How is race a social construct?

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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

27 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Another example of the Social Construct of race relating to the ‘Asian’ catagory.
I have met a few Japanese people who are from Japan and are 100% ‘ethnically’ Japanese. When asked if they consider themselves ‘Asian’, it is a definite NO. They only consider themselves Japanese. The rest of the world lumps them together with other “Asian” ethnicities.

Another interesting example was the planning of a major Asian Art Museum.
At the time there was a great debate [some scholarly], as to whether India should or should not be included. In the end India was included.

EDIT: Removed US Census information relating to Asian people. Believed to be erroneous.

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