The Utah chapter of the Ambassadors for Peace held another successful monthly meeting on December 10^th in the Murray Library Auditorium. We had approximately 20 guests.

Our meeting began with refreshments being served. Mrs. Wendy Stovall, Utah Ambassador for Peace coordinator was the emcee for the program. She began by welcoming the guests to the program and then invited Rev. Langes Silva of the Salt Lake Catholic Church Diocese to give the opening invocation.

We continued with the topic “Interreligious, Interracial and International Harmony and Cooperation” by inviting Mr. Nicolas Valero who is currently a PhD student at the University of Utah to give a presentation. His topic was the “The Myth of Races.”

Mr. Valero began his talk on how he has had to complete forms for his daughter in school to indicate which race his daughter is. He said that her teacher had put her down as Caucasian, but he said in fact he has so many nationalities in his ancestry that she did not fit the standard classification. He went on to talk about how racial classification has been decided upon here in the US and in Europe. He said that it is not possible to classify a person by their external features, such as skin; hair or eye color because there are so many differences even within what is currently classified as a race.

He then went on to talk about blood type as a possible way of looking at races using “O” blood type as an example, but he showed us a map that indicated that was not possible as there were pockets of “O” type found around the world.

He then went on to talk about the DNA in our genes and how it is passed on from the maternal side of our families. He indicated that they were far greater differences within so called races that there were between different races. He also discussed the evolution theory of whether we came from Neanderthals and the like but said that there was no similarity in the genes to prove that theory. He finished by saying that from the genetic point of view we all came from an original parent in Africa and then spread around the world from there and that our differences in skin, hair and eye color have all come about due to climatic variations. He concluded that in the bible there are no racial references and that in essence we all come from the same origin and that race should not be used as a means of dividing people and that with this knowledge we can help to overcome our interracial barriers.

Following the presentation we held a question and answer session, which led to some good discussion from our guests.

We concluded the program by appointing Dr. Chuck Tripp, Professor of Political Science at Westminster College, as an Ambassador for Peace. This was then followed by a buffet lunch, which allowed us time to socialize and to network.

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