Race is a Social Concept

Racial categories stand for socially and politically defined concepts not scientifically. There is no distinctive and enduring biological reality called “race”. Constant blending and interbreeding of human groups over many centuries make it impossible to sort human beings into unambiguously distinctive “races” on genetic grounds. Most genetic variation in humans occurs within populations, not between them. Racial importance of dissimilarities is social, not scientifically, decided. There is only one human race (Homo sapiens) to which we all belong. Physical characteristics such as skin color are the basis for distinguishing racist groups because it is “easily observed and ordered in the mind”. Economic or political subordination creates a need to show the powerless group in a certain way. In the past white Europeans use the race to decide distinct types of race. It was a way to have power over people of color and this where racism comes in. It was another way to separate them from people of color which it was a sign of their superiority.

As humans, all people have the same genes that everyone else has and that the external appearance which classifies people into races is only .01 of the 100,000 genes in a person's body. And that some point our genes came from African descent even though people live in various places as of now. The only scientific found about our skin is through Melanin which is a type of pigmentation that gives people the color of their hair, skin, and eyes. The more pigmentation people have the darker they will be, however, the less Melanin there was the lighter a person will be. The more Melanin, a person has the less likely he or she will get skin cancer.

Someone's skin color has to do with the pigmentation in the skin and does not have to do with race. The word “race” or the concept is not real it was only invented by white Europeans, but the ethnicity or culture was real. Even though race is scientifically not real it is still real in society as opposed to nature. Prior to the civil war, there was an Irish race that classified as an inferior race which was a different white people. It was the same as Jews in Germany because they were also classified as an inferior race to Hitler enough though they were the same. This had to do with the Germans losing the World War, and they thought it was the Jews that made them lose the World War. Hitler got the concept of superior race from the United States which was the result of the genocide of six million Jews. Furthermore, this social construct also leads to slavery of many Africans and even after slavery had ended there still segregation of black people still today in some places. When people start believing that race is a social concept and that is not real, and people are all the same as a result racism no longer will exist for the next generation.

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