RACE: Are We So Different?

Mayo Clinic and the Rochester Public Library partnered to bring the national touring exhibit RACE: Are we so different? to Rochester. This touring exhibit was available through special arrangement with the American Anthropological Association and the Science Museum of Minnesota. The exhibit is commonly seen in museums in major metropolitan areas. RACE provided Rochester and area communities a unique learning opportunity to understand, grow and embrace diversity.

RACE is a story with three themes. These interwoven themes employ video, photography, printed word and interactive technology resources. Looking through the eyes of history, science and lived experience, the RACE exhibit explains differences among people and reveals the reality – and unreality – of race.
Theme: The Science of Human Variation: This section offers visitors factual information and an invitation to explore our common ancestry, learn why we are different, as well as alike, and see how many common ideas about race are inaccurate or incomplete.
Theme: The History of Race: In this section, the exhibit demonstrates how economic interests, power struggles, scientific research, and even popular cultures have informed the American understanding of race, and have provided a sturdy framework for discrimination. Visitors will learn about race as a human invention, and see how scientists who once legitimized ideas about race are now dismantling them.
Theme: Race in Our Culture: So what is race? Although the concept of race may not be biologically valid, no one can argue that culturally and socially, race is real. The exhibit shines a spotlight on how we experience the concept of race in everyday America life – at school and work, at the doctor’s office, in the halls of Congress, and even every time we switch on the television.

The exhibit opened on May 17, 2010 at the Rochester Public Library and runs through September 11, 2010.