Race literacy quiz (California Newsreel)

Humans have approximately 30,000 genes. On average, how many genes separate all members of one race from all members of another race?

• 1008

• 23

• 1

• 142

• None

Answer explanation

There are no characteristics, no traits, not even one gene that distinguish all members of one so-called race from all members of another race.

Which characteristic did the ancient Greeks believe most distinguished them from "barbarians"?

• Religion

• Skin color

• Language

• Dress

• Hairiness

Answer explanation

The word barbarian comes from the Greek word "bar-bar," for someone who stutters, is unintelligible, or does not speak Greek. The Greeks, like most ancient peoples, did not attribute much meaning to physical appearance. In ancient Greece, language was the difference that mattered, because it indicated who was not Greek. Some historians believe that the first to be labeled barbarian were the Scythians of circa 500 B.C., who lived northeast of the Black Sea and were very fair skinned. Ideas of 'race' did not exist during antiquity.

In Medieval Europe (circa 1300-1400), Ethiopians were looked upon as:

• Savages

• Saviors

• Barbarians

• Infidels

• Negroes

Answer explanation

In medieval Europe, religion mattered most, not physical appearance. At the time, Christian Europe was at war with the Moslem Empire. Europe looked towards a mythical Christian Ethiopian kingdom, led by the fabled priest-king Prester John, to rescue them from the infidels. Theories of race didn't emerge until the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Members of a race can be identified by their:

• None of the above

• Genes

• Blood group

• Skin color

• Ancestry

Answer explanation

There are no traits, no characteristics, not even one gene that is present in all members of one so-called race and absent in another. The A, B, and O blood groups can be found in all the world's peoples (the percentage of Estonians and Papua New Guineans with A, B, and O blood are almost exactly identical). Skin color tends to correlate with the earth's geographic latitude not race; sub-Saharan Africans, the Dravidians and Tamils of southern Asia, and Melanesians from the Pacific all have very dark skin. Ancestry is difficult to trace; we all have two parents, four grandparents, etc. If you could trace your family back 30 generations, slightly more than 1,000 years, you'd find one billion ancestors.

Skin color correlates most closely with:

• Risk for sickle cell, Tay Sachs and other genetic diseases

• Hair form

• Geographic latitude

• Continent of ancestral origin

• IQ

Answer explanation

Skin color tends to correspond with ultra-violet radiation from the sun and hence latitude. People with ancestors from the tropics typically have darker skin while those further north have lighter skin. Sub-Saharan Africans, Asian Indians, Aboriginal Australians and Melanesians all have dark skin. But skin color really is only skin deep. Most traits are inherited independently from one another. The genes influencing skin color have nothing to do with those influencing hair form, eye shape, and blood type, let alone the very complex traits we value such as intelligence, musical ability or athletic ability. Genetic diseases are inherited through families, not race. Sickle cell, for example, confers resistance to malaria. It occurs in people whose ancestors came from where malaria was once common: the Mediterranean, Arabia, Turkey, southern Asia and western and central Africa - but not southern Africa. The presence of sickle cell is not an indicator of race but of having an ancestor from a malarial region.

When Jamestown colonist John Rolfe and his new wife Pocahontas traveled to the Court of London in 1619, it caused a scandal because:

• An Englishman had married an Indian

• John Rolfe had cuckolded General John Smith, the leader of the colony

• Pocahontas, a princess, married beneath her station by wedding a commoner

• Londoners had never seen an Indian before

• A Christian had married a heathen

Answer explanation

. Pocahontas, a princess, married beneath her station by wedding a commoner

17th century England was a very hierarchical, feudal society where people's class status was fixed at birth. Status was so important that laws regulated the clothing people could wear so they couldn't "pass" as another class. When John Rolfe took his new bride Pocahontas (who had converted to Christianity) back with him to London in 1617, the English had not yet developed the racial ideology that later justified their taking of Indian lands. But it was unthinkable that royalty would marry a commoner.

The rise of the idea of white supremacy was tied most directly to:

• Indian removal

• Slavery

• The Declaration of Independence

• The U.S. Constitution

• Ancient Greece

Answer explanation

Ironically, it was freedom, not slavery, that gave rise to modern theories of race. Until the Revolutionary period, slavery was an unquestioned "fact of life." It was only when Americans proclaimed the radical new idea that "all men are created equal" that slavery was first challenged as immoral. As historian Barbara Fields notes, the new idea of race helped explain why some people could be denied the rights and freedoms that others took for granted.

Which group has the most genetic variation?

• Humans

• Chimpanzees

• Penguins

• Fruit flies

• Elephants

Answer explanation

Fruit flies

Fruit flies have been around for a very long time but they also have a short life span, so lots of genetic mutations have accumulated over many generations. In contrast, modern humans are one of the most genetically similar of all species. On average, only one of every 1,000 nucleotides (the "letters" that make up our DNA) differ one individual from another. This is because we are a relatively young species (approximately 150,000 - 200,000 years old). We simply haven't been around long enough to accumulate much genetic variation. Also, humans have always moved, mixed and mated, further homogenizing our gene pool. Beneath the skin, we're all very similar.

Which two populations are most likely, on average, to be genetically similar?

• Italians and Ethiopians

• Senegalese and Kenyans

• Italians and Swedes

• Chinese and Lakota (Sioux)

• Saudi Arabians and Ethiopians

Answer explanation

Saudi Arabians and Ethiopians

Populations that live near each other geographically tend to be genetically more alike than populations that live far apart. That's because they are more likely to have intermixed in the recent past and therefore share more genes. So even though Senegalese and Kenyans or Italians and Swedes are traditionally placed in the same "races," they live farther apart from each other and have had less contact and intermixing than Saudis and Ethiopians.

Most human genetic variation can be found:

• Within any local population, for example, among Zulus, or among Hmong

• Between two populations on the same continent, for example between Irish and Poles

• Between two populations on different continents, for example between Koreans and Zulus

• Between any two continents, for example, between Africa and Asia

• Between tall people and short people

Answer explanation

Within a local population

85%, or almost all human variation, can be found within any single local population, whether it's Malay, Irish, Zulus or Koreans. There is FAR more variation within groups than between groups. This means that there may be as many - or more - genetic differences between two random Koreans as between a random Korean and a Zulu. On average, approximately 94% of all genetic variation can be found within any continental area.