To the editor:

As a recent retiree who went to KU in the early 1970s and moved back to Lawrence in the summer of 2017, I’m taking advantage of the senior waiver here at KU and have finally gotten around to taking a course on anthropology. The most important fact I have learned so far is based on recent quantum leaps in molecular biology and the science of genetics mapping our genomes and analyzing ancient and modern DNA. And that fact is this: There is no such thing as race. We are all of the same DNA and we all came from a common ancestry. Our genetic makeup is expressed differently in skin color, for example, but only because over thousands of years we moved about the planet into different climates from our brothers and sisters that required certain adaptations due to the sunlight we were exposed to. I hate to rain on the parades of those who seek to demonize others using skin color as evidence of a fundamental biological difference and/or inferiority to themselves, as if they were a unique species, but the truth is, science has shown there is no “Other” anymore. There is just “Us” and always has been!

Rob Hudson,

Lawrence