Thoughts on Kant

The one thing that I could not shake from my head after Thursday’s class was the definitions of monogenesis and polygenesis and why people would choose to believe in one definition of the human race over another.  I have monogenesis defined as human beings belong to the same genus or origin and can reproduce properly with other human beings to create fertile offspring no matter how different they look.  And I have polygenesis defined, as different human beings are similar but not related, they are separate local creations of different human species.  By definition it was pretty straight forward which one made more sense according to my beliefs and thought process and that was monogenesis.  I figured that any human could reproduce with another human and have fertile offspring so monogenesis is right we spring from one origin.  Does this opinion of mine correlate with the fact that I am a Christian, yes of course it does, but that was my initial thought after class, that monogenesis won hands down.  But this past weekend I started to challenge my belief on this monogenesis theory because I would see people of different race, ethnicity, etc and just think to myself “yes we are all human beings, but at the same time there’s something different about you and something different about me.” I believe this difference starts at the surface of skin color but it does not end there.  Something we didn’t talk about much in class was Bernier and Kant’s observations of the physical differences between races.  This just sparked an idea in my head that our different racial traits could be reason to believe in polygenesis.  The question I have is why can’t our skin color define our different species of human beings?  I don’t find it so farfetched that we stem from the same origin and deviated into different races, variations and varieties.  Overall, I am very confused about which is right and which is wrong when it comes to monogenesis and polygenesis because Kant is very contradicting of these theories and of himself, as he seems to discredit his intellect on the matter at the end of his essay. In conclusion, I am sticking with my belief in monogenesis because of our identical human DNA and because it aligns with the idea of an artificial division which makes the most sense to me in our society today. My question for the class would be what is a strong case for natural division and against artificial division?