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
The idea that a person is “White” or “Asian” or “Black” is a social construct, because those categories are made up by people, and what counts as “white” varies from culture to culture, and from person to person. The idea of dividing humanity into sub-groups based on ethnic origin is a social construct, something that humans invented. The idea that certain humans whose ancestors came from specific regions are going to have minor genetic differences is science, but how we divide people up into groups is based on social norms and ideas.
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