Everyone Is African

A
LSO BY
D
ANIEL
J. F
AIRBANKS
:

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.

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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 much genetic variation traces its origin to more than one hundred thousand years ago when all humans lived in Africa, and that ancient African variation is now spread throughout the people of the world.

Racial classification is real, but it is based much more on a set of social definitions than on genetic distinctions. Legally defined categories for race differ from one country to another, and they change over time depending largely on the social and political realities of a particular society or nation. The notion of discrete racial categories arose mostly as an artifact of centuries-long immigration history coupled with overriding worldviews that white superiority was inherent—a purported genetic destiny that has no basis in modern science.

Scientific methods that allow for large-scale analysis of human DNA have recently unleashed a flood of genetic information, allowing for detailed analysis of the geographic ancestry of any particular person. Such methods fail to reveal discrete genetic boundaries along traditional racial classification lines. What they do reveal are complex and fascinating ancestral backgrounds that mirror known historical immigration, both ancient and modern. Complex ancestry, rather than simplistic race, is a more accurate and meaningful representation of each person's genetic constitution. This book argues for a scientific approach to unraveling the complexity of human genetic diversity, and against simplistic classification using race as a supposed biological entity. Racial classification must remain social, targeted to meet social realities, to overcome discrimination and provide strong incentives against it in the present and future.

A better understanding of what science tells us about human genetic diversity is of immense importance, particularly because it dispels false notions of what race is. This book summarizes what is known about the genetic basis of human diversity, how it evolved, and what it means. It recounts recent research and how human genetic variation is related to pigmentation, human health, and intelligence, all of which have been attributed to race in the past, often simplistically and erroneously. In the end, we can now read our evolutionary history written in our DNA, and it explains our genetic unity as a species and how our genetic diversity came to be.