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Francis H. Kinnicutt said, "While biologists agree that a certain amount of mixture of blood is all right . . . we can not have too much mixture of the races... without getting into trouble in the long run." What does this suggest about how race was understood in the 1920s?​

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The statement by Francis H. Kinnicutt suggests that race was understood in the 1920s as a fixed and biologically determined category, and that there were concerns about the consequences of mixing different races. The idea that "a certain amount of mixture of blood is all right" implies that there was a belief in the existence of different "racial" groups, and that some degree of mixing between them was seen as acceptable. However, Kinnicutt's warning that "We can not have too much mixture of the races... without getting into trouble in the long run" suggests that there were concerns about the effects of too much mixing, and that there may have been a belief that the different "races" were fundamentally different and incompatible. This statement reflects the eugenic beliefs of the time, which held that certain "races" were superior to others, and that the mixing of different "races" could lead to a decline in the quality of the population.
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