What's race?

What is Race?

            Race is what humans use to define one another. They use it to put people into different groups based on different things in their lives. For example, people would be divided based on their culture, ethnicity, and geographical location.  Other factors might be religion and languages, as well as historical commonalities.  It was used to make certain groups seem very different from one another, and sometimes used to make one group of people seem better than another (such as Europeans may think their race is better than the African race, especially after their concept of slavery). Slavery does predate race however but the concept of slavery emphasizes the idea of trying to find ways of making categories for humans and somehow labeling one as better over the other.

            Race is a superficial categorization and does not have anything to do with species. All humans are of the Homo sapiens species and regardless of skin color and region they are all the same. People use the term race, as noted before, to describe people who live together with similarities, but there is nothing definite about the differences (although people like to make race seem more defining that it really is). Race had allowed for the justification of social difference, such as racism and prejudice, because it was a desperate attempt to separate and categories people (even though all people are the same species).

            There is no such thing as a human subspecies, therefore genetically and scientifically speaking, humans are all nearly the same. We are in fact the most similar of all species. Even though we have differences in skin color, hair color, and other physical appearances, humans are more the same than different. Skin color only affects the body on the surface. Inside the human body, all humans are essentially the same. If they had been a subspecies or of a truly different race (different based on various traits) then the internal organs would differ as well. In fact, people who are thought to be very similar, such as two Chinese people, are actually quite different. Interestingly, the two Chinese people have more genetic differences that one of the Chinese persons and someone from France. The races are only on the surface.

            Being a superficial idea, the idea of race does bring about racism and problems of prejudice into the world. As noted with slavery, there are ideas that one race is automatically better than another for whatever reasons. The United States government, for example, has made it easier for someone of the “white” race to live and function in society than they did for someone of the “black” race. Being colorblind (pretending these racial problems do not exist) is the wrong way to handle it. To remove the problems associated with the word and idea of “race” there needs to be active words and actions against the word. People need to stop using it and thinking of people as different races when they are all of the same species.

            Race, at the end of the day, is just another way of labeling. Humans seem to love to find ways to divide people and using race is a way to accomplish this. There are no real solid barriers of a supposed “race” especially when there are no subspecies of humans, just the one species called Homo sapiens. The concept of race can be used for categorical purposes but not for racist or prejudice purposes. People need to address the issues of race head-on to prevent it from being used in the wrong way.