A race is a categorization of
human
Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, ...
s based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given
society
A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Socie ...
. The term came into common usage during the 1500s, when it was used to refer to groups of various kinds, including those characterized by close
kinship
In anthropology, kinship is the web of social relationships that form an important part of the lives of all humans in all societies, although its exact meanings even within this discipline are often debated. Anthropologist Robin Fox says that ...
relations. By the 17th century, the term began to refer to physical (
phenotypical) traits, and then later to
nation
A nation is a community of people formed on the basis of a combination of shared features such as language, history, ethnicity, culture and/or society. A nation is thus the collective identity of a group of people understood as defined by those ...
al affiliations. Modern
science
Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...
regards race as a
social construct
Social constructionism is a theory in sociology, social ontology, and communication theory which proposes that certain ideas about reality, physical reality arise from collaborative consensus, instead of pure observation of said reality. The ...
, an
identity
Identity may refer to:
* Identity document
* Identity (philosophy)
* Identity (social science)
* Identity (mathematics)
Arts and entertainment Film and television
* ''Identity'' (1987 film), an Iranian film
* ''Identity'' (2003 film), ...
which is assigned based on rules made by society.
While partly based on physical similarities within groups, race does not have an inherent physical or biological meaning. The concept of race is foundational to
racism
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...
, the belief that humans can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another.
Social conceptions and groupings of races have varied over time, often involving
folk taxonomies that define
essential types of individuals based on perceived traits.
Today, scientists consider such biological
essentialism
Essentialism is the view that objects have a set of attributes that are necessary to their identity. In early Western thought, Plato's idealism held that all things have such an "essence"—an "idea" or "form". In ''Categories'', Aristotle sim ...
obsolete, and generally discourage racial explanations for collective differentiation in both physical and behavioral traits.
Even though there is a broad scientific agreement that
essentialist
Essentialism is the view that objects have a set of attributes that are necessary to their identity. In early Western thought, Plato's idealism held that all things have such an "essence"—an "idea" or "form". In ''Categories'', Aristotle sim ...
and typological conceptions of race are untenable,
scientists around the world continue to conceptualize race in widely differing ways.
While some researchers continue to use the concept of race to make distinctions among fuzzy sets of traits or observable differences in behavior, others in the
scientific community
The scientific community is a diverse network of interacting scientists. It includes many " sub-communities" working on particular scientific fields, and within particular institutions; interdisciplinary and cross-institutional activities are als ...
suggest that the idea of race is inherently naive
or simplistic.
Still others argue that, among humans, race has no taxonomic significance because all living humans belong to the same
subspecies
In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species ...
, ''
Homo sapiens sapiens''.
Since the second half of the 20th century, race has been associated with discredited theories of
scientific racism, and has become increasingly seen as a largely
pseudoscientific
Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable claim ...
system of classification. Although still used in general contexts, race has often been replaced by less ambiguous and/or
loaded terms: ''
populations'', ''
people
A person (plural, : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of pr ...
(s)'', ''
ethnic groups'', or ''
communities
A community is a Level of analysis, social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place (geography), place, Norm (social), norms, religion, values, Convention (norm), customs, or Identity (social science), identity. Communiti ...
'', depending on context.
[ Provides 8 definitions, from biological to literary; only the most pertinent have been quoted.]
Defining race
Modern scholarship views racial categories as socially constructed, that is, race is not intrinsic to human beings but rather an
identity
Identity may refer to:
* Identity document
* Identity (philosophy)
* Identity (social science)
* Identity (mathematics)
Arts and entertainment Film and television
* ''Identity'' (1987 film), an Iranian film
* ''Identity'' (2003 film), ...
created, often by socially dominant groups, to establish meaning in a social context. Different cultures define different racial groups, often focused on the largest groups of social relevance, and these definitions can change over time.
* In South Africa, the
Population Registration Act, 1950 recognized only White, Black, and
Coloured
Coloureds ( af, Kleurlinge or , ) refers to members of multiracial ethnic communities in Southern Africa who may have ancestry from more than one of the various populations inhabiting the region, including African, European, and Asian. South ...
, with Indians added later.
* The government of Myanmar recognizes eight "
major national ethnic races".
* The Brazilian census classifies people into brancos (Whites), pardos (multiracial), pretos (Blacks), amarelos (Asians), and indigenous (see
Race and ethnicity in Brazil
Brazilian society is made up of a confluence of people of several different origins, from the original Native Brazilians, with the influence of Portuguese colonists and people of African descent. Other major significant groups include Italian ...
), though many people use different terms to identify themselves.
* The
United States Census Bureau
The United States Census Bureau (USCB), officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The Census Bureau is part of the ...
proposed but then withdrew plans to add a new category to classify
Middle Eastern and North African peoples in the
U.S. Census 2020, over a dispute over whether this classification should be considered a white ethnicity or a separate race.
* Legal
definitions of whiteness in the United States
The legal and social strictures that define white Americans, and distinguish them from persons who are not considered white by the government and society, have varied throughout the history of the United States.
Background
By the 18th century, "wh ...
used before the
civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...
were often challenged for specific groups.
*
Historical race concepts
The concept of race (human categorization), race as a categorization of anatomically modern humans (''Homo sapiens'') has an extensive history in Europe and the Americas. The contemporary word ''race'' itself is modern; historically it was used ...
have included a wide variety of schemes to divide local or worldwide populations into races and sub-races.
The establishment of racial boundaries often involves the subjugation of groups defined as racially inferior, as in the
one-drop rule used in the 19th-century United States to exclude those with any amount of African ancestry from the dominant racial grouping, defined as "
white
White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on ...
".
Such racial identities reflect the cultural attitudes of imperial powers dominant during the age of
European colonial expansion. This view rejects the notion that race is
biologically defined.
According to geneticist
David Reich, "while race may be a social construct, differences in genetic ancestry that happen to correlate to many of today's racial constructs are real." In response to Reich, a group of 67 scientists from a broad range of disciplines wrote that his concept of race was "flawed" as "the ''meaning and significance'' of the groups is produced through social interventions".
Although commonalities in physical traits such as facial features, skin color, and hair texture comprise part of the race concept, this linkage is a social distinction rather than an inherently biological one. Other dimensions of racial groupings include shared history, traditions, and language. For instance,
African-American English is a language spoken by many
African Americans
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
, especially in areas of the United States where racial segregation exists. Furthermore, people often self-identify as members of a race for political reasons.
When people define and talk about a particular conception of race, they create a
social reality through which social categorization is achieved. In this sense, races are said to be social constructs.
[See:
*
* ] These constructs develop within various legal, economic, and
sociopolitical
Political sociology is an Interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary field of study concerned with exploring how governance and society interact and influence one another at the micro to macro Level of analysis, levels of analysis. Interested in the ...
contexts, and may be the effect, rather than the cause, of
[See:
*
*
* as cited in ] While race is understood to be a social construct by many, most scholars agree that race has real material effects in the lives of people through
institutionalized practices of preference and
discrimination
Discrimination is the act of making unjustified distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong. People may be discriminated on the basis of race, gender, age, relig ...
.
Socioeconomic factors, in combination with early but enduring views of race, have led to considerable suffering within disadvantaged racial groups.
Racial discrimination
Racial discrimination is any discrimination against any individual on the basis of their skin color, race or ethnic origin.Individuals can discriminate by refusing to do business with, socialize with, or share resources with people of a certain g ...
often coincides with racist mindsets, whereby the individuals and ideologies of one group come to perceive the members of an
outgroup Outgroup may refer to:
* Outgroup (cladistics), an evolutionary-history concept
* Outgroup (sociology), a social group
{{disambig ...
as both racially defined and morally inferior.
As a result, racial groups possessing relatively little power often find themselves excluded or oppressed, while
hegemonic individuals and
institution
Institutions are humanly devised structures of rules and norms that shape and constrain individual behavior. All definitions of institutions generally entail that there is a level of persistence and continuity. Laws, rules, social conventions a ...
s are charged with holding racist attitudes.
Racism has led to many instances of tragedy, including
slavery
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
and
genocide
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Latin ...
.
In some countries,
law enforcement
Law enforcement is the activity of some members of government who act in an organized manner to enforce the law by discovering, deterring, rehabilitating, or punishing people who violate the rules and norms governing that society. The term en ...
uses race to
profile suspects. This use of racial categories is frequently criticized for perpetuating an outmoded understanding of human biological variation, and promoting stereotypes. Because in some societies racial groupings correspond closely with patterns of
social stratification
Social stratification refers to a society's categorization of its people into groups based on socioeconomic factors like wealth, income, race, education, ethnicity, gender, occupation, social status, or derived power (social and political). As ...
, for
social scientists studying social inequality, race can be a significant
variable
Variable may refer to:
* Variable (computer science), a symbolic name associated with a value and whose associated value may be changed
* Variable (mathematics), a symbol that represents a quantity in a mathematical expression, as used in many ...
. As
sociological factors, racial categories may in part reflect
subjective attributions,
self-identities, and social institutions.
Scholars continue to debate the degrees to which racial categories are biologically warranted and socially constructed.
For example, in 2008, John Hartigan, Jr. argued for a view of race that focused primarily on culture, but which does not ignore the potential relevance of biology or genetics. Accordingly, the racial
paradigm
In science and philosophy, a paradigm () is a distinct set of concepts or thought patterns, including theories, research methods, postulates, and standards for what constitute legitimate contributions to a field.
Etymology
''Paradigm'' comes f ...
s employed in different disciplines vary in their emphasis on
biological reduction as contrasted with societal construction.
In the social sciences, theoretical frameworks such as
racial formation theory
Racial formation theory is an analytical tool in sociology, developed by Michael Omi and Howard Winant, which is used to look at race as a socially constructed identity, where the content and importance of racial categories are determined by socia ...
and
critical race theory
Critical race theory (CRT) is a cross-disciplinary examination, by social and civil-rights scholars and activists, of how laws, social and political movements, and media shape, and are shaped by, social conceptions of race and ethnicity. Goa ...
investigate implications of race as social construction by exploring how the images, ideas and assumptions of race are expressed in everyday life. A large body of scholarship has traced the relationships between the historical, social production of race in legal and criminal language, and their effects on the policing and disproportionate incarceration of certain groups.
Historical origins of racial classification
![Meyers b11 s0476a](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Meyers_b11_s0476a.jpg)
Groups of humans have always identified themselves as distinct from neighboring groups, but such differences have not always been understood to be natural, immutable and global. These features are the distinguishing features of how the concept of race is used today. In this way the idea of race as we understand it today came about during the historical process of exploration and conquest which brought Europeans into contact with groups from different continents, and of the ideology of classification and typology found in the natural sciences.
The term ''race'' was often used in a general
biological taxonomic sense,
starting from the 19th century, to denote
genetically differentiated human
population
Population typically refers to the number of people in a single area, whether it be a city or town, region, country, continent, or the world. Governments typically quantify the size of the resident population within their jurisdiction using a ...
s defined by phenotype.
The modern concept of race emerged as a product of the colonial enterprises of European powers from the 16th to 18th centuries which identified race in terms of skin color and physical differences. Author Rebecca F. Kennedy argues that the Greeks and Romans would have found such concepts confusing in relation to their own systems of classification.
According to Bancel et al., the epistemological moment where the modern concept of race was invented and rationalized lies somewhere between 1730 and 1790.
Colonialism
According to Smedley and Marks the European concept of "race", along with many of the ideas now associated with the term, arose at the time of the
scientific revolution
The Scientific Revolution was a series of events that marked the emergence of modern science during the early modern period, when developments in mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology (including human anatomy) and chemistry transfo ...
, which introduced and privileged the study of
natural kinds, and the age of
European imperialism and
colonization
Colonization, or colonisation, constitutes large-scale population movements wherein migrants maintain strong links with their, or their ancestors', former country – by such links, gain advantage over other inhabitants of the territory. When ...
which established political relations between Europeans and peoples with distinct cultural and political
traditions
A tradition is a belief or behavior (folk custom) passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examples include holidays or ...
.
As Europeans encountered people from different parts of the
world
In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...
, they speculated about the physical, social, and cultural differences among various human groups. The rise of the
Atlantic slave trade
The Atlantic slave trade, transatlantic slave trade, or Euro-American slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and i ...
, which gradually displaced an earlier
trade in slaves from throughout the world, created a further
incentive to categorize human groups in order to justify the subordination of African
slave
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
s.
Drawing on sources from
classical antiquity
Classical antiquity (also the classical era, classical period or classical age) is the period of cultural history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD centred on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ...
and upon their own internal interactions – for example, the hostility between the
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
and
Irish powerfully influenced early European thinking about the differences between people
– Europeans began to sort themselves and others into groups based on physical appearance, and to attribute to individuals belonging to these groups behaviors and capacities which were claimed to be deeply ingrained. A set of
folk beliefs took hold that linked inherited physical differences between groups to
inherited intellectual,
behavioral
Behavior (American English) or behaviour (British English) is the range of actions and mannerisms made by individuals, organisms, systems or artificial entities in some environment. These systems can include other systems or organisms as well ...
, and
moral
A moral (from Latin ''morālis'') is a message that is conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. The moral may be left to the hearer, reader, or viewer to determine for themselves, or may be explicitly encapsulated in a maxim. A ...
qualities.
Similar ideas can be found in other cultures,
for example in
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
, where a concept often translated as "race" was associated with supposed common descent from the
Yellow Emperor
The Yellow Emperor, also known as the Yellow Thearch or by his Chinese name Huangdi (), is a deity ('' shen'') in Chinese religion, one of the legendary Chinese sovereigns and culture heroes included among the mytho-historical Three Soverei ...
, and used to stress the unity of ethnic groups in China. Brutal conflicts between ethnic groups have existed throughout history and across the world.
Early taxonomic models
The first post-
Graeco-Roman
The Greco-Roman civilization (; also Greco-Roman culture; spelled Graeco-Roman in the Commonwealth), as understood by modern scholars and writers, includes the geographical regions and countries that culturally—and so historically—were di ...
published classification of humans into distinct races seems to be
François Bernier's ''Nouvelle division de la terre par les différents espèces ou races qui l'habitent'' ("New division of Earth by the different species or races which inhabit it"), published in 1684.
In the 18th century the differences among human groups became a focus of scientific investigation. But the scientific classification of phenotypic variation was frequently coupled with racist ideas about innate predispositions of different groups, always attributing the most desirable features to the White, European race and arranging the other races along a continuum of progressively undesirable attributes. The 1735 classification of
Carl Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...
, inventor of zoological taxonomy, divided the human species ''
Homo sapiens
Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, ...
'' into continental varieties of ''europaeus'', ''asiaticus'', ''americanus'', and ''afer'', each associated with a different
humour
Humour (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English) or humor (American English) is the tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humorism, humoral medicine of the ancient Gre ...
:
sanguine,
melancholic
Melancholia or melancholy (from el, µέλαινα χολή ',Burton, Bk. I, p. 147 meaning black bile) is a concept found throughout History of medicine#Greece and Roman Empire, ancient, medieval medicine of Western Europe, medieval and Lear ...
,
choleric
The four temperament theory is a proto-psychological theory which suggests that there are four fundamental personality types: sanguine, choleric, melancholic, and phlegmatic. Most formulations include the possibility of mixtures among the types w ...
, and
phlegmatic
The four temperament theory is a proto-psychological theory which suggests that there are four fundamental personality types: sanguine, choleric, melancholic, and phlegmatic. Most formulations include the possibility of mixtures among the types w ...
, respectively.
''Homo sapiens europaeus'' was described as active, acute, and adventurous, whereas ''Homo sapiens afer'' was said to be crafty, lazy, and careless.
The 1775 treatise "The Natural Varieties of Mankind", by
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach proposed five major divisions: the
Caucasoid race, the
Mongoloid race
Mongoloid () is an obsolete racial grouping of various peoples indigenous to large parts of Asia, the Americas, and some regions in Europe and Oceania. The term is derived from a now-disproven theory of biological race. In the past, other terms ...
, the Ethiopian race (later termed ''
Negroid''), the
American Indian race
The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are the inhabitants of the Americas before the arrival of the European settlers in the 15th century, and the ethnic groups who now identify themselves with those peoples.
Many Indigenous peoples of the Ame ...
, and the
Malayan race
The concept of a Malay race was originally proposed by the German physician Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752–1840), and classified as a brown race. ''Malay'' is a loose term used in the late 19th century and early 20th century to describe the ...
, but he did not propose any hierarchy among the races.
Blumenbach also noted the graded transition in appearances from one group to adjacent groups and suggested that "one variety of mankind does so sensibly pass into the other, that you cannot mark out the limits between them".
From the 17th through 19th centuries, the merging of folk beliefs about group differences with scientific explanations of those differences produced what Smedley has called an "
ideology
An ideology is a set of beliefs or philosophies attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely epistemic, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones." Formerly applied pri ...
of race".
According to this ideology, races are primordial, natural, enduring and distinct. It was further argued that some groups may be the result of mixture between formerly distinct populations, but that careful study could distinguish the ancestral races that had combined to produce admixed groups.
Subsequent influential classifications by
Georges Buffon
Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (; 7 September 1707 – 16 April 1788) was a French naturalist, mathematician, cosmologist, and encyclopédiste.
His works influenced the next two generations of naturalists, including two prominent Fr ...
,
Petrus Camper and
Christoph Meiners all classified "Negros" as inferior to Europeans.
In the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
the racial theories of
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 18 ...
were influential. He saw Africans as inferior to Whites especially in regards to their intellect, and imbued with unnatural sexual appetites, but described
Native Americans as equals to whites.
Polygenism vs monogenism
In the last two decades of the 18th century, the theory of
polygenism, the belief that different races had evolved separately in each continent and shared no common ancestor,
was advocated in England by historian
Edward Long and anatomist
Charles White, in
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
by ethnographers
Christoph Meiners and
Georg Forster, and in
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
by
Julien-Joseph Virey. In the US,
Samuel George Morton
Samuel George Morton (January 26, 1799 – May 15, 1851) was an American physician, natural scientist, and writer who argued against the single creation story of the Bible, monogenism, instead supporting a theory of multiple racial creations, poly ...
,
Josiah Nott
Josiah Clark Nott (March 31, 1804March 31, 1873) was an American surgeon and anthropologist. He is known for his studies into the etiology (medicine), etiology of yellow fever and malaria, including Germ theory of disease, the theory that they o ...
and
Louis Agassiz
Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz ( ; ) FRS (For) FRSE (May 28, 1807 – December 14, 1873) was a Swiss-born American biologist and geologist who is recognized as a scholar of Earth's natural history.
Spending his early life in Switzerland, he rec ...
promoted this theory in the mid-19th century. Polygenism was popular and most widespread in the 19th century, culminating in the founding of the
Anthropological Society of London (1863), which, during the period of the American Civil War, broke away from the
Ethnological Society of London
The Ethnological Society of London (ESL) was a learned society founded in 1843 as an offshoot of the Aborigines' Protection Society (APS). The meaning of ethnology as a discipline was not then fixed: approaches and attitudes to it changed over its ...
and its
monogenic stance, their underlined difference lying, relevantly, in the so-called "Negro question": a substantial racist view by the former, and a more liberal view on race by the latter.
Modern scholarship
Models of human evolution
Today, all
humans
Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, ...
are classified as belonging to the species ''Homo sapiens''. However, this is not the first species of
homininae: the first species of genus ''Homo'', ''
Homo habilis
''Homo habilis'' ("handy man") is an extinct species of archaic human from the Early Pleistocene of East and South Africa about 2.31 million years ago to 1.65 million years ago (mya). Upon species description in 1964, ''H. habilis'' was highly ...
'', evolved in East Africa at least 2 million years ago, and members of this species populated different parts of Africa in a relatively short time. ''
Homo erectus
''Homo erectus'' (; meaning "upright man") is an extinct species of archaic human from the Pleistocene, with its earliest occurrence about 2 million years ago. Several human species, such as '' H. heidelbergensis'' and '' H. antecessor' ...
'' evolved more than 1.8 million years ago, and by 1.5 million years ago had spread throughout Europe and Asia. Virtually all
physical anthropologist
Biological anthropology, also known as physical anthropology, is a scientific discipline concerned with the biological and behavioral aspects of human beings, their extinct hominin ancestors, and related non-human primates, particularly from an e ...
s agree that ''
Archaic Homo sapiens'' (A group including the possible species ''
H. heidelbergensis
''Homo heidelbergensis'' (also ''H. sapiens heidelbergensis''), sometimes called Heidelbergs, is an extinct species or subspecies of archaic human which existed during the Middle Pleistocene. It was subsumed as a subspecies of '' H. erectus'' in ...
'', ''H. rhodesiensis'' and ''H. neanderthalensis'') evolved out of African ''Homo erectus'' (''sensu lato'') or ''
Homo ergaster.'' Anthropologists support the idea that
anatomically modern humans (''Homo sapiens'') evolved in North or East Africa from an
archaic human species such as ''H. heidelbergensis'' and then migrated out of Africa, mixing with and replacing ''H. heidelbergensis'' and ''H. neanderthalensis'' populations throughout Europe and Asia, and ''H. rhodesiensis'' populations in Sub-Saharan Africa (a combination of the
Out of Africa and
Multiregional models).
Biological classification
In the early 20th century, many
anthropologists taught that race was an entirely biological phenomenon and that this was core to a person's behavior and identity, a position commonly called
racial essentialism
A race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. The term came into common usage during the 1500s, when it was used to refer to groups of variou ...
.
This, coupled with a belief that
linguistic, cultural, and social groups fundamentally existed along racial lines, formed the basis of what is now called
scientific racism.
After the
Nazi eugenics
Nazi eugenics refers to the social policies of eugenics in Nazi Germany, composed of various pseudoscientific ideas about genetics. The racial ideology of Nazism placed the biological improvement of the German people by selective breeding of ...
program, along with the rise of anti-colonial movements, racial essentialism lost widespread popularity. New studies of
culture
Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tyl ...
and the fledgling field of
population genetics
Population genetics is a subfield of genetics that deals with genetic differences within and between populations, and is a part of evolutionary biology. Studies in this branch of biology examine such phenomena as adaptation, speciation, and pop ...
undermined the scientific standing of racial essentialism, leading race anthropologists to revise their conclusions about the sources of phenotypic variation.
A significant number of modern anthropologists and
biologist
A biologist is a scientist who conducts research in biology. Biologists are interested in studying life on Earth, whether it is an individual Cell (biology), cell, a multicellular organism, or a Community (ecology), community of Biological inter ...
s in the West came to view race as an invalid genetic or biological designation.
The first to challenge the concept of race on empirical grounds were the
anthropologists Franz Boas
Franz Uri Boas (July 9, 1858 – December 21, 1942) was a German-American anthropologist and a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the "Father of American Anthropology". His work is associated with the movements known as historical ...
, who provided evidence of phenotypic plasticity due to environmental factors,
and
Ashley Montagu, who relied on evidence from genetics.
E. O. Wilson then challenged the concept from the perspective of general animal systematics, and further rejected the claim that "races" were equivalent to "subspecies".
Human genetic variation
Human genetic variation is the genetic differences in and among populations. There may be multiple variants of any given gene in the human population (alleles), a situation called polymorphism.
No two humans are genetically identical. Even m ...
is predominantly within races, continuous, and complex in structure, which is inconsistent with the concept of genetic human races.
According to the biological anthropologist
Jonathan Marks,
Subspecies
The term ''race'' in biology is used with caution because it can be ambiguous. Generally, when it is used it is effectively a synonym of ''
subspecies
In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species ...
''.
(For animals, the only taxonomic unit below the
species
In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...
level is usually the subspecies;
there are narrower
infraspecific ranks in botany, and ''race'' does not correspond directly with any of them.) Traditionally,
subspecies
In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species ...
are seen as geographically isolated and genetically differentiated populations.
Studies of human genetic variation show that human populations are not geographically isolated, and their genetic differences are far smaller than those among comparable subspecies.
In 1978,
Sewall Wright
Sewall Green Wright FRS(For) Honorary FRSE (December 21, 1889March 3, 1988) was an American geneticist known for his influential work on evolutionary theory and also for his work on path analysis. He was a founder of population genetics alongsi ...
suggested that human populations that have long inhabited separated parts of the world should, in general, be considered different subspecies by the criterion that most individuals of such populations can be allocated correctly by inspection. Wright argued that, "It does not require a trained anthropologist to classify an array of Englishmen, West Africans, and Chinese with 100% accuracy by features, skin color, and type of hair despite so much variability within each of these groups that every individual can easily be distinguished from every other."
While in practice subspecies are often defined by easily observable physical appearance, there is not necessarily any evolutionary significance to these observed differences, so this form of classification has become less acceptable to evolutionary biologists.
Likewise this
typological approach to race is generally regarded as discredited by biologists and anthropologists.
Ancestrally differentiated populations (clades)
In 2000, philosopher Robin Andreasen proposed that
cladistics
Cladistics (; ) is an approach to biological classification in which organisms are categorized in groups (" clades") based on hypotheses of most recent common ancestry. The evidence for hypothesized relationships is typically shared derived char ...
might be used to categorize human races biologically, and that races can be both biologically real and socially constructed.
Andreasen cited tree diagrams of relative
genetic distances among populations published by
Luigi Cavalli-Sforza
Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza (; 25 January 1922 – 31 August 2018) was an Italian geneticist. He was a population geneticist who taught at the University of Parma, the University of Pavia and then at Stanford University.
Works
Schooling and po ...
as the basis for a phylogenetic tree of human races (p. 661). Biological anthropologist
Jonathan Marks (2008) responded by arguing that Andreasen had misinterpreted the genetic literature: "These trees are phenetic (based on similarity), rather than cladistic (based on
monophyletic
In cladistics for a group of organisms, monophyly is the condition of being a clade—that is, a group of taxa composed only of a common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population) and all of its lineal descendants. Monophyletic gro ...
descent, that is from a series of unique ancestors)." Evolutionary biologist
Alan Templeton (2013) argued that multiple lines of evidence falsify the idea of a phylogenetic tree structure to human genetic diversity, and confirm the presence of gene flow among populations. Marks, Templeton, and Cavalli-Sforza all conclude that genetics does not provide evidence of human races.
Previously, anthropologists Lieberman and Jackson (1995) had also critiqued the use of cladistics to support concepts of race. They argued that "the molecular and biochemical proponents of this model explicitly use racial categories ''in their initial grouping of samples''". For example, the large and highly diverse macroethnic groups of East Indians, North Africans, and Europeans are presumptively grouped as Caucasians prior to the analysis of their DNA variation. They argued that this ''a priori'' grouping limits and skews interpretations, obscures other lineage relationships, deemphasizes the impact of more immediate clinal environmental factors on genomic diversity, and can cloud our understanding of the true patterns of affinity.
In 2015, Keith Hunley, Graciela Cabana, and Jeffrey Long analyzed the
Human Genome Diversity Project sample of 1,037 individuals in 52 populations,
finding that diversity among non-African populations is the result of a serial founder effect process, with non-African populations as a whole nested among African populations, that "some African populations are equally related to other African populations and to non-African populations," and that "outside of Africa, regional groupings of populations are nested inside one another, and many of them are not monophyletic."
Earlier research had also suggested that there has always been considerable gene flow between human populations, meaning that human population groups are not monophyletic.
Rachel Caspari has argued that, since no groups currently regarded as races are monophyletic, by definition none of these groups can be clades.
Clines
One crucial innovation in reconceptualizing genotypic and phenotypic variation was the anthropologist
C. Loring Brace's observation that such variations, insofar as it is affected by
natural selection
Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generations. Charle ...
, slow migration, or
genetic drift
Genetic drift, also known as allelic drift or the Wright effect, is the change in the frequency of an existing gene variant (allele) in a population due to random chance.
Genetic drift may cause gene variants to disappear completely and there ...
, are distributed along geographic gradations or
clines. For example, with respect to skin color in Europe and Africa, Brace writes:
To this day, skin color grades by imperceptible means from Europe southward around the eastern end of the Mediterranean and up the Nile into Africa. From one end of this range to the other, there is no hint of a skin color boundary, and yet the spectrum runs from the lightest in the world at the northern edge to as dark as it is possible for humans to be at the equator.
In part this is due to
isolation by distance
Isolation by distance (IBD) is a term used to refer to the accrual of local genetic variation under geographically limited dispersal. The IBD model is useful for determining the distribution of gene frequencies over a geographic region. Both disp ...
. This point called attention to a problem common to phenotype-based descriptions of races (for example, those based on hair texture and skin color): they ignore a host of other similarities and differences (for example, blood type) that do not correlate highly with the markers for race. Thus, anthropologist Frank Livingstone's conclusion, that since clines cross racial boundaries, "there are no races, only clines".
In a response to Livingstone,
Theodore Dobzhansky argued that when talking about race one must be attentive to how the term is being used: "I agree with Dr. Livingstone that if races have to be 'discrete units', then there are no races, and if 'race' is used as an 'explanation' of the human variability, rather than vice versa, then the explanation is invalid." He further argued that one could use the term race if one distinguished between "race differences" and "the race concept". The former refers to any distinction in gene frequencies between populations; the latter is "a matter of judgment". He further observed that even when there is clinal variation, "Race differences are objectively ascertainable biological phenomena ... but it does not follow that racially distinct populations must be given racial (or subspecific) labels."
In short, Livingstone and Dobzhansky agree that there are genetic differences among human beings; they also agree that the use of the race concept to classify people, and how the race concept is used, is a matter of social convention. They differ on whether the race concept remains a meaningful and useful social convention.
In 1964, the biologists Paul Ehrlich and Holm pointed out cases where two or more clines are distributed discordantly – for example, melanin is distributed in a decreasing pattern from the equator north and south; frequencies for the haplotype for
beta-S hemoglobin, on the other hand, radiate out of specific geographical points in Africa.
As the anthropologists Leonard Lieberman and Fatimah Linda Jackson observed, "Discordant patterns of heterogeneity falsify any description of a population as if it were genotypically or even phenotypically homogeneous".
Patterns such as those seen in human physical and genetic variation as described above, have led to the consequence that the number and geographic location of any described races is highly dependent on the importance attributed to, and quantity of, the traits considered. A skin-lightening mutation, estimated to have occurred 20,000 to 50,000 years ago, partially accounts for the appearance of light skin in people who migrated out of Africa northward into what is now Europe. East Asians owe their relatively light skin to different mutations.
On the other hand, the greater the number of traits (or
allele
An allele (, ; ; modern formation from Greek ἄλλος ''állos'', "other") is a variation of the same sequence of nucleotides at the same place on a long DNA molecule, as described in leading textbooks on genetics and evolution.
::"The chro ...
s) considered, the more subdivisions of humanity are detected, since traits and gene frequencies do not always correspond to the same geographical location. Or as put it:
Genetically differentiated populations
Another way to look at differences between populations is to measure genetic differences rather than physical differences between groups. The mid-20th-century anthropologist
William C. Boyd
William Clouser Boyd (March 4, 1903 – February 19, 1983) was an American immunochemist. In the 1930s, with his wife Lyle, he made a worldwide survey of the distribution of blood types.
Biography
Born in Dearborn, Missouri, Boyd was educat ...
defined race as: "A population which differs significantly from other populations in regard to the frequency of one or more of the genes it possesses. It is an arbitrary matter which, and how many, gene loci we choose to consider as a significant 'constellation'".
Leonard Lieberman and Rodney Kirk have pointed out that "the paramount weakness of this statement is that if one gene can distinguish races then the number of races is as numerous as the number of human couples reproducing."
Moreover, the anthropologist Stephen Molnar has suggested that the discordance of clines inevitably results in a multiplication of races that renders the concept itself useless.
The
Human Genome Project
The Human Genome Project (HGP) was an international scientific research project with the goal of determining the base pairs that make up human DNA, and of identifying, mapping and sequencing all of the genes of the human genome from both a ...
states "People who have lived in the same geographic region for many generations may have some alleles in common, but no allele will be found in all members of one population and in no members of any other."
Massimo Pigliucci and Jonathan Kaplan argue that human races do exist, and that they correspond to the genetic classification of
ecotype
In evolutionary ecology, an ecotype,Greek: ''οίκος'' = home and ''τύπος'' = type, coined by Göte Turesson in 1922 sometimes called ecospecies, describes a genetically distinct geographic variety, population, or race within a species, ...
s, but that real human races do not correspond very much, if at all, to folk racial categories. In contrast, Walsh & Yun reviewed the literature in 2011 and reported that "Genetic studies using very few chromosomal loci find that genetic polymorphisms divide human populations into clusters with almost 100 percent accuracy and that they correspond to the traditional anthropological categories."
Some biologists argue that racial categories correlate with biological traits (e.g.
phenotype
In genetics, the phenotype () is the set of observable characteristics or traits of an organism. The term covers the organism's morphology or physical form and structure, its developmental processes, its biochemical and physiological proper ...
), and that certain genetic markers have varying frequencies among human populations, some of which correspond more or less to traditional racial groupings.
= Distribution of genetic variation
=
The distribution of genetic variants within and among human populations are impossible to describe succinctly because of the difficulty of defining a population, the clinal nature of variation, and heterogeneity across the genome (Long and Kittles 2003). In general, however, an average of 85% of statistical genetic variation exists within local populations, ≈7% is between local populations within the same continent, and ≈8% of variation occurs between large groups living on different continents. The
recent African origin theory for humans would predict that in Africa there exists a great deal more diversity than elsewhere and that diversity should decrease the further from Africa a population is sampled. Hence, the 85% average figure is misleading: Long and Kittles find that rather than 85% of human genetic diversity existing in all human populations, about 100% of human diversity exists in a single African population, whereas only about 60% of human genetic diversity exists in the least diverse population they analyzed (the Surui, a population derived from New Guinea). Statistical analysis that takes this difference into account confirms previous findings that, "Western-based racial classifications have no taxonomic significance."
= Cluster analysis
=
A 2002 study of random biallelic genetic loci found little to no evidence that humans were divided into distinct biological groups.
In his 2003 paper, "
Human Genetic Diversity: Lewontin's Fallacy",
A. W. F. Edwards argued that rather than using a locus-by-locus analysis of variation to derive taxonomy, it is possible to construct a human classification system based on characteristic genetic patterns, or ''clusters''
inferred from multilocus genetic data.
Geographically based human studies since have shown that such genetic clusters can be derived from analyzing of a large number of loci which can assort individuals sampled into groups analogous to traditional continental racial groups.
Joanna Mountain and
Neil Risch
Neil Risch is an American human geneticist and professor at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Risch is the Lamond Family Foundation Distinguished Professor in Human Genetics and Director of the Institute for Human Genetics and P ...
cautioned that while genetic clusters may one day be shown to correspond to phenotypic variations between groups, such assumptions were premature as the relationship between genes and
complex traits
Complex traits, also known as quantitative traits, are traits that do not behave according to simple Mendelian inheritance laws. More specifically, their inheritance cannot be explained by the genetic segregation of a single gene. Such traits show ...
remains poorly understood.
However, Risch denied such limitations render the analysis useless: "Perhaps just using someone's actual birth year is not a very good way of measuring age. Does that mean we should throw it out? ... Any category you come up with is going to be imperfect, but that doesn't preclude you from using it or the fact that it has utility."
Early human genetic cluster analysis studies were conducted with samples taken from ancestral population groups living at extreme geographic distances from each other. It was thought that such large geographic distances would maximize the genetic variation between the groups sampled in the analysis, and thus maximize the probability of finding cluster patterns unique to each group. In light of the historically recent acceleration of human migration (and correspondingly, human gene flow) on a global scale, further studies were conducted to judge the degree to which genetic cluster analysis can pattern ancestrally identified groups as well as geographically separated groups. One such study looked at a large multiethnic population in the United States, and "detected only modest genetic differentiation between different current geographic locales within each race/ethnicity group. Thus, ancient geographic ancestry, which is highly correlated with self-identified race/ethnicity – as opposed to current residence – is the major determinant of genetic structure in the U.S. population."
have argued that even when individuals can be reliably assigned to specific population groups, it may still be possible for two randomly chosen individuals from different populations/clusters to be more similar to each other than to a randomly chosen member of their own cluster. They found that many thousands of genetic markers had to be used in order for the answer to the question "How often is a pair of individuals from one population genetically more dissimilar than two individuals chosen from two different populations?" to be "never". This assumed three population groups separated by large geographic ranges (European, African and East Asian). The entire world population is much more complex and studying an increasing number of groups would require an increasing number of markers for the same answer. The authors conclude that "caution should be used when using geographic or genetic ancestry to make inferences about individual phenotypes."
Witherspoon, et al. concluded that, "The fact that, given enough genetic data, individuals can be correctly assigned to their populations of origin is compatible with the observation that most human genetic variation is found within populations, not between them. It is also compatible with our finding that, even when the most distinct populations are considered and hundreds of loci are used, individuals are frequently more similar to members of other populations than to members of their own population."
Anthropologists such as
C. Loring Brace,
the philosophers Jonathan Kaplan and Rasmus Winther,
and the geneticist
Joseph Graves,
have argued that while there it is certainly possible to find biological and genetic variation that corresponds roughly to the groupings normally defined as "continental races", this is true for almost all geographically distinct populations. The cluster structure of the genetic data is therefore dependent on the initial hypotheses of the researcher and the populations sampled. When one samples continental groups, the clusters become continental; if one had chosen other sampling patterns, the clustering would be different. Weiss and Fullerton have noted that if one sampled only Icelanders, Mayans and Maoris, three distinct clusters would form and all other populations could be described as being clinally composed of admixtures of Maori, Icelandic and Mayan genetic materials.
Kaplan and Winther therefore argue that, seen in this way, both Lewontin and Edwards are right in their arguments. They conclude that while racial groups are characterized by different allele frequencies, this does not mean that racial classification is a natural taxonomy of the human species, because multiple other genetic patterns can be found in human populations that crosscut racial distinctions. Moreover, the genomic data underdetermines whether one
wishes to see subdivisions (i.e., splitters) or a continuum (i.e., lumpers). Under Kaplan and Winther's view, racial groupings are objective social constructions (see Mills 1998) that have conventional biological reality only insofar as the categories are chosen and constructed for pragmatic scientific reasons. In earlier work, Winther had identified "diversity partitioning" and "clustering analysis" as two separate methodologies, with distinct questions, assumptions, and protocols. Each is also associated with opposing ontological consequences vis-a-vis the metaphysics of race. Philosopher Lisa Gannett has argued that
biogeographical ancestry
Biogeography is the study of the distribution of species and ecosystems in geographic space and through geological time. Organisms and biological communities often vary in a regular fashion along geographic gradients of latitude, elevation, ...
, a concept devised by
Mark Shriver and
Tony Frudakis
DNAPrint Genomics was a genetics company with a wide range of products related to genetic profiling. They were the first company to introduce forensic and consumer genomics products, which were developed immediately upon the publication of the fi ...
, is not an objective measure of the biological aspects of race as Shriver and Frudakis claim it is. She argues that it is actually just a "local category shaped by the U.S. context of its production, especially the forensic aim of being able to predict the race or ethnicity of an unknown suspect based on DNA found at the crime scene."
= Clines and clusters in genetic variation
=
Recent studies of human genetic clustering have included a debate over how genetic variation is organized, with clusters and clines as the main possible orderings. argued for smooth, clinal genetic variation in ancestral populations even in regions previously considered racially homogeneous, with the apparent gaps turning out to be artifacts of sampling techniques. disputed this and offered an analysis of the Human Genetic Diversity Panel showing that there were small discontinuities in the smooth genetic variation for ancestral populations at the location of geographic barriers such as the
Sahara
, photo = Sahara real color.jpg
, photo_caption = The Sahara taken by Apollo 17 astronauts, 1972
, map =
, map_image =
, location =
, country =
, country1 =
, ...
, the Oceans, and the
Himalayas
The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 100 ...
. Nonetheless, stated that their findings "should not be taken as evidence of our support of any particular concept of biological race... Genetic differences among human populations derive mainly from gradations in allele frequencies rather than from distinctive 'diagnostic' genotypes." Using a sample of 40 populations distributed roughly evenly across the Earth's land surface, found that "genetic diversity is distributed in a more clinal pattern when more geographically intermediate populations are sampled."
Guido Barbujani has written that human genetic variation is generally distributed continuously in gradients across much of Earth, and that there is no evidence that genetic boundaries between human populations exist as would be necessary for human races to exist.
Over time, human genetic variation has formed a nested structure that is inconsistent with the concept of races that have evolved independently of one another.
Social constructions
As anthropologists and other evolutionary scientists have shifted away from the language of race to the term ''population'' to talk about genetic differences,
historians
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...
,
cultural anthropologists and other
social scientists re-conceptualized the term "race" as a cultural category or
identity
Identity may refer to:
* Identity document
* Identity (philosophy)
* Identity (social science)
* Identity (mathematics)
Arts and entertainment Film and television
* ''Identity'' (1987 film), an Iranian film
* ''Identity'' (2003 film), ...
, i.e., a way among many possible ways in which a society chooses to divide its members into categories.
Many social scientists have replaced the word race with the word "
ethnicity
An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...
" to refer to self-identifying groups based on beliefs concerning shared culture, ancestry and history. Alongside empirical and conceptual problems with "race", following the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, evolutionary and social scientists were acutely aware of how beliefs about race had been used to justify discrimination,
apartheid
Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...
, slavery, and genocide. This questioning gained momentum in the 1960s during the
civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...
in the United States and the emergence of numerous anti-colonial movements worldwide. They thus came to believe that race itself is a social construct, a concept that was believed to correspond to an objective reality but which was believed in because of its social functions.
Craig Venter and Francis Collins of the National Institute of Health jointly made the announcement of the mapping of the human genome in 2000. Upon examining the data from the genome mapping, Venter realized that although the genetic variation within the human species is on the order of 1–3% (instead of the previously assumed 1%), the types of variations do not support notion of genetically defined races. Venter said, "Race is a social concept. It's not a scientific one. There are no bright lines (that would stand out), if we could compare all the sequenced genomes of everyone on the planet." "When we try to apply science to try to sort out these social differences, it all falls apart."
Anthropologist Stephan Palmié has argued that race "is not a thing but a social relation"; or, in the words of
Katya Gibel Mevorach
Katya Gibel Mevorach (born 18 June 1952) is Professor of Anthropology and American Studies at Grinnell College. Under the name Katya Gibel Azoulay, she is author of an explication and theory of identities, ''Black, Jewish and Interracial: It's Not ...
, "a metonym", "a human invention whose criteria for differentiation are neither universal nor fixed but have always been used to manage difference." As such, the use of the term "race" itself must be analyzed. Moreover, they argue that biology will not explain why or how people use the idea of race; only history and social relationships will.
Imani Perry
Imani Perry (born September 5, 1972) is an American interdisciplinary scholar of race, law, literature, and African-American culture. She is currently the Hughes-Rogers Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University and a columnis ...
has argued that race "is produced by social arrangements and political decision making", and that "race is something that happens, rather than something that is. It is dynamic, but it holds no objective truth." Similarly, ''
Racial Culture: A Critique'' (2005), Richard T. Ford argued that while "there is no necessary correspondence between the ascribed identity of race and one's culture or personal sense of self" and "group difference is not intrinsic to members of social groups but rather contingent o
the social practices of group identification", the social practices of
identity politics may coerce individuals into the "compulsory" enactment of "prewritten racial scripts".
Brazil
![Redenção](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d3/Reden%C3%A7%C3%A3o.jpg)
Compared to 19th-century United States, 20th-century
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
was characterized by a perceived relative absence of sharply defined racial groups. According to anthropologist
Marvin Harris, this pattern reflects a different history and different
social relations.
Race in Brazil was "biologized", but in a way that recognized the difference between ancestry (which determines
genotype
The genotype of an organism is its complete set of genetic material. Genotype can also be used to refer to the alleles or variants an individual carries in a particular gene or genetic location. The number of alleles an individual can have in a ...
) and
phenotypic
In genetics, the phenotype () is the set of observable characteristics or traits of an organism. The term covers the organism's morphology or physical form and structure, its developmental processes, its biochemical and physiological proper ...
differences. There, racial identity was not governed by rigid descent rule, such as the
one-drop rule, as it was in the United States. A Brazilian child was never automatically identified with the racial type of one or both parents, nor were there only a very limited number of categories to choose from,
to the extent that full
siblings can pertain to different racial groups.
Over a dozen racial categories would be recognized in conformity with all the possible combinations of hair color, hair texture, eye color, and skin color. These types grade into each other like the colors of the spectrum, and not one category stands significantly isolated from the rest. That is, race referred preferentially to appearance, not heredity, and appearance is a poor indication of ancestry, because only a few genes are responsible for someone's skin color and traits: a person who is considered white may have more African ancestry than a person who is considered black, and the reverse can be also true about European ancestry. The complexity of racial classifications in Brazil reflects the extent of genetic mixing in
Brazilian society
Brazil had an official resident population of 214,000,000 in 2022, according to IBGE. Brazil is the List of countries and dependencies by population, seventh most populous country in the world, and the second most populous in the Americas and Wes ...
, a society that remains highly, but not strictly,
stratified
Stratification may refer to:
Mathematics
* Stratification (mathematics), any consistent assignment of numbers to predicate symbols
* Data stratification in statistics
Earth sciences
* Stable and unstable stratification
* Stratification, or st ...
along color lines. These
socioeconomic
Socioeconomics (also known as social economics) is the social science that studies how economic activity affects and is shaped by social processes. In general it analyzes how modern societies progress, stagnate, or regress because of their local ...
factors are also significant to the limits of racial lines, because a minority of ''
pardo
''Pardos'' (feminine ''pardas'') is a term used in the former Portuguese and Spanish colonies in the Americas to refer to the triracial descendants of Southern Europeans, Amerindians and West Africans. In some places they were defined as ne ...
s'', or brown people, are likely to start declaring themselves white or black if socially upward, and being seen as relatively "whiter" as their perceived social status increases (much as in other regions of Latin America).
Fluidity of racial categories aside, the "biologification" of race in Brazil referred above would match contemporary concepts of race in the United States quite closely, though, if Brazilians are supposed to choose their race as one among, Asian and Indigenous apart, three IBGE's census categories. While assimilated
Amerindians and people with very high quantities of Amerindian ancestry are usually grouped as ''
caboclos'', a subgroup of ''pardos'' which roughly translates as both
mestizo
(; ; fem. ) is a term used for racial classification to refer to a person of mixed Ethnic groups in Europe, European and Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous American ancestry. In certain regions such as Latin America, it may also r ...
and
hillbilly
Hillbilly is a term (often derogatory) for people who dwell in rural, mountainous areas in the United States, primarily in southern Appalachia and the Ozarks. The term was later used to refer to people from other rural and mountainous areas west ...
, for those of lower quantity of Amerindian descent a higher European genetic contribution is expected to be grouped as a ''pardo''. In several genetic tests, people with less than 60-65% of European descent and 5–10% of Amerindian descent usually cluster with
Afro-Brazilians (as reported by the individuals), or 6.9% of the population, and those with about 45% or more of Subsaharan contribution most times do so (in average, Afro-Brazilian DNA was reported to be about 50% Subsaharan African, 37% European and 13% Amerindian).
If a more consistent report with the genetic groups in the gradation of genetic mixing is to be considered (e.g. that would not cluster people with a balanced degree of African and non-African ancestry in the black group instead of the multiracial one, unlike elsewhere in Latin America where people of high quantity of African descent tend to classify themselves as mixed), more people would report themselves as white and ''pardo'' in Brazil (47.7% and 42.4% of the population as of 2010, respectively), because by research its population is believed to have between 65 and 80% of autosomal European ancestry, in average (also >35% of European mt-DNA and >95% of European Y-DNA).
From the last decades of the
Empire
An empire is a "political unit" made up of several territories and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the empire (sometimes referred to as the metropole) ex ...
until the 1950s, the proportion of the white population increased significantly while Brazil welcomed 5.5 million immigrants between 1821 and 1932, not much behind its neighbor Argentina with 6.4 million,
[, Cited in ] and it received more European immigrants in its colonial history than the United States. Between 1500 and 1760, 700.000 Europeans settled in Brazil, while 530.000 Europeans settled in the United States for the same given time. Thus, the historical construction of race in Brazilian society dealt primarily with gradations between persons of majority European ancestry and little minority groups with otherwise lower quantity therefrom in recent times.
European Union
According to the
Council of the European Union
The Council of the European Union, often referred to in the treaties and other official documents simply as the Council, and informally known as the Council of Ministers, is the third of the seven Institutions of the European Union (EU) as ...
:
The
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
uses the terms racial origin and ethnic origin synonymously in its documents and according to it "the use of the term 'racial origin' in this directive does not imply an acceptance of such
acialtheories".
Haney López warns that using "race" as a category within the law tends to legitimize its existence in the popular imagination. In the diverse geographic context of
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
, ethnicity and ethnic origin are arguably more resonant and are less encumbered by the ideological baggage associated with "race". In European context, historical resonance of "race" underscores its problematic nature. In some states, it is strongly associated with laws promulgated by the
Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
and
Fascist
Fascism is a far-right, Authoritarianism, authoritarian, ultranationalism, ultra-nationalist political Political ideology, ideology and Political movement, movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and pol ...
governments in Europe during the 1930s and 1940s. Indeed, in 1996, the
European Parliament
The European Parliament (EP) is one of the legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it adopts ...
adopted a resolution stating that "the term should therefore be avoided in all official texts".
The concept of racial origin relies on the notion that human beings can be separated into biologically distinct "races", an idea generally rejected by the scientific community. Since all human beings belong to the same species, the
ECRI (European Commission against Racism and Intolerance) rejects theories based on the existence of different "races". However, in its Recommendation ECRI uses this term in order to ensure that those persons who are generally and erroneously perceived as belonging to "another race" are not excluded from the protection provided for by the legislation. The law claims to reject the existence of "race", yet penalize situations where someone is treated less favourably on this ground.
United States
The immigrants to the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
came from every region of Europe, Africa, and Asia. They
mixed among themselves and with the
indigenous inhabitants of the continent. In the United States most people who self-identify as
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
have some
European ancestors, while many people who identify as
European American
European Americans (also referred to as Euro-Americans) are Americans of European ancestry. This term includes people who are descended from the first European settlers in the United States as well as people who are descended from more recent Eu ...
have some African or Amerindian ancestors.
Since the early history of the United States, Amerindians, African Americans, and European Americans have been classified as belonging to different races. Efforts to track mixing between groups led to a proliferation of categories, such as
mulatto
(, ) is a racial classification to refer to people of mixed African and European ancestry. Its use is considered outdated and offensive in several languages, including English and Dutch, whereas in languages such as Spanish and Portuguese is ...
and
octoroon. The criteria for membership in these races diverged in the late 19th century. During the
Reconstruction
Reconstruction may refer to:
Politics, history, and sociology
*Reconstruction (law), the transfer of a company's (or several companies') business to a new company
*''Perestroika'' (Russian for "reconstruction"), a late 20th century Soviet Union ...
era, increasing numbers of Americans began to consider anyone with "
one drop" of known "Black blood" to be Black, regardless of appearance. By the early 20th century, this notion was made statutory in many states.
Amerindians continue to be defined by a certain percentage of "Indian blood" (called ''
blood quantum''). To be White one had to have perceived "pure" White ancestry. The one-drop rule or
hypodescent
In societies that regard some races or ethnic groups of people as dominant or superior and others as subordinate or inferior, hypodescent refers to the automatic assignment of children of a mixed union to the subordinate group. The opposite pract ...
rule refers to the convention of defining a person as racially black if he or she has any known African ancestry. This rule meant that those that were mixed race but with some discernible African ancestry were defined as black. The one-drop rule is specific to not only those with African ancestry but to the United States, making it a particularly African-American experience.
The
decennial censuses conducted since 1790 in the United States created an incentive to establish racial categories and fit people into these categories.
The term "
Hispanic
The term ''Hispanic'' ( es, hispano) refers to people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or Hispanidad.
The term commonly applies to countries with a cultural and historical link to Spain and to Vic ...
" as an
ethnonym
An ethnonym () is a name applied to a given ethnic group. Ethnonyms can be divided into two categories: exonyms (whose name of the ethnic group has been created by another group of people) and autonyms, or endonyms (whose name is created and used ...
emerged in the 20th century with the rise of migration of laborers from the
Spanish-speaking countries of
Latin America
Latin America or
* french: Amérique Latine, link=no
* ht, Amerik Latin, link=no
* pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...
to the United States. Today, the word "Latino" is often used as a synonym for "Hispanic". The definitions of both terms are non-race specific, and include people who consider themselves to be of distinct races (Black, White, Amerindian, Asian, and mixed groups).
However, there is a common misconception in the US that Hispanic/Latino is a race or sometimes even that national origins such as Mexican, Cuban, Colombian, Salvadoran, etc. are races. In contrast to "Latino" or "Hispanic", "
Anglo" refers to non-Hispanic
White American
White Americans are Americans who identify as and are perceived to be white people. This group constitutes the majority of the people in the United States. As of the 2020 Census, 61.6%, or 204,277,273 people, were white alone. This represented ...
s or non-Hispanic
European American
European Americans (also referred to as Euro-Americans) are Americans of European ancestry. This term includes people who are descended from the first European settlers in the United States as well as people who are descended from more recent Eu ...
s, most of whom speak the English language but are not necessarily of
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
descent.
Views across disciplines over time
Anthropology
The concept of race classification in physical anthropology lost credibility around the 1960s and is now considered untenable.
A 2019 statement by the
American Association of Physical Anthropologists declares:
Race does not provide an accurate representation of human biological variation. It was never accurate in the past, and it remains inaccurate when referencing contemporary human populations. Humans are not divided biologically into distinct continental types or racial genetic clusters. Instead, the Western concept of race must be understood as a classification system that emerged from, and in support of, European colonialism, oppression, and discrimination.
Wagner et al. (2017) surveyed 3,286 American anthropologists' views on race and genetics, including both cultural and biological anthropologists. They found a consensus among them that biological races do not exist in humans, but that race does exist insofar as the social experiences of members of different races can have significant effects on health.
Wang, Štrkalj et al. (2003) examined the use of race as a biological concept in research papers published in China's only biological anthropology journal, ''Acta Anthropologica Sinica''. The study showed that the race concept was widely used among Chinese anthropologists.
In a 2007 review paper, Štrkalj suggested that the stark contrast of the racial approach between the United States and China was due to the fact that race is a factor for social cohesion among the ethnically diverse people of China, whereas "race" is a very sensitive issue in America and the racial approach is considered to undermine social cohesion – with the result that in the socio-political context of US academics scientists are encouraged not to use racial categories, whereas in China they are encouraged to use them.
Lieberman et al. in a 2004 study researched the acceptance of race as a concept among anthropologists in the United States, Canada, the Spanish speaking areas, Europe, Russia and China. Rejection of race ranged from high to low, with the highest rejection rate in the United States and Canada, a moderate rejection rate in Europe, and the lowest rejection rate in Russia and China. Methods used in the studies reported included questionnaires and content analysis.
Kaszycka et al. (2009) in 2002–2003 surveyed European anthropologists' opinions toward the biological race concept. Three factors, country of academic education, discipline, and age, were found to be significant in differentiating the replies. Those educated in Western Europe, physical anthropologists, and middle-aged persons rejected race more frequently than those educated in Eastern Europe, people in other branches of science, and those from both younger and older generations." The survey shows that the views on race are sociopolitically (ideologically) influenced and highly dependent on education."
United States
Since the second half of the 20th century,
physical anthropology
Biological anthropology, also known as physical anthropology, is a scientific discipline concerned with the biological and behavioral aspects of human beings, their extinct Hominini, hominin ancestors, and related non-human primates, particularly ...
in the United States has moved away from a typological understanding of human biological diversity towards a genomic and population-based perspective. Anthropologists have tended to understand race as a social classification of humans based on phenotype and ancestry as well as cultural factors, as the concept is understood in the social sciences. Since 1932, an increasing number of
college
A college (Latin: ''collegium'') is an educational institution or a constituent part of one. A college may be a degree-awarding tertiary educational institution, a part of a collegiate or federal university, an institution offering ...
textbook
A textbook is a book containing a comprehensive compilation of content in a branch of study with the intention of explaining it. Textbooks are produced to meet the needs of educators, usually at educational institutions. Schoolbooks are textboo ...
s introducing physical anthropology have rejected race as a valid concept: from 1932 to 1976, only seven out of thirty-two rejected race; from 1975 to 1984, thirteen out of thirty-three rejected race; from 1985 to 1993, thirteen out of nineteen rejected race. According to one academic journal entry, where 78 percent of the articles in the 1931 ''Journal of Physical Anthropology'' employed these or nearly synonymous terms reflecting a bio-race paradigm, only 36 percent did so in 1965, and just 28 percent did in 1996.
A 1998 "Statement on 'Race'" composed by a select committee of anthropologists and issued by the executive board of the
American Anthropological Association
The American Anthropological Association (AAA) is an organization of scholars and practitioners in the field of anthropology. With 10,000 members, the association, based in Arlington, Virginia, includes archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, ...
, which they argue "represents generally the contemporary thinking and scholarly positions of a majority of anthropologists", declares:
An earlier
survey
Survey may refer to:
Statistics and human research
* Statistical survey, a method for collecting quantitative information about items in a population
* Survey (human research), including opinion polls
Spatial measurement
* Surveying, the techniq ...
, conducted in 1985 , asked 1,200 American scientists how many ''disagree'' with the following proposition: "There are biological races in the species ''Homo sapiens''." Among anthropologists, the responses were:
*
physical anthropologist
Biological anthropology, also known as physical anthropology, is a scientific discipline concerned with the biological and behavioral aspects of human beings, their extinct hominin ancestors, and related non-human primates, particularly from an e ...
s: 41%
*
cultural anthropologists: 53%
Lieberman's study also showed that more women reject the concept of race than men.
The same survey, conducted again in 1999,
showed that the number of anthropologists disagreeing with the idea of biological race had risen substantially. The results were as follows:
*
physical anthropologist
Biological anthropology, also known as physical anthropology, is a scientific discipline concerned with the biological and behavioral aspects of human beings, their extinct hominin ancestors, and related non-human primates, particularly from an e ...
s: 69%
*
cultural anthropologists: 80%
A line of research conducted by Cartmill (1998), however, seemed to limit the scope of Lieberman's finding that there was "a significant degree of change in the status of the race concept".
Goran Štrkalj has argued that this may be because Lieberman and collaborators had looked at all the members of the American Anthropological Association irrespective of their field of research interest, while Cartmill had looked specifically at biological anthropologists interested in human variation.
In 2007,
Ann Morning
Ann Juanita Morning is an American sociologist and demographer whose research focuses on race. In particular, she has studied racial and ethnic classification on censuses worldwide, as well as beliefs about racial difference in the United States ...
interviewed over 40 American biologists and anthropologists and found significant disagreements over the nature of race, with no one viewpoint holding a majority among either group. Morning also argues that a third position, "antiessentialism", which holds that race is not a useful concept for biologists, should be introduced into this debate in addition to "constructionism" and "essentialism".
According to the 2000
University of Wyoming
The University of Wyoming (UW) is a public land-grant research university in Laramie, Wyoming. It was founded in March 1886, four years before the territory was admitted as the 44th state, and opened in September 1887. The University of Wyoming ...
edition of a popular physical anthropology textbook,
forensic anthropologists
Forensic anthropology is the application of the anatomical science of anthropology and its various subfields, including forensic archaeology and forensic taphonomy, in a legal setting. A forensic anthropologist can assist in the identification o ...
are overwhelmingly in support of the idea of the basic biological reality of human races. Forensic physical anthropologist and professor
George W. Gill has said that the idea that race is only skin deep "is simply not true, as any experienced forensic anthropologist will affirm" and "Many morphological features tend to follow geographic boundaries coinciding often with climatic zones. This is not surprising since the selective forces of climate are probably the primary forces of nature that have shaped human races with regard not only to skin color and hair form but also the underlying bony structures of the nose, cheekbones, etc. (For example, more prominent noses humidify air better.)" While he can see good arguments for both sides, the complete denial of the opposing evidence "seems to stem largely from socio-political motivation and not science at all". He also states that many biological anthropologists see races as real yet "not one introductory textbook of physical anthropology even presents that perspective as a possibility. In a case as flagrant as this, we are not dealing with science but rather with blatant, politically motivated censorship".
In partial response to Gill's statement, Professor of Biological Anthropology
C. Loring Brace argues that the reason laymen and biological anthropologists can determine the geographic ancestry of an individual can be explained by the fact that biological characteristics are
clinally distributed across the planet, and that does not translate into the concept of race. He states: The concept of "race" is still sometimes used within
forensic anthropology (when analyzing skeletal remains),
biomedical research
Medical research (or biomedical research), also known as experimental medicine, encompasses a wide array of research, extending from "basic research" (also called ''bench science'' or ''bench research''), – involving fundamental scientif ...
, and
race-based medicine
Race and health refers to how being identified with a specific race influences health. Race is a complex concept that has changed across chronological eras and depends on both self-identification and social recognition. In the study of race and ...
.
[ Brace has criticized forensic anthropologists for this, arguing that they in fact should be talking about regional ancestry. He argues that while forensic anthropologists can determine that a skeletal remain comes from a person with ancestors in a specific region of Africa, categorizing that skeletal as being "black" is a socially constructed category that is only meaningful in the particular social context of the United States, and which is not itself scientifically valid.]
Biology, anatomy, and medicine
In the same 1985 survey , 16% of the surveyed biologist
A biologist is a scientist who conducts research in biology. Biologists are interested in studying life on Earth, whether it is an individual Cell (biology), cell, a multicellular organism, or a Community (ecology), community of Biological inter ...
s and 36% of the surveyed developmental psychologists disagreed with the proposition: "There are biological races in the species ''Homo sapiens''."
The authors of the study also examined 77 college textbooks in biology and 69 in physical anthropology published between 1932 and 1989. Physical anthropology texts argued that biological races exist until the 1970s, when they began to argue that races do not exist. In contrast, biology textbooks did not undergo such a reversal but many instead dropped their discussion of race altogether. The authors attributed this to biologists trying to avoid discussing the political implications of racial classifications, and to the ongoing discussions in biology about the validity of the idea of "subspecies". The authors concluded, "The concept of race, masking the overwhelming genetic similarity of all peoples and the mosaic patterns of variation that do not correspond to racial divisions, is not only socially dysfunctional but is biologically indefensible as well (pp. 5 18–5 19)."
A 1994 examination of 32 English sport/exercise science textbooks found that 7 (21.9%) claimed that there are biophysical differences due to race that might explain differences in sports performance, 24 (75%) did not mention nor refute the concept, and 1 (3.1%) expressed caution with the idea.
In February 2001, the editors of '' Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine'' asked "authors to not use race and ethnicity when there is no biological, scientific, or sociological reason for doing so." The editors also stated that "analysis by race and ethnicity has become an analytical knee-jerk reflex." ''Nature Genetics'' now ask authors to "explain why they make use of particular ethnic groups or populations, and how classification was achieved."
Morning (2008) looked at high school biology textbooks during the 1952–2002 period and initially found a similar pattern with only 35% directly discussing race in the 1983–92 period from initially 92% doing so. However, this has increased somewhat after this to 43%. More indirect and brief discussions of race in the context of medical disorders have increased from none to 93% of textbooks. In general, the material on race has moved from surface traits to genetics and evolutionary history. The study argues that the textbooks' fundamental message about the existence of races has changed little.
Surveying views on race in the scientific community in 2008, Morning concluded that biologists had failed to come to a clear consensus, and they often split along cultural and demographic lines. She notes, "At best, one can conclude that biologists and anthropologists now appear equally divided in their beliefs about the nature of race."
Gissis (2008) examined several important American and British journals in genetics, epidemiology and medicine for their content during the 1946–2003 period. He wrote that "Based upon my findings I argue that the category of race only ''seemingly'' disappeared from scientific discourse after World War II and has had a ''fluctuating yet continuous use'' during the time span from 1946 to 2003, and has even ''become more pronounced from the early 1970s on''".
33 health services researchers from differing geographic regions were interviewed in a 2008 study. The researchers recognized the problems with racial and ethnic variables but the majority still believed these variables were necessary and useful.
A 2010 examination of 18 widely used English anatomy
Anatomy () is the branch of biology concerned with the study of the structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old science, having its ...
textbooks found that they all represented human biological variation in superficial and outdated ways, many of them making use of the race concept in ways that were current in 1950s anthropology. The authors recommended that anatomical education should describe human anatomical variation in more detail and rely on newer research that demonstrates the inadequacies of simple racial typologies.
A 2021 study that examined over 11,000 papers from 1949 to 2018 in The American Journal of Human Genetics, found that "race" was used in only 5% of papers published in the last decade, down from 22% in the first. Together with an increase in use of the terms "ethnicity," "ancestry," and location-based terms, it suggests that human geneticists have mostly abandoned the term "race."
Sociology
Lester Frank Ward
Lester Frank Ward (June 18, 1841 – April 18, 1913) was an American botanist, paleontologist, and sociologist. He served as the first president of the American Sociological Association.
In service of democratic development, polymath Lester W ...
(1841–1913), considered to be one of the founders of American sociology, rejected notions that there were fundamental differences that distinguished one race from another, although he acknowledged that social conditions differed dramatically by race. At the turn of the 20th century, sociologists viewed the concept of race in ways that were shaped by the scientific racism of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Many sociologists focused on African Americans, called Negro
In the English language, ''negro'' is a term historically used to denote persons considered to be of Black African heritage. The word ''negro'' means the color black in both Spanish and in Portuguese, where English took it from. The term can be ...
es at that time, and claimed that they were inferior to whites. White sociologist Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935), for example, used biological arguments to claim the inferiority of African Americans. American sociologist Charles H. Cooley
Charles Horton Cooley (August 17, 1864 – May 7, 1929) was an American sociologist and the son of Michigan Supreme Court Judge Thomas M. Cooley. He studied and went on to teach economics and sociology at the University of Michigan, was a foundi ...
(1864–1929) theorized that differences among races were "natural," and that biological differences result in differences in intellectual abilities Edward Alsworth Ross
Edward Alsworth Ross (December 12, 1866 – July 22, 1951) was a progressive American sociologist, eugenicist, economist, and major figure of early criminology.
Early life
He was born in Virden, Illinois. His father was a farmer. He attended ...
(1866–1951), also an important figure in the founding of American sociology, and a eugenicist
Eugenics ( ; ) is a fringe set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter human gene pools by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior or ...
, believed that whites were the superior race, and that there were essential differences in "temperament" among races. In 1910, the ''Journal'' published an article by Ulysses G. Weatherly
Ulysses Grant Weatherly (21 April 1865 – 18 July 1940) Professor of Sociology at Indiana University and a founding member of the American Sociological Society, and on its executive committee from 1907 to 1910. He was appointed as vice president ...
(1865–1940) that called for white supremacy and segregation of the races to protect racial purity.
W. E. B. Du Bois
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois ( ; February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American-Ghanaian sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in ...
(1868–1963), one of the first African-American sociologists, was the first sociologist to use sociological concepts and empirical research methods to analyze race as a social construct instead of a biological reality. Beginning in 1899 with his book ''The Philadelphia Negro'', Du Bois studied and wrote about race and racism throughout his career. In his work, he contended that social class
A social class is a grouping of people into a set of Dominance hierarchy, hierarchical social categories, the most common being the Upper class, upper, Middle class, middle and Working class, lower classes. Membership in a social class can for ...
, colonialism
Colonialism is a practice or policy of control by one people or power over other people or areas, often by establishing colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance. In the process of colonisation, colonisers may impose their relig ...
, and capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for Profit (economics), profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, pric ...
shaped ideas about race and racial categories. Social scientists largely abandoned scientific racism and biological reasons for racial categorization schemes by the 1930s.[Fitzgerald, Kathleen J. ''Recognizing Race and Ethnicity: Power, Privilege, and Inequality.'' 2014. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.] Other early sociologists, especially those associated with the Chicago School, joined Du Bois in theorizing race as a socially constructed fact. By 1978, William Julius Wilson
William Julius Wilson (born December 20, 1935) is an American sociologist. He is a professor at Harvard University and author of works on urban sociology, race and class issues. Laureate of the National Medal of Science, he served as the 80th P ...
argued that race and racial classification systems were declining in significance, and that instead, social class
A social class is a grouping of people into a set of Dominance hierarchy, hierarchical social categories, the most common being the Upper class, upper, Middle class, middle and Working class, lower classes. Membership in a social class can for ...
more accurately described what sociologists had earlier understood as race. By 1986, sociologists Michael Omi
Michael Omi (born 1951) is an American sociologist, writer, scholar, and educator. Omi has served on the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the Associate Director of the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society. Omi i ...
and Howard Winant
Howard Winant (born 1946) is an American sociologist and race theorist. Winant is Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Winant is best known for developing the theory of ''racial formation'' along wi ...
successfully introduced the concept of racial formation
Racial formation theory is an analytical tool in sociology, developed by Michael Omi and Howard Winant, which is used to look at race as a socially constructed identity, where the content and importance of racial categories are determined by socia ...
to describe the process by which racial categories are created. Omi and Winant assert that "there is no biological basis for distinguishing among human groups along the lines of race."
Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
Eduardo Bonilla-Silva (born February 6, 1962) is an American sociologist and professor of sociology at Duke University. He was the 2018 president of the American Sociological Association.
Early influences
Bonilla-Silva was educated in Puert ...
, Sociology professor at Duke University, remarks, "I contend that racism is, more than anything else, a matter of group power; it is about a dominant racial group (whites) striving to maintain its systemic advantages and minorities fighting to subvert the racial status quo." The types of practices that take place under this new color-blind racism is subtle, institutionalized, and supposedly not racial. Color-blind racism thrives on the idea that race is no longer an issue in the United States. There are contradictions between the alleged color-blindness of most whites and the persistence of a color-coded system of inequality.
Today, sociologists generally understand race and racial categories as socially constructed, and reject racial categorization schemes that depend on biological differences.
Political and practical uses
Biomedicine
In the United States, federal government policy promotes the use of racially categorized data to identify and address health disparities between racial or ethnic groups. In clinical settings, race has sometimes been considered in the diagnosis and treatment of medical conditions. Doctors have noted that some medical conditions are more prevalent in certain racial or ethnic groups than in others, without being sure of the cause of those differences. Recent interest in race-based medicine
Race and health refers to how being identified with a specific race influences health. Race is a complex concept that has changed across chronological eras and depends on both self-identification and social recognition. In the study of race and ...
, or race-targeted pharmacogenomics, has been fueled by the proliferation of human genetic data which followed the decoding
Decoding or decode may refer to: is the process of converting code into plain text or any format that is useful for subsequent processes.
Science and technology
* Decoding, the reverse of encoding
* Parsing, in computer science
* Digital-to-analog ...
of the human genome in the first decade of the twenty-first century. There is an active debate among biomedical researchers about the meaning and importance of race in their research. Proponents of the use of racial categories in biomedicine argue that continued use of racial categorizations in biomedical research and clinical practice makes possible the application of new genetic findings, and provides a clue to diagnosis. Biomedical researchers' positions on race fall into two main camps: those who consider the concept of race to have no biological basis and those who consider it to have the potential to be biologically meaningful. Members of the latter camp often base their arguments around the potential to create genome-based personalized medicine.
Other researchers point out that finding a difference in disease prevalence between two socially defined groups does not necessarily imply genetic causation of the difference. They suggest that medical practices should maintain their focus on the individual rather than an individual's membership to any group. They argue that overemphasizing genetic contributions to health disparities carries various risks such as reinforcing stereotypes, promoting racism or ignoring the contribution of non-genetic factors to health disparities. International epidemiological data show that living conditions rather than race make the biggest difference in health outcomes even for diseases that have "race-specific" treatments. Some studies have found that patients are reluctant to accept racial categorization in medical practice.
Law enforcement
In an attempt to provide general descriptions that may facilitate the job of law enforcement officer
A law enforcement officer (LEO), or peace officer in North American English, is a Public sector, public-sector employee whose duties primarily involve the Law enforcement, enforcement of laws. The phrase can include campaign disclosure specialist ...
s seeking to apprehend suspects, the United States FBI
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...
employs the term "race" to summarize the general appearance (skin color, hair texture, eye shape, and other such easily noticed characteristics) of individuals whom they are attempting to apprehend. From the perspective of law enforcement
Law enforcement is the activity of some members of government who act in an organized manner to enforce the law by discovering, deterring, rehabilitating, or punishing people who violate the rules and norms governing that society. The term en ...
officers, it is generally more important to arrive at a description that will readily suggest the general appearance of an individual than to make a scientifically valid categorization by DNA or other such means. Thus, in addition to assigning a wanted individual to a racial category, such a description will include: height, weight, eye color, scars and other distinguishing characteristics.
Criminal justice agencies in England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
and Wales
Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...
use at least two separate racial/ethnic classification systems when reporting crime, as of 2010. One is the system used in the 2001 Census when individuals identify themselves as belonging to a particular ethnic group: W1 (White-British), W2 (White-Irish), W9 (Any other white background); M1 (White and black Caribbean), M2 (White and black African), M3 (White and Asian), M9 (Any other mixed background); A1 (Asian-Indian), A2 (Asian-Pakistani), A3 (Asian-Bangladeshi), A9 (Any other Asian background); B1 (Black Caribbean), B2 (Black African), B3 (Any other black background); O1 (Chinese), O9 (Any other). The other is categories used by the police when they visually identify someone as belonging to an ethnic group, e.g. at the time of a stop and search or an arrest: White – North European (IC1), White – South European (IC2), Black (IC3), Asian (IC4), Chinese, Japanese, or South East Asian (IC5), Middle Eastern (IC6), and Unknown (IC0). "IC" stands for "Identification Code;" these items are also referred to as Phoenix classifications. Officers are instructed to "record the response that has been given" even if the person gives an answer which may be incorrect; their own perception of the person's ethnic background is recorded separately. Comparability of the information being recorded by officers was brought into question by the Office for National Statistics
The Office for National Statistics (ONS; cy, Swyddfa Ystadegau Gwladol) is the executive office of the UK Statistics Authority, a non-ministerial department which reports directly to the UK Parliament.
Overview
The ONS is responsible for th ...
(ONS) in September 2007, as part of its Equality Data Review; one problem cited was the number of reports that contained an ethnicity of "Not Stated."
In many countries, such as France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
, the state is legally banned from maintaining data based on race.
In the United States, the practice of racial profiling has been ruled to be both unconstitutional and a violation of civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of ...
. There is active debate regarding the cause of a marked correlation between the recorded crimes, punishments meted out, and the country's populations. Many consider ''de facto'' racial profiling an example of institutional racism in law enforcement.
Mass incarceration in the United States disproportionately impacts African American and Latino communities. Michelle Alexander, author of ''The New Jim Crow
''The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness'' is a book by Michelle Alexander, a civil rights litigator and legal scholar. The book discusses race-related issues specific to African-American males and mass incarceration in ...
: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness'' (2010), argues that mass incarceration is best understood as not only a system of overcrowded prisons. Mass incarceration is also, "the larger web of laws, rules, policies, and customs that control those labeled criminals both in and out of prison." She defines it further as "a system that locks people not only behind actual bars in actual prisons, but also behind virtual bars and virtual walls", illustrating the second-class citizenship that is imposed on a disproportionate number of people of color, specifically African-Americans. She compares mass incarceration to Jim Crow laws
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sout ...
, stating that both work as racial caste systems.
Many research findings appear to agree that the impact of victim race in the interpersonal violence
Violence is the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy. Other definitions are also used, such as the World Health Organization's definition of violence as "the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened o ...
(IPV) arrest decision might include a racial bias in favor of white victims. A 2011 study in a national sample of IPV arrests found that female arrest was more likely if the male victim was white and the female offender was black, while male arrest was more likely if the female victim was white. For both female and male arrest in IPV cases, situations involving married couples were more likely to lead to arrest compared to dating or divorced couples. More research is needed to understand agency and community factors that influence police behavior and how discrepancies in IPV interventions/ tools of justice can be addressed.
Recent work using DNA cluster analysis
Cluster analysis or clustering is the task of grouping a set of objects in such a way that objects in the same group (called a cluster) are more similar (in some sense) to each other than to those in other groups (clusters). It is a main task of ...
to determine race background has been used by some criminal investigators to narrow their search for the identity of both suspects and victims. Proponents of DNA profiling in criminal investigations cite cases where leads based on DNA analysis proved useful, but the practice remains controversial among medical ethicists, defense lawyers and some in law enforcement.
The Constitution of Australia
The Constitution of Australia (or Australian Constitution) is a written constitution, constitutional document that is Constitution, supreme law in Australia. It establishes Australia as a Federation of Australia, federation under a constitutio ...
contains a line about 'people of any race for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws', despite there being no agreed definition of race described in the document.
Forensic anthropology
Similarly, forensic anthropologists
Forensic anthropology is the application of the anatomical science of anthropology and its various subfields, including forensic archaeology and forensic taphonomy, in a legal setting. A forensic anthropologist can assist in the identification o ...
draw on highly heritable morphological features of human remains (e.g. cranial measurements) to aid in the identification of the body, including in terms of race. In a 1992 article, anthropologist Norman Sauer
Norman J. Sauer is an American forensic anthropologist and professor emeritus of anthropology at Michigan State University (MSU).
Education
Sauer received his undergraduate degree from the State University of New York at Geneseo and his Ph.D. from ...
noted that anthropologists had generally abandoned the concept of race as a valid representation of human biological diversity, except for forensic anthropologists. He asked, "If races don't exist, why are forensic anthropologists so good at identifying them?" He concluded:
Identification of the ancestry of an individual is dependent upon knowledge of the frequency and distribution of phenotypic traits in a population. This does not necessitate the use of a racial classification scheme based on unrelated traits, although the race concept is widely used in medical and legal contexts in the United States. Some studies have reported that races can be identified with a high degree of accuracy using certain methods, such as that developed by Giles and Elliot. However, this method sometimes fails to be replicated in other times and places; for instance, when the method was re-tested to identify Native Americans, the average rate of accuracy dropped from 85% to 33%.[ Prior information about the individual (e.g. Census data) is also important in allowing the accurate identification of the individual's "race".
In a different approach, anthropologist C. Loring Brace said:
In association with a NOVA program in 2000 about race, he wrote an essay opposing use of the term.
A 2002 study found that about 13% of human craniometric variation existed between regions, while 6% existed between local populations within regions and 81% within local populations. In contrast, the opposite pattern of genetic variation was observed for skin color (which is often used to define race), with 88% of variation between regions. The study concluded that "The apportionment of genetic diversity in skin color is atypical, and cannot be used for purposes of classification."
Similarly, a 2009 study found that craniometrics could be used accurately to determine what part of the world someone was from based on their cranium; however, this study also found that there were no abrupt boundaries that separated craniometric variation into distinct racial groups.] Another 2009 study showed that American blacks and whites had different skeletal morphologies, and that significant patterning in variation in these traits exists within continents. This suggests that classifying humans into races based on skeletal characteristics would necessitate many different "races" being defined.[
In 2010, philosopher Neven Sesardic argued that when several traits are analyzed at the same time, forensic anthropologists can classify a person's race with an accuracy of close to 100% based on only skeletal remains.] Sesardic's claim has been disputed by philosopher Massimo Pigliucci, who accused Sesardic of "cherry pick ngthe scientific evidence and reach ngconclusions that are contradicted by it." Specifically, Pigliucci argued that Sesardic misrepresented a paper by Ousley et al. (2009), and neglected to mention that they identified differentiation not just between individuals from different races, but also between individuals from different tribes, local environments, and time periods.
See also
* Biological anthropology
* Clan
A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship
and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, clans may claim descent from founding member or apical ancestor. Clans, in indigenous societies, tend to be endogamous, meaning ...
* Cultural identity
Cultural identity is a part of a person's identity, or their self-conception and self-perception, and is related to nationality, ethnicity, religion, social class, generation, locality or any kind of social group that has its own distinct cultur ...
* Environmental racism
Environmental racism or ecological apartheid is a form of institutional racism leading to landfills, incinerators, and hazardous waste disposal being disproportionally placed in communities of colour. Internationally, it is also associated with ...
* Epicanthic fold
* Ethnic nationalism
* Ethnic stereotype
* Genetic distance
*
* Human skin color
Human skin color ranges from the darkest brown to the lightest hues. Differences in skin color among individuals is caused by variation in pigmentation, which is the result of genetics (inherited from one's biological parents and or individu ...
* Hypatia transracialism controversy
* Interracial marriage
* List of contemporary ethnic groups
* Melanism
* Multiracial
Mixed race people are people of more than one race or ethnicity. A variety of terms have been used both historically and presently for mixed race people in a variety of contexts, including ''multiethnic'', ''polyethnic'', occasionally ''bi-ethn ...
* Nationalism
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a in-group and out-group, group of peo ...
* Nomen dubium
In binomial nomenclature, a ''nomen dubium'' (Latin for "doubtful name", plural ''nomina dubia'') is a scientific name that is of unknown or doubtful application.
Zoology
In case of a ''nomen dubium'' it may be impossible to determine whether a s ...
– a scientific name that is of unknown or doubtful application.
* Pre-Adamite
The pre-Adamite hypothesis or pre-Adamism is the theological belief that humans (or intelligent yet non-human creatures) existed before the biblical character Adam. Pre-Adamism is therefore distinct from the conventional Abrahamic belief that Ada ...
* Race and ethnicity in censuses
Many countries and national censuses currently enumerate or have previously enumerated their populations by race, ethnicity, nationality, or a combination of these characteristics. Different countries have different classifications and census opti ...
( US)
* Race and genetics
Researchers have investigated the relationship between race and genetics as part of efforts to understand how biology may or may not contribute to human racial categorization.
Many constructions of race are associated with phenotypical traits an ...
* Race and health
* Race of the future
* Racialization
* Raciolinguistics Raciolinguistics examines how language is used to construct race and how ideas of race influence language and language use. Although sociolinguists and linguistic anthropologists have previously studied the intersections of language, race, and cultu ...
* Racism
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...
* Supremacism
Supremacism is the belief that a certain group of people is superior to all others. The supposed superior people can be defined by age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, language, social class, ideology, nation, culture, ...
* Races of Mankind
A race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. The term came into common usage during the 1500s, when it was used to refer to groups of variou ...
for the Field Museum of Natural History
The Field Museum of Natural History (FMNH), also known as The Field Museum, is a natural history museum in Chicago, Illinois, and is one of the largest such museums in the world. The museum is popular for the size and quality of its educational ...
exhibition by sculptor Malvina Hoffman
Malvina Cornell Hoffman (June 15, 1885July 10, 1966) was an American sculptor and author, well known for her life-size bronze sculptures of people. She also worked in plaster and marble. Hoffman created portrait busts of working-class people and ...
* The Race Question
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Lay summary
(28 April 2013) This review of current research includes chapters by Ian Whitmarsh, David S. Jones, Jonathan Kahn, Pamela Sankar, Steven Epstein, Simon M. Outram, George T. H. Ellison, Richard Tutton, Andrew Smart, Richard Ashcroft, Paul Martin, George T. H. Ellison, Amy Hinterberger, Joan H. Fujimura, Ramya Rajagopalan, Pilar N. Ossorio, Kjell A. Doksum, Jay S. Kaufman, Richard S. Cooper, Angela C. Jenks, Nancy Krieger, and Dorothy Roberts.
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Popular press
* Extract from '' The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution''.
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External links
"Race, Evolution and the Science of Human Origins"
by Allison Hopper, ''Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it i ...
'' (5 July 2021).
When racism was respectable: Franz Boas on ''The Categorization of Human Types''
Race (Stanford Encyclopedia)
companion website to California Newsreel feature, 2003, PBS
Is Race "Real"?
forum by the Social Science Research Council
The Social Science Research Council (SSRC) is a US-based, independent, international nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing research in the social sciences and related disciplines. Established in Manhattan in 1923, it today maintains a he ...
.
Official statements
"Statement on Race & Racism"
American Association of Physical Anthropologists, 2019
''Federal Register,'' 1997, Department of Interior
''RACE: Are we so different?''
a public education program by the American Anthropological Association.
{{Authority control
Anthropology
Kinship and descent
Social inequality