let's not discuss separate the we have had our roach and we will sign it tomorrow. [laughter] is this the end of race of america? we know it is not at the turn of the 21st century it was starting to look that way back in 2000. remember that? in 1997 the american association of physical anthropologist urge the american government to phase out the use of waste in the data category and the substitute ethnic categories instead. geneticist studying dna the material of genes that issues instructions to our bodies were also concluding that race as a biological category made no sense.

the habit of three leading human heredity to the environment may be traced back but early 19th century racial thinkers turn it around deeming it a permanent marker four and eight superiority not until the 1850's on the environment care rescued with charles darwin changes species they describe a world much longer reaping that heredity was not fixed and generation after generation things change interest bonds to their surroundings. arguments over race in the human genome decided leaving us with some intriguing data about personal appearance. prevailing racial schemes now rest once again on concept of skin color.

but widely recognizes the fact that not only are black people various shades of brown and yellow but so too are white people somewhat lighter and often with more pink or if they were in the sun a lot more red. [laughter] hence of the red scare as realized in the late 18th century when groups of skin color gradually shades into another's there were no clearly demarcated lines purpose of people who identify as black may have light skin and others. siblings with the same mother and father can display a range of skin colors and race may be about pigment but what makes people scan light or dark? skin color is a byproduct

red to yellow and a dark brown to black in reaction to sunlight and the several genes interact to make people like your dark or red or brown or black and asian scholars were wiser than they knew when they related skin color to climate and today's biologist concur sunny climates to make people dark skinned and cold climates make people light skinned how much melanin what is expressed the pence on exposure to the old true by the radiation. month in both attacks against excessive and will try to radiation and allow sufficient to enter the body and to my to be radiation causes skin cancer and lead to death but it is crucial for developing fetuses and a strong bones.

so where are we now? nothing the human genome initiative -- elicited human kindred across the globe then on the genes that talk has not disappeared. but we realize that human beings short history links us all 21 another and to speak in racial terms any human migration has made us all we'll to ratio does this mean the human genome where desegregation have ended the tyranny of race in america? almost certainly not. the fundamental black white binary endures even of the category of white s or more precisely a category of non blackness effectively expands as before the black poor remain outside the concept of the american and

as the alien race and gender of families and i should explain that i have a discussion of the concept of alien races which were applied to immigrants and their children from eastern and southern europe and the four right families that were four in a voluntary sterilization. a multi a cultural middle-class with college campuses but the face of course, segregated into cities remains black and for some time many have held that many and interracial sex would solve the race problem and in the day have been some cases but nonetheless poverty in the dark skin endures as the opposite of lateness driven by the age old social journey to characterize the poor as inherently inferior.

thank you. [applause] >> we have about 20 minutes for questions. please get to the microphone >> made the race go to the swiftness. >> i have the political questions. >> no no. police. just ask a question. >> i am trying to gather the purpose of your book that what you would like to happen if also called white people agree with your premise because when i read works like the and cyclopedia of it but colonialism it talks about and i quote, playing

possession too nearly all of america and austria and pollination 90% africans and 50% of asia or when you read the book we have in the store who owns the world that talks about the largest landowner and the world is queen elizabeth to happens to be white. most of these books those to classify themselves still owned land that was not originally there's and still on a controlled resources. so with your book are they just to apologize and give the land and resources back to the rightful owners because now they understand they were tricked or does this work on a plate of semantics but the over world how dynamics will not change?

what is the intended goal of your book? >> i don't think i can win. [laughter] if those are the only choices i will have to check if the other box. my book is the work of the historian not making policy. not an advocate. i don't know that is hard but let me say my goal is nonge several so what i like people to know it is whiteness is a concept not something biological or permanent or intrinsic and the ideas have changed over time that whiteness has a history that is what i wanted. sorry.

thank you. >> in your research have you found any evidence the crossing of the ratio barriers that were misleading to better families? >> another hard question. [laughter] >> as people have more choice that they can choose a better perhaps leaving out tiger woods he is just one person but i was wondering have a more the way to choose better parents and families as a result? >> that is another hard question may be another trick question. once again, i will appeal to the intelligent and

beautiful audience. we will take another approach. i think you all heard the question as to whether or not more choices produce better families? is that a fair paraphrase of your question? everybody understand? no. there is more choice you can reach out and married or have sex with more different kinds of people these days? does that make it better? i did not ascii for nsa i just want yes or no. yes it is more choice makes it too better and know is more choice does not necessarily make it better. ready? this is still yes or no. yes. more choice makes better family is?

no. not necessarily. this time it is closer pricing to the no still has it. and i bet they will say as i heard other people say it makes it different. it makes a different. okay. >> my question is not difficult. [laughter] weir billion of the census forms and looking on that, it seems to me that other groups are identified generally by aid geographic location except for one which implies there is only one the skin color that is really important and a bad is white. so isn't there an effort? >> you can be black and african-american and negro but it does include black.

>> the other one back confuses is the use of caucasian which. >> i don't think it is in the sense is now. >> but in society in general how many people with those various shades of white were from the caucus mountains ever? >> zero. [laughter] >> thank you. >> this is the easy answer but the parts that cannot answer but every 10 years since the categories adjust to take account of what the federal government thinks it needs to account up sell in the middle, started off 79 the with a picture in my book of the first since this category and there was only one race listed that was white and it was five different presentations. and then there were people who at that point* where of

various races and in the middle of the 19th century were milan no. >> bless you. >> in the early 20th century for white people they broke white people down into native-born or florida born. it has changed over time and if you make a move maybe you can get people or gray or brown or more variety. [laughter] >> a quick statement and a quick comment very quick that i have a great fortunate of eight long french troops with winter of jordan and all through your taka i thought how excited he would have been. just to say that. >> thank you. >> my question i took my

sense is warm last week and i rode across it you know, grace is a social construct but i pick that because i know they have to counted but my question is how did you pick yours and why? [laughter] >> mine is pretty straightforward guy picked black. >> why? >> my husband picked white because as far as we know, he is. [laughter] something interesting has been happening my book came out on the 15th of this month and i have been talking to people and i hear permutations of this question over and over and sometimes people are upset but i only hear that from people who are upset over the white box because they know that is the one that the senses or somebody wants the black helicopters wants them to check and they are

not comfortable with it. and i think, i guess in the 21st century white people are more and more becoming aware of themselves race in addition to individuals seeing how awkward a fit a category meant went to includeil of people so we are facing a white a dilemma that would be interesting. >> thank you so much for coming and i say here here to this but last year with a television shirtwaists black in america will they ever make up the same white in america? pic that apart and if they do i hope they cancel you.

the next question would you agree but i have felt as i watched turmoil take place in this country over the past year and almost looked like reese's them was an addiction then need to hold on to that separation like the addicted needing to hold on and then the denial of this addiction and it does on themselves. >> i have not thought of it that way but that is the interesting and insightful way of talking about it. anthropologist have spoken people addd to raise as people who believe in witchcraft that's the you cannot disprove it. based on race they have a

way to get around it and hold on to the police. but it has been going on longer the last year my book has a chapter on rap music and hip-hop culture which is 35 years old now. speaking of history and a good bit of the anxiety that comes up their this is what black people are. and a lot of black comedy. this is what black people do it is a unitary image that shows the anxiety that you picked up and the culture at large.

:segregation americans are generally trying to figure out who we are according to our traditional basis for and a new are so much more about class because we are living in a country with the most profound inequalities of income and wealth i think it just about in our history. certainly in our post slavery history. in the slavery south the disparities were infinite. but since that time, we have really reached very few people who were very rich. and increasing numbers of people who are increasingly black and brown are just scraping by. >> these are the last four or five? whoever is in line. >> thank you for coming.

growing up in d.c. wishes a multiracial public-school then going away two college that was much wider there seems to be a preoccupation among us to the body of the concept of white privilege to be sensitive almost to the point* coming full circle. with sensitivity chain that science came from white men. that is one student trying to work through that. this kind of preoccupation as of consciousness and i am wondering what historical eight is the interaction of this category that has no categorical basis?

>> that is your question? >> the appeal? >> the appeal is that your people who ever they are assuming let's just make you william t. ripley for the moment. you are a well educated new englanders wealthy background harvard yale or columbia has a way of explaining why you are beautiful and a nice and they are ugly and poor. throughout the world. thank you. >> hello. i heard you mentioning the fact with the white slavery a near up a long time ago. >> not just a long time ago. it has been in our world.

>> but this white slavery that slot and slave are surprisingly similar spare surprisingly distant it spent there were sharp differences between people in europe and now going to a census form and use the one box four right be quite. >> every country and does it differently but france does not. >> but on blogs on you have a box or if you go back coming through ellis island for this undesirable unruly best of my question is given that now the poin box was wise may be and 100 years you will not see a box of all four race. >> that is possible because

people are so mixed up. now we have our little mini revolt without checking the white box certainly. the biggest dividend group is latinos and they're supposedly are more than african-americans. latinos can be of any race. loss of zero african descended immigrants who don't necessarily associate themselves with african americans and native african-american assume they see as lazy and inferior. so bold thing is getting mixed up something like only 46 percent of current immigrants in 2008 identify themselves as white where 76 a and through a 80% of

native-born americans have identified themselves but those who it is getting to be less popular. [laughter] we will see. thank you. >> the last three questions? >> he began by talking about the greeks. they were slave owners and romans were slave owners and generally. >> not all of them. just the tip top. [laughter] >> whoever they conquered they made them into slaves. then we come to this country and you have capitalism at work in terms of southern plantations meeting labor to self-taught and two england. >> i am going to correct to a middle bit because the whole plantation system started with sugar. that is a big difference. it started before capitalism got going.

>> call it commerce? >> you could but it is different. >> but they brought the blacks over to be bought and sold. >> also a lot of white people. >> to work in these places but the majority were black and it was a circular trade. >> triangular. >> bishops came from the north. >> what is your question? >> if you look at the basis of race and set aside the american experiment. >> sets aside the american expement? [laughter] that was created by a peculiar need of commerce it is not endemic. >> i cannot go with you on that if because it. >> the question? >> what is the question?

[laughter] >> the question is when you deal in the race, you have to look at where it proliferates and the reasons why. and in every part of the world is different. you can't just generalize by using the american experience. >> i certainly camper by talking about the united states. >> i am not for you have to look elsewhere. >> okay. we believe that book to you. [laughter] >> is very interesting that this gentlemenwh i wanted to sa. however i will start with the history of white people. i was expecting more universal talk of the situation and i do realize that here, the people and you as the author that we are back to the same subject

of a black and white in the united states. it just happens that i do come from a country that you mentioned france. six or seven months ago i was asked what it is your race because i was fielding a question by phone from the russian hospital and demand said caucasian of course, i said yes caucasian but no, no, no. black. [laughter] he said black? i said yes. because i am aid to send -- a descendant of lucy most likely. [laughter] >> definitely. >> what i want to say is please give us a book next time that give us of the

universal black-and-white world. you. [speaking french] >> just another angola used to live in the u.k. and 51 to discuss how it is really taken to the extreme a certain number of people of color. if you are black, we basically have a whole lot mantra are you black ever 10 or black caribbean are black american? and if you're black american who are you mixed with? [laughter] and then the black other. black american but then if you look at the english

white it is one basic white category. the question is what will it take and when will it be desirable for the white people to describe themselves to the same degree that other races are asked to describe themselves? or is there a fear there will be a loss of power because one statement i heard a lot like to hear a comment that there were not any white people until they came to america that is on the italians and english and, etc. united. and there is a fear there is a loss of power. >> and a stand. >> >> it is already under foot to zero or in the air. without tampering any further with the categories. they tend to lag behind for the power arrangements.

has ages become richer they will become more beautiful. as it gets mixed up it will somehow have to catch up to us. what americans have found very frustrating we have a lot of trouble classifying people according to wealth and income. much more useful way of dealing with the inequities of the society. thank you very much. [applause]