So about a month ago I went home for my fall break and - as I usually do - looked up the Smithsonian Musuem of Natural History to see if there were any new exhibits. Lo and behold, there was! I hopped on over for the temporary exhibit "Race: Are We So Different?" I was drawn in by the website's explanation of the exhibit as a look at race from all angles: biological, social, economical, historical. I thought I'd spend 10 minutes in there, read a good tid bit and move on.
I was in there for about an hour.
The different angles were so interesting. The biological background of why people's skin look different and how that has been influenced by our evolutionary history. The history of the word "race" and how it's meaning has changed. Statistics on racial differences in income, education, and health - and how they don't always match our assumptions (Did you know that Mediterranean people also have a high occurance of the sickle cell allele?! I didn't! There was a story about a man of Italian descent who took years to realize and then convince doctors he has sickle cell because people assume it only occurs in people of African descent). There were movies and photos of people of all races, of all mixed ethnicities, sharing their stories. It was really one of the more insightful exhibits I've seen in a long time.
So take a minute to check out the site, and please go to the exhibit if you happen to be in DC before January.
Fact of the Post....comes from the Natural History Museum! The museum's Species of the Day is the sea pig, Scotoplanes globosa. Read about it here!
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| Oink oink! |
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