On Representations of Race and Racism
             George P. Nicholas, from the University of Chicago Department of Sociology and Anthropology, wrote this article after attending a conference in Alberta, Edmonton, Canada called "Anthropology in the 21st Century: Beyond the Ivory Tower". Professor Nicholas was attending the conference, which was attended mostly by graduate students from various universities in the United States and Canada, in a guest speaking capacity. The article deals with Nicholas' surprise at how many view what he feels is the outdated idea of race.
             Nicholas starts off the article by talking about how the issue of race came about, which was through him stating that in the coming century, it would be one of the anthropologist' responsibilities to debunk the outdated idea of race. In saying this, he made the assumption that all anthropology students in this day and age would be familiar with the fact that many anthropologists have determined race as a meaningless concept decades ago. One notable anthropologist with this view that Nicholas mentions is Marvin Harris, whose textbook is Nicholas' text of for introductory Cultural Anthropology classes.
             Nicholas' notion that the belief that race was obsolete in anthropology was challenged later in the conference when the issue of DNA in ancient Siberians came up. This issue led to discourse on race, racism and other issues. Through that discussion, Nicholas was surprised to come to the conclusion that people in the field of anthropology have not been doing all they can in challenging the issues of race and racism.
             One example that Professor Nicholas uses to show that popular notions of race still affects the fields of anthropology and archaeology is the subject of the Kennewick man. In the Kennewick man controversy, archaeologist James Chatters described some features of the man's remains as "Caucasoid". Through this situation,
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