The Difference Between Us (Episode 1 from the series, “Race, the Power of an Illusion” [VHS Tape]

Description

Everyone can tell a Nubian from a Norwegian, so why not divide people into races? That’s the question taken up in “The Difference Between Us”, the first episode in a three-part series titled “Race–the Power of Illusion”. This segment demonstrates how recent scientific discoveries have toppled the concept of biological race. It follows a dozen students, including Black athletes and Asian American string players, who sequence and compare their own DNA. The results surprise them–and us–when they discover that their closest genetic matches are as likely to be with people of “other” races as their own. Much of the program is devoted to understanding why people of different “racial” groups are so similar genetically. Looking at skin color differences, disease, human evoluation, even genetic traits, we learn there’s not one characteristic, one trait, even a single gene that distinguishes all members of one “race” from another. One by one, our myths about race–including “natural” superiority and inferiority–are taken apart.