I know this question sounds incredibly ignorant but i have been trying to understand for some time. My main reason for asking is because if we have dna testing that can show someone’s ancestry is this much % Italian and this much % Korean, how is that a social construct if it’s in our dna?
Please understand I’m not saying race isn’t a social construct, I am just trying to understand how it is a social construct.
In: Biology
There is no scientific definition of race. Human is a species. There are no sub-species or “breeds” of human. And the socially constructed definition of race has changed significantly over time. For example, you’ll never hear anyone say a person is of the Irish race anymore, but 100 years ago you would have. Just as nationality is a social construct defined by made up borders, so race is a social construct with rather poorly defined borders. For example, is someone from Egypt a member of the African race? After all, they live on the African continent. Or are they of the Arab race, because of their culture? If it’s because of their culture, then if an child whose parents were born in Sweden were raised in the Arab culture of Egypt, would they be of the Arab race even though their ancestry is nordic?
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