Race in the Wild

I was in the yard this week and saw a group of cedar waxwings in a hawthorn tree, feeding voraciously on flower petals.  I didn't know they liked petals. Such spectacular birds, always dressed in their finest, sharply colored, carrying the air of polished professionals.  Male and female are nearly identical, and I wondered how they identified their own mates. And that made me think of penguins and how mated pairs find each other in nesting colonies that might consist of tens of thousands of birds standing shoulder to shoulder, and how the young pick out the call of a parent in the midst of tens of thousands of squawking neighbors. And that made me think of squirrels for no other reason than sometimes they’re black.

It's a sequence of thoughts that might only happen when the reality of racial prejudice, discrimination, and injustice is headlining the news.  Breaking down a population into racial divisions applies only to humans.  Races don't exist among waxwings or penguins or squirrels or anything else in the wild.  Subspecies do, but humans lack the genetic variation to earn subspecies classification.  We use race to categorize people according to where they or their ancestors lived, skin color, or certain anatomical or cultural characteristics. We all come from geographic regions where particular genetic traits became apparent once proven advantageous to local living conditions.  Squinted eyes protected against snow blindness in northern climates.  Dark skin lessened the damaging influence of ultraviolet light near the equator.  Lighter skin allowed more sunlight absorption and vitamin D production in regions of less sun intensity. These are all positive responses to environmental stimuli, the result of remarkable selective forces that increased the odds of survival for our ancestors.  They are no less impressive than the snowshoe-like paws of a lynx that allow it to travel across deep snow or a catalpa sphinx moth’s gray mottled wings that perfectly match the bark of a tree.

Black color phases of both gray and fox squirrels are most commonly found in the northern portions of their range.  It's believed to give the animals an advantage in cold climates where the dark color absorbs more heat from the sun. Both black and typically colored squirrels can occupy the same woodland. One is not superior to the other. They are the same species with differing color. They commingle, raise families and exist as all squirrels exist.

Humans no longer face geographic barriers with world travel being what it is, and with the development of artificial environments, sunscreen, and vitamin supplements we can now live safely wherever we want regardless of ancestral adaptations.  With enough time and genetic blending, skin color and other environmentally induced differences among us will become less and less evident.  It’s how biology works. Integrated cultures, too, meld with time. Our high tech civilization has not ended the mechanisms of adaptation. 

I am a white Caucasian of European descent. I grew up in an all white town, went to an all white school, and don’t pretend to understand what it’s like to be judged and classed and discriminated against based on color, physical features, or cultural preferences.  I don’t suggest that an understanding of the origin of environmental traits will wash away centuries of prejudice and injustice. I’m just baffled that superiority based on color, geography, or culture ever became the illogical, disgraceful, inhuman thing it is; baffled that the most intelligent animal on the planet might benefit from mimicking squirrels.