1. My thesis to the movie would be: Race is not determined through genetics. Rather race was determined by the color difference of various humans’ skin color. Race is determined by the exterior portion of our body, not the interior.
2. The argument that our race is not determined by our genetic structure was supported in the movie as the group of students in a workshop determined who they were most similar with. They originally thought they would be most similar to people of the same race. But in the end they found out that most of the time their genetic structure was more similar to a person of a different race. They also used evolutionary evidence to support this way of thinking by stating that all human races originally evolved from Africa and moved their separate ways throughout the world. This was meant to explain why genetics don’t determine race. The students were also asked to explain where their ancestors were from. Then they tried to see if their genetic structure matched the same structure of a person actually living there presently. In most cases the students genetic makeup was most similar to an area that was not from where their ancestors came from.
3. A question that I have is that if genetics don’t support the color of a person’s skin than how come when a African American and a white American have offspring the color of the child’s skin is usually in between the color of the two parents? How come, if genetics don’t matter, a white couple does not give birth to a darker skinned baby or how come two darker skinned parents don’t give birth to lighter skinned babies from time to time? In the documentary it explains that the mitochondrion DNA came from the mother. What if a gene from the father’s makeup partly determines the color of the child? They explained in the documentary that they still have not determined all the genes of a person’s body and what they lead to. So maybe there is a gene that does determine the skin color of a child. But as stated in the movie, what color our skin is, is the trait that has the most effect on an individual. Statements having to do with black people being more athletic or white people being more intelligent are clearly not true claims. The study did show that all of the genes that the people had were mixed between races. These traits are affected by our surroundings and the environment that we grew up in than the DNA that we have or the color of skin that we have.
4. I thought that the documentary was very interesting. All of the students were positive their DNA would be most like another person of their own race. But nearly all of them came away surprised at the end of the experiment. This study shows that too much of an influence is put on what color of skin we have, because people with different colors of skin are made up with virtually the same DNA. I think many people do still believe that the color of a person’s skin makes them completely different from a person of a different color of skin. Therefore I hope that many of those people would have a chance to view this excellent documentary.
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You ask an interesting question in your analysis section. The answer I'd offer is -- yes, skin color is inherited. But race is not just skin color-- it's a whole set of traits attached to skin color, as discussed in the film. Two students recognizable as different races-- black and white--found they had the same number on the skin color scale. So race, the way we use it, means much more than skin color... your question is an excellent one they could have addressed directly in the film.
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