Is Race Created or Real?
Culture and ethnicity are real; however race is a synthetic manufactured concept. Therefore it is not real. Race is not based on biological stock of facts, it was created. “Some argue that although race is a valid taxonomic concept in other species, it cannot be applied to humans. Many scientists have argued that race definitions are imprecise, arbitrary, derived from custom, have many exceptions, have many gradations, and that the numbers of races delineated vary according to the culture making the racial distinctions; thus they reject the notion that any definition of race pertaining to humans can have taxonomic rigor and validity.”[1]So we know race is not real, but it is still used to describe people due to social, political, and the culture of using it overtime. For this very reason, all race related issues are manufactured and can’t be trusted. For ever race related issue there has been a political or social issue going with it.
“Race is a political structure that uses social dynamics for its strengths.”[2] The most tragic use of race for political reason was in Germany, where the Nazi’s used race as the reason to kill millions of people. Not all political powers however use race as a means to describe people, some even went as far as to ban the use of race to describe people. “In many countries, such as France, the state is legally banned from maintaining data based on race, which often makes the police issue wanted notices to the public that include labels like "dark skin complexion", etc”1 The United States have been behind on the removing of race but they did outlaw racial profiling saying it is unconstitutional and violates civil rights.
“The word "race", along with many of the ideas now associated with the term, were first coined during the age of exploration, a time of European imperialism, exploration, technological superiority and colonization. As Europeans encountered people from different parts of the world, they speculated about the physical, social, and cultural differences among various human groups. The rise of the Atlantic slave trade, which gradually displaced an earlier trade in slaves from throughout the world, created a further incentive to categorize human groups to justify the subordination of African slaves.”1 Race is nothing but a concept created for the benefit of the people in the Age of Discovery. It was used to put certain people down and make reasoning for doing what they did to slaves.
Therefore race is not real it is a manufactured concept created in order to benefit certain people. Behind every racial issue there is a political or social force driving it, like in the Age of Discovery they used race as a reason for it to be okay doe slavery or the Nazis using race as he reason for the holocaust. Some countries are already doing the right thing by banning the use of race to describe people, even scientist say “race definitions are imprecise.”1 So the real question is knowing that race is manufactured, why do the political powers drive society to insist race is real?
[1] Wikipedia ( www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_%28classification_of_human_beings%29#Political_and_practical_uses
[2] Professor Mwalim/(MJ Peters)
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