliminate the influences of bias, racial profiling, and other erroneous ways of thinking about human variation from our study designs, interpretations of scientific data, and reporting of research results. This is not simply due to concerns about how non-scientists use scientific research; it is also about how scientists themselves conceive, implement, analyze, and present their research. We offer this statement as a baseline for what we know about race and racism in order to help us do better science and better convey what we know about human biological variation to broader audiences. Racial categories do not provide an accurate picture of human biological variation. Variation exists within and among populations across the planet, and groups of individuals can be differentiated by patterns of similarity and difference, but these patterns do not align with socially-defined racial groups (such as whites and blacks) or continentally-defined geographic clusters (such as Africans, Asians, and Europeans). What has been characterized as "race" does not constitute discrete biological groups or evolutionarily independent lineages. Furthermore, while physical traits like skin color and hair texture are often emphasized in racial classification, and assumptions are often made about the pattern of genetic diversity relative to continental geography, neither follows racial lines. The distributi

Overview

AI snapshot

Written from the paper’s full text.

TL;DR

The American Association of Physical Anthropologists (AAPA) issues a formal statement arguing that race is not an accurate biological representation of human variation but is a social reality with real biological consequences via racism. It calls on biological anthropologists to acknowledge the discipline's complicity in racist ideologies and to eliminate bias from research.

Key findings

  • Humans share the vast majority (99.9%) of their DNA, and genetic and phenotypic variation does not map onto socially recognized racial groups or continental clusters; most genetic variants vary clinally across geographic space.
  • There is more genetic diversity in African and African diasporic populations than in others, and variants found outside Africa are largely a subset of those found within it; diversity generally decreases with distance from Africa.
  • Skin color, a trait traditionally tied to racial categories, is a product of long-term evolution involving more than 37 genetic loci, local environmental factors, migrations, and gene flow, and shows a clinal distribution that cannot be separated into discrete categories.
  • Racism (interpersonal and structural) demonstrably affects biology, health, and well-being, so race—though not a scientifically accurate biological concept—can have important biological consequences.

Methods

  • This is a consensus/position statement written by an AAPA subcommittee tasked with revising the previous 1996 AAPA statement on the Biological Aspects of Race (Am J Phys Anthropol, vol. 101, pp. 569–570).
  • It synthesizes existing evidence on genomic variation, phenotypic variation, and human evolutionary history rather than presenting new data or analyses.
  • No formal study design, sample, or statistical analysis is reported.

Limitations

  • The paper states no formal limitations; it is a normative statement rather than an empirical study.
  • Evident from the text: it presents no new data or systematic review methodology, and its claims rest on cited bodies of prior research rather than original analysis.
  • The text notes that understanding of the genetics underlying most polygenic traits is "incomplete," and that genetic ancestry tests oversimplify and misrepresent human genetic variation.

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Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1002/ajpa.23882

Cites

Statistics

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Verification

Claims the paper makes

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  • It may state two separate claims as one. 30
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Metadata

Authors
Fuentes, A., Ackermann, R. R., Athreya, S., Bolnick, D., Lasisi, T., Lee, S., McLean, S., & Nelson, R.
Affiliations
  • University of Notre Dame (US)
  • University of Cape Town (ZA)
  • Texas A&M University (US)
  • University of Connecticut (US)
  • Pennsylvania State University (US)
  • University of California, Riverside (US)
  • University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (US)
  • Santa Clara University (US)
Corresponding author
Fuentes, Agustín
Venue
American Journal of Physical Anthropology
Publisher
Wiley
Published
2019-06-14
Volume
169
Issue
3
Pages
400-402
ISSN
  • 0002-9483 (ISSN-L)
  • 1096-8644
OpenAlex
W2951598669
Cited by
190
References
0
Citations by year
2026: 21 · 2025: 36 · 2024: 27 · 2023: 23 · 2022: 19 · 2021: 40 · 2020: 19 · 2019: 4
FWCI
12.36
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • American Journal of Physical Anthropology (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Anthropology › Race, Genetics, and Society
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Racial and Ethnic Identity Research
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History › Medical History and Research
Keywords
race, racism, biological variation, human genetic variation, social construction of race, European colonialism, racism and health, physical anthropology, scientific racism, institutional racism, skin color, hair type, facial features, scientific integrity, history of anthropology, structural inequality, epigenetics
MeSH terms
Biological Variation, Population, Anthropology, Physical, Biological Evolution, Humans, Genetic Variation, Racial Groups, Racism

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