[ZenGum]

Some random thoughts:

Regarding the evolution of the various human races, recent articles I've read tend to say that practical advantages of the various racial features would have been insignificant, and the traits are more likely due to sexual selection of the features that culture found pleasing. I'm just reporting back a general impression here, grain of salt all round.

When comparing human races, as well as the physical differences, in is possible that there are some differences in behavioural tendencies. However, the similarities greatly outweigh the differences. Furthermore, the differences within groups are usually greater than the differences between groups.
Moreover, when it comes to the way individuals think and act, nurture is probably more important than nature, and still further, once someone has become an adult, they are capable of changing their behaviour patterns away from those they were raised with or are genetically disposed to. So, genetics in itself is a most unreliable guide to personality.
That said, not all inheritance is genetic. Culture - especially language, but values, religion, habits etc - is passed from parents to children, and shared among communities. Culture can develop in parallel with genetics. While people can greatly change their culture during their life, not many do. So culture can be a predictor of behaviour, and race can be a predictor of culture. So it turns out that genetics - race - can be a moderately reliable predictor of culture, and hence of behaviour, after all. It just must be remembered that it is an indirect connection, and so unreliable.

Being genetically homo sapiens is, in my opinion, of little moral significance.

I think it is much more important to be what I call a person: a creature whose behaviour is determined by beliefs, desires and reasons, and which is capable of having values and engaging in society.
I acknowledge various potentially controversial consequences: nun-human persons like intelligent aliens, and possibly some primates and marine mammals; and more controversially human non-persons like the brain dead, the unborn and even single stem cells. I will just say that our judgments about personhood should be made with generosity, some regard to future potential personhood, and moral caution; and furthermore, legal protection is not confined purely to persons. Animal cruelty laws are an example.

So I think the answer to the meaning of life question is to do with this sort of personhood - doing things for reasons, developing and transmitting culture, doing the things that have caused people to prosper and populate the Earth.