If you even believe in “race”…
The notion that the species “homo sapiens” is divided into significant groupings called “races”, each of which is associated with certain cultural traits, distinguishable by certain superficial physical features (hair colour, skin colour, eye shape, body hair and so on) and more or less homogenous is accepted by most of us ordinary folk.
Among population biologists and anthropologists (in other words, the people with enough expertise to make an informed judgement) however this notion has been growing increasingly controversial since 1950 or so. Anthropologists tend to talk about “populations”, biologists about “clines” neither of which really line up with each other let alone with what most folks think of as the “races”.
Without denying that the social reality of races are the critical factor in discussing the experience of racism, I think it’s interesting to understand how arbitrary these apparent divisions really are. There’s little consensus about whether races exist, but that in itself is interesting.
If this sounds like nonsense to you, have a read of the long and very informative Wikipedia article on race.
Tags: Racism