Race

Race is an archaic (i.e., out of date, no longer considered valid) scientific concept which classifies human beings according to broad physical characteristics such as skin color.

Historical Definitions of Race

The five races of mankind were considered to be:

1. Black (Negro)
2. Brown (as in India)
3. Red (Native American)
4. Yellow (Oriental)
5. White (Caucasian)

The amount of melanin in one's skin naturally determines how dark it is. Some historical ideals of beauty exalted the lightness or darkness of skin. The 19th century American song, "The Yellow Rose of Texas", referred to the slightly dusky color of a girl's skin.

Since prehistory, human populations have gone through periods of isolation and intermixing which lead to differences between groups. Scientists believe that these are largely a matter of different statistical frequencies of variations from an agreed-on standard, rather than racial differences as was once thought. Modern humans share approximately 99.9% of their DNA. Of the .1% that does vary, 85% of the observed variation is unconnected to membership of any particular group of people.

Modern Definitions

Biologic

Modern biology acknowledges phenotypic and genotypic differences between groups of people. These differences may be obvious, like skin color, or non-obvious, like a difference in allele frequency. None of these differences within the species are as significant as differences between species.

Sociologic

Race is also viewed as a socio-political construct, used conveniently to justify certain political policies.

Religious

Religions have taken different views on race that have generally paralleled those of society as a whole. Religion has been used to justify racism, and to help eradicate it. Many Christian groups were involved in founding the abolitionist movement.

Legal

In constructing or deconstructing racial barriers, the law makes reference frequently to different kinds of "race." Cultural race is race based on a unique culture. Affirmative action post-Grutter makes appeal to cultural race as a partial justification for affirmative action. Historical race makes references to the shared experiences of a people that have enhanced or degraded their status as community members. Creating an Israeli nation, for example, is a reference to the genocide & discrimination that Jews have endured as a historical race.