Page 15 AnthroNotes Volume 28 No. 1 Spring 2007 RACE Are We So Different? A New Public Education Program by Mary Margaret Overbey After more than six years of planning, the AmericanAnthropological Association (AAA) has created ahighly acclaimed public education program on race and human variation to promote broad understanding of race and human variation, to explain what race is and is not, and to produce tools to teach about race. The pro- gram, RACE Are We So Different?, was made possible with nearly four million dollars in funding from the Ford Foun- dation and National Science Foundation. The RACE ex- hibit opened at the Science Museum of Minnesota in St. Paul in January 2007 with outstanding reviews from visi- tors and the media and began a national tour in May 2007. Twelve other cities across the U.S., including Washington, D.C., will host the exhibit through mid-2011. At this time, more than 18 cities are on a waiting list to host the exhibit. Race remains an unspoken, yet powerful and not well understood, facet of life in the United States. More than 40 years after the civil rights movement and with long- standing remedies and mechanisms in place to counter and track discrimination and social injustice, we like to think that America has moved beyond race. But have we? Educators know more than most that race con- tinues to underlie relationships among students, teachers, and administrators and daily life in schools and communi- ties across the U.S. Increasingly diverse student popula- tions require schools to ensure that administrators, teach- ers, and students understand and appreciate diversity. Multicultural activities celebrate the foods, dress, and lan- guages that reflect the many cultures represented among students, faculty, and administrators in schools. Focusing on differences, however, make it diffi- cult to see and celebrate the similarities among people. And it does little to explain and disentangle notions of race from the concept of culture, adding to the confusion about what race is and isn’t. Project Goal & Resources The goal of the RACE Are We So Different? project was to produce a traveling museum exhibit, a website, and educa- tional materials to convey a comprehensive and integrative story about race and human variation. The story, geared for middle-school aged children through adults, relays three overall messages: • Race is a recent human invention; • Race is about culture, not biology; and • Race and racism are embedded in our institu- tions and everyday life. The exhibit and website present three themes: • The history of the idea of race; • The science of human variation; and • The experience of living with race and racism. The interactive website (http://www. understandingRACE.org) includes a virtual tour of the RACE exhibit., videos, historical timelines, and quizzes. It ˜ ˜ ˜ This photograph of people on a bus welcomes visitors to the RACE Are We So Different? exhibit. One of many images of community life, taken by Wing Young Huie, featured in the exhibit. Photo: Mary Margaret Overbey. Page 16 AnthroNotes Volume 28 No. 1 Spring 2007oNotes also includes scholarly papers, written specifically for the conferences and activities supported by the project, and a bibliography. Teachers and families can access educational ma- terials in the website’s resources section (www.understandingRACE.org/resources/index.html). Two teacher’s guides, one for middle school teachers and one for high school teachers, present race and human varia- tion through the integrated lenses of biology, culture, and history. The guides meet national and select state standards for science, biology, social studies, and social science and provide more than 10 lesson plans that address human biological variation, cultural variation, and the experience of living with race and racism. The teacher’s guides include some of the background material and lesson plans pub- lished in a related resource for teachers, How Real Is Race? A Sourcebook on Race, Culture, and Biology by Carol Mukhopadhyay, Rosemary Henze and Yolanda Moses (Rowman and Littlefield Education, 2007). The lesson plans are designed to be infused into existing curriculum, and we encourage teachers to consider team teaching. For example, a biology teacher, a history teacher, and a social science teacher may want to work together to design a module that integrates the science of human variation with the history and lived experience of race in their classes. A family guide, also in the website’s resources sec- tion, helps parents talk to small children about race. It pre- sents activities, stories, and exercises for parents and chil- A high school cafeteria table invites visitors to lis- ten in on students’ conversation about race and how race affects where they sit in the cafeteria and how they think about themselves and others. Photo: by Mary Margaret Overbey. dren to do together as well as suggestions for discussions about race. A glossary complements the teacher’s guides and family guide. We found that there is no common language for talking about race so we developed a glossary to assist teachers, students, parents, and scholars in discussing race. Project Background I want to emphasize a few points about the experience of developing the RACE Are We So Different? program. First, understanding peoples’ perception of race and human variation was important. We undertook exten- sive audience research to ensure that we had a good idea of what people think about race. Over the course of the project, we interviewed students at a diverse high school, interviewed visitors at two museums, held focus groups, and convened fourteen community meetings at seven mu- seum sites across the U.S. to better learn how people talk about race, what they want to know about race, and what suggestions they had on how to draw others to an exhibit, website and educational materials on race. From this re- search, we learned that people are fascinated by human differences and similarities, and they want to know more about race and human variation. Although conversations were not easy, people wanted to talk about how race af- fected their communities and their lives. Calipers and hair samples are among the tools scien- tists used to measure human differences from early to mid-1900s. The calipers belonged to William Montague Cobb, the first African American physical anthropologist. Photo: Mary Margaret Overbey. Page 17 AnthroNotes Volume 28 No. 1 Spring 2007 Second, we designed this as an interdisciplinary project from the start to ensure inclusion of many critical aspects of race and human variation, from the history of the idea of race, to the genetics of human variation, to the effects of racism on education, health and housing. Di- versity also was central to the effort, and we worked to make certain that there was diverse representation in the planning and development of the program and in all project activities. A diverse, multidisciplinary 22-person Advisory Board of scholars oversaw the effort. As a result of this interdisciplinary approach, the complicated story of race is made understandable. Visitors can see and understand how science, society, and government shaped the idea of race in such a way that it remains a powerful force that continues to impact our institutions and everyday lives. Third, developing the RACE Are We So Different? program was a collaborative effort, involving more than 20 organizations, including the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History and seven other museums. The AAA worked with the Science Museum of Minnesota to develop the exhibit, S2N Media, Inc. to de- velop the website, Randi Korn & Associates to evaluate the exhibit, Museum Solutions to evaluate the website, and Marmillion + Company to develop a communications strategy and materials. More than 150 individuals contrib- A turn of the century ceremonial vest with American flags stands in contrast to signs illustrating discrimi- nation. The exhibit explores “white” as a racial cat- egory. Photo: Mary Margaret Overbey. Piles of money show the wealth disparities that exist among those who identify as white, Asian, African American, and Hispanic/Latino. The exhibit explains how wealth accumulation occurred. Photo: Mary Margaret Overbey. uted to the project. It took many people and organiza- tions working together to make the RACE Are We So Dif- ferent? program what it is, and we believe the very positive public response demonstrates that the result was well worth the effort. I encourage you to visit the RACE Are We So Dif- ferent? website, acquaint yourself with the variety and range of activities, review and use the teacher’s guides and glos- sary. If the RACE exhibit comes to your city or nearby, consider taking your students to visit, or take a virtual tour of the exhibit with your students and incorporate a lesson plan in your class. I think you and your students will be glad you did. Reference Mukhopadhyay, Carol, Rosemary Henze and Yolanda Moses. 2007. How Real Is Race? A Sourcebook on Race, Cul- ture, and Biology. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Edu- cation. Mary Margaret Overbey is an anthropologist and serves as principal investigator and director of the RACE Project at the American Anthropological Association.