Race: Social Categorization, Not Biological Essay

Sociologist define race as a “socially defined category based on real or percived biological differnces between groups of people”. In the 19th century biologist came up with the three different categories that groups the three human races: Mongoloid, Causasoid and Negroid. They belived that different races where charaterized by biological makeup. But modern sciences have proved that theory to be wrong because there is no such thing as a “pure” race. We are 99.9% genetically idenitcal. Race is just a concept humans made up, it isn’t actually real.

The reading "Virginia’s Definition of a Mulatto" written by Thomas Jefferson, Richard Holland Johnston, demonstrates how even the slightest drop of black blood can cause the person to be categorize as a Mulatto. There is equation for figuring out if you are not white. This shows a big changed since this article was first written because we do not hear or use the word mulatto anymore. The Pew Research Center article demonstrates comparing a timeline through 1790 to 2000 census, there was a lot of changes through these specific years. The drastic change in the black category changed numerous times with different names such mulatto, black slaves or black. There wasn't a big change to the census until 1870 where they started to add groups into the census such as the Indians and the Chinese. This also shows

Race is defined as a category or group of people widely perceived as sharing socially significant physical characteristics or hereditary traits that set them apart. It is commonly accepted myth that the human species is composed of physically different groups and that these differences are assumed to be genetic. Race is supposed to be based on biological factors. However, the myth is debunked; it is scientifically proven that race is a social construction; although it is based on physical characteristics that presume biological base, most important biological differences between people are invisible and do not play any role in the definition of racial categories. There

Race is a classification system used to categorize humans into large and distinct populations or groups by anatomical, cultural, ethnic, genetic, geographical,

What is race? Some people attach "race" to a biological meaning, yet others use "race" as a socially constructed concept. “Most biologists and anthropologists do not recognize race as a biologically valid classification, in part because there is more genetic variation within groups than between them” (. So, it is clear that even though race does not have a biological meaning, it does have a social meaning - usually detrimental to our social harmony. Race is neither an essence nor an illusion, but

Racial categories date back to the days of ancient empires, and haven’t changed significantly since then, despite the huge changes in cultures since those times. There has obviously been a huge amount of racial mixture since those times, and the concept of race now is just an archaic social construct.

Many years ago people weren’t divided by “race” but were divided by their religion, language, and status. We are all one ‘race’ because we are very similar to each other. The scientists could not find any explanation or DNA evidence to convince us that there are differences between ‘races’-group of people, therefore ‘biological race’ is not real which leads people to the conclusion that is just a myth. Human variation is very complex we aren’t alike; different hair texture, eye shape, and skin color but we are one ‘race.’ Racism takes potentially an idea of ‘race’ because it is used to separate one group from other; even if we don’t share the same languages, customs or cultures we aren’t that diverse ‘human variation/genetic markers’ with each other. Indeed, no matter how we see each other and we nor approve or disapprove the idea of race; we are all ‘one

Race is not all biologically real. According to Fuentes, race cannot be categorized as black, Asian or white because there are morphological and physiological variations (Fuentes 2012:74). Humans are all one race, whether they are different in skin color, body shape and size. Many religious beliefs support the idea of everyone being equal, regardless of the previous differentiations mention above, but science has devoted to the study of where humanity has originated and has expanded the idea of the word 'race'. Scientifically, humanity rose from the first ancient apes that best fit the characterizations of today's humans. Whether this is true or not, it is indeed very convincing that perhaps our first ancestors could have spread to different

Racial categories in America was developed to be used as a sorting device. First in the 17th and 18th

Among researchers, anthropologists, biologists, and other members of the scientific community, the term “race” can be defined differently depending on the study, and in some cases, is replaced by the terms “clines” or “ecotypes,” which will be discussed in further

According to the website, until 1960, census enumerator classified people into race. In 1970, after many civil right laws were passed, United State citizen were able to choose their own classification. This is known as self-identification race. I think this was a good activities,

In the modern society, most scientists deny the notion of race as a valid biological way of categorizing humans. Human beings are not defined by the so-called “race” because race, generally speaking, does not exist. Human beings look different based on our superficial appearances, however, it only distinguishes us from our hair color, skin color, cultural background and so on, not from the so-called race. Knowing someone's skin color does not absolutely tell us anything else about him or her except for what our eyes can directly see. In our textbook, the biological definition of the word “race” explains that race applies to humans with both cultural and biological factors. There is no physical trait or condition that distinguishes all the members

Race is a social construct that was created by the Europeans in order to minoritize different racial groups. In the reading by Bonilla-Silva, he defines race to be manmade, “This means that notions of racial difference are human creations rather than eternal, essential categories… racial categories have a history and are subject to change.” For example in a lecture by Dr. Aguilar-Hernandez, he stated that the Irish, Italians and Jews were called black before but are now considered white, Mexican-Americans were also considered white up until the 1980s. These ideas lead to the racialization of racial groups.

Physical anthropologists, human biologists and geneticists share the same idea that generally all mankind living today belong to the species, Homo sapiens. According to anthropologists, nature selects the biological and cultural patterns of a population and enables it to become accustomed in a particular environment and permit the process of survival and reproduction of that group of population. Genetic modifications and environmental influences led to individual variability within a population (polymorphic) or distinction between human groups (polytypic) which we refer to as races¹. Blumenfeld quoted two authors for the definition of race. Shipman et al. (1985) defined race as a morphologically identifiable subset of a species.

The concept of race only appeared in english literature in the early 1600s During that period of time the ideology offered an explanation to some of the political and economic conflicts in many regions of the globe, and legitimized the major role of British capitalism within the economic system. By the mid 1800s, it was a common racist belief that the world’s population could be segregated into a variety of races: collectives of people with similar physical attributes, for example, skin colour and hair texture. This process of categorizing into races is referred to as racialization and was necessary for the rise of racism as an ideology. In the latter half of 20th century, some North American scholars continued to argue there were differences