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
First of all, Italy and Korea are social constructs too. All of those ancestry reports specifically refer to particular regions, and often lump large land masses together; as such, referring to a person’s race by a particular country is generally imprecise at best.
The way genetic variation is distributed across the planet is *not* random, which is why many eastern Asians have a similar appearance, as do western Europeans, northern Africans, etc. The problem is, those variations are not discrete. As you move continuously from one place to another (particularly if you go back in time before colonialism and fast global travel), you will see people’s “race” change continuously as well. When do the people you see stop being (eastern) Asian and start being middle-eastern? Then stop being middle-eastern and start being white? There’s no hard line. The same thing exists for colors, where different cultures have drawn different lines between which colors are which. It’s not that color is a social construct, but “blue” is. Similarly, genetic variation based on location is a real, demonstrable fact, but the racial categories we use to delineate people based on those variation are entirely constructed.
It’s not. You only need a whole 5 min to learn how to distinguish people’s races from (e.g.) their bones. DNA only adds up to it.
Now, if you talk about what every single person perceives as white, black, brown, yellow, etc. that’s a different story and, frankly, a discussion not worth having since there’s 7 billion of us, each with a different perception of what it means to be white, black, brown, etc.
It wonders me how you have to apologize 1000 times in 5 lines just to ask a simple question lol. What an age we live in
The idea of French philosophers and what was passed into French Revolution (and carried over by Napoleon Bonaparte) was there was just one human race. Differences in skin color, hair color etc. were just variations of the same race, as we are still compatible and reproduce.
Sub dividing people based on these (mostly (*)) cosmetic differences into races, is racism. This is, from the French point of view. (*) As a result we tend not to think in that way in Europe, as considering different skin color as a different race is weird for us (and even our extreme right leaders tread carefully around that).
This obviously didnt carry over anglo saxon countries so the concept of “different human races” is still very much present at least in the USA, but also in many asian countries for example (see how some Japanese think the Koreans are an inferior race, for example, or the views of some Han Chinese about other local minorities). That’s one big difference in culture between european countries (that were under napoleonic influence and inherited this concept of universalism) and the USA, China or Japan.
(*) Disclaimer yes i know that melanin protects from the sun and darker skin tones, or eye color are more adapted to very light environments, but globally these are minor variations.
(*) Disclaimer 2 since this is Reddit.. yes there are people who think otherwise and they are indeed racists.
It’s not, unless you’re also going to tell me that a dogs breed is a social construct. Honestly you have to be some other worldly type of stupid to even begin calling it that
Phenotypes- that is, major genetic characteristics which make up a given ethnicity- are not a social constructs. They are hard science, demonstrable and repeatable.
Assigning particular (unrelated) traits to these phenotypes, like intelligence, skill at sports, propensity towards crime etc are the social construct part.
If you’re interested in learning more about this topic, I’d like to point you towards the documentary series “Race: The Power of an Illusion”. It includes an excellent summary of how we know “race” does not biologically exist, where the modern concept of race comes from, and how racial thinking has caused harm throughout generations. I highly recommend it!
The DNA a person inherits is not representative of their entire lineage. (Recombinantion) and ones phenotype is also not a reliable indicator of their genealogy.
Race as a construct is based mostly on appearance, it is not the same as ethnicity, nationality, or cultural grouping.
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