Diamond

Summary

Diamond points out that the concept of race itself is arbitrary. He says that there is “common sense” view about race. It is the idea that we are different kinds of races when our appearances are not similar or consistent. He also notes that the classifications of human races are more complicated and problematic than that of animals because it includes political or social issues. He concludes that the resulting classifications would not be concordant at all because there are many variable traits.

Reaction

I understand that the race is so arbitrary that many anthropologists say that one cannot classify human races. Also, I was interested in the part of “concordance” and “hierarchy”. At first, it was difficult to catch the actual meaning of his explanation. However, I finally understood what he means through discussion at class. Critically thinking, there are few citations of his source in his article. That’s why this article is not enough persuasive to convince me fully.